Maria Rozhin hesitated for a moment as she saw Simon walking toward the court with her three sons. She finally decided to follow the man's suggestion and return to the café where they had been earlier.
Sitting back down by the window, Maria instinctively stood up again as she saw four tall, slender, and attractive female ball girls in tank tops and shorts approaching Simon and her sons.
This...
That damn little man! He wasn't planning to talk to her children—he was trying to corrupt them!
As Maria hesitated whether to get up and intervene, Lady A appeared, sitting across from her. She casually opened a file and, noticing Maria's indecision, asked, "What's the matter?"
Maria pointed toward the court outside.
Lady A turned her head to glance and then returned her gaze, saying, "Sit down. According to the boss, your children will face far more temptations than this in the future. If they can't handle situations like this, there's no point in thinking about the future."
"But Vic and the others are still young," Maria replied.
Lady A no longer looked at her and instead focused on the document in front of her, speaking calmly. "Are you planning to wait until your children are 18 to teach them how to navigate life?"
Maria reluctantly sat down, still looking out at the court, and countered, "I think that's a different matter."
"Actually, it's the same thing," Lady A said. "From your perspective, you've done a great job raising your three children. But now that the boss has said those things, they're about to enter a whole new social class. In this new class, there's one crucial thing: self-control, the ability to resist all kinds of temptations."
Maria was left speechless by her words.
She couldn't help but feel a bit resentful.
Does that mean... they need to resist temptations like some damn little man does?
Lady A suddenly spoke again, "Are you criticizing the boss in your head?"
Maria jumped in surprise and quickly denied, "I'm not."
Lady A didn't press her but instead spoke slowly, "If you were standing in the boss's shoes, you'd understand that he's done well enough. He hasn't lost his way, collapsed, inflated his ego, or acted recklessly. For someone with the wealth to demand anything from the world, this is already a miracle."
Maria paused and thought about it, silently reflecting on what Lady A said.
She was also a little worried.
Maybe it would be better for her children to live simpler lives in the future.
"You're thinking that keeping your children's lives simple, like an ordinary person's, would be better than what the boss has planned for them?" Lady A asked, interrupting her thoughts.
Maria was startled again. She didn't know how to respond.
Is this woman some kind of mind reader?
Lady A quickly continued, "Actually, you can do that. You can talk to the boss. He'll let you send your three children back to Ukraine to study, work, marry, have kids, and live an ordinary life. Of course, you can't go back with them, because you've already been claimed by the boss. See, that's the privilege of the extraordinary. And maybe your children won't agree with your plans for their lives unless they're strong enough. Otherwise, no one will want to live an ordinary life. When a person becomes strong enough, they can no longer be considered ordinary."
Maria took a moment, then finally couldn't help but say, "I think your view of life is flawed."
"Of course not," Lady A replied. "Most ordinary people are brainwashed from childhood by the so-called 'common life philosophy' set by the upper levels of the pyramid. After all, there's only so much room at the top, so they want you to stay at the bottom. Just like in the U.S., the most commonly advocated lifestyle is that of a Puritan middle-class family—devoted to family and work. It's the perfect image we see in American movies, and most ordinary Americans are subtly conditioned to believe it's the ideal life. The middle class, with its relatively small share of resources, is the ideal bottom level of the pyramid. It gives just enough hope for the lower classes to strive for something better, but not enough to threaten the elite."
Maria listened to Lady A's words and found her own views starting to waver. She instinctively retorted, "So what? In the end, we all reach the same conclusion."
Lady A raised her gaze again and looked at her with a faint smile. "That's a classic example of fatalism—self-comfort born from helplessness. But, with the same decades of life, some people live boldly, experiencing all the grandeur, while others struggle in mediocrity, growing old without achieving anything. In the end, many of the latter become mere background fillers in the bright pages of the former's lives. How could it be the same? You know, life's meaning is more about the journey than the destination. And even when two people reach the same destination, the meaning of their lives can still be completely different."
Maria finally understood that she couldn't win an argument against this woman, so she quietly stopped talking. She picked up her coffee and took a sip, turning her gaze back to the court. The little man had already started playing with her kids, and the colorful female ball girls had distanced themselves.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
However, Lady A's words still lingered in her mind. After a while, she couldn't help but ask, "Why are you telling me all this?"
"It's simple," Lady A answered, smiling, as though she had been waiting for Maria to ask. "The boss is out there brainwashing your little ones, and I'm here to brainwash you. After all, you're about to become the boss's children's mother. You'll need to adopt a completely new outlook on life."
"…"
On the other side.
On the court, Simon was indeed working on altering the mindset of the three boys. But unlike Lady A's directness, Simon was much more gentle in his approach.
It had always been the case that Simon paid special attention to the children of the women he cared about—this did not include the mothers and daughters he treated as mere toys or pets.
When it came to the women he cared about, Simon drew certain boundaries. He even treated some of these women's children as if they were his own, like Daniel and Gemma, Sophia's children. This had become an unconscious habit he'd developed a long time ago.
The reason for this was tied to Simon's theory of genetic instincts.
Succession.
As one book put it, "A fish that has reached the shore is no longer a fish." Extending this analogy, the children raised under Simon's influence, who became 'Westerosian,' would naturally align with the Westeros family's interests. While this wasn't absolute, and there might be a few exceptions, most would follow suit.
These special 'Westerosians' would become the core members of the Westeros family in the future.
A single tree can't support a forest, but many trees together can form a forest.
Just like Daniel and Gemma, and now these three boys, in the future, they would likely become valuable allies to Simon's biological children, further ensuring the continuation of the Westeros family.
After the female ball girls explained the rules of golf to the boys, Simon dismissed them. The four of them casually split into two groups and began playing. Simon, still smiling, asked the eldest, Viktor, "Do you have a girlfriend?"
Viktor, who had turned slightly red from the attention of the ball girl, shook his head. "Not yet."
Simon casually hit a ball and assessed Viktor's expression, probing, "Looks like you have someone in mind."
Viktor didn't respond, awkwardly hitting the ball.
Seeing Anton, who had been placed in the same group, hesitate to speak, Simon smiled and asked, "Come on, tell me. Who does your brother have his eyes on?"
"One of the girls in his class," Anton glanced at his brother. Seeing no clear objection, he continued, "But she's the captain of the school cheerleading team. She probably won't be interested in Viktor."
Both groups hit their balls and walked toward the next point. Simon, signaling to the nearby ball girls, asked, "How do you think they compare?"
Simon was looking at Viktor as he asked this, but the boy was too shy to answer. Anton responded for his brother, casting a glance at the older girls. "They're all really pretty, but Madeleine... her family owns a company and is really rich. She's also kind of proud."
Simon smiled, "If you like her, go for it. There's something more satisfying about winning over a proud girl."
Konstantin looked at his older brother and younger brother, then hesitated before saying to Simon, "I don't like her. She has a boyfriend, and last time at the restaurant, I heard her mocking Anton for his accent."
Simon found the ball he had hit earlier and personally guided Anton to hit it, keeping a smile on his face but secretly feeling a bit emotional. These three boys were no ordinary children. They had been in the U.S. for less than a month, and the eldest already had a crush, while the second and third had quietly gathered detailed information about the girl, even catching some private details.
Maria probably didn't realize these traits in her children.
But Simon had seen it all in the morning's reports, and even Viktor was just pretending to be shy.
Of course, Simon actually appreciated this early maturity.
Simon didn't like children who were still clueless when they reached middle school. By this age, they should already know the important things
in life, and by the time they reached adulthood, they should be confident in their positions.
______
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