Chapter 7

She said Zhao Ming had married the wrong woman.

Our relatives took turns telling me to be reasonable.

Some said that if family members just gave in a little, the whole thing would blow over.

Others said my mother-in-law was already old and there was no point keeping score over every little thing.

I sent the group chat the messages in which my mother-in-law had refused to care for me.

They were messages from twelve years earlier.

I wrote only one sentence:

“These are her exact words to me back then.”

No one in the group told me to calm down after that.

Zhao Xue messaged me privately.

“Are you showing everyone these things for a laugh?”

“I’m just showing the truth.”

“You think that means you can get both the children and the house?”

“The court will decide.”

She quickly sent another message.

“Don’t forget, Zhao Ming has records of your income from all these years.”

I stared at those words for a few seconds.

I had worked at the training center for ten years, and all my earnings had been deposited into my own bank account.

Aside from daily living expenses, most of that money had gone toward the children’s extracurricular classes and insurance.

The records Zhao Ming had could only prove that I had carried more of the household expenses.

But why was he deliberately warning me?

I called my lawyer.

After a brief silence, she said, “He may argue that your post-marital income went toward the mortgage, so the increase in the home’s value belongs to the marital estate.”

“The mortgage was paid over only three years, and I paid all of it myself.”

“Do you have proof?”

“Yes.”

I opened my old phone.

It had the text messages confirming each monthly mortgage payment from back then.

But when I opened them, I discovered that some of the messages had been deleted.

It wasn’t a problem with the phone.

Zhao Ming had borrowed it from me once, saying he wanted to export photos of the children.

He had borrowed it shortly before I began organizing evidence.

I called him.

“Did you access my old phone?”

“I did. So what?”

“Did you delete the messages?”

“How would I know what you’re talking about?”

“Zhao Ming, you’d better not have touched them.”

He laughed on the phone.

“Now you’re even suspicious of me. What’s the point of living together?”

After hanging up, I went straight to the bank.

The employee searched for a long time and then told me the statements from ten years ago were archived. I would need to file a request to retrieve them.

As I walked out of the bank, I saw Zhao Ming standing at the entrance.

He was holding a folder.

“Wanqing, the lawyers say you want a divorce. Let’s talk clearly about the children and the house.”

I didn’t take the folder.

Zhao Ming held it out in front of me.

“This is the evidence I found.”

I lowered my eyes to look.

It was a loan agreement from the time I bought the house.

The borrower’s name was mine.

But the lender was Zhao Ming.

I took the agreement.

The paper had yellowed, and the signing date was listed as six months after I bought the house.

It said that Zhao Ming had lent me 200,000 yuan to pay the final amount for the home.

My signature appeared at the bottom.

The handwriting looked a lot like mine.

I stared at the page.

“Where did this agreement come from?”

“I’ve always kept it.”

“I never borrowed money from you.”

“You signed it.”

“That’s not my signature.”

Zhao Ming took the agreement back.

“The court can have it examined.”

I looked at him.

“When did you get it?”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“If you’ve had this agreement all along, why didn’t you mention it once in twelve years of marriage?”

Zhao Ming didn’t answer.

He turned to leave. I called after him.

“Who did you get to forge it?”

His steps stopped.

It was only for a moment, but it was enough to confirm that someone else was behind the agreement.

Zhao Ming turned around.

“Don’t make things up.”

“I’ll request a handwriting examination.”

“Go ahead.”

After he left, I immediately sent a photo of the agreement to my lawyer.

After looking at it, she asked, “Have you ever seen this agreement before?”

“No.”

“There are obvious issues with the signature placement. Let’s request an examination and retrieve the bank records from that year.”

I went home and searched through the documents I had kept from before I married.

I discovered that the final payment date in the purchase contract was eight months earlier than the loan date stated on the agreement.

In other words, when the supposed loan was made, the house had already been paid off in full.

The document did not even match the basic timeline.

I told my lawyer what I had found.

She said, “That evidence is very helpful, but we still need to find out where the signature came from.”

At eight that evening, Zhao Ming brought my mother-in-law to the door again.

This time, they didn’t bring a locksmith.

Zhao Ming stood outside and called, “Wanqing, Mom wants to talk to you.”

I opened the door but did not let them in.

My mother-in-law raised her hand to push it open.

“I’m the children’s grandmother. You can’t even let me into their home?”