I called over the saleswoman who had been standing by.

At Auntie Sun-ja’s poison the staff were watching for cues.

They had the look of people who know that stepping into a fight between customers gets you struck by lightning for nothing.

“Yes, sir.”

A saleswoman wearing a manager’s badge came over carefully.

“Please pick out some clothes that suit my mother.”

“Excuse me?”

“About five outfits should do for today.”

“F-five outfits?”

The saleswoman was startled.

On one top I’d looked at a moment earlier there was a price tag with a few million on it.

The prices were considerable, as you’d expect from a luxury imported boutique.

Five outfits like that mean tens of millions of won for the set.

“Don’t be held back by the price—coordinate them as freely as you like. My mother is an extremely precious person to me.”

“Yes, sir!”

The staff smiled broadly and fired off a volley of high-pitched yeses.

“!!!”

Mom, looking at me with her eyes wide.

What do you earn money for?

You buy Mom clothes, and if there’s anything left you buy beef.

From here on, this son will protect Mother’s honor and her happiness.

“Mother. Take your time choosing~.”

I looked at Mom with an easy air.

“Madam. Your bearing is so elegant. Anything you wear would be perfect.”

The manager smiled and led Mom away.

“Eeeee!!!”

Ju Sun-ja, watching, went red and then purple.

Her son’s school, his face, his air, and now money—she’d finally figured out that none of them were going to land.

The spite bags on her face were a step from bursting.

“Didn’t you come here to buy clothes? You’re my mother’s friend—shall I buy you an outfit?”

Grinning away, I started rubbing it in.

My mouth wore a smile, but my eyes were cold.

“No thank you! Do I look like a beggar? I wouldn’t wear the clothes here if you gave them to me!”

Whatever she says, one look tells you she’s wearing this label.

Exactly like Auntie Sun-ja herself, different inside and out.

A cold wind blew hard across her face.

“Next Saturday at seven, there’s a couples’ reunion at the Pelton Hotel! Make sure you come!”

This auntie is going all the way to the end. Tsk.

She still couldn’t tell shit from soybean paste. (TL Note: 똥인지 된장인지 모른다 — “can’t tell whether it’s dung or soybean paste”; the Korean proverb for someone who can’t tell a disaster from a good thing until they’ve tried it.)

It seems she wants to call Mom to the reunion and crush her spirit properly.

Too bad for her, but this isn’t the Mom of the past.

Mom isn’t a person to be cowed at a class reunion.

“…”

But Mom hesitated for a moment.

Going to a gathering of classmates after nearly twenty years wouldn’t be easy.

“Yes~. My mother will certainly attend the reunion. Don’t worry. You’ll go, won’t you, Mother?”

“Hm? Ah…”

I flicked a wink at her with one eye.

A sign to trust me.

My mother looked at me and nodded.

“Right, see you then! You have to come! I’ll get word to every one of our classmates!”

A class reunion isn’t a confirmation hearing—I don’t know why she’s coming at it like that.

“Go safely. I very much hope to see you again. Auntie Sun-ja~.”

I put a heavy stress on the name Sun-ja.

I bowed my head, said goodbye and showed her the door.

Looking at her any longer would only ruin my temper.

“Hmph!”

Auntie Sun-ja made a rough sulking noise and turned her back.

Ugh! Look at the back end on that pig.

Starting with the name, there isn’t one thing about her I like.

Above all, there’s clearly a hex on that name.

Now please get lost, far away.

I didn’t want a date with Mom, just the two of us, taken away by a shabby auntie with no manners.

Today’s daylight wasn’t all that long.

“Ugh! Rotten… the pair of them, honestly… thrown out of her own house and still putting on airs!”

Grinding her teeth on the way out, Auntie Sun-ja let fly loudly, for Mom and me to hear.

Mom’s color changed at once.

The subject of her family is Mom’s Achilles heel.

Wait for it, Auntie. I’m going to stamp on you properly!

If I can’t collect the revenge fee with interest on this, I should hand in my qualifications as Mom’s son.

I felt sorry(?) for Auntie Sun-ja, falling into a hell of her own making.

An event that hadn’t happened in the past had come to me.

The world where patience is a virtue is over.

I’ll make her take payment for what she’s done, down to the bone.

For people like that, forgiveness is nothing but a luxury.

“Madam, this place really is excellent. There aren’t many properties in Cheongdam-dong with a Han River view cut this well. It’s set back from the Olympic Expressway, so the noise and dust are blocked completely. This is the only prime spot where the river breeze comes through cool even in summer.”

The man they called Manager Jeong sprayed spit in his enthusiasm.

I’d come to look at a house with Mom.

A prime spot is a prime spot.

Thanks to the knowledge of Elder Nam Sa-go, who knew geomancy inside out, I could see the land and the sky, the river and the paths of the wind.

It sits on the bow side of the river’s curve, where the water lies gently, so virtue and wealth pile up there.

The wind is neither strong nor weak, so work doesn’t stall and things go smoothly — a prime spot.

It’s a place where the sky shows open and wide and all ten thousand affairs run smooth. (TL Note: 만사형통 — “ten thousand affairs all flow through”; the four-character phrase for everything going well at once, and a standard blessing.)

It sits on solid bedrock, a good position that won’t meet any great calamity.

That’s why I picked it out exactly and brought my mother here.

In an ivory ladies’ suit, put together properly, my mother was a Gangnam madam to anyone’s eye.

We’d put a few accessories from the department store on her and she looked like somebody other than my mom.

The realtor was farting flattery at my mother too. (TL Note: 알랑방귀를 뀌다 — “to break wind flatteringly”; Korean for fawning so hard it stinks.)

“It doesn’t seem bad. Tae-san, what do you think?”

Mom looked at me.

A sign to handle it as I saw fit.

“Who uses the third-floor roof? Is it shared?”

“No. It belongs to the penthouse resident. It’s laid with grass and the atmosphere up there is really something. Parking is guaranteed for up to five cars per household too.”

“It’s still unsold, isn’t it?”

“…The property is genuinely good, but of all things the American subprime business has killed the market dead. Real estate is a psychological fight too, and we lost it.”

It’s a top-end Gangnam villa complex called Olympos, just put on sale.

The company’s president chose to sell after completion out of confidence, but the timing was bad.

Even within Cheongdam-dong the location was exquisite.

It sits on slightly raised ground like a throne, planted right there.

In front of the eye the river flowed on, wide and proud.

The Han River view through the big open windows is really something.

I liked it completely.

It deserves to use the name Olympos, where the gods are said to live.

“How much was it per unit again?”

“The leasable area is 450 square meters and the exclusive area is 398. The price is… three point nine billion won per household.”

The actual living space is 130 pyeong, at about thirty million a pyeong.

Three point nine billion isn’t small money, but it’s a genuinely good price.

Under the Seoul sky of the future there’s no prime site or location like this.

“As you can see, we’ve laid the finest Italian marble throughout. All the materials are special S grade. There’s a full in-house guard and security setup too. Twelve top-grade security staff work three shifts. All of them hand-picked by the construction company.”

The management fee was over three million won a month.

“How many units in total?”

“The royal building you’re looking at now has three units, and the rest is six buildings of five floors, thirty units.”

“Mm…”

Not only the view but the facilities were excellent.

I wanted every floor.

In the first-floor lobby a thick pine stood in the garden, showing off its shape magnificently.

Maybe because low floors are thought worse, extra service area came with it.

“Can we move in right away?”

“Of course. If you pay, you could come in today.”

Manager Jeong took my hand and answered politely.

“What do you think, Mother?”

“It’s cozy, and quite nice.”

Whoa! C-cozy, she says.

By the information I’d dug up, the old house Mom lived in, out in Yangpyeong, was about 1,500 pyeong.

That was where my maternal grandfather lived, for the wife and daughter he got late in life.

“Ha… haha. It’s on the cozy side, yes.”

The man they called manager wiped sweat with a handkerchief.

He seems to know well that the rich work in different units.

“The penthouse was four point five billion, was it?”

“Yes. It’s the highest price in the Olympos complex. No—it’s the highest-priced unit among all the villas and apartments in Korea at present.”

He’s a man who knows that a thing sells because it’s expensive.

Having a nose for money is an ability too.

In 2008, it really was the highest price.

“Mother, let’s live here, then.”

“Yes. It would be just right for going to school.”

“A s-student?”

Don’t I look like a student?

Manager Jeong asked in surprise.

“Yes. I’m a new student at Hanguk University law this year.”

“Hanguk University!!!”

It isn’t advertising how fine I am.

It’s a world where you have to lay the signboard out like this before the other side takes care.

The feeling in how they treated Mom and me changed at once.

He’d realized she wasn’t merely a madam with money.

To send a son to Hanguk University law is something only a top-tier madam manages, even in Gangnam.

“You said you’re Manager Jeong?”

“Yes. Jeong Un-chan, of Good Fortune Real Estate Consulting.”

“How much of a discount is possible? Please tell me honestly.”

“…”

At the word honestly, Manager Jeong’s pupils trembled.

He seemed to have picked up that we would buy but that we weren’t going to be fleeced.

And throwing money around just because you like something isn’t smart.

Money is a beautiful substance when it’s used with value.

“T-ten percent or so is possible.”

One sentence and over a billion won came off.

This is how the world turns.

“If I buy all three units in the royal building as a block, how much is possible? Honestly~.”

“All three units?”

What are you so startled about.

My mother needed a place to live too.

One look told me the first floor, by the garden, is exactly Mom’s style.

I have to buy it as a block to use it like my own house.

Having the whole royal building as my house sounded good.

For my sisters coming up to school in Seoul, there’s nowhere like it.

Cheongdam-dong is a transport hub in its own way.

Take the Olympic Expressway or the Gangbyeonbuk-ro and you can move anywhere in Seoul.

Mom just watched what I was doing and smiled faintly.

Her father must have thrown money around the way I do, once, so it doesn’t jar on her.

No—she simply trusted this son, openly.

“There’s no telling when the market will loosen. The fallout from the American subprime hasn’t even arrived yet. If you can’t shift these units, you’ll have to hold on until next year paying expensive project financing interest—you know that, don’t you? Doesn’t the interest run over ten percent?”

“!!!”

At the market forecast and the property vocabulary pouring out of me, Manager Jeong was startled again.

This is why you have to learn.

The rule of the game is that if you don’t know, you get your eye blacked and your jaw broken and go down.

“The construction company would find it easier to clear it out fast too.”

I pressed Manager Jeong at my leisure.

Manager Jeong was clearly not a man with much authority.

He’s only a realtor connected to the sales company.

“Then the conditions you’d want are…”

“Make it ten billion won, including acquisition tax and every registration fee.”

“Ha! T-ten billion?”

“That’s a lump-sum cash price.”

At the words lump-sum cash, Manager Jeong’s eyes came alive.

“Take whatever’s left over as your own, as much as you can manage.”

“Understood! I’ll push it through at once!”

Money commands even ghosts.

Manager Jeong bent at the waist as respectfully as if he were my subordinate.

“It can be done today?”

“Of course.”

“Mother~ then let’s go shopping. It looks like we’ll have to bring in all kinds of furniture.”

“Shall we?”

Mom laughs.

Even at ten billion won, Mom showed no interest.

It isn’t that she has no interest in money; there’s an air of being above it.

And that’s why I… like my mom.

(End of Chapter 78)