My husband was rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance in the middle of the night due to a penile fracture. When I asked him about it, he said he was imitating a male lead from a Korean drama out of curiosity, practicing some stretches, and accidentally got injured. I sneered. He had always only watched the news broadcast. Since when did he start watching Korean dramas? In late August, my husband Harry, who was on a business trip, was rushed to the emergency room by ambulance due to intense physical activity – a muscle strain in his inner thigh. I wasn’t home that night as I was visiting my parents, and our baby was at a mother-and-child care center. When I turned off the “Do Not Disturb” mode on my phone early the next morning, I saw over thirty missed calls from Harry and Dr. Kim. Dr. Kim, an old classmate of mine who happened to be on duty that night, told me: “Lily, what’s going on with your husband? At his age, he shouldn’t be having herniated discs, let alone exerting himself so much. In his condition…” I understood her unspoken implication. Anger immediately flared up inside me. I called Harry and demanded to know if he had been fooling around with other women. “Lily, what are you talking about? I’m in such a terrible state, and instead of showing concern for your husband, you’re accusing me…” He sounded quite upset, but it wasn’t enough to dispel my suspicions. “I was trying to get in shape for you. I suddenly remembered an exercise scene from that Korean drama and got carried away.” He even sounded a bit wronged. I could only wonder what kind of irresistibly charming woman could make a middle-aged man push himself to the point of muscle strain. Harry and I weren’t high school sweethearts who went from uniforms to wedding gowns. There wasn’t much excitement before or after our marriage; we fell into the pattern of an old married couple right after tying the knot. Back then, I was focused solely on my studies and missed out on many romantic opportunities. It wasn’t until I was older that I agreed to an arranged marriage under my parents’ urging, thinking the conditions were suitable. However, after giving birth, my entire mindset changed. Perhaps due to a lack of confidence in my postpartum body, I became increasingly concerned about his activities outside the home. To maintain my figure, I didn’t breastfeed. Not wanting the baby to drink formula, I hired a full-time wet nurse and nanny. “It hurts… Nurse, when is my wife coming?” A man’s groans could be heard from the hospital room as I pushed open the door. Harry was lying on the hospital bed, his face pale and his lips colorless. There was no air conditioning in the temporary ward, and a thin layer of cold sweat had formed on his forehead. He looked quite pitiful. However, thinking about the possibility that he had spent a passionate night with another woman, any sympathy I might have felt vanished. “Honey, I didn’t bring any money. Can you pay the hospital fees for me?” Harry asked pitifully. I glanced at him coldly without responding, lowered the curtain, and went to find the attending physician. Seeing me arrive, Dr. Kim mysteriously pulled me aside and told me that the muscle strain was just a cover story to avoid embarrassing my husband. I raised an eyebrow. “Is there something more serious?” “Acute penile fracture. It means… that part is broken. If he doesn’t take proper care and continues to be so sexually active, it might affect your plans for a second child,” she said with a troubled expression. A second child? I smiled mirthlessly. “Who’s having a second child with him? Let him have kids with a dog for all I care.” After hearing my response, Dr. Kim finally realized that Harry must have been fooling around, either with a prostitute or having an affair. A man who doesn’t respect himself is like rotten vegetables. Just then, Dr. Kim suddenly slapped her thigh in surprise: “Now that you mention it, I remember! That night, the ambulance actually brought in two people.” She secretly told me that the woman was likely brought in with Harry. Her symptom was a ruptured corpus luteum, also due to excessive physical activity. I clenched my fists, almost laughing through gritted teeth at the same time— His penile fracture, her ruptured corpus luteum. What a perfect match they made. “Where is she?” Dr. Kim nodded towards the next room. “She’s in that room. They came in together yesterday. Just by her appearance, you could tell she’s no good.” I slowly walked towards that hospital room, lifting the curtain with a nervous heart, only to suddenly discover— The bed behind the curtain was already empty. Just as I was puzzled, my phone rang. It was Rachel, the nanny, calling, accompanied by the sound of a baby crying. “Lily, I’ve picked up Joy from the care center, but she’s throwing up her milk again. What should I do?” I was in a foul mood and snapped at her impatiently: “Can’t you handle even this small task? Didn’t I tell you to learn the patting technique from that tutorial? What’s the point of paying you if you won’t learn anything?” She timidly replied, “I understand, Lily. I’ll pat the baby’s back some more.” Rachel wasn’t a professional childcare worker. Given our family’s financial situation, we shouldn’t have needed to hire such an inexperienced and uncertified nanny. The day we went to the agency, it was Harry who saw her standing there shyly all day, just hoping for a cleaning job. He felt sorry for her struggling alone in the big city and suggested we hire her. Rachel wasn’t particularly thin. Her slightly childish round face was quite pleasing to look at – the type that would be stunning with makeup but looked innocent and pure without it. She said she was nineteen, from a rural background, with a vocational school diploma in nursing. “Do you have any special skills?” I frowned, clearly reluctant. “I… I’m currently lactating. For one salary, I can do two jobs – wet nurse and nanny. I have a health certificate,” she said shyly, brushing aside the hair falling over her chest. Only then did I notice her slightly bulging top, which even had some damp patches. I couldn’t help but be surprised. She had a child at such a young age? Rachel explained in a low voice that she was young and naive when she got a job at an electronics factory and started dating a guy there. He got her pregnant and then ran off. After she gave birth, the man’s family took the baby away. Her own family refused to take her back, so she came to the city alone to find work. I felt a twinge of sympathy. It worked out well for me since I didn’t want to breastfeed. Getting a young, healthy wet nurse and nanny for the price of one seemed like a good deal. So I nodded and hired her, preparing a small bedroom for her to live in. Harry needed to stay in the hospital for another week. When I got home, Rachel, noticing I hadn’t eaten dinner, quickly went to make me some lotus root powder drink. “Where have you been? You look exhausted,” I couldn’t help but ask, noticing her usually neat hair was a bit messy. “Lily, where could I go? I’ve been at home taking care of the baby,” she replied with a surprised expression, her pale lips slightly chapped. “Drink more water. You spend a lot of time caring for the child, but don’t let your own health suffer,” I said, taking the lotus root powder drink she handed me. As I did, I inadvertently noticed some hickeys on her neck and questioned her: “I thought you weren’t dating anyone? What’s this about?” “It’s just a mosquito bite. I’ll go put some ointment on it,” she quickly covered her neck, her voice as soft as a mosquito’s hum. Since our first meeting, Rachel had always been timid and cautious, rarely speaking much and following rules strictly. She never ate the fruit left on the table by the owners and didn’t join us at the dining table, instead taking her portion to eat in her small room. For a moment, I suspected that Harry’s affair might be with her. The enemy within is hard to guard against, after all. But she was standing right in front of me. How could that be? Harry was in a hotel in the neighboring city when this happened, and that woman was diagnosed with a ruptured corpus luteum at the hospital today, which should be quite painful. But if she hurried from the hospital to home, it might be possible to make it without a gap in time. Was that why she seemed nervous and rushed to bring the baby home to feed, causing the baby to throw up from overfeeding? After giving birth, I became quite emotionally volatile, to the point where Harry often said I was paranoid. Thinking about all this, after enduring for a few days until Harry was discharged, I stubbornly confronted him. “Tell me the truth, were you really having an affair that day? Who were you with that night?” He looked bewildered and insisted that he really was imitating the male lead’s stretching and weightlifting exercises from a Korean drama. “Don’t you usually only watch sports and the news? You even said the Korean dramas I watch are soap operas and a waste of time.” Harry sighed, rubbed my head affectionately, and said: “Since you’re asking, I’ll be honest. I was trying to understand your interests. Ever since you finished your postpartum confinement, you’ve seemed distracted. I thought if I watched some of the shows you like, we might have more to talk about.” He showed me his video viewing history. “Isn’t Lee Min-ho your favorite? That’s whose drama I was watching.” I twitched the corner of my mouth, momentarily at a loss for words to refute him. Because everything sounded so normal and reasonable. “Then… the woman who was admitted to the hospital with you that day…” Harry interrupted me, “She was just picked up by the ambulance on the way. She had abdominal pain from sitting on the toilet too long and found out it was a ruptured corpus luteum. I don’t know her.” I stared at him blankly. Later, I asked Dr. Kim who that woman was, but she told me they weren’t in the same department and she didn’t have access to the patient’s information. The day Harry was discharged, Rachel prepared a big meal for us. After cooking, she obediently retreated to her room. I was about to start eating when Harry stopped her and actually invited her to sit down and join us. My face immediately turned cold, and I dropped my chopsticks onto my bowl with a clatter. She looked a bit awkward, glancing at me. “It’s okay, Harry. I’ll just eat the leftovers from lunch. There’s still plenty.” “When have I ever made you eat leftovers? Since Harry invited you, sit down and eat with us,” I said coldly. I barely ate a bite during that dinner. Before bed, Rachel brought us hot milk. Suddenly, on a whim, I wondered if she might treat us differently. I took Harry’s cup, intending to drink from it. But I unexpectedly smelled a strange milky odor, unlike regular milk. She clearly panicked a bit. “Lily, don’t you have germaphobia? That’s Harry’s cup…” “I know. We’re married, what’s wrong with me taking a sip from his cup?” I immediately retorted. She lowered her head and didn’t dare say anything more. I took a sip and only tasted a faint fishy flavor. It wasn’t sweet either. I said in surprise that the milk must have gone bad. Harry didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. “You’re making a fuss over nothing. It tastes normal to me. I’ve been drinking it for a long time.” Then, to my astonishment, he grabbed the cup of milk and drank it all in one go. I drank my cup half-believing, half-doubting, and it tasted like normal milk. “I’m sorry, Lily. Maybe that cup was from the carton that’s been open for a while. Your cup is from a newly opened carton,” Rachel explained in a soft voice. Back in the bedroom, our three-month-old daughter was sleeping soundly in her crib. Harry went to sleep later than me. As I was drifting off to sleep, I suddenly heard the heavy sound of a door being pushed open. Startled awake, I saw the intruder and angrily shouted, “What are you doing coming in here in the middle of the night? Don’t you know how to knock first?” She looked a bit surprised, a hint of grievance flashing across her features: “Lily, it’s time to feed the baby.” The baby in the crib started crying loudly, frightened by my outburst. Right, this was the routine nightly feeding, wasn’t it? I felt a bit disoriented and patted my head. To my surprise, the next moment, Rachel crouched down and directly lifted her shirt, preparing to breastfeed the child. Harry consciously turned away to scroll through his phone, not glancing in this direction at all. “There, there, baby. Don’t suck too hard,” she said softly, her voice as delicate as it could be. Coming to my senses, I urged her to go feed in the living room, not in the bedroom. She responded with a soft “Mm,” but because of her squatting position while holding the baby, she struggled to stand up. She tried for a while without success, beads of sweat forming on her forehead from the effort. Drawing on years of married life experience, I glanced over and sensitively noticed something off about my husband. “Honey, what’s wrong?” He casually let his phone drop to his lap as he stood up, his expression evasive as he coughed lightly and said: “I’m going out to watch some soccer. Messi should be playing soon.”
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