"Welcome, valued customer. We love you~."

I went to the TS Department Store near my place.

The other department stores in Gangnam didn't interest me.

If you're going to spend money anyway, you naturally spend it at your own affiliate.

The glittering chandeliers overhead looked especially good to me today.

A pleasant scent hung in the huge space, the kind that lifts your mood.

Gangnam, the economic heart of Korea.

The global recession had barely touched how the upper class lived.

It was morning, but the place was full, as if people had been waiting for the doors to open.

I blended in with them.

I'd come partly to shop, but mostly to hunt for business ideas.

In Jangju, I'd cleaned out the rot completely.

Once I'd put the screws to the mayor, the rest of them fell in line on their own.

That Mr. Song character gave up on his payment for the work and slunk off.

The site supervisor and his firm were hit with criminal and civil suits.

The site manager got one pass, because the construction company's CEO begged for him.

Once the man's two kids in college and his elderly parents came up, it was hard to just cut him loose.

The CEO offered to stand guarantor, so I gave him that much.

On one condition: if he ever broke the law again, he'd have to cough up for every mistake he'd ever made.

Jangju was running smoothly.

With the mayor no longer stuffing his face with bribes, city government ran straight.

The civil servants were cooperating too.

Now I controlled the mayor through Assemblyman Yang U-seok.

Yang U-seok was a born political operator, no doubt about it.

He handled what I wanted without being told.

I passed him plenty of political money, all of it legally clean.

Some went through Chairman Ha Gwan-u, and I also gave him political funds personally, within the legal limit.

That money alone was enough to keep Assemblyman Yang U-seok happy.

I told him to ask anytime he needed more.

Just hearing that seemed to steady him. He looked…