"Our bro and Qingqing used to be neighbors, and they grew up together. They've known each other for many years, and he worked so hard to get her into bed with him. And then, what does he do? He dumps her in the end? To think that I'd always assumed that she would be our sister-in-law."
...
Gu Qingcheng didn't return to the event. She sat alone in her car, mulling over Tang Shi's parting words in her head.
"Spend one day with me every month, and I'll let you join Sheng Tang as an employee."
"Same arrangement as before: you'll come to see me on the tenth day of every month. However, what will be different is that in the past you came to keep me company, but now I want you to sleep with me."
Gu Qingcheng didn't know if children from other families were all born with a mission. All she knew was that as a daughter of the Gu family, she had responsibilities.
Sheng Tang Company controlled an expansive network of businesses, with many of those businesses dependent on Sheng Tang for survival. And the Gu family were the proprietors of one such company.
In the upper echelons of the business world, a marriage was often regarded as an alliance with strings attached, commonly known as a marriage of convenience.
That was why many of the family-run companies, wanting to consolidate their positions in the business world and thereby amass more wealth, all chose to be associated with the Tang family through marriage.
Since the Tang family had many members, a marriage of convenience with one of them, not even necessarily a direct successor of Sheng Tang, would be a great boost to one's family business.
However, the Gu family hadn't been lucky in that respect because all the offspring of Gu Zhengnan's generation had been male and the Tangs had also only produced male offspring. Therefore, the Gu family could only stand by and watch as their business rivals formed marriage alliances with members of the Tang family while the Gu family business started on a gradual decline.
In Gu Qingcheng's generation, even more boys had been born. When the eagerly awaited girl, Gu Qingcheng, was born, plans were already in motion within the Gu family, who had all joined forces to map out her entire life by getting her married into the Tang family.
In the beginning, the Gus had not expected Gu Qingcheng to be married to a direct successor of the Sheng Tang Company, but, as it turned out, the Tangs had not produced many offspring in her generation. Also, most of the Tang offspring in Qingqing's generation had been girls who wouldn't have wanted to marry into the Gu family anyway. Among the few male offspring that they had managed to discover, some were already engaged to be married, while others were either too old or too young for Gu Qingcheng.
Ultimately, after much consideration, they figured out that the only target for a marriage of convenience for Gu Qingcheng was Tang Shi.
From a very young age, Gu Qingcheng had been primed by the Gu family toward a single state of mind.
That state of mind comprised three conditions:
Condition #1: She must like whatever Tang Shi liked.
Condition #2: She must do her utmost to please Tang Shi.
Condition #3: She must marry Tang Shi.
It was as though, throughout her entire life, she'd existed only because of and for Tang Shi. From a very young age, everything that occurred in her life was related to Tang Shi.
For example, Tang Shi liked the color blue; he disliked desserts; he preferred girls with long hair; he drank unsweetened coffee; he disliked the smell of perfume; the temperature of the air-conditioner must be set to 77 degrees Fahrenheit when he slept…
Needless to say, the Gu family had invested heavily in her upbringing, making her learn the piano, painting, calligraphy, music, and dancing. It didn't matter to them if she liked learning everything that they had arranged for her, as long as she excelled at them.
Since the Gu family had given her life, she had the responsibility to safeguard her family's interests. The responsibility for the entire fortune of the Gu family was thus placed squarely on her shoulders.
That was why she had no other choice but to comply.
Moreover, she had been conditioned from when she was a little girl to focus only on one goal and that was to marry Tang Shi and become a good first lady of the Tang family. Thus, if she abandoned this goal, the reason for her life would cease to exist.