Luo Xingchen laughed with a ‘haha’: “Of course there’s no need to say that. If I didn’t have good eyes, how could I have dared to work with you?”
In the past, Luo Xingchen had actually always thought pretty highly of herself. After all, the elder brother who was always suppressing her didn’t have any skills to speak of, while she, a girl, was a much more competent businesswoman. Because of that, she couldn’t help but feel that she was different from regular people, someone destined to stand out.
However, meeting Su Tang caused Luo Xingchen to put away that budding arrogance. After all, Su Tang was just a small peasant girl but Luo Xinchen didn’t feel she was any wiser or better at business than that same peasant girl.
In the past, Luo Xingchen had always felt that she was a rare and special kind of woman in this world, but after she met Su Tang she felt as if she was actually weaker than she wanted to admit because much of what she was doing was only possible for her to do on the premise that she was a ‘man’, and many of her thoughts and ideas were borrowed from that identity.
But Su Tang was different. She had her own set of values and morals and her own bottom line. And, most importantly, she was a person who knew what she wanted and who was able to use her smarts and competence to chase after that goal without lowering herself to act or think as a ‘man’.
Su Tang would never hide her identity as a woman. Instead, she would just firmly declare: ‘Who says that women aren’t as good as men?’ to anyone who doubts her. That was the confidence of a real woman, or maybe it was just the confidence of a naturally confident person and had nothing to do with gender.
Luo Xingchen recognized the other girl’s impressive bearing and temperament, but at the same time, she knew that it would take a long time for her to be able to reach that level herself.
At the same time, Luo Xingchen admitted to herself that meeting Su Tang wasn’t just something as simple as meeting another good business partner. Meeting her had shed some light on doubts that she had been having about herself and her own path that she had been having for a long time. Until recently she hadn’t known what path would be right for her, and if she had wondered if she should just continue spending her entire life becoming a successful ‘man’.
But once she met Su Tang she discovered that the doubts that had plagued her in the past were fundamentally wrong from the very beginning. Her truth path was to peel off this shell of gender and achieve the career she wanted despite whatever odds, and that would be what she would consider real success.
With that realization, Luo Xingchen was no longer so entangled in her doubts. She now felt that she should just work hard on her career and one day her achievements would be able to break through the shackles of gender and force society to recognize her.
While Luo Xingchen was lost in her musings, Su Tang smiled and pointed at the place she had suggested for the factory and asked, “This place is surrounded by mountains on three sides, with only one road that leads to the outside. Who was so talented to buy such a ‘good’ piece of land?”
The piece of land selected by Luo Xingchen was actually kind of terrible thinking normally. It was a little outside of Qingyuan County and was surrounded by mountains on three sides. It’s only advantage was that it had a road that led to Qingyuan County that was relatively smooth and well-mantained.
“I don’t remember. Some idiot gave it to me a while ago.” Luo Xingchen thought about it carefully but found that she really didn’t remember when this piece of land had fallen into her hands.
Su Tang was speechless at that reply, “Second Young Master Luo is truly a local tyrant!”
Luo Xingchen blinked and put on an aggrieved expression when she heard Su Tang’s jab. “I’m not, I’m really not. This reputation has nothing to do with me, okay? It’s just that I don’t like people getting close to me, for obvious reasons, so I warned some people a bit harshly back when I was first starting out and Luo Xinghe deliberately used that opportunity to blow things up and ruin my image. He did it because he was afraid that my father would try to pair me with some powerful in-laws if he could.”
After denying up and down for a while, Luo Xingchen eventually explained that, after all, she was a girl and couldn’t let that secret be found out, so she had to find various ways to keep people away from her so she wouldn’t have to worry about her secret being found out.
Because of that, she had a reputation for being eccentric ever since she was a child and, when she grew up a bit and started to do business, people would sometimes see her extremely good looks and have some other thoughts. Whenever she encountered that kind of situation, she had no choice but to fiercely correct those bad thoughts and, before she knew it, her bad reputation had already been cemented.
Her brother Luo Xinghe was actually already married, but he still didn’t have a son, so he was very worried. After all, his ‘brother’ was already more competent than him, so if he married a woman from a powerful family and had a son it would really put Luo Xinghe in a dangerous position.
