My wife, Julie Anderson, never allowed anyone to sit in her passenger seat, not even me.

The only thing she allowed on the passenger seat was a box for her bags, makeup and snacks for easy access.

Recently, Julie put her storage box in the trunk, and her bags and dolls were piled up all over the backseat.

The passenger seat was adjusted to a reclining position, and Julie, who was a neat freak, didn't even notice some marks on the seat.

If it were a coincidence at first, a clue at second, it would be the truth at the end.

I thought it definitely started when Julie became a runner and was introduced to a running chat group by her best friend.

1

I went downstairs tonight to check Julie's passenger seat under the pretext of taking out the trash.

Before I went downstairs, I asked Julie in a roundabout way if she had picked up anyone during the day and if she needed to do it later, but I got a negative answer from her.

The company wasn't far from home, and I could get there by taking the subway two stops a day, so the car I bought before the marriage was given to Julie to drive afterward.

A week ago, I was going downstairs to take out the trash after dinner as usual when I caught a glimpse of the rearview mirror of my car getting a bit dirty.

The car had a keyless entry, so I was going to get in and whip out a tissue to help Julie clean it up.

But as soon as I opened the car door, I noticed her passenger seat.

Julie never allowed other people to sit on her passenger seat, and she just put her bag and other things on it.

She bought a storage box online and put it on the passenger seat, which contained some cosmetics, data cables, and so on, so that she could refine her make-up in the car.

I rarely ride in Julie's car. Even if I did, Julie would let me sit in the back so that she wouldn't move things around.

Even Julie's best friend, Amanda Clark, and her colleagues had to sit in the back when they needed a ride.

Now the passenger seat was cleaned up and adjusted to the reclining position at the bottom.

Julie's storage box had been moved to the trunk, and it had been pressed up against something that looked like it had been there for a while.

It was the first time I felt I was so concerned about the passenger seat.

I made a mental note of this and instead of wiping her mirrors, I chose to go upstairs as if nothing had happened.

A few days ago, I went downstairs to check on it once, and it was the same situation.

It was the same tonight.

If it were a coincidence at first, a clue at second, it would be the truth at the end.

The car's seats were full leather, and lately, probably because they had been sat on every day, the dull leather had become shiny.

If I looked closely, I would see white cracks from drying and a few curved hairs at the seams, which I picked up with a tissue to check.

It wasn't from Julie, more like from a man. I felt sick at once.

Seeing this, I remembered that Julie had told me before I came downstairs that she was going to have another race with her friends this holiday, and she was going to cancel the trip we had scheduled a long time ago.

No man would accept with a smile that his wife was having an affair.

I wasn't going to put up with it and wanted to go upstairs and ask Julie about it.

But no sooner had I pushed open the door than I ran into Julie, who had already changed into her full-body running outfit, and who smelled like she had just had a shower and was on her way out the door.

"Remember to mop the floor later, and I'm running late. We're running farther today, so I'm going to be back late."

"Are you going alone?" I didn't give up and wanted to ask again.

"Huh? Yeah, I'll meet up with everyone at our destination." Julie looked at me in surprise. I rarely asked her about her running, and I seemed overly concerned today.

"I don't have to work late tonight, so how about I go with you? I can get some exercise by the way." I got an idea and pretended to turn around to go out with her.

Julie subconsciously stopped me, looking visibly panicked.

"What are you going to do? You don't have any exercise outfit, and you don't even have running shoes. Besides, you're a beginner, and you can't keep up with us with your speed, so nobody wants to take you. If you want to exercise, you should go downstairs and take a walk."

Julie's tone was filled with impatience and dislike.

Maybe Julie was afraid that I was going to stalk her, so she pushed me into the house without saying a word and closed the door to leave.

With Julie's attitude, even if I wanted to show my cards, she certainly wouldn't tell me anything. If it was a mistake, our relationship would be destroyed. In case it was true, I would act rashly.

I decided it would be better for me to follow her first and find out for myself.

Julie didn't pass the civil service exam, so she was now working at a public institution in the city through my family's connections. She just sat in front of the computer in the office every day, which made her back ache.

For the sake of Julie's health, I had encouraged her to exercise after our marriage, but she was so lazy to do housework at home except shopping, not to mention exercising.

About half a year ago, I came home from working overtime and saw Julie and Amanda shopping for running shoes online.

It was rare for me to hear Julie voluntarily say she wanted to exercise, so I supported her greatly, and that was why I readily transferred her money to buy running shoes right away.

At the beginning, Julie would go out with Amanda after dinner for about an hour before coming home.

However, Julie gradually went out for a much longer time.

I asked her out of curiosity, and she explained that she had added a running chat group, and that she would meet her friends in the chat group at a different place every day to run together, so she would be back later.

I thought it would be nice for her to make more friends. Anyway, they would exercise together, so I didn't care too much.

Two months ago, Julie started going to different regions of all over the country with her friends in her chat group to participate in various running races.

They went three times in the last month only, and Julie had spent all of her annual and personal leave.

We had agreed to go on a long trip on these vacations for our honeymoon almost half a year ago.

Although I felt dissatisfied in my mind, I couldn't help that she treated me coldly, and she frequently asked her parents for help, so I had to compromise in the end.

Now she was spending her vacation time alone deciding to run a race without even asking me.

I had to wonder if she hadn't gone on a run with her friends but on a date.

2

As I saw Julie drive the car out of the community downstairs from the window, and my first thought was to find clues in her stuff.

When I checked out Julie's stuff, I realized that her closet was mostly filled with suits for work before, but now almost the entire closet was occupied by a wide variety of sports outfits.

There were long and short sweatshirts in various styles and colors, comparable to the display racks in brand stores.

I randomly took pictures and searched for a few on the Internet, and all of them were expensive. One of her tank tops was made of designer wool and quick-dry material and was worth almost a thousand dollars.

All her workout clothes together were worth several tens of thousands of dollars.

In addition, Julie's shoe closet was also filled with all kinds of brand-name running shoes, totaling more than twenty pairs, and there was no lack of limited edition sneakers that cost nearly ten thousand dollars.

After I did some rough math, I realized that all of her outfits would be more than two hundred thousand dollars together. Was she exercising or participating in a costume show?

Besides, I didn't count Julie's expenses from all the races she had recently participated in around the country.

When did running become a luxury sport?

We just got a normal family, and Julie earned a regular salary of about three thousand and five hundred dollars a month.

As a programmer in a web company, my income was divided into two parts, and I would earn twenty thousand dollars a month on my salary card. Since we got married, I gave it to Julie and told her to save the rest of it for essential expenses after we had a baby.

I just got a few thousand dollars a month on my performance-related bonus card for my daily expenses.

The house we were living in was bought in my father's name before marriage.

My father would finish repaying the loan a few months later, and the monthly deduction was from his provident fund, and the car was fully paid for by me before the marriage.

We didn't have the stress of a mortgage or car payment, so we could have lived quite comfortably in a small city.

Since Julie joined running club, she would always find reasons big or small for me to transfer money to her.

I didn't smoke or drink, and I didn't have any expenses except for the occasional electronics purchase. However, every time Julie wanted to buy something, she would take a screenshot and send it to me, and I would transfer the money to her the next second.

Julie's expenses like this had exceeded our savings for the year in just six months.

I had the car's self-location on my cell phone APP, and I found out that the car didn't travel very far as Julie said it did.

It was parked in a community less than two miles from our house. Could it be that the man Julie was cheating on lived in this community?

Something was wrong, and the truth was right in front of me.

Without even thinking about it, I went out and rode a shared bike and followed the navigation there, and I was going to find out what was going on.

When I was in front of the community by navigation, I saw my car parked in the entrance parking space, with no one in it.

It seemed that Julie had already entered the community. The community wasn't large, but it wouldn't be appropriate for me to find them one by one.

As I was thinking about it, a deliveryman passed by, and I had the bright idea to stop him.

I gave him three hundred dollars to call Julie for me.

I asked the deliveryman to tell her that someone had just been hanging around her car for a long time, and she should come down and see if there was anything wrong with the car.

Julie always concerned about the car. Hearing that the deliveryman could accurately name the license plate number and calling the number she left on the car, she was sure to come down to see what was going on.

The community was small with only four buildings, and I waited in the center garden wearing my coat and hat from the deliveryman.

Not long after, I saw Julie coming out of the unit near the door. She looked flushed, and she zipped up her sport coat as she walked.

Julie pulled her hair out of her collar by the way and cursed under her breath, with a disappointed look on her face for being interrupted from something.

She ran out anxiously while I went in before the door to the unit closed, and I hid in the stairwell and continued to wait.

It didn't take long for Julie to return, and she scolded the deliveryman over the phone for being nosy and blind.

The deliveryman answered on the phone as I had just asked him to and did not reveal anything.

Julie hung up and got into the elevator. I immediately emerged from the stairwell and stared at the LCD monitor as the elevator finally stopped at the twenty-third floor.

I purposely waited a while before going upstairs.

There were three apartments on one floor here, and I was about to check out the property sheets taped to the doors for any clues.

There was a sudden rattling in one of the apartment doors, and I rushed to hide in a side stairwell.

3

"I am flustered, and I feel like something's not quite right all the time. Let's stop it now, and I'll leave first."

It was Julie's voice.

"I think you're just being suspicious, but you're interrupting my pleasure. Anyway, we're going to race, so we'll do it when we leave here. Be careful on the road."

I was also familiar with another voice, which came from Julie's best friend, Amanda.

I silently peeked in to see that it was really the two of them.

Julie was so distracted that she said goodbye to Amanda and went into the elevator, while Amanda turned around and went back inside.

Was this Amanda's apartment?

Julie and I had been married for less than a year, and I had seen Amanda no less than ten times, but we didn't talk much.

I knew from their usual chats that Amanda lived near our house, but I didn't know she lived in this community.

Did Julie just come to see Amanda? Did I misunderstand her?

If it was just an usual meeting between good friends, why would they be sneaky and secretive? Why would Julie lie to me?

I went downstairs in confusion. Watching Julie start her car and drive in the direction of her home, I had to hurry home.

Fortunately, there were a lot of traffic lights, so I rode a shared bike by side roads and arrived home before Julie.

Julie quietly sighed in relief when she saw me sitting at the computer writing code.

"Honey, you didn't go out just now, did you?"