“You know I thought when I came back from overseas, my life will be happier than what I have in a foreign land. Here, I have my family and just waiting for the wedding ceremony to be held so I’ll finally become Madam Sun. How wrong I was.” Tang Lingfei looked away from Lu Xinyi in shame.
She wondered if the young woman would hate her upon learning what she’d done. Would she find her repulsive just like Sun Meixiu did when she learned the truth?
She tried to gauge her granddaughter’s reaction, but she found none. Lu Xinyi’s cold, impa.s.sive face had made it hard for her to read her.
“I a.s.sume the wedding was postponed?” Lu Xinyi asked.
The old woman nodded. “Not only once but thrice. Sun Liuxian… I mean your grandfather used several reasons and tactics to delay it.”
“He’s not my grandfather,” Lu Xinyi said with annoyance. A hypocrite man like Sun Liuxian didn’t deserve to become her grandfather. Somewhere in her mind, she could guess that the reason why the old man wanted her back to the Sun family was that she was the only legitimate heiress he had and out of guilt over Sun Meixiu’s death.
However, for Lu Xinyi, any material possessions and wealth could never be enough to compensate what she’d lost and suffered.
Tang Lingfei smiled, but her eyes weren’t smiling with it. She understood what Lu Xinyi meant, and she couldn’t blame her for it.
“So what happened then?” her granddaughter inquired. There must be something suspicious if Chairman Sun kept stalling the marriage.
“I thought it was all because the Sun Corp was facing a problem and agreed to his request. I must be really stupid to believe him.” Tang Lingfei laughed at her stupidity. Thinking about it, it was clear that the man was starting to have a fall-out with her and didn’t want to marry her any longer.
“Since the wedding wouldn’t happen anytime soon, I decided to focus on my work as the newest director of procurement for Griffin Entertainment. I worked hard and poured everything I had to help my brother run the company better than what our parents did.
“It was hard to find amazing and rare talents in the crowd, and I was struggling to find the next superstar of Griffin Entertainment until Sun Liuxian invited me out for dinner one night.”
Unbeknownst to her, it was the start of lies and betrayal. The start of never-ending revenge between her and Sun Liuxian.
“He brought me into this fancy restaurant and enjoyed a nice dinner with him. I didn’t think so hard why he was familiar with the place. He seemed distracted. He looked around… everywhere as if he was looking for someone until a songstress stepped up on the stage and performed.”
“Who is it?” Lu Xinyi blurted out, out of curiosity.
“Her name is s.h.i.+ Yimu…” Tang Lingfei swallowed the lump in her throat and stared at Lu Xinyi, with her eyes filled with sorrow and pain. “She’s the other woman in our relations.h.i.+p, the mother of his illegitimate children…”
She started to sob quietly as she narrated how her husband played with her feelings to help s.h.i.+ Yimu.
“As I told you earlier, I was in need to find the next talent we could groom as the next face of Griffin Entertainment. s.h.i.+ Yimu just hit all the criteria we needed. She’s five-foot-seven, willowy, and a face cut right from the pages of a magazine.
“s.h.i.+ Yimu wasn’t beautiful in a cla.s.sical way: no flowing golden curls or jade-like skin, no piercing eyes of black ink. She was shorter than average and certainly larger than a catwalk model, but she was stunning. Something radiated from within that rendered her irresistible to both genders. Men desired her, and women wanted her companions.h.i.+p. It was no wonder Sun Liuxian fell for her.”
It was easy for Lu Xinyi to put the pieces in place and understand what her wretched grandfather did. He used Tang Lingfei for s.h.i.+ Yimu’s advantage. She said nothing and listened to her story with undivided attention.
“Such a naive woman that I was. I thought I hit the jackpot when I met s.h.i.+ Yimu. I forgot my date and pursued her… convinced her to sign under Griffin Entertainment and I’ll help her to become a popular star in show business.”
s.h.i.+ Yimu signed under Griffin Entertainment, and Tang Lingfei busied herself to find appropriate projects and promotions for her. Under Tang Lingfei’s supervision, the seemingly ordinary songstress she found in a desolate restaurant easily became known as one of the rising stars of Griffin Entertainment. She was so busy that she almost forgot that she had to discuss the details of their marriage preparations with her fiance.
However, when Tang Lingfei went to visit Sun Liuxian, she stumbled on a secret she wasn’t prepared to discover. There, at the dim-lit side of the parking lot of the Sun Corp, she found her fiance in a lip lock, making out with her star, s.h.i.+ Yimu.
“You discovered the affair then?” Lu Xinyi’s question made the old woman’s eyes teared up from the memory.
She nodded but didn’t continue her story.
The only thing they could hear was the wind from the outside, shaking the windows of the study. Lu Xinyi eyed her grandmother.
Based on her story, there are several routes she could think of why Lady Tang still ended up being the Madam Sun while s.h.i.+ Yimu became the mistress and mother of Chairman Sun’s three children out of wedlock.
Naturally, Tang Lingfei was hurt by the betrayal of the two. One was her fiance while the other one was the woman she helped to rise to stardom.
“I’m not sure what happened, but let me take a guess, Lady Tang. Did you blackmail Chairman Sun using this s.h.i.+ Yimu?”
Tang Lingfei didn’t know if she should be impressed with her granddaughter’s way of thinking. Even her daughter Meixiu wasn’t as calm as Lu Xinyi when she confessed these things to her.
“Yes, I did. Not only I used s.h.i.+ Yimu against him but also the fate of the Sun Corp. I was his benefactor back then. The Sun Corp wouldn’t get where they are today if it wasn’t for me.” The old woman moved her wheelchair towards the window to watch the snowfall.
The coldness seeping from the outside couldn’t be compared to the coldness that bloomed in her heart that day. She hated s.h.i.+ Yimu with a huge pa.s.sion. Her presence buzzed around her like a fly that she could not swat. She had her fiance wrapped around her finger. She had everything.
Then, there was her. Used and abused by the man she thought who loved and respected her. No wonder Sun Liuxian brought her to that place to let her see s.h.i.+ Yimu.
Seeing him with another woman turned her into a person she couldn’t even recognize. She plotted against s.h.i.+ Yimu, ruining her face in the process, and earning a deep hatred from Sun Liuxian.
In the end, the innocent fiancee became the evil villainess of someone else’s love story. However, if Sun Liuxian didn’t play, used the Tang family, and trampled her heart; would she turn out this way?
“Tang Lingfei, you better not regret marrying me because I’ll make sure you’ll never be happy being Madam Sun!”