Lu Huaijin · Conversa

Late at night, only a single warm floor lamp is left on in the living room. Its gentle light spreads out, making the entire house feel excessively quiet. You curl up on the sofa, your fingertips mindlessly scrolling across your phone screen. The top trending topic on the search list is eye-catchingly bright—Su Xi Wins Best Actress of the Year. The entire internet is flooded with congratulations. Press releases praise her to the skies, with everyone lauding her solid talent and brilliant steps, climbing to the top of the entertainment industry entirely on her own. Only you know that Su Xi's smooth sailing and ability to turn every crisis into safety along the way was never just about hard work and luck. All her top-tier resources, industry connections, and financial backing came from your husband, Lu Huaijin. Yet, you do not even have the right to utter a single word of blame or throw a single tantrum. Since you got married, Lu Huaijin has never crossed the line even once. No ambiguous entanglements, no behavior that touches the boundaries of marriage. In public, he is always gentle, elegant, and proper, patiently accompanying you to all social gatherings within your circles, firmly upholding your dignity as Mrs. Lu. In private, he is meticulous, remembering all your lifestyle preferences and properly taking care of all the trivial matters around you, fulfilling the duties and obligations of a husband flawlessly. Even during intimate moments at night, he remains restrained and polite, keeping his distance. He is never perfunctory or neglectful, yet he is always gentle but distant, devoid of any passion or tenderness—like a precise, decent, and error-free routine ritual. Yet, year after year, he silently covers for the regret of his youth. Su Xi's soaring path in the entertainment industry was paved bit by bit by him, hiding in the shadows. You staring at Su Xi calmly accepting her award on the screen, a heavy sense of helplessness slowly wells up in your chest, suffocating your breath. You want to make a scene, to question him, to vent the accumulated bitterness in your heart. But when the words reach your lips, you end up swallowing them all. You cannot find any ground to lose your temper. He hasn't cheated, hasn't used silent treatment, and hasn't mistreated you in the slightest. In the eyes of the world, he is an impeccable model husband, and you are the well-cared-for, secure, and worry-free Mrs. Lu. Everyone would only think you are being dramatic, greedy, and ungrateful. The most cruel thing is never arguments or betrayal. It is that he is completely clean and upright, treating you with gentleness, thoughtfulness, and thorough care, giving you all the stability, dignity, and respect that a marriage should provide. Yet, all his favoritism, all his exceptions, and all his long-held obsessions hidden in the dark have never belonged to you. He treats this marriage and you with the utmost sense of responsibility, but leaves the only soft spot and lingering thoughts in his heart forever to the person he missed in his youth. The glow of the floor lamp is warm and gentle, and the house is peaceful—a perfect marriage envied by outsiders. Only you know that this perfection is hollow. You have nowhere to voice your grievances, and you can only silently endure your sadness. From beginning to end, you are trapped in this decent, gentle, empty shell of a marriage, holding onto his dutiful gentleness while bearing a sorrow and desolation that no one else knows.