Chapter 2

My family was quite well-off.

My father ran a company, and its annual net profit had recently reached millions.

In the city center, we had bought six apartments and an entire row of storefronts early on.

Stephen, however, with a poor family background, struggled to pay off his student loans, a stark contrast to my well-off life.

But my parents disapproved of our relationship not just because of Stephen's background.

Once, when Stephen's parents came to handle some matters, both sets of parents met for the first time.

To entertain Stephen's parents, my father specially booked a table at an upscale restaurant in the city.

Throughout the meal, Stephen's mother kept talking about how brilliant her son was at studying, how many girls liked him, and how eager she was to have a grandson after his son got married.

My parents' faces darkened during the meal. Later, they told me that my potential in-laws would be difficult to get along with since they seemed to have a strong preference for boys over girls.

At that time, I was blinded by love and didn't heed my parents' words at all.

Stephen also told me afterward that his mother had drunk too much and was talking nonsense, so I shouldn't take it to heart.

So after that meeting, I didn't think much about it.

Seeing that their advice fell on deaf ears, my parents set some ground rules for me.

Before we got married, I wasn't allowed to reveal our family's true situation to Stephen or have any intimate relations with him leading to pregnancy out of wedlock.

So in Stephen's mind, my family was just an ordinary working-class household with one apartment and a car for commuting.

Although I didn't understand my parents' advice at the time, I was confident that Stephen loved me for who I was and not for my family's wealth. Even if I didn't reveal our true financial status, it wouldn't matter.

So I followed my parents' wishes and never mentioned it to him.

Now, I am only grateful that I listened to my parents back then.

If Stephen's infidelity was confirmed, I would never marry him.

Even though I love him deeply and we had many years of emotional connection, infidelity was a matter of principle. Once it happened, it would happen again.

No matter how much I loved him, I couldn’t turn a blind eye to his blatant betrayal.

I cleared my thoughts. The most urgent task now was to find more evidence of Stephen's infidelity.

Usually, checking Stephen's phone would reveal more clues.

During the journey back home, I closed my eyes to rest. Stephen thought I had a stomachache.

Little did he know that my mind was racing with thoughts of how to uncover his infidelity.

Back at the rented apartment, while Stephen was taking a shower, I quickly grabbed his phone.

On our first day together, Stephen had registered my fingerprint in his phone's recognition system. He said it was to give me a sense of security and that he would have no secrets from me.

At that time, I naively believed this man's sweet words. Little did I know that one day I would use it to catch him cheating!

With a nervous heart, I gently placed my finger on the button.

The screen lock instantly unlocked, revealing our photo as the wallpaper.

Next, I checked Stephen's contacts, WhatsApp chat history, spending records, and even his rarely used Facebook but found nothing unusual.

But my sixth sense told me it couldn't be that simple.

Sure enough, when I opened his album, I found several strange photos.

The photos were of the same hotel room key card but taken from different angles upon closer inspection.

The photos were taken at 00:15 AM, 00:27 AM, 00:58 AM, and 01:16 AM on different nights about half a month ago.