She Is Not the Other Woman - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Song Zhiyi slipped the stack of bills back into the folder and zipped it shut, her movements gentle, as if she were organizing an ordinary year-end report.

Lin Zhi sat across from her, her fingers still hooked around the clasp of the watch, pressing it over and over. Click. Click.

Silence stretched on for a long time.

Song Zhiyi was the first to speak. “What do you want to do most right now?”

Lin Zhi said, “Slap him.”

“And then?”

“Then he’ll cry. He’ll explain. He’ll get down on his knees. He’ll say he’s in pain too.” Lin Zhi’s voice went hoarse for a moment. “And then I’ll become the one making a scene, and he’ll become the one being forced into a corner.”

Song Zhiyi looked at her, a faint trace of recognition in her eyes. Not admiration. Recognition. She had recognized someone who had been trained too.

“So you can’t make a scene,” Song Zhiyi said.

“I know.”

“It’s not about enduring it. He’s not worth it.”

Lin Zhi took off the watch and placed it on the coffee table, face down.

Song Zhiyi didn’t look at it. She took a sheet of paper from her bag. Listed on it were properties, guarantees, investment accounts, and a sum of money transferred under Fu Wenzhou’s mother’s name.

As Lin Zhi listened, she slowly straightened in her seat.

“How long have you been investigating?”

“I didn’t go out of my way to investigate. I’ve always known what I needed to know.” Song Zhiyi paused. “Marrying a businessman and never looking at the accounts-that isn’t called trust.”

Lin Zhi thought of how she had only figured out exactly which residential compound he lived in over the past three months.

Shame came in waves, like shards of glass left in the sand after the tide had gone out, cutting her with every step.

“I need you to do one thing,” Song Zhiyi said.

“Tell me.”

“Go back. Don’t change anything. If he messages you, reply. If he asks you out, go. The frequency, your tone, your expressions-keep everything the same as before.”

Lin Zhi was silent for a few seconds.

“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

“I do,” Song Zhiyi said. “I’m asking you to play the role he taught you to play.”

It was a cruel thing to say. But she said it calmly, not as an order, but as a statement of fact.

Lin Zhi gripped her own wrist. A faint ring from the watch was still there.

“How long do I have to play it?”

“Until the financing is confirmed, until the guarantees are released, and until I have the postnuptial asset division plan in hand. About three months.”

“Three months,” Lin Zhi repeated.

“If you confront him now, the first thing he’ll do won’t be apologize. It will be to move his assets,” Song Zhiyi said. “I’ve seen it happen.”

Lin Zhi looked up at her.

There wasn’t much change in Song Zhiyi’s expression. Only exhaustion. Not the kind that had begun today, but the calm that grew after one had gotten used to being tired.

“I won’t let you help me for nothing,” Song Zhiyi said. “Whatever he owes you, I’ll help you get it.”

“I don’t want his money.”

“Then what do you want?”

Lin Zhi thought for a moment, then said, “I want him to know he didn’t fool me.”

For the first time, a hint of a smile touched Song Zhiyi’s face. It was brief, almost invisible.

“Then that has to be the last thing we give him.”

Lin Zhi walked to the window. She wasn’t sure she could do it. After she went back, she would still have to take his calls, listen to him say he missed her, maybe even smile.

Was it disgusting? It was.

But there was no time to throw up now.

She turned around.

“Three months.”

“Three months.”

“How do I contact you?”

Song Zhiyi handed her a sticky note with a number written on it. It wasn’t her current phone number. It was a new one.

“Only use this. Don’t save a name. Don’t post screenshots to your social media. Don’t leave any traces anywhere he might see them.”

Lin Zhi memorized the number, tore the note to pieces, and dropped them into the water left in her teacup.

Song Zhiyi watched her finish, then gave a small nod.

They made no vows. They simply confirmed one thing: they had the same enemy.

Lin Zhi picked up her bag and took the watch with her too.

“I still have to wear it,” she said. “He’ll ask.”

Song Zhiyi said, “Mm.”

Lin Zhi reached the door, then paused.

“When he was with you… did he give you watches too?”

“Not watches. Flowers. Every Friday, same florist, automatic credit card charge.”

Lin Zhi opened the door without looking back.

“Flowers and watches. He even mass-produces his halfhearted gestures.”

The door closed.

Song Zhiyi sat for a while, then placed the folder back on the second shelf of the bookcase, alongside the purchase contract and insurance policies.

She picked up her phone and sent Fu Wenzhou a message:

“What do you want to eat tonight? I’ll cook.”

He replied instantly: a smiley face, followed by, “Anything my wife makes is delicious.”

Song Zhiyi set down her phone.

The difference was, from this day on, she knew there was one more person in the audience.