The Wife‘s BMW

When Lao Wang pushed open the door, he wasn't greeted by the aroma of dinner, nor the babbling calls of his son, but by an almost vacuum-like silence. The apartment, this pigeon coop he called "home," seemed unusually empty in the evening twilight, as if space itself had been stripped of something substantial.

On the living room coffee table lay a note. It was in his wife Xiao Li's handwriting, delicate yet carried a decisive finality: "I've taken Lele and left. The car is downstairs. Don't look for us."

Lao Wang's heart sank heavily, not because of the words "left"—after three years of marriage, full of bumps and bruises, the thought had perhaps flickered in both their minds like clouds before a stuffy summer thunderstorm—but because of the abrupt mention of "the car." What car? Their family's only mode of transport was that creaky second-hand electric scooter, whose top speed barely matched the old men doing morning exercises in the park.

He stumbled towards the balcony and looked down. Dusk was settling. In the parking space below, a brand new, gleaming metallic white BMW was glaringly parked there, like a visitor from a parallel universe. Just minutes ago, he distinctly remembered it being empty. Now, there it was, quietly mocking his perception.

This car, along with Xiao Li and their son Lele, had evaporated from his life. Or rather, they, together with this car he had never owned, never even imagined, had constructed an unbelievable incident he couldn't comprehend.

Three years of marriage, the days passed like cans on an assembly line, similar, bland, occasionally with a mislabeled one. Lao Wang worked a mediocre job at a middling company, earning a salary that was just enough to maintain a mediocre life for a family of three in this city. Xiao Li was a full-time housewife, but Lao Wang always felt she was somewhat "not engaged in proper work." She was always busy in front of the computer screen, claiming to be doing something about "online communities," "content monetization." Lao Wang didn't understand, nor did he want to, feeling that all that fancy jargon wasn't as tangible as a hot dinner.

He occasionally complained about not having enough money, about the high housing prices, about the rising cost of their son's imported milk powder. Xiao Li would listen, sometimes in silence, sometimes saying faintly, "There will be bread." Lao Wang thought it was hollow comfort, like the occasional lottery ticket he bought, hoping for an ethereal miracle.

Thinking back now, those conversations seemed viewed through frosted glass. What he saw, what he heard, was perhaps only the version he was willing to see and hear. Within Xiao Li's silence, waves he couldn't imagine might have been surging. The sound of her typing late at night, perhaps it wasn't meaningless noise, but the hammer blows forging that white BMW.

Lao Wang collapsed onto the sofa, the air in the room seeming to grow thinner. He looked around: the wedding photo on the wall, Xiao Li smiling somewhat stiffly; their son's building blocks scattered on the floor, colorful, like so many unplaceable question marks. He even began to wonder, had these three years been a long dream? Or, an elaborately set stage, where the actors had now exited with the key prop, leaving only him, the audience, in the empty theater?

He thought of Borges' garden of forking paths, the mirrors and labyrinths. Had his life also taken a wrong turn? Was the woman who shared his bed every night hiding a maze he had never glimpsed, perhaps composed of countless Xiao Lis he couldn't understand? Was that BMW an exit, or another entrance?

On impulse, he picked up his phone and scrolled through Xiao Li's Moments feed. Her feed was very "clean," mostly pictures of their son, occasionally interspersed with vague inspirational quotes. But just a week ago, there was a photo, the background seemingly a pantry in a high-end office building, captioned: "A new beginning." He had glanced at it then, assuming she was attending some boring online course again. Looking back now, it might have been a signal he had completely missed.

He tried calling Xiao Li's number. Off. Expected, yet it felt like a dull knife slowly grating on his nerves.

The sound of a car engine starting came from downstairs. Lao Wang shot up as if electrocuted, rushing to the balcony. It wasn't the BMW. An ordinary family sedan drove away from the complex. The world continued its routine operation, as if the collapse within him was merely a silent pantomime.

He suddenly remembered something. Last month, they argued over a trivial matter. He accused Xiao Li of wasting money, buying a pile of "course materials" he didn't understand. Xiao Li didn't argue much, just looked at him with complex eyes and said, "Lao Wang, what you see isn't necessarily the whole picture." At the time, he just felt irritated, waving her off dismissively.

Now, that sentence echoed in his mind like a mantra.

He needed an answer. Not to salvage anything, but to confirm that his existence over the past three years wasn't a joke. He began searching the apartment like a clumsy detective. Drawers, cupboards, under the bed... besides dust and some forgotten trinkets, he found nothing.

Just as he was about to give up, inside a particularly thick childcare encyclopedia on the bookshelf, he discovered a hidden compartment. Inside, there was no letter, no photo, only a single sheet of A4 paper printed out.

It wasn't the farewell letter he imagined, but a detailed business plan. Project Name: "'Li' Means Instant Monetization—Commercial Operation of a Highly-Educated Moms' Community." Initiator: Li Xiaoli (Xiao Li's full name). Below were dense market analyses, profit models, funding requirements, and even a term sheet for an angel investment round. The investor was a VC firm he had only heard of in financial news. Appended to the end of the plan was proof of assets, the long string of zeros after the account balance was enough to buy several BMWs like the one downstairs.

The paper of the business plan was slightly worn, its edges frayed, clearly flipped through countless times. The date indicated that the initial draft of this plan had begun shortly after they got married.

Lao Wang held the paper, his hand trembling slightly. So, her "dabbling," those "online communities" he scoffed at, had actually blossomed and borne fruit? And he, the man who fancied himself the head of the household, knew nothing about it, even complaining about milk powder money on the eve of her success.

That BMW hadn't fallen from the sky, nor did it come from some unsavory source; she had earned it herself. She left with the child and the car, not because he was poor, but because he was "blind." He had never truly seen her, never tried to understand the effort and struggle behind her words, "There will be bread."

He remembered Xiao Li's last words: "The car is downstairs. Don't look for us."

The white BMW parked downstairs, in his eyes now, was no longer a cold steel monster, nor a symbol mocking his incompetence. It was like a giant mirror, clearly reflecting his self-imposed mediocrity and deep-seated arrogance over the past three years. He thought he was the pillar supporting the family, unaware that she, beside him, had silently built an edifice he couldn't imagine.

Lao Wang leaned weakly against the balcony railing, looking at the BMW still dazzling in the night below. It truly felt like a visitor from a parallel universe, a universe that should have had a place for both him and Xiao Li, but he had been locked out by his own short-sightedness and stubbornness.

The air seemed to retain the faint scent of the cheap shampoo Xiao Li used, mixed with an unfamiliar aroma belonging to wealth and freedom. He didn't know where Xiao Li would go, or if they would ever return. He only knew that the familiar world he knew, built of daily necessities and complaints, had utterly collapsed. And upon the ruins, a new reality, full of unknowns and irony, was slowly unfolding.

Perhaps, the real labyrinth wasn't created by Xiao Li, but was the prison of perception he had drawn for himself. What he had lost wasn't his wife, but the chance to see the truth. Outside the window, the city lights glittered like countless indifferent eyes, watching this man who had just lost his entire world.