She Is Not the Other Woman - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Lin Zhi stood there for ten minutes.

She stubbed out her cigarette, turned her watch face inward, and pressed the doorbell.

The woman who opened the door was taller than she’d imagined. She wore a loose house shirt, her hair casually pinned up, a faint trace of brown eyeshadow still lingering at the corners of her eyes.

Song Zhiyi looked at her for three seconds.

Her gaze didn’t linger on Lin Zhi’s face. It went straight to her wrist-to the watch.

Lin Zhi opened her mouth. Her voice came out drier than she’d expected. “I think I may have been lied to.”

Song Zhiyi didn’t move.

The air went still for a few seconds. The voice-activated light in the hallway went out once, then came back on.

“Come in and sit down.” Song Zhiyi stepped aside to let her in.

The living room was spacious, lit with warm-toned lamps. A bunch of white ranunculus stood in a vase by the entryway. Lin Zhi recognized the vase-Fu Wenzhou had once told her he’d found it at an antique market in Kyoto.

She sat down. The sofa was very soft, but she held herself perfectly straight.

Song Zhiyi poured a glass of water and set it in front of her, then sat down in the armchair across from her. She didn’t sit at the other end of the sofa. She kept a distance, but not a hostile one.

“He gave you the watch?” Song Zhiyi asked.

“For our seven-month anniversary,” Lin Zhi said.

Song Zhiyi lowered her head and gave a small laugh. It wasn’t mocking. It was more like a reflexive sort of self-ridicule.

“He told me that watch was lost,” she said. “Last October, on a business trip to Osaka.”

Lin Zhi’s nails dug into her palm.

“What are you to him?” Song Zhiyi looked up at her, her tone as steady as if she were in a meeting.

“His girlfriend.” Lin Zhi didn’t avoid it. “We’ve been together eleven months. He told me he was single, divorced, with no children.”

Song Zhiyi gave a small nod.

“We’ve been married for six years,” she said. “We’ve never divorced.”

The light shone quietly over the two of them. All at once, Lin Zhi felt that the sofa was too soft-so soft she wanted to stand up.

“I’m not here to stake a claim,” Lin Zhi said.

“I know,” Song Zhiyi said. “Someone here to stake a claim wouldn’t have that expression.”

She got up and fetched a box of tissues, placing it in the middle of the coffee table. She didn’t hand it to Lin Zhi. She set it in the neutral space between them.

Lin Zhi didn’t cry.

But she took one and clenched it in her hand.

“Start from the beginning,” Song Zhiyi said, crossing one leg over the other, her right hand resting on the arm of the chair.

Lin Zhi took a sip of water. The cup was bone china, the wall of it so thin she was afraid she might crush it.

“Last January. Shanghai. A visual proposal for a brand. He was the client.”

“Which brand?”

“Shanyu.”

Song Zhiyi said nothing. Shanyu was the new line Fu Wenzhou had created three years ago, positioned around lifestyle aesthetics, with a clean, refined tone. She had participated in the early discussions on its brand positioning, until Fu Wenzhou later told her she didn’t need to worry about it anymore.

“After the proposal, he added me on WeChat. I thought it was normal client networking.” Lin Zhi paused. “The third time we met, he asked me out for drinks. He said he lived alone in Shanghai, that the company was here, that his home was in Hangzhou-but that home was no longer a home.”

“How did he put it?”

“He said the marriage had ended long ago. That they had divorced by agreement and each lived their own life. It just hadn’t been made public because of certain business interests.”

Song Zhiyi’s fingers tapped lightly once against the armrest.

“What did he say the woman-what did he say I was like?”

Lin Zhi was silent for a few seconds, as though choosing her words.

“He said you two were introduced by friends. That things were fine when you first got married, but later you were both busy, and the relationship slowly faded. There weren’t any conflicts. You just didn’t love each other anymore.”

“What else?”

“He said you were very career-driven and didn’t really need him.”

The corner of Song Zhiyi’s mouth shifted slightly.

“He told me,” Song Zhiyi said, her voice steady, “that he traveled to Shanghai every month for business and stayed in a hotel arranged by the company. That work was too busy, and he often had to meet clients at night.”

She stood and walked to the sideboard, pulling open a drawer. She took out a document envelope, but didn’t open it. She placed it on the coffee table first.

“Does he have an apartment in Shanghai?” Song Zhiyi asked.

Lin Zhi froze for a moment. “Yes. Near Laoximen. One bedroom and one living room. He said the company rented it.”

“Do you have a key?”

“Yes.”

Song Zhiyi nodded, as if confirming a certain column of data.

“After last March, was he in Shanghai for at least eight to ten days every month?”

“More or less.”

“He told me it was six days,” Song Zhiyi said.

Neither of them spoke.

In the living room, one petal from the bunch of ranunculus fell onto the tabletop.

“He made up two different versions for each side,” Lin Zhi said, her voice turning a little hoarse.

“More than two versions.” Song Zhiyi sat down again. “Two entire lives.”