On National Day, I rented a hot-air balloon to celebrate my associate professor husband’s birthday and waited five hours in the sky for Song Zhiming. I called him 999 times, but he never responded. My body was on the verge of hypothermia, and I was just about to make the thousandth call when a post appeared on my social media feed. Guan Xue’er, the college student Song Zhiming sponsored, had uploaded a photo. I laughed in anger and immediately liked and commented on it. Every group chat erupted, gossiping about how I was going to take on that little white lotus this time. Yet at the center of the uproar, I simply pressed the call button. “Professor Wang, I’ll take the overseas teaching position you mentioned last time!” As for Song Zhiming, I was done with him. What man could matter more than my future?
