“This is my student. He’s smart, hardworking and serious.”

“For my sake, I hope you’ll all go easy on him.”

“He used to be a flower farmer; he’s suffered a lot to get here.”

“Harrison may not be the best or the brightest, but in my eyes, he’s the most precious one, my biggest pride.”

Hallie even openly admitted that Harrison’s entry into this top university was all thanks to her help behind the scenes.

She knew it wasn’t right, but she didn’t care.

All she wanted was for Harrison to have a good future.

And me? What about me? What am I? A joke?

At home, I hid away, crying night after night.

As I turned over in bed, all I could see were the cruel and mocking faces of the people around me.

Meanwhile, Hallie kept taking care of her irises.

“Byron, don't you understand?"

“Your work, your name, your place, all of it comes from me.”

“Without me, you’re nothing.”

“I already told you, Harrison won’t threaten your place. Can’t you be calm and just live quietly with me?”

No.

I couldn’t stand the thought of my wife, the woman I lived with every day.

She kept thinking about another man. I wasn’t some plaything that Hallie supported.

My love and self-respect were never for sale, not even for fame or fortune.

I began shouting and yelling, losing control completely.

Driven by anger, I took wild revenge on that disgusting pair.

When Hallie gave a speech, I switched her slides with explicit photos of her and Harrison.

While they were being interviewed, I suddenly rushed in to expose their dirty affair.

I wrote many letters of complaint and recorded many videos, but what I got back was only a diagnosis of mental illness.

Hallie was far too smart.

She pushed me to the edge, then used the video of my breakdown as proof against me.

Her mind, her influence and how well she knew me, all of it made it easy for her to destroy me completely.

In the end, I was expelled, fired and stripped of my degree.

Hallie was the one who sent me to the mental hospital.

I spoke calmly, but Cooper’s eyes were already red.

He started crying and asked, “And then?”

After that, Hallie got pregnant. It didn’t matter if the baby was mine or not.

What really mattered was that she needed someone respectable to be the father of the child she carried.

Because of that, Hallie took me back.

She held my hand and said, “Byron, I did make mistakes, but you shouldn’t have acted so rashly.”

“Your Dad and Mom have aged overnight because of you and now people whisper and gossip about them whenever they go out.”

“You’re not young anymore; please, stop being so stubborn.”

Then, she placed my hand on her lower stomach.

Half begging, half warning. “Think about this baby. Think about your parents.”

Tears rolled down into my palm.

That time, I gave in. After everything that happened, my heart was deeply hurt and all my strength was gone.

Each day, I wandered like a walking corpse, spending my time in that flower-filled house, lost in thought.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Hallie came home to keep me company, taking her unborn child with me to early education classes.

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were different; those were the days she spent with Harrison, enjoying their sweet and passionate romance.

Even with her stomach issues, she still followed Harrison to every trendy and new restaurant.

Milk tea, coffee, barbecue and ice cream.

Whatever Harrison liked, Hallie accepted without a second thought.

This same woman once thought wasting even ten minutes of her life was shameful.

Yet with Harrison, she was willing to sit through one boring romance movie after another.

This woman, who always put her career first, was still willing to do every silly and childish thing with Harrison.

To protect him, she even let him be listed as a co-author on a paper outside his field.

To please him, she joked with her coworkers and skipped her own lectures.

She crushed my pride.

The rules and boundaries of the industry were also stepped on by her.

What made me finally explode was the marriage proposal Hallie had prepared for Harrison.

That year, she became famous after discovering an asteroid.

She appeared in international magazines and became known all across the country for her beauty and achievements.

At the top of her career, Hallie chose to share her moment with Harrison.

She named the asteroid “The Promise of Mountains and Rivers.”

Under the name of those mountains and rivers, Hallie and Harrison made their vow: To never be apart in this lifetime.

On the night of the award ceremony, under that asteroid called “The Promise of Mountains and Rivers” in the romantic planetarium, she held a small wedding for Harrison.

When Hallie walked toward Harrison in her wedding dress, she did so gracefully. When I saw them make vows of lifelong love beneath the stars, I broke down again.

Hallie and I never had a wedding.

Even after I begged her many times, she only said, “Byron, you know me. I don’t care for meaningless things like that.”

“I’d rather spend my time and energy on important work. I still have many experiments waiting.”

Because I loved her, I gave in. And because of that same love, I lost everything.

The emotions I had held back finally collapsed.

In front of everyone, I ran up to Harrison and slapped him twice.

Coldly, Hallie threw a glass of water in my face and said, “Byron, you’ve gone too far.”

She asked for a divorce and said she would leave with Harrison.

I refused. I couldn’t accept it and I couldn’t bear it.

Crying, I told Hallie, “If you dare to leave today, I’ll jump off this building.”

She didn’t walk away. She pushed me down.

Maybe she just wanted to scare me, but my right leg was really broken and I became disabled.

I was admitted back to the mental hospital again. This time, it was because I had severe depression.

While I said this, I smiled.

I spoke lightly, my tone calm. “In my second year in the mental hospital, Hallie filed for divorce.”

“I fought until the very end, but all I got was this box of junk.”

“In the first year after the divorce, I couldn’t accept it, I hurt myself and lost control many times.”

“My condition got worse and because of my injured leg, I couldn’t find any proper work.”

“My parents worried so much that their health became worse day by day.”

“To stop worrying them, I went to help at the shop and slowly, my emotions calmed down.”

“Now, I’ve taken over this steamed bun shop and things are going quite well.”

My tone stayed calm.

Cooper, on the other hand, was sobbing nonstop.

“Byron, why are you in so much pain?”

“Hallie is such a devil. If I run into her, I’ll beat her to bits to get revenge for you.”

The words had barely left his mouth.

Someone lifted the thick curtain of the steamed bun shop.

A cold gust of wind swept past my injured right leg. There, Hallie stood before us.

A thick fog covered her face, then I suddenly remembered what she said when we parted.

Those words… they sounded like…