Instead of ingratiating herself to me, she should be capturing the heart of the actual party to the marriage, my grandson. If she couldn’t capture my grandson’s heart, there would be no laughter shared between us.
“That old woman, preaching as if she’s about to die.”
Yu Ri got up abruptly and headed for the table. She picked up the box of traditional snacks she had left so carelessly the day before and flung it towards the door.
Bang, crash. Even after seeing the box of snacks fall to the floor, her anger was not appeased. Yu Ri stomped on it with her slippered foot, gritting her teeth.
On Sunday, called in for an emergency work due to a suddenly rescheduled business trip, Tae Seo was constantly being interrupted from reminiscing about the day he spent with Jae In.
A 3-night, 5-day business trip to Chicago was madness. But no one else was to blame; it was Tae Seo who had caused this predicament.
He had wanted to return to Korea by Saturday, driven by the desire to see Jae In sooner.
Moreover, as the head director of Kang Sun Construction, he had to deal with a pileup of real-time work, and he kept ignoring Amber’s continuous calls, asking what he was plotting, only replying with messages to stop bothering him.
“What a mess.”
Tae Seo was rereading the report Ted had compiled and sent by email. He had to chuckle several times while taking the report over the phone, and now that he was reading it, it was just absurd.
Tae Seo had started a company with Amber, who was studying law at the same university where he was majoring in business administration in the U.S. At that time, he had used part of the inheritance left by his grandfather, and he became engrossed in the fun of nurturing a growing company, delaying his graduation.
However, the fact that he was the co-CEO of E&K, a company specializing in mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, was not known to the world.
Not even his biological father, Chairman Kang Shin Jae, or his grandmother, Madam Lim Hong Jin, knew about it. They thought Tae Seo had just been late graduating because he had been wayward and hadn’t focused on his studies.
Though Tae Seo was now working in Korea as the head director of Kang Sun Construction at the behest of his grandmother, he had no interest in succeeding his father to become the head of the Kang Sun Group.
What era was it to pass down the leadership of a company through inheritance? Besides, it was not Tae Seo’s style to add a spoon to someone else’s table, nor did he have any desire to impress a father he considered inferior.
“What a complete mess.”
Hyunyang Construction was a robust company led by the former chairman 30 years ago. But since the current chairman, Jo Dae Hoon, rolled up his sleeves and proclaimed corporate innovation, the company had begun to falter.
Why was it failing despite the calls for innovation? Puzzled, Tae Seo began gathering information both domestically and internationally, thus accumulating data about Hyunyang Construction over a long time.
“It’s too obvious, not fun at all.”
Tae Seo clicked his tongue and put down his tablet. He had only planned to watch the downfall of one company. Getting entangled with Hyunyang Construction would only complicate things, and there seemed to be no attractive profit in it.
Even when he first learned that Hyunyang Construction’s chairman, Jo Dae Hoon, had abandoned a woman and a daughter who had his child, Tae Seo had dismissed it as the typical messy private life of the wealthy.
He wasn’t one to pursue moral integrity in his dealings. Simply put, if there was money to be made, he would buy at a low price and sell high or break it apart, and if not, he wouldn’t touch it.
But now, Tae Seo couldn’t view Chairman Jo Dae Hoon quite so simply anymore.
However, now Tae Seo could not look at Chairman Jo Dae Hoon so simply.
He was the one who had brought his abandoned daughter back, only to leave her orphaned again without a mother. It was none other than Yoon Jae In he had interfered with. And switching fiancées was a mockery to Tae Seo himself.
“It’s really irritating…”
Narrowing his eyes and tapping the desk with his fingertips, Tae Seo turned his head at the sound of a chime.
“Yes.”
—There’s a call from the main house. It’s Director Lim Hong Jin.
“Put her through.”
Tae Seo stretched his tense shoulders as he stood up. Sitting back at his desk, he straightened the phone, his gaze drifting through the window in the direction where Jae In’s house would be.
—How busy must you be to work even on a Sunday? You’re not taking calls.
“Exactly, busy indeed. Do you think I wanted to come to work today?”
—Don’t make your subordinates suffer just to satisfy your ambition for work.
“I don’t have any ambition for work. And I don’t use them for free. I make sure they are all compensated, so don’t worry.”
—Yesterday, the daughter of Hyunyang Construction’s Chairman Jo visited me.
At Director Lim’s words, one of Tae Seo’s eyebrows arched up. The thought of the woman who had been turned away by him and then sought out his grandmother made a displeased smirk appear on his lips.
—She seemed to want to impress me, but I gave her a cup of tea and sent her away. If she can’t even win over your heart, how does she expect to win mine? Tsk.
Tae Seo’s hand covered one eye, as he grinned, knowing his grandmother’s cold nature and imagining the scene of Yu Ri being dismissed.
—But just a little while ago, there was a call from Chairman Jo of Hyunyang Construction. He said he’d like to visit soon and asked for some time. What should I do?
After a brief pause in thought, Tae Seo replied.
“Please meet with him. But unlike with Jo Yu Ri, don’t send him away. Just humor him enough.”
—Why?
“I want to give him some time to think as he pleases.”
—Why drag it out when you’re going to cut it off eventually?
“It’s necessary.”
It was necessary. Necessary for Jo Dae Hoon to recklessly draw money from here and there with the mere thought of leveraging Kang Sun Group behind him, to let his arrogance run wild. And necessary for Tae Seo to find out whether Jae In wanted revenge or not, to have time to discern her feelings.
Tae Seo, with a lifted corner of his mouth, turned back and lightly tapped the tablet on the table. His eyes, looking at a part of the report on Hyunyang Construction, were utterly cold.
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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