Chapter 24
Ask anyone who has ever received a dying wish, but there are few places more dangerous than a chair within earshot of a deathbed.
Yet unafraid, Tingting Fang sat next to her dying father, listening to the uncertain beep of the machine hooked up to his
heart. She had sat there for days, waiting to see if he would wake, waiting to hear what he would say. Big Boss Fang was as
still as the vacuum of space, without even the flutter of an eyelash or the tremor of a lip. He was as unmovable as he was
in life, even as he approached eternity.
At some point during the quiet of night, Tingting began to weep. Tears rolled down her cheeks, dotting the white linen on
the bed like the inverse of a constellation, surprising her upon sight. She could not remember the last time she cried. Frustrated
at herself, she buried her face in her hands, as if trying to push the silly, useless tears back into her eyes.
Don’t cry.
With a gasp she looked up and stared directly into her father’s eyes, the milky-brown eyes she hadn’t seen in months. You are awake!
Why are you crying? Big Boss Fang slurred, his words rusty from disuse.
She wiped her eyes quickly, her heart leaping at his recognition of her. I am not crying. I am just happy to see you.
How long have I been asleep?
She leaned forward to grasp his cold hands, bringing them carefully to her cheek, hoping to warm them. Don’t worry about that. Just stay with me a while.
With a jerk he pulled back, bringing her closer to him, his eyes widened with alarm as though in pain. There isn’t time. I need to go soon, he whispered hoarsely.
Stay calm, Tingting urged, trying to rise. I will go fetch your nurse.
Her father shook his head, tightening his grip around her hands with surprising strength, the last that he had. Sit still and listen!
Obediently, she relented and stilled. I am listening.
The old man was breathing through his final throes, his chest heaving in undulating waves. What you and I planned, is it in motion?
Tingting was stunned, but erased it from her face. Yes, she quickly lied, realizing that the shocking conversation they’d had all those years ago was not the fantasy of an old
man’s fading mind.
Big Boss Fang was talking about his eldest grandchild and her firstborn, Felicia Sun.
A mother always knows, and Tingting Fang always knew that Felicia would be lucky.
At twenty-two, Tingting had been forced into an arranged marriage with George Sun for the sole purpose of producing a baby boy. As the eldest of her generation, the unhappy bride’s role was to pacify the tensions between their clans after the dissolution of Sun & Fang Constructions.
Their patriarchs, despite being sworn blood brothers who had served as soldiers together, had fallen out over disputed visions
for the future. Upon erecting Sunfang Global, Big Boss Sun then ousted Big Boss Fang from the company that their grandfathers
had built together, effectively shutting out the Fangs from the glory and fortune they were supposed to share with the Suns.
Young George, a bookish loner who had inherited none of his father’s fire, was offered as a consolation prize to the Fangs.
On paper, it seemed viable. Someday George would receive the company from Big Boss Sun, and the eldest boy he had with Tingting
would be heir to the vast wealth that the families had accumulated together, called the Sunfang Trust. With this arrangement,
the Fang Clan could save face.
Tingting did not want to marry George, but no one bothered asking her. On her wedding night, Big Boss Fang kissed her tear-streaked
face. Daughters have saved their clans many times throughout history, he whispered. No one is asking you to construct a city, just to have a baby.
So when Tingting found out the sex of her first child, she was secretly overjoyed. Here she was, a powerless young woman caught
in a power play between her father and her father-in-law, two titans who had rebuilt China after the Revolution. Yet as powerful
as the patriarchs were, all their manful tactics were felled by the arrival of an innocent little girl.
Where others saw disappointment, Tingting saw irrepressible auspiciousness. She named her firstborn Felicia, meaning “lucky.”
Tingting was not worried about having a son. She and George were both young, and a boy would come eventually, she figured.
What Tingting did not anticipate, though, was the cunning of her eldest sister-in-law, Roses Sun.
When Roses struck, it was like a thunderbolt.
Tingting was raising her two daughters, Felicia and Lola, in Shanghai, where Sunfang Global had been headquartered under George’s
leadership. The shattering announcement that Big Boss Sun would be firing George as president and allowing Roses to create
the new position of CEO seemingly came out of nowhere.
Tingting would find out later on just how sinisterly Roses had orchestrated their downfall. The eldest Sun sister had hired
fortune tellers and numerologists to toss coins and draw charts demonstrating to Big Boss Sun that Tingting and George’s union
was inauspicious, and most devastatingly, would never yield a boy. Roses had weaponized Tingting’s daughters against her and
the Fang Clan, and George was too spineless to stop her.
It is unknown to this day how seriously Big Boss Sun took these divinations. But Roses did not stop with superstitions—like
a serpent’s tongue, her merciless attack was two-pronged. She also tapped George’s work phones and spied on him, undermining
him at Sunfang Global by highlighting his weaknesses as a leader, and portraying herself as the superior alternative. This,
Big Boss Sun took as deadly serious. Never truly confident in his timid son’s abilities, Big Boss Sun was swayed by his ferocious
eldest daughter’s wiles, and consequently handed her the company.
Like it had been with her marriage, Tingting was a voiceless victim in all this, collateral damage to these intrigues. But
she knew that she had failed the Fang Clan, and that Roses Sun had played them all for fools.
Adding insult to injury, it was around this time that Tingting was becoming aware that there was something different about
Felicia.
Big Boss Fang was breathing his final throes, his chest heaving in undulating waves. What you and I planned, is it in motion?
When Tingting’s father had walked in on a teenage Felicia alone in her room wearing George’s business clothes, the old patriarch
might not have given it a second thought—children playing dress-up is play as old as time. But it had been the terrified look
on Felicia’s face that had given Big Boss Fang pause: In that instant of getting caught, his eldest grandchild’s face had
gone from one of pure bliss to a secret shame.
Tingting had been mortified when her father confronted her about what he had seen. Ever since discovering the truth about
Felicia, Tingting had forced her daughter to hide it, dressing her in feminine outfits and painting her with girlish makeup.
As a result, Felicia had been withdrawn and awkward, even among her otherwise close-knit cousins, who grew up considering
her an afterthought.
As Tingting stammered through explanations to her father, Big Boss Fang raised his hand to stop her. If this is indeed our eldest’s true identity, he said, Felicia may be the answer to saving our clan.
And then Big Boss Fang detailed an audacious plot that stunned Tingting.
Big Boss Fang and Big Boss Sun died stricken by the same neurological disease, both poisoned by inhaling toxic asbestos together
for much of their earlier lives working in construction. But that was the only other intersection of their fates.
Where Big Boss Sun left this earth a billionaire, with innumerable accolades and buildings bearing his name, Big Boss Fang
died poor and forgotten, a few years after his former business partner. Not a single member of the Sun Clan came to the Fang
patriarch’s funeral, save for Felicia, accompanying Tingting in her grief.
As she watched her father be lowered into the ground, Tingting thought about the hateful Suns—how they had hijacked her family’s honor and pillaged her father’s legacy.
She clenched her fists so tightly that her nails cut into her skin.
When she threw dirt onto her father’s casket, it was clotted with her blood.
But Tingting also knew that the Sun Clan, as messy as they were, had a bastion of fortitude in their matriarch. How could
she fulfill her father’s audacious plan against their rival clan with the formidable Roses Sun at the helm? Silently she despaired,
unsure of how to proceed.
As Tingting and Felicia left the gravesite, a velvety British voice called out to them.
“Auntie Tingting.”
They turned to an extraordinarily pretty young man in a simple but elegant black Tang suit.
“You will not recognize me, Auntie Tingting,” the young man said. “But I am your nephew Galahad. I was sent by the Fangs to
assist you.”
Galahad! Tingting gasped. How you’ve grown!
“Auntie, I was grown for the very purpose of taking down Roses Sun,” Galahad replied. “And to help you reclaim the fortune
that was always meant to be ours.”
“How will we do that?” Tingting asked.
His dark bedroom eyes narrowed. “She bested us with superstition and espionage. We will use her own poisons against her.”
As Tingting pondered what he had said, Galahad Fang then set his sights upon Felicia. “Cousin Felicia,” he purred. “Are you
ready to reclaim your birthright?”
That very night, Tingting broke into her husband George’s home office to access the Sunfang phones, instantly tapping into
every conversation between the Sun Clan. From that moment on, she and Galahad began to plot the rebirth of Felicia Sun.
“Hello, family,” said Fenix Sun.
From her vantage point, a triumphant Tingting Fang watched as each of the Sun Clan beheld her son, Fenix, the incarnation
of her late father’s audacious plan that had been years in the making.