Chapter 8
After the divorce, Madam left the mansion with the Young Miss and me.
Before walking away, she looked back.
“Mrs. Wang, life is a strange thing.”
“With a single choice, I could spend my whole life as a resentful woman trapped in a secluded mansion—or I could become the CEO who points the market toward its next trend.”
I smiled.
“Madam, it only depends on whom you entrust with your fate and your energy.”
“Mrs. Wang is right. Your fate and your energy belong in your own hands.”
Bai Qingqing appeared from nowhere, linked one arm through mine and the other through Madam’s.
“I didn’t come to break you apart. I came to join you.”
Madam flew into a rage. “Get lost, Pastry Queen!”
Bai Qingqing refused to back down. “Shut up, Maternity Mogul!”
I hurried to mediate.
“All right, all right. The three of us could simply live together.”
Madam and Bai Qingqing stared at me.
Perhaps it would now be more appropriate to call them Miss Liu Jiangjiang and Miss Bai Qingqing.
They both accepted my proposal.
Together, we walked toward a new home and a new life.
Extra 1
Mr. Fu enjoyed sitting outside General Manager Liu Jiangjiang’s office building and drinking coffee.
He looked melancholy and forlorn.
He hoped the sight would attract her attention.
Unfortunately, General Manager Liu never passed that way.
Our company director did.
Drawn to Mr. Fu’s melancholy, lonely air, the director bravely made the first move.
“Hello. I’ve seen you sitting here for days. Has something upsetting happened?”
“My family of origin was unhappy too, and my life has always been filled with things that push me to the edge. You can talk to me.”
At long last, the lonely CEO had found someone willing to listen. Tears gleamed in his eyes as he spent three hours describing his past, his first love, his wife, his wounds…
The director sympathized deeply.
“That’s infuriating. How could they treat you like that? I think you’re a very special boy. There is something unique about you that draws me in. You’re different from everyone else. I can tell you’re the kind of man who swallows his pain, who is always kind to women and is always deceived by them.”
The CEO’s eyes filled with tears.
“Brother, you understand me.”
The director shook his head and laid a hand on the CEO’s thigh.
“No. I’m here to cherish you, baby.”
Incidentally, our director was a man well over six feet tall.
Men always found it easier to empathize with other men.
Extra 2
On the Young Miss’s fourth birthday, Ms. Liu Jiangjiang gave her a new name.
“Fu Ziling—the surname Fu is no good.”
“It has bound all of us.”
“From now on, your name will be Liu Ziling.”
I applauded wildly. “It sounds wonderful!”
Ms. Bai Qingqing, tipsy from wine, applauded as well.
“It does. Much better than my name.”
“Mine was so carelessly chosen. The same character repeated twice, that’s all.”
Ms. Liu nodded in agreement.
Then both women turned to me.
“Mrs. Wang, what is your real name?”
I backed away hastily.
“Come to think of it, Mrs. Wang really is mysterious.”
“Exactly. How did you know my name that day we made pastries?”
“And your ideas are so far ahead of everyone else’s.”
“Mrs. Wang, where did you go to school? How did you end up in the Fu household? Where is your family?”
In a panic, I raised my glass.
“Drink, drink.”
They refused to let the matter go. I could only sigh.
“Let me tell you a story.”
“Once, there was a girl who was in high school when domineering-CEO romances were the hottest kind of novel.”
“In those stories, the tall, handsome, extraordinary male lead loved the heroine and no one else.”
“Authors often used supporting women as foils for the heroine.”
“One woman’s foolishness existed to demonstrate another woman’s wisdom.”
“One woman would be rejected by the male lead to prove his devotion to the heroine.”
“The jealousy, infighting, and vicious schemes between women existed to showcase the man’s charm.”
“It was as though a man’s gaze and approval were the only measures of a woman’s worth.”
“The girl loved those stories.”
“And she accepted those values without question.”
“Even with an utterly ordinary boy in her class, she wanted proof that he treated her differently from the other girls.”
“She needed it to prove that she was special, beautiful, and valuable.”
“Reality could not satisfy her, so she began writing fiction.”
“In her first novel, she wanted to give her heroine the best of everything.”
“So she gave her a handsome husband who was the richest man in the country.”
“When the heroine fled while pregnant, her wealthy husband even chased her across the world.”
“As the author, this fed the girl’s fantasies and vanity.”
“Soon that was no longer enough. She introduced a supporting woman as the hero’s first love and had her make trouble at every turn.”
“Even when the hero ended up in bed with that woman and swore eternal love to her, it only existed to add drama and torment the heroine.”
“Then the heroine could appear even kinder and more lovable.”
“But as the girl kept writing, she found she could no longer continue.”
“The family members who loved her most—her mother and grandmother—were women.”
“Her best friend was a woman.”
“The teacher she respected was a woman.”
“Why, then, did she keep portraying the supporting woman as malicious?”
“Why did she make her heroine pitiful?”
“Why was the hero supposedly forced to lie even when he slept with another woman?”
“Did she truly love her heroine?”
“She had chosen the heroine’s reduplicated name without a thought, yet she had searched through dictionaries and ancient verse for the hero’s name.”
“She no longer understood herself.”
“Later, she had a dream.”
“In it, the heroine wept every day in an empty mansion, exhausting herself for the smallest scrap of the hero’s love.”
“The supporting woman carried the hero’s child and gloated before the heroine, exhausting herself in turn to win even more of his love.”
“It was as if a man’s affection were the sole purpose of both their lives.”
“The heroine grew old, day by day, and then her daughter became the new heroine.”
“The cycle repeated forever, reinforcing men’s secure position at the center of society.”
“The girl woke from that dream.”
“And found herself inside the novel as Mrs. Wang 2.0.”
“She made the heroine the breakfast she used to eat before becoming Madam.”
“With tears in her eyes, Madam said, ‘Mrs. Wang, you’re an amazing cook.’”
“‘I haven’t eaten food like this in so long.’”
“Later, Madam woke up.”
“The first love was trapped in the game and did not know how to leave it.”
“The girl told her a few ordinary truths—truths that many women had never been allowed to hear.”
“And the first love woke up too.”
“The girl believed they changed so quickly because when she first created them, she had written them as kind and resilient.”
“Like so many women in this world, they had always been good people.”
“They only needed a little strength to open their eyes.”
Just as tens of millions of women walking at the front of a new age had opened mine.