Chapter 6

Before the second mediation at the Police Station, he would definitely come looking for me again. Blocking him and moving house wouldn’t be enough to escape.

I was fully prepared, mentally. One day, two days passed, and as the mediation date drew closer, I got an unexpected phone call.

I didn’t pay much attention to the unfamiliar number and answered directly: “Hello, who is this?”

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end, followed by a sigh.

“Hello, I’m Mi Duo.”

My intuition flared up again. “How did you get my number?”

Mi Duo hadn’t expected my bluntness and stammered, “You know who I am?”

“Mi Duo, let me ask first.”

Maybe my bossy vibe intimidated her, so she answered honestly, “I went through his phone. He saved your number as ‘10000’.”

Li Bin, what a fucking genius! I almost laughed. “What do you want?”

“I want to meet you.”

“Is that necessary?”

“Don’t worry, I just want to talk. I… want to figure out how many lies he’s told me.”

Rationally, I didn’t need to meet her. Li Bin cheated and hit me; I broke up and fought back. Our entanglement didn’t need the details of his cheating as evidence. Besides, I already knew the general story. But emotionally, I also wanted to know how many lies he’d told.

I accepted Mi Duo’s invitation and booked a hotel I often went to, right after work.

Mi Duo seemed a bit uneasy: “Is it that urgent?”

I suggested, “Or should we wait until you get married, have kids, and finish your postpartum confinement?”

Mi Duo matched my tone: “I’ll be there on time.”

We met without incident. In the hotel, I sized her up, and she sized me up. I was in a suit, she wore a figure-hugging dress. My face was swollen, hers was made up.

I ordered a set meal and asked what she wanted to eat.

She was as reserved as anyone meeting a stranger for the first time. “I’m not very hungry.”

I understood. Being cheated on kills your appetite. “Red wine, tea, coffee?”

“Red wine.”

I ordered a bottle for her.

Alcohol makes people relax. Mi Duo drank a big glass, took a moment, and finally spoke.

“You acted really fast. So fast that no one was prepared.”

“Speed is unbeatable.”

“You’re amazing too.”

I was a little surprised. “Did you come here today just to compliment me?”

Mi Duo smiled, her pretty face a bit shy. “Not really, I just think if it were me, I couldn’t have done what you did.”

Isn’t that still a compliment?

I chewed my steak and listened to her story as an outsider.

It was a monotonous cheating plot-just hiding things on both sides. She was a new employee at Li Bin’s company, from a well-off family. During his pursuit, Li Bin hid my existence. Their relationship was heating up, and then Li Bin got beaten up, his face a mess. The injuries were so wild, it was hard to make up a believable story.

“He said he fell. I asked if he fell onto a rake?”

Me: …She’s the sort to act on feeling.

“He was so evasive. At first, I wondered if he’d been caught in bed by someone’s boyfriend and beaten up. I didn’t expect it was you who did it.”

“All thanks to adrenaline.”

“He lied to me, and he lied to you.”

“He’s a bad person.”

“But I still love him.”

“You’re a good person.”

“He cried.”

“Crocodile tears.”

“He buys me food every day.”

“Your company cafeteria is downstairs, two minutes’ walk.”

“He always replies to my messages instantly.”

“I do that for clients too.”

“He picks me up and drops me off at work.”

I did the math. “He missed six days this month, right?”

There was me in their relationship, and her in ours. So-called love was divided into two by Li Bin.

Using the lowest cost for the highest return, both she and I were just Li Bin’s investments, chosen for advantage, nothing to do with love.