Later, Liu Yun came to the furniture store and said that she would host a banquet for people from the Food and Drug Administration in the evening.
I said I had plans for the evening and couldn't accompany her for the social event.
She looked very unhappy and said that even an important event like my wedding had to be postponed because it concerned the future and fate of the drugstore chain and I had to go.
I was in a dilemma. On one hand, I had a boss who would not compromise, and on the other hand, I had a wife who wanted me to go home early to celebrate my son's birthday.
Finally, I went to the hotel with her on the condition that she promised me to have only one drink with the guest.
Things did not go as planned. The director who attended the banquet that night was a big drinker and kept forcing me to drink more wine from Liu Yun.
As a result, we were both defeated quickly.
The guests left contentedly, but I was so drunk that I staggered. Liu Yun's condition was even worse, and she couldn't even walk.
With no other options left, I booked a room for her in the same hotel and helped her take the elevator upstairs.
After entering the room and putting her on the bed, I started to become a little confused.
Unexpectedly, she grabbed my tie and dragged me to the bed.
After so many years, I still can't remember what happened that night. Alcohol has completely erased the memory fragments from my brain forever.
The next morning, I woke up to a rapid knock on the door.
What caught my eye was the naked Liu Yun, and I myself was also completely naked.
I woke her up immediately, and she was also stunned when she saw what was happening.
At this time, the knocking on the door became heavier and heavier, accompanied by noisy shouting, and I vaguely heard Zhang Fangfang's voice.
I, Liu Yun, was putting on my clothes in a panic and was frightened by the sudden incident.
I knew I would not be able to justify myself if I didn't open the door, so I opened it anyway.
Zhang Fangfang was holding her son in her arms, followed by my mother-in-law, a hotel waiter.
The moment I opened the door, Zhang Fangfang seemed to understand something, and before I could even finish my explanation, she slapped me in the face.
Her face, twisted with grievance and hatred, was full of tears.
She shouted at the top of her lungs: "Guan Hongjun, you are a big rascal. It's not enough that you have a wife at home, but you are playing with other women outside."
The child, frightened by her shout, also burst into tears.
Every time the child cried, Zhang Fangfang became even sadder and more aggrieved, and she kept asking me to divorce her.
My mother-in-law, who was following behind, pushed me and Zhang Fangfang aside, rushed into the room, and without saying a word, grabbed Liu Yun's long hair and beat and pulled her.
Soon, Liu Yun's face and neck were covered with blood marks from her fingernails.
No matter how hard the fight went, Liu Yun neither backed off nor said a word, allowing my mother-in-law to humiliate her.
I really hope that what is happening before my eyes is just a dream, and everything will return to normal when I wake up.
But my mother-in-law's slap woke me up. She turned away Liu Yun who was hiding in the corner and took out her anger on me again.
I did not dodge or make excuses, because I knew that no matter how high-sounding my excuses were, they would be of no use.
Several years later, Tang Xiaomei curiously asked me whether Liu Yun had ever done that.
I said that I was indeed drunk at the time, and all my memories were gone, and in the end it was a "Rashomon" of one person's story. But I guess that incident probably happened. One was a single woman who had been divorced for a long time, and the other was a married man who was almost suffocated by the pressure of his family. Under the influence of alcohol, it was hard not to think that something would happen.
Tang Xiaomei said that I was making excuses. Cheating was cheating, but I had to find excuses to justify it. Maybe I had been flirting with Liu Yun for a long time and had a secret relationship with her.
I didn't deny that besides my admiration for Liu Yun, her unique temperament did attract me back then.
The conflict could have been resolved internally, but due to the intervention of the police, it caused an extramarital affair scandal that shocked the entire county at the time.
When the hotel staff saw Liu Yun's horrific injuries, they panicked and called the police.
Afterwards, I learned that the family who were expecting me to come home to celebrate their son’s birthday that night, waited and waited but I didn’t come back. They looked for many places where I might be, but found nothing.
The next morning, when the furniture store just opened, they learned from the salesperson that I had accompanied the boss Liu Yun to the hotel.
They rushed all the way to the hotel, and at their urging, the waiter took them to the room I had booked for Liu Yun.
The first direct consequence of this incident was that as an entrepreneur who was well-known in the local area, Liu Yun could not continue to live in the county town. She chose to sell all her industries at a relatively low price and moved to other places with her daughter.
Amid Zhang Fangfang's tearful criticism and my father-in-law and mother-in-law's harsh condemnation, I fled back to my rural home in disgrace and lay low for a while.
Although my father-in-law and mother-in-law strongly urged Zhang Fangfang to divorce me, Zhang Fangfang refused on the grounds that the children were too young, giving our family a chance to survive.
But the harsh reality is that I am unemployed again, and my situation is even worse than when I was on the job. I have become notorious, and no one is willing to use a scumbag who is so bad to his employer.
This was the last straw that broke the camel's back. I had no income, and Zhang Fangfang's constant complaints and sarcasm finally made me explode. I filed for a divorce without hesitation.
Zhang Fangfang must have been heartbroken, and after weighing the pros and cons, she agreed to divorce me on the condition that I leave the house and she would have custody of our son.
I was tortured by guilt and conscience, and in order to escape the suffocating reality, I resolutely chose to accept it all.
Giving up the custody of my son created a knot in my parents' hearts that they still cannot get over.
After my career flourished, my mother would often shed tears secretly, thinking that not having her son by her side was an irreparable regret in my life.
After the divorce, in order to pay the monthly support of 500 yuan on time, I chose to leave my hometown and go to the city where Lao Ba, the roommate, lived.
He was running an Internet cafe and was eager for me to be his network administrator.
After the divorce, Zhang Fangfang and I did not become enemies who would never talk to each other again. With our son as a bond, we still keep in touch from time to time.
About a year after the divorce, when Zhang Fangfang learned that I had sunk into decadence and absurdity and couldn't extricate myself, she suggested a reconciliation.
She said she left her son at her mother-in-law's house and found a job, so she could make a living even if she did nothing. In her mind, the symbolic meaning of a complete family is more important than its essential meaning.
Struggling in the black hole of confusion and despair, I rejected the proposal because I knew that the temporary change could not fill the huge gap between me and her.
After my career started to improve, I did my best to satisfy her financial needs.
It was just that my son and I had a serious disagreement about going to Australia to study after graduating from high school.
I am certainly not afraid of paying the high tuition fees, but I think Guan Ningyu has little desire to serve the country and will most likely stay and settle abroad.
Zhang Fangfang insisted on her opinion, so I stopped trying to stop her.
Sure enough, Guan Ningyu stayed there after graduation. For this, Zhang Fangfang cried all day long. After all, her son was everything in her life, so she never remarried.
In a long-distance phone call with Guan Ningyu, I told him about the pain that Zhang Fangfang had gone through in raising him. The son still had a conscience and arranged for her to immigrate to her relatives, and they were finally reunited in a foreign country.
Tang Xiaomei said that Zhang Fangfang was just like many ordinary women, without any lofty ideals or ambitions, and they just pursued an ordinary life of having children and raising their husbands. I didn't even give them this basic need, and I was completely on the wrong side of this marriage.
I didn't argue.
Tang Xiaomei finally defined my marriage as a heartless and disloyal first marriage.