Chapter 3: He Loves You Very Much

As soon as Li Xuan saw them, she smiled and came over to greet them.

"The two of you are such a devoted couple, it really makes others envious!"

Si Rong knew she was teasing her, so she smiled and gave her a playful glare.

Just then, Shen Lan happened to run into a colleague, so he went over to chat.

"I'm going to chat with Li Xuan for a while," Si Rong said to Shen Lan, then pulled Li Xuan along to take a walk by the lake in the residential compound.

"Xuanxuan, there's something I want to tell you."

Si Rong trusted Li Xuan deeply; the two of them had been good friends since university.

Over the many years, they had accompanied each other through many major moments.

Back when she got married, Li Xuan was her bridesmaid.

"Rongrong, what's wrong? I feel like your complexion isn't very good today."

Li Xuan asked with concern.

Si Rong sighed, "Xuanxuan, tell me, is it possible for Shen Lan to betray me?"

She did not miss the shock in the depths of Li Xuan's eyes.

See! Even her closest friend didn't believe Shen Lan would betray her, let alone anyone else.

Li Xuan frowned, "Rongrong, did someone say something to you?"

"Yes."

Si Rong didn't know what kind of consideration she was making, but she didn't tell Li Xuan about the phone call from the afternoon.

It was as if she were worried Xuanxuan would suspect she had developed a mental illness.

And wasn't that exactly it? Who would believe it if she said it out loud?

Her future self calling to tell her to divorce her loving husband and leave behind their ungrateful adopted son and daughter.

Even she herself was somewhat suspicious of whether that phone call from the afternoon had even existed.

Or perhaps some lunatic had dialed her number.

Now it was almost driving her crazy too.

"Rongrong, don't just listen to people talking nonsense. I know better than anyone how good Shen Lan is to you. Back in university, when you were bullied by thugs, he stood up for you without a second thought and even took a knife wound for it; when he found out you couldn't have children, he insisted on marrying you without hesitation, not caring about anyone else's opinion. How could a man like that betray you?"

"He loves you very much," Li Xuan said very earnestly.

Si Rong knew this.

However, there is no smoke without fire.

Even if the phone call she received in the afternoon wasn't real, it showed that in her subconscious, she felt Shen Lan might betray her.

Si Rong asked her again, "Then do you think I'm old?"

They say a man at forty is like a flower, while a woman at forty is like bean dregs.

Shen Lan was still very charming, but now when she walked down the street, she didn't get as many heads turning as she did when she was young.

Young girls were popping up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

Perhaps Shen Lan had a momentary lapse in judgment... after so many years of marriage, just thinking of this possibility made Si Rong feel a dull ache in her chest.

Everyone said Shen Lan loved her deeply, but she was also worthy of such love from Shen Lan.

Back in university, she originally had the opportunity to go abroad for advanced dance studies, but it was for Shen Lan that she stayed in the country.

Besides, when they married, Shen Lan was just a small Section Chief at the time; if not for her infertility, how would the Si Family have agreed to her marrying down?

Her grandfather was a "Red Capitalist."

Her father had a background of studying abroad and was a diplomat, and her mother was an interpreter.

They were a prominent family of note in Huaiyang County.

Chatting with Li Xuan for a while did not make Si Rong feel any better.

Soon, Shen Lan came to find her to go back, and the two of them returned home.

The night was deep, and after washing up, the two of them lay on the bed.

Unlike many couples who started sleeping in separate beds at forty, they still shared the same bed to this day.

So much so that if Shen Lan went on a business trip, Si Rong couldn't even sleep by herself.

"Rongrong, is there something on your mind?" Shen Lan held her in his arms and gently stroked her back, "If you don't want to talk about it, then wait until you want to. I am always by your side."

Si Rong hugged him lightly, feeling moved beyond words.

Perhaps she really was overthinking it.

It was all that phone call's fault.

Speaking of that phone call, Si Rong suddenly remembered something.

"Shen Lan, I still don't really know how to use our home phone," she said.

Si Rong was originally a beauty from the Jiangnan region, and her tone of voice naturally carried the soft, melodic lilt of the Wu dialect.

Shen Lan chuckled, "Don't worry, if you don't know how to use it, I'll teach you tomorrow."

"Okay, then does our phone record every incoming call?" Si Rong asked again.

"Of course. But you can't see it on our home phone; you have to go to the Paging Center to check."

"Where is the Paging Center?"

Shen Lan gently used his fingers to tidy the stray hair on her forehead, "It's on that small hill at the very north of our county, near the dam."

Si Rong knew that place; she let out a dainty yawn and slowly closed her eyes, planning to go to the Paging Center tomorrow to check if she had indeed received such a phone call that afternoon.

She couldn't keep being suspicious like this.

It would affect the relationship between her and Shen Lan.

The next day, early in the morning, after Shen Lan went to work and Shen Yuan went to school, Si Rong tidied herself up a bit.

She wore a creamy white long dress as an inner layer, paired with a khaki cashmere coat, and stepped into a pair of small sheepskin boots.

Although she was nearing forty, because she had never given up dancing and had never given birth, her waist remained slender, graceful, and moving.

She took the bus all the way to the dam in the north of the city.

Si Rong took a deep breath before going in to tell the customer service representative at the Paging Center that she wanted to check her home's call records from last night.

Originally, the Paging Center refused to help her check, but fortunately, Si Rong ran into an old classmate.

She helped her look up the phone records from last night.

It showed that only Shen Lan had made one call from his workplace.

Could it be that the phone call was something she had imagined?

Si Rong's expression immediately turned ugly, especially when she thought of her dream from last night.

"Could this record be wrong?"

The old classmate smiled, "Of course not."

She had envied Si Rong since elementary school, and still did now; come to think of it, they were women nearing forty.

Wrinkles had crept onto the corners of their eyes, and their gazes had become weathered by the passage of time, yet time seemed to treat Si Rong with special favor.

Beautiful from childhood to adulthood, pampered by her family in the past, and now held in the palm of her husband's hand; perhaps this was just being born with good fortune!

Si Rong considered for a moment and said, "Lily, could you help me check the call records for Shen Lan's office then?"

This way, she could compare them to see if there was any possibility of an error in the Paging Center's phone records.

If there were no issues, then she would probably have to go to the hospital's psychiatry department for a check-up.

"What? Suspecting your husband of cheating?" Cui Lili rolled her eyes in annoyance, "Miss Si Rong, have you entered menopause early?"

Otherwise, why would you be having such flighty ideas?

Who among their old classmates didn't know how much that guy Shen Lan doted on Si Rong.

It would be easier for people to believe that Si Rong was cheating than that Shen Lan was.