My Husband Sneered, “She’ll Crawl Back in 48 Hours.” Two Days Later, I Saw 99+ Calls from Him — I Win

Part One

The airport smelled of coffee, metal, and the faint tang of salt that seemed to cling to every traveler’s skin.
I stood in the security line clutching my passport, a nervous flutter in my chest. This was supposed to be our honeymoon disguised as a company retreat. My husband, Chin Moyu, had promised it with a half-smile that used to melt me years ago.

But when the security officer scanned my boarding pass, the machine beeped twice—sharp, accusing.

“Miss Su,” he said, glancing up. “There’s an issue with your ticket. The system shows no valid flight information.”

“That can’t be right,” I said, forcing a polite laugh. “Could you scan again?”

He tried. The same red light blinked.

Before confusion could turn into panic, I heard the deliberate click of heels. A soft voice, sweet as syrup and twice as poisonous, sounded behind me.
“Oh dear, Sister Yan, why are you still here?”

It was Bi Wei, my husband’s secretary. She waved her first-class boarding pass in the air like a flag of victory.

She covered her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh no—I must have been too busy and booked your ticket for myself.”

Her whisper brushed my ear. “Sorry, Yanyan,” she said. There wasn’t a trace of remorse in her eyes, only triumph.

Heat climbed my neck. I turned toward my husband. He was standing not far away, phone in hand, frowning—not at her, but at me.

When he approached, relief fluttered through me. He’ll fix this, I thought. He’ll defend me.

“It’s just a small oversight,” he said curtly, sliding an arm around Bi Wei’s shoulders. “Don’t make a scene, Yen. Everyone’s watching.”

Laughter rippled behind him—colleagues pretending not to laugh at the boss’s foolish wife.

Something inside me cracked. “I didn’t—she—”

“Enough.” His tone was final, bored. “Figure out another flight or go home. Don’t waste everyone’s time.”

He turned, ushering her toward the VIP gate, his hand resting where it used to rest on me. They didn’t look back.

I stood rooted to the tile, people bumping my shoulders as they passed. The announcement board flickered above—Gate closing. I felt cold all over, as if someone had poured ice water down my spine.

A memory surfaced: a younger version of us on a crowded subway, his hand shielding me from the crush of bodies.
“When I’m rich,” he’d whispered, grinning, “I’ll charter a plane and take you to see the whole world.”
Now he had a plane. And I wasn’t invited.

I didn’t buy another ticket. I hailed a cab home.

The penthouse we’d fought so hard to buy gaped like a museum of our mistakes—marble floors, art that meant nothing, silence thick enough to choke on. I dropped my purse and slid down the door until I hit the floor.

When my phone rang, it was Lin Faye, my oldest friend.

“Tell me you didn’t let that jerk do it again,” she barked. “I heard you never got on the plane. What did he do this time? Leave you there?”

Her anger was a balm I didn’t deserve. I swallowed hard. “It’s nothing, really. Wei Wei probably just made a mistake.”

“A mistake? He hugged her in front of everyone!”

“He’s busy,” I murmured. “The company… he’s under pressure.”

Silence crackled through the line. Then Lin Faye sighed—a sound of despair more than anger. “Do you even believe yourself anymore?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came. If I admitted the truth, the last few years of my life would collapse like a bad investment.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just tired.”

When the call ended, the apartment fell back into its dreadful quiet. I scrolled through social media—something masochistic, almost involuntary.

Photos flooded my screen: blue sky, white sand, cocktails, colleagues laughing. And in the center of one frame, a familiar silhouette: my husband beside Bi Wei at sunset, his arm grazing hers. The caption read:

“Beautiful boss, beautiful secretary—perfect match!”

Hundreds of likes. Hearts. Compliments.

No one remembered me—the woman who’d shared his ramen when the company couldn’t afford rent.

I set the phone face-down on the couch. For a long time, I just listened to the hum of the refrigerator. Somewhere, a clock ticked too loudly.

That night I didn’t sleep. I lay staring at the ceiling, replaying the past like a cruel documentary.

Back when we started the company, we worked in a one-room office with peeling wallpaper and a heater that coughed more than it warmed. He sketched plans while I formatted proposals, fingers stiff with cold. We lived on instant noodles and the conviction that one day we’d make it.

I pawned jewelry, skipped meals, lied to my parents about our success. When an investor made him drink until he collapsed, I sat by his hospital bed, feeding him spoonfuls of warm water through the night.

He’d opened his eyes and whispered, “Don’t worry, Yen. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll give you everything.”

He kept half that promise. He gave me a mansion and took away everything that mattered.

As the business grew, his suits turned custom, his voice colder. “You don’t have to come to company events,” he told me. “You’re too casual. Just relax at home.”

I thought it was care. It was exile.

Soon, Bi Wei appeared—young, polished, the kind of woman who knew which fork to use at a gala dinner. My colleagues learned fast whom to please. At parties, she sat beside him; I sat at the far table, a ghost in designer heels bought with my own dowry.

Now, alone in that same penthouse, I realized how perfectly he’d erased me.

I wept until my eyes burned, then whispered to the dark, “Enough.”

Two days passed. I ate bread straight from the bag, drank tap water, ignored every call. When the landline rang again, I picked it up out of habit.

“Hello? Sister Yen?”

The sugary tone froze my blood.

“Wei Wei.”

“Oh, don’t be nervous.” She giggled. “It’s just about a document from President Chin’s office. Can’t find the electronic copy.”

Her words danced with fake innocence. “By the way, Maldives is gorgeous! President Chin works so hard—meetings all day, socializing all night. Poor man nearly drank himself under the table yesterday. Good thing I helped him back to his room.”

The word dripped venom.

I clenched the phone so tightly my knuckles whitened. “I don’t know about the file,” I said, each syllable trembling.

“Never mind,” she chirped. “You must be so lonely at home. I envy you—so free while I’m stuck taking care of him.”

The call ended with a cheerful beep.

For a moment, the silence after was louder than any scream.

Then a courier arrived—an orange box, signature required. Inside lay a silk scarf, garish and cheap-looking despite the luxury label. A note fluttered out:

Sister Yen, I bought two by accident. Too bright for my taste.
President Chin said you usually use inexpensive things.
Consider this a little gift to broaden your horizons. — Wei Wei

The words blurred. “Usually use inexpensive things.”

I laughed once, dry and sharp. Yes. I’d worn the same coat for three winters so the company could pay rent. I’d given him my savings, my dowry, everything—while he built an empire and bought her Cartier.

Something inside me went utterly still.

No anger, no tears. Just clarity.

At dawn, I filled a suitcase. Not with jewelry or gifts, but with my own possessions: a few books, degrees, my passport, and the savings account that had miraculously survived marriage. Everything else I left—a mountain of handbags, designer dresses, trophies of guilt.

On the table, I placed a single envelope and my wedding ring.

Inside the envelope lay a one-page divorce agreement. No demands. No settlement. Just freedom.

When I sealed it, the click of the drawer sounded like the closing of a coffin.

By sunrise, movers came quietly and efficiently. I stood by the window, watching the city glow pale gold. I felt nothing but a strange lightness, as if gravity itself had loosened its grip.

Ten days later, Chin Moyu returned from his vacation, tanned and smug.

He unlocked the door expecting another silent treatment, a sulking wife he could pacify with apologies and a luxury bag. Instead, the apartment was half-empty, the air stale with disuse.

He frowned at the pile of items in the living room—bags, jewelry, clothes—all the tokens he’d tossed my way over the years, stacked like discarded trophies.

Then he saw the open closet, the bare vanity. Panic flickered. He yanked open the bedside drawer.

The ring gleamed under the lamp, and beneath it, the divorce paper—her handwriting steady, decisive.

He stood there for a long moment, disbelief curdling into rage.

“She’s really capable now,” he muttered, crumpling the paper in his fist until the metal band bit into his palm.

That night he drank himself numb, boasting to his friend, “Forty-eight hours. She’ll crawl back in forty-eight hours.”

But forty-eight hours later, when my plane touched down on the other side of the world and I turned on my phone, the screen filled with frantic notifications—99 + missed calls from him.

I smiled, slipped the phone into my pocket, and stepped into the Mediterranean sun.

I had already won.

 

 

Part Two

The Mediterranean sun was not gentle.
It struck white buildings and narrow alleys until everything shimmered—roofs, water, even my own skin.
Freedom, it turned out, had the texture of salt air and unfinished sentences.

I rented a small apartment on a quiet street near the sea. White walls, blue shutters, a balcony the size of a tablecloth. When the wind blew, I could smell bread from the bakery downstairs. I unpacked my single suitcase and sat cross-legged on the cool floor tiles, surrounded by the silence of a new life.

There was no luxury here—only peace.
I slept for twelve hours straight, the first unbroken sleep I’d had in years.

When I woke, the sunlight had crept across the bed, warming my bare feet. I made coffee and thought, What now?

1. Learning to live again

I filled my days with small tasks that kept my mind from collapsing inward. I joined a language class, stumbled through greetings and verbs, laughed at my own accent. I found remote translation work for a tiny Chinese travel company, earning just enough to pay rent and buy groceries.

For the first time, every coin I spent belonged only to me. It was a fragile kind of pride—thin, but real.

Each morning I’d walk to class along the harbor. Fishermen shouted to one another in languages I barely understood. Seagulls circled overhead, loud and fearless. The world had texture again, sounds that weren’t filtered through someone else’s power.

At night I’d sit on the balcony translating phrases about beaches, spices, festivals. My fingers ached, but it was a sweet ache—the ache of doing something honest.

Weeks passed. The loneliness softened. It became something manageable, like background music.

2. The stranger at the museum

It happened on a Saturday.
Our class visited a small maritime museum. The building smelled of dust and sea salt; glass cases glowed faintly under yellow lamps. I stopped before a cracked piece of pottery, tracing the swirl of its ancient design with my eyes.

“This pattern,” a male voice said beside me in careful English, “isn’t just decoration. It looks like a navigation symbol.”

I turned.
He was tall, with dark hair and a quiet steadiness about him—neither intrusive nor timid. His shirt was linen, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His Mandarin, when he switched to it, carried the faint melody of a southern accent.

“You speak Chinese?” I asked, startled.

He smiled. “Born here, raised there. A citizen of airports. I’m Gu Shiyan, an architect. You?”

“Su Chinyan. Translator… in training,” I said.

He looked at the pottery again. “You saw the pattern right. Early sailors used such marks to read wind direction. Intuition like that is rare.”

I laughed, embarrassed. “Maybe it’s just a guess.”

“Guessing is how knowledge begins,” he said simply.

We talked until the tour guide called us to leave—about architecture, about the sea, about how translation is another kind of bridge.
When we said goodbye, he handed me a thin white card.

Gu Shiyan
Architect / Cultural Foundation Consultant
“Every wall hides a story.”

“Call if you ever need a guide to local buildings,” he said.

I didn’t call, not right away. But that night I found the card on my desk and smiled without meaning to.

3. A phone call from home

Three weeks later, my mother called.
The international connection crackled; her voice sounded smaller than I remembered.
“Yen, are you doing okay out there?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Eating, sleeping, working.”

She hesitated. “Moyu came to the house yesterday. He looked… awful. Said he couldn’t reach you. Your father nearly chased him out with a broom.”

I closed my eyes. “Don’t tell him anything. Promise me.”

“We won’t,” she said softly. “But he called again today. He sounded desperate, angry. I worry he might—”

“He won’t,” I said. “He’s not dangerous. Just afraid of losing control.”

After I hung up, I sat for a long time staring at the dark sea outside my window. The waves came and went, indifferent. Somewhere across the ocean, a man who once called me his world was panicking because I’d slipped out of orbit.

For the first time, I didn’t feel sorry for him.

4. Work, growth, and Gu Shiyan

A few days later, an email arrived from my language teacher:

“A local tourism firm needs a translator. I gave them your contact.”

The project was small but required care—translating pages about local crafts, folk stories, and sea legends. I worked obsessively, visiting workshops to learn the right terms. When I delivered the translation, the owner handed me the envelope in person and said, “Precise. You have soul in your words.”

It wasn’t a fortune, but it was mine.

I posted a photo of the sea with the caption: First job abroad, done.

Minutes later, a notification blinked—Gu Shiyan liked your post.

That evening he messaged:

“Read your translation. Excellent work. Would you be interested in a bigger project?”

It turned out he was collaborating with a cultural foundation to design an exhibition pavilion blending Eastern and Western symbolism. They needed someone who could translate both language and context.

I hesitated only a moment. “I’d love to.”

Working with him was like learning a new rhythm.
He was exacting yet gentle, his emails full of thoughtful questions instead of commands. When he disagreed, he’d write, Let’s explore another angle, rather than You’re wrong.

We debated over one word—“root” or “origin”—for three days, sending drafts back and forth until midnight. When I finally settled it, he replied:

“Perfect. You’ve captured the soul of the sentence.”

Slowly, without noticing when it began, our work messages turned personal. He asked if I’d tried the almond pastries at the corner bakery; I told him about the stray cat that kept stealing my breakfast.

Our lives began to intertwine in small, ordinary ways that felt astonishingly safe.

5. The man from the past

One late afternoon, I came home from the market carrying two bags of vegetables. The sun was low, gold spilling over the roofs. As I rounded the corner of my building, my heart stopped.

There, sitting on the low stone wall by the entrance, was Chin Moyu.

He looked nothing like the immaculate man I’d once married. His shirt was creased, his hair unkempt, stubble shadowing his jaw. Several cigarette butts lay crushed at his feet.

When he saw me, he sprang up, nearly tripping.
“Yan Yan,” he rasped. “I finally found you.”

I froze. My fingers tightened around the shopping bags. “How did you—”

“I searched everywhere,” he said, eyes wild. “I know I was wrong. I was stupid. Please—come back.”

He stepped closer, reaching for my arm. I moved back. The air between us felt heavy, rancid with old memories.

“Leave,” I said quietly.

He shook his head violently. “No. I can’t. I fired her—Wei Wei. She betrayed me! I’ll close the company if you just come home. I’ll make it right.”

His voice cracked into a plea. He slapped himself once, hard, as if pain could make his words sincere.

“Please, Yan Yan. Don’t do this to me.”

I looked at him—really looked. The man who once seemed larger than life now stood hunched and trembling, like a monument collapsing under its own weight.

“If you’d said those words a year ago,” I murmured, “maybe I would have believed you.”

He blinked. “Yen—”

“But that woman you defended at the airport? The one who begged, reasoned, forgave? She’s gone.”

He stared at me, uncomprehending.

I continued, calm and precise. “When you left me at that gate, when you let her humiliate me in front of everyone, something in me died. You can’t apologize to ashes, Moyu.”

He went still, color draining from his face.

Just then, a familiar voice came from behind me.
“Miss Su, need any help?”

I turned. Gu Shiyan was standing there, holding a folder, sunlight at his back. He had arrived to discuss project drafts. His eyes flicked from me to the disheveled man before us.

“It’s nothing,” I said evenly. “Just someone who lost his way.”

Gu Shiyan nodded, took the grocery bags from my hands, and stood beside me—not possessive, simply steady.

Moyu looked between us, realization dawning slow and bitter.
His lips moved soundlessly before he turned and stumbled toward the car. The engine roared, then vanished down the street, leaving the faint scent of exhaust behind.

I exhaled. The tremor in my hands faded.
Gu Shiyan glanced at me. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Yes. Finally.”

6. The fall

Peace lasted only a few weeks before the next storm reached me—not from him, but from home.

Lin Faye called, breathless.
“Guess what? Your ex is falling apart! That company of his—it’s a mess. Investors pulled out. Rumor says his darling secretary took off with the funds.”

Her laughter was sharp with justice. “He’s drowning in debt, Yen. Couldn’t happen to a nicer man.”

I listened, unmoved.
When she paused for my reaction, I said, “I hope he learns something from it.”

“You’re not even happy?”

I smiled faintly. “Happiness that depends on someone else’s ruin isn’t happiness. I already won when I walked away.”

7. Rebuilding

Months passed. The translation project with the foundation grew into more collaborations.
Soon, I opened my own small studio—a desk by the window, shelves of books, a secondhand car for weekend trips along the coast.

Gu Shiyan and I began to share a home, almost by accident. He brought plants; I brought the cat. Mornings smelled of coffee and sea air. Evenings were for quiet work, side by side—his pencils scratching architectural lines, my fingers tapping at the keyboard. No drama, no shouting, just two people building something steady.

He never once made me feel small.
At meetings he would say simply, “This is my partner, Su Chinyan. She’s brilliant.”
The first time he said it, I had to excuse myself to the bathroom and cry—not out of sadness, but because being seen after years of invisibility was almost too much.

8. The last call

One afternoon, as I was designing my studio logo, my phone rang with an unfamiliar international number.
I hesitated, then answered.

“Yan Yan…”
The voice was hoarse, desperate. Chin Moyu.

I said nothing.

He began to talk fast, words tumbling over each other. “Everything’s gone wrong. The company’s bankrupt. She—Wei Wei—she ruined me. I’m begging you, please, help me. You know the investors, the clients. You can fix this—”

I cut him off. “Mr. Chin, are you asking your ex-wife to save your company?”

Silence.

“I can’t help you,” I said. “And I won’t. You made your choices. Now live with them.”

Then I hung up and blocked the number.

Outside, gulls screamed above the harbor. Inside, the cat stretched on the rug, indifferent.
I bent over my sketchpad and kept drawing.

9. Peace

A month later, Lin Faye sent another message, half-giggling, half-astonished.

“He’s done for. Bankrupt, drunk, even jailed for debts.
And guess what? Wei Wei’s in prison too—embezzlement. Poetic justice, huh?”

I typed two words: “Good for them.”
Then I turned off my phone.

That evening, I unpacked a new shipment of books for the studio, each one smelling of paper and possibility.
I arranged them neatly, brewed coffee, and stepped onto the balcony.

Below, Gu Shiyan was fixing the flower box. He looked up, smiling. “Careful, the cat’s plotting an escape again.”

“I’ll catch him,” I said, laughing.

The light on the sea turned gold, then pink. Everything was ordinary and perfect.

10. The woman I became

Sometimes I think about that day at the airport—the look on his face when he said, “Don’t make a fuss.”
Back then I thought love meant endurance. Now I know love should never ask you to shrink.

Gu Shiyan joined me on the balcony, two mugs of coffee in hand. We sank onto the old sofa, the cat curling at our feet. The sea glittered through the railing like melted glass.

He worked on his laptop while I flipped through an art book, our shoulders touching.
No words were necessary.

I looked out at the horizon and thought of the woman I used to be—the one who begged for crumbs of attention, who mistook humiliation for loyalty. She was gone, scattered like sand in the tide.

What remained was me:
Su Chinyan, who learned to stand alone, who can earn her own living, who can love without losing herself.

The phone buzzed once on the table—a new project inquiry.
I smiled and let it ring. Some calls aren’t meant to be answered.

Gu Shiyan reached over, fingers finding mine. “Thinking something deep?” he asked softly.

I shook my head. “Just… realizing how far I’ve come.”

He squeezed my hand. “Don’t ever look back.”

“I won’t,” I said.

The sun slipped lower, staining the sea copper and rose. The breeze carried the scent of bread from the bakery downstairs, mingled with the faint purr of the cat. For the first time, I felt truly—completely—at home.

Somewhere, across an ocean, a man might still be dialing my number, hoping I’d crawl back.
But the woman he left behind at that airport no longer exists.

I took a deep breath, tasted salt and light, and smiled.

This time, I win.

END!

 

Disclaimer: Our stories are inspired by real-life events but are carefully rewritten for entertainment. Any resemblance to actual people or situations is purely coincidental.