I Heard You Liked Me First - Chapter 1

The death of the Gu family patriarch should have been a major event, but to the old Madam Gu, her son’s death barely stirred her heart.

Her name was Su Mingfang, and all her attention was fixed on her youngest son.

She had given birth to two sons and one daughter in her lifetime, but only her youngest son had given her a biological grandson. In her eyes, that meant the Gu family’s legacy would ultimately belong to him. The deceased elder son’s death, therefore, was not a tragedy it was an opportunity, clearing the path for her grandson’s future.

Unfortunately, her youngest son, Gu Hongkang, was a good for nothing a frivolous man with no ambition to manage the Gu Group at all.

“I’m busy every day, Mom. How could I possibly have time to manage the company? Isn’t Chi An already doing a great job? Just leave everything to her.”

Su Mingfang frowned.

“Even if Chi An is capable, she’s still a woman. The company can’t possibly be handed to a woman, especially an outsider. Besides, you know what her relationship with your brother was like. Who knows how many connections she’s already taken from him? If you don’t keep your guard up now and let her ‘help’ you, who’s to say the company won’t fall completely into her hands later?”

Gu Hongkang swallowed at the mention of Chi An’s name. That woman was unlike any he had ever met beautiful, sharp, with a kind of mature allure that drew men in. Though she was already past thirty, she was in her prime perfectly stunning, yet carrying a cold indifference that only made him want to conquer her more.

A tempting thought crept into his mind.

“Mom, since she was so loyal to big brother and helped him willingly, if I make her mine, wouldn’t she help me the same way?”

Chi An had been the elder brother’s lover. It was never publicly acknowledged, but everyone in their social circle knew.

The idea of his brother’s woman ending up with him so soon after the funeral was indecent but Su Mingfang couldn’t ignore Chi An’s competence.

If the affair were to become public, she could simply claim Chi An seduced her son. That way, neither the family’s reputation nor her son’s image would suffer.

Su Mingfang finally nodded.

“Don’t rush it. I’ll have someone bring her over first. Let her continue helping you manage the company.”

Gu Hongkang smirked, his tone vulgar.

“Fine. I can work with that kind of arrangement.”

Meanwhile, Chi An stood before a black coffin.

Inside lay Gu Hongfu, the recently deceased patriarch of the Gu family.

People said she was his mistress, but that wasn’t true.

She had stayed by his side all those years and helped him not for love, but for a shared purpose: to return the Gu Group to the rightful heir, the daughter of Gu Hongfu’s late wife.

The Gu family had built its empire by bleeding that woman’s family dry. Without her dowry and her family’s assets, the Gu Group would have been nothing.

Gu Hongfu’s death had come suddenly. Before he passed, he left Chi An with his final words:

“Bring Nan Nan back. This company and everything the Gu family owns was built from what her mother gave me. Her mother’s gone now, and all of this should go back to her.
I wanted to do it myself before I died, so I could face her with some dignity. But I guess a man like me doesn’t deserve peace. I’ll die full of regret.
How can I face her? I stole everything from her family, listened to my mother, and even drove her out of this house. She must hate me. How could I ever face her again?”

Chi An had said nothing in response because he was right. The Gu family’s sins were unforgivable, and he didn’t deserve comfort.

Still, his final wish aligned perfectly with her own.

The Gu Group and its wealth didn’t belong to the Gu family. Whether or not Gu Hongfu lived, Chi An would make sure everything went back to Gu Nan, the daughter of that wronged woman.

Countless memories flickered through her mind, but her face remained expressionless, her back perfectly straight as if nothing in this world could bend her.

Only the faintest trace of sorrow glimmered deep in her eyes.

A knock came at the door. She turned, voice calm and cool.

“What is it?”

She wore a tailored black pantsuit. Her chestnut curls framed her pale face, the sharp line of her eyeliner accentuating her cold, exquisite beauty. The contrast of red lips against her porcelain skin made her look almost inhuman like a vampire, beautiful and untouchable.

The man at the door shivered slightly before bowing.

“Assistant Chi, Madam Su requests your presence.”

Chi An nodded once. She cast one last glance at the coffin before following him out.

Old Madam Su Mingfang was a sharp-tongued, ruthless woman one who valued men over women to the extreme.

Even after her son’s death, she hadn’t once visited the mourning hall. Her only concern was whether her younger son could take over the Gu Group.

They hadn’t told Chi An any of this, but she knew. She always did.

This time was no different.

“I heard you’ve already chosen an auspicious date for Hongfu’s burial?” the old lady asked.

“Yes, Madam. The funeral is in five days. The date matches Mr. Gu’s birth chart,” Chi An replied politely.

Su Mingfang nodded approvingly.

“Good. You’ve done well.”

Then, without missing a beat, she continued,

“But you shouldn’t only concern yourself with the dead. The company is at its strongest right now it can’t afford any missteps. I trust you, Chi An. You helped Hongfu build the company to what it is today. Now, you can help Hongkang hold that position firmly.”

Chi An lowered her eyes, saying nothing.

Gu Hongfu had built the Gu Group with his own hands. He was the man she had followed and supported all these years.

Now he was gone and his own mother cared nothing for his funeral, only for passing the company to her surviving son.

Su Mingfang often said the Gu Group was destined to belong to her younger son’s branch of the family anyway after all, only his household had a son. Gu Hongfu had only a daughter, and that daughter had been taken away by her mother long ago.

Chi An understood it all too well.

Seeing her silence, Su Mingfang frowned slightly, then softened her tone.

“Don’t worry. The Gu family won’t treat you unfairly. I’ll have Hongkang raise your salary and give you more dividends. You won’t lose anything by working with him instead.”

At those words, Chi An’s chest tightened. It felt like the old woman’s hand was squeezing her heart.

She could barely breathe, every instinct screaming for her to get out of that room away from this suffocating house.

But she couldn’t leave.

She had grown up in poverty, a girl from the mountains who couldn’t even afford schoolbooks. If it hadn’t been for that woman’s help, she would have been working at sixteen, saving money for her brother’s bride price, and married off by twenty.

It was that woman who had changed her life forever.

She couldn’t leave yet.
Not until the Gu family repaid everything they owed her every last debt.

It was also Gu Hongfu’s dying wish: that the Gu Group would one day return to its rightful heir, his daughter.

Just then, Su Mingfang spoke again, her tone seemingly casual yet laced with calculation.

“I know, after Hongfu’s death, you must be feeling uneasy and lonely. But Hongkang isn’t a bad choice either. He’s still young. As for his wife don’t worry, I’ll take care of that.”

A wave of nausea rose in Chi An’s throat. She forced it down, then lifted her eyes and curved her lips into a faint, polite smile.

“You’ve misunderstood, Madam. That’s not what I meant. I just… haven’t quite come to terms with President Gu’s passing. It all happened too suddenly.”

Everyone believed she had been Gu Hongfu’s lover and she didn’t bother to deny it. The misunderstanding made it easier for her to move unseen and do what she needed to do.

Su Mingfang gave a knowing smile.

“The dead are gone. You should learn to move on sooner rather than later.”

Chi An nodded slightly and excused herself.

She walked to a quiet, secluded corner of the Gu estate. Her manicured fingers—nails painted a vivid red tapped a string of numbers on her phone.
It wasn’t saved in her contacts, yet she knew it by heart.

On the other end of the line, Gu Nan was pouring a cup of hot tea for her grandmother in the hospital ward.
When she noticed the unfamiliar number flashing on the bedside phone, she smiled softly and said,

“Grandma, I’ll just step outside to take this call.”

Her grandmother gave her a loving look.

“You shouldn’t stay cooped up here with me all day. I’m fine resting on my own. Don’t you still owe people several paintings?”

Gu Nan picked up the phone with a gentle smile.

“Those people aren’t half as important as you.”

She turned and left the ward, her expression shifting the moment the door closed behind her.

Out in the stairwell, leaning against the cold wall, the warmth drained from her face.

The phone buzzed again that same number.
It had been calling her for two days straight, more than ten times already. She hadn’t answered once.

This time, she finally pressed accept.

“Hello?”

A calm, low female voice came through the receiver one she recognized instantly.

“Gu Nan, it’s me. Chi An.”

Her hand tightened around the phone. The early winter wind bit into her skin, her lips pale and cracked as she spoke, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it.

“You? Why are you calling me?”

Chi An’s voice was colder than she remembered stripped of warmth.

“Your father has passed away. You should come back for his funeral.”

A bitter laugh slipped from Gu Nan’s lips.

“And why would I do that? He had you, didn’t he? Isn’t that enough?”

Gu Nan wasn’t unfamiliar with Chi An. They’d met several times, though never on friendly terms.

She hated her father with every fiber of her being.
Hated his cowardice, his selfishness, his weakness.
Hated that he couldn’t even protect her mother.

Back then, when her mother fell gravely ill, strange things kept happening. Yet her father turned a blind eye, choosing instead to protect his own family.

In the end, it was Chi An who helped them leave that cursed house.

However, even with her mother’s help, she didn’t survive that winter.

Chi An had once been her mother’s sponsored student the girl her mother had supported through school.
Later, that same girl entered her father’s company… and became his woman.

Even though Chi An had helped them when they left the Gu family, Gu Nan could never forgive her for becoming the third person between her parents.

“If that’s all, I’m hanging up.”

She ended the call, exhaled deeply, and realized her whole body was shaking. Her knees weakened, and she had to press herself against the wall to stay upright.

The call being cut off was no surprise.

Chi An stared at her phone, her expression unreadable, wondering if she should go to fetch Gu Nan herself.

Lost in thought, she made her way back through the estate.

The Gu family’s property sat on a stretch of suburban land they had developed themselves a cluster of half-Western, half-Chinese villas that looked both extravagant and tasteless.

As Chi An passed through the garden toward the villa where Gu Hongfu’s coffin was kept, she spotted Gu Erjie, the second sister of the family matriarch, berating her daughter harshly.

Gu Erjie Madam Su’s only daughter had one lifelong regret: not bearing a son.

All her affection and ambitions had instead been funneled into her nephew, the old Madam’s only grandson.

Her own daughter, barely of age, was already being forced into arranged meetings for marriage.

Chi An watched the girl’s face eyes shadowed, expression quietly bleak and, for a moment, saw in her the same look Gu Nan used to have when she was scolded by the old lady all those years ago.

After Gu Erjie left, Chi An stepped out from the shade and approached the girl.

“Would you like to go see your uncle?”

The girl clearly didn’t want to. But compared to her mother, she was far more respectful toward Chi An, the so-called outsider.

She looked up, ready to politely decline, but stopped when she met Chi An’s gaze. There was a silent message in those eyes something she instinctively understood.

“Alright,” she said softly.

Later, inside the nearly empty mourning hall, Chi An asked the girl Gu Yue,

“Do you want to see this family fall apart? To watch everything they treasure crumble before their eyes?”

A spark lit up in Gu Yue’s eyes.

“More than anything.”

Chi An handed her a slip of paper with a number written on it.

“Good. Then listen carefully this is what we’re going to do.”