Sang, whose face was bloodless like dry tobacco and fl at as a board, looked ugly with dull eyes and a chin broader than her forehead. She seldom smiled and never joked. Her mother described her as a phantom. She appeared unfriendly, rigid and dominant. Her dominance over the two families was absolute. As a successful businesswoman and a manipulative calculator, she seized control by the throat since Mang was a failure and Bing a loser. She was smart enough to have stopped lending more money to Bing after he lost the fi rst million. Unlike Mei, she had an iron heart and was cruelly mean.