Chapter 1

Childhood sweethearts, shattered by a shiny newcomer.

On our eighth wedding anniversary, she promised to fly overseas with me to see a world-renowned ear specialist.

She knew it was my last shot at restoring my hearing.

Yet the moment Landon called, she dumped me without hesitation.

Later, I saw Landon's post on social media: 【Best boss ever. Thanks for keeping me warm in this unfamiliar city.】

The attached picture showed my wife, Valerie, holding hands with him, their fingers tightly intertwined.

I gave a bitter smile and left a comment: 【You could've at least waited until our divorce went through before posting.】

A new project manager had joined Valerie's company.

He was young and constantly messing up.

At first, she said men like him were useless. Later, she said: "He reminds me of you when you were younger―the more he fails, the harder he fights."

I knew something was off, but I kept quiet.

Until she abandoned me, a deaf man, in a foreign country just for his sake.

I knew it was time to let go.

Yet when I finally stepped aside, she broke down in tears, begging me not to leave.

1

"Thank you, Dr. Lin."

After hanging up, I turned excitedly toward my wife.

But she was already gone.

I tried calling her, but there was no answer.

She didn't come home all night, and honestly, I was getting used to it.

According to our schedule, I headed to the airport early the next morning.

I assumed she wouldn't show up, but she did.

Seeing Valerie standing there, I told myself to give our marriage one final chance.

As long as this trip to see Dr. Matilda went smoothly, I would forgive everything from the past.

"Did you wait long?"

Valerie didn't explain why she had vanished the night before, nor did she explain where she stayed. I didn't ask either.

I simply smiled and checked in with her.

After a ten-hour flight, we landed.

The second we grabbed our luggage, her phone went off like clockwork.

She glanced at me and answered it right in front of my face.

"Yeah, we just landed... No, he can't hear anything, I can't just leave him here..."

"Stop making a scene, I just got here. What? Don't do anything stupid. Fine, I'm coming back. Wait for me."

Valerie hung up and tapped my shoulder.

Looking troubled, she said, "Ethan, there's an emergency with a company project. I need to catch the next flight back. I'll return on the earliest flight tomorrow, okay? Just wait for me here."

I stayed silent for a second, then shook my head. "No."

"Ethan Cole, can you stop throwing a tantrum? Do you have any idea how exhausting it is running a company on my own? Do you know how many people try to walk all over me because I'm a woman? If you hadn't gone deaf, would they dare treat me like this? If you were any kind of man, you wouldn't be holding me back right now!"

Watching her hysterical outburst, my heart went completely cold.

She didn't care what happened to me. She just turned around and walked away.

She abandoned a deaf man alone in a foreign land.

Looking at her retreating figure, I couldn't help but laugh.

If my hearing hadn't already returned, I really would have believed I was just a burden to her.

She was supposedly so busy and stressed, yet she still took the time to fly out here with me.

Too bad for her―my hearing was already back.

Coming to see Dr. Matilda was partly for a follow-up, and partly to fulfill a long-standing promise between Valerie and me.

Before we got married, she once told me, "I really want to see pink dolphins."

Back home, sightings were rare. Later, life got in the way, and in our eight years of marriage, we never got around to seeing them.

Before this trip, I found out that pink dolphins would be migrating through the local strait this week.

I had planned to tell her the moment we saw them: "Valerie, I can hear again."

Unfortunately, I would never get that chance.

And my Valerie had drifted away from me long ago.