Sang-jong, gone pale, chewed his lip and paced, unable even to sit.

“Father. No — Chairman. It’s barely 1.5 billion. Insolvency over 1.5 billion — does that even make sense?”

“In the time it takes to make excuses like that, think of a solution!”

Whack!

The ashtray flew and struck Sang-jong square in the face. It cut his face, but Sang-jong couldn’t say it hurt.

“Is there really no way?”

Mun-jong, dark-faced though not to Sang-jong’s degree, asked Do-beom.

Standing at Tak-hyeon’s side, Do-beom nodded. “Chairman Jeong’s side has already declared its intent to give up management rights.”

“No — the madman. Giving up management rights over 1.5 billion, does that make sense?”

Sang-jong spat out words full of grievance, still with a face that couldn’t understand.

Tak-hyeon watched him as if he were pathetic. “Do you really think Chairman Jeong gave up management rights over 1.5 billion? The 1.5 billion is only a trigger — the money tied up in Dubo is over 5 trillion.”

“5… trillion?”

Sang-jong turned to Do-beom, startled.

Do-beom nodded and added to Tak-hyeon’s words. “It’s 5 trillion by what’s come to light so far, and no one knows how far the debt will climb. A lot of the money is cross-tied… and the debt in the private loan market is still unknown.”

“This is insane…”

Sang-jong struck one wall with his fist.

Watching him as if he were pathetic, Tak-hyeon asked, “Did you really not know?”

At the question, Sang-jong, who’d been hanging his head, lifted it to look at Tak-hyeon.

With a face full of suspicion, Tak-hyeon said, “This isn’t something you cooked up in cahoots with Chairman Jeong, is it?”

“Father. I truly didn’t know. I’m being wronged.”

“What have you done right, to talk of being wronged!”

Tak-hyeon snatched up the water glass before him and hurled it. It didn’t hit Sang-jong, but he took the water it held full in the face and bowed his head without a word.

Because to anyone’s eye, the most suspect person in the present situation was himself.

Water dripping from his face, Sang-jong turned to Mun-jong. Being suspected was one thing, but being the only one suspected was unfair.

To turn the arrow away from himself, Sang-jong threw a question at Mun-jong. “Brother. Did you truly not know either?”

“What are you saying now?” Mun-jong flared up and shouted. “Are you saying I knew and played dumb?”

Sang-jong wiped the water from his face with his hand. “Frankly — wasn’t it you who raised the amount, Brother? So you ought to be suspected too! A sum where a perfectly fine 100 billion would’ve done, you inflated all the way to 300 billion — so if you and Chairman Jeong were in cahoots…”

“You son of a—!”

Unable to hold back at last, Mun-jong rose and lunged at Sang-jong, and in an instant a physical scuffle between the two brothers broke out in the study.

“Both of you, stop! What is this in front of the chairman?”

As Do-beom struggled to pry apart Mun-jong and Sang-jong, who had each other by the collar and were slamming together, Seong-ho came over too and separated them.

“Brother. The chairman hasn’t finished speaking. Calm down.”

Seong-ho wrapped his arms around Mun-jong and settled him. At the mention of Tak-hyeon’s name, Mun-jong seemed to come to his senses, looked at Tak-hyeon, and bowed his head.

Pressing his temple with a finger, Tak-hyeon said as if disgusted, “Making a damned scene.”

Letting out a dry laugh, he brought his fist down on the table.

Bang!

“You lot who can’t do 300,000 won’s worth of work for the company blow 300 billion, and what have you done right, brawling over it?”

At that, Mun-jong and Sang-jong, thoroughly cowed, quietly took the chairs they’d sat in earlier and watched for Tak-hyeon’s mood.

Tak-hyeon looked at his children with contempt. “I’ll give you one day. Come back by this time tomorrow with a way to recover the 300 billion. Otherwise…”

He raised a hand, pointing in turn at Mun-jong and Sang-jong, and shouted, “You’ll be filling it from your own pockets.”

“Chairman!”

“Quiet!”

Startled at being told to fill it from their own pockets, Mun-jong and Sang-jong called out to him — and Tak-hyeon, not caring to hear it, waved a hand and shouted at them to get out. “Understand that, and get lost!”

At Tak-hyeon’s order, Do-beom gestured for Mun-jong and Sang-jong to hurry out. Sang-jong, aggrieved, kept turning his head to look back at Tak-hyeon even as he left. Mun-jong, too, departed with a face full of things he wanted to say.

Chang-jong, back from a business trip not long before, rolled his eyes at the atmosphere that had transformed in an instant, wearing a thoughtful expression. Because it had struck him that an opportunity might have come to him — the one who’d stood a step aside, having failed in the end to get into the Dubo Steel business.

It was the same for Jeong-eun. She, who ordinarily would have chimed in and driven the mood along, today only watched quietly. And at the order to leave, she rose without a word of complaint and left the study.

Only Gyeong-eun left the study wearing a worried expression.

“Kim, stay a moment.”

Just then Tak-hyeon told Seong-ho to remain.

Once everyone had gone and only Seong-ho was left at the door, Tak-hyeon rose and headed for the table set before the bookshelves, gesturing for Seong-ho to come to where he was. “Close the door and come here.”

Passing the sofa where they’d been talking a moment ago and coming up before the table, Seong-ho’s eyes caught on hanji paper. Beside it lay drawing paper, a brush, an inkstone, and other things.

Tak-hyeon stepped in behind the table, took up the brush, and spread out the paper. As the pure-white sheet lay open on the table, he pointed at the inkstone. “Grind some ink.”

“Yes.”

Seong-ho took the ink stick set beside the inkstone and carefully began to grind it.

Knowing that Tak-hyeon steadied his mind by doing brush calligraphy whenever his heart was heavy or a hard matter fell on him, Seong-ho silently ground the ink and waited for him to write.

Brush in hand, Tak-hyeon gazed at the paper a long while, then slowly spoke. “Do you know what kind of inkstone that is you’re grinding on?”

At the sudden question, Seong-ho set the ink stick carefully beside the inkstone and answered, “I’m not sure.”

Having honestly said he didn’t know, Seong-ho gathered his hands carefully in a posture of asking to be told, and lent his ear to Tak-hyeon’s words.

Tak-hyeon soaked his brush thoroughly in the well-ground ink and carefully wrote a character on the paper. Having written the character 門 (gate), he looked down at what he’d written for a long while. Then, seeming pleased, he nodded several times and slowly spoke. “It’s a Duan inkstone — one of what are called China’s four great inkstones.”

Seong-ho looked down at the inkstone again. Far from elegant, it looked much like a bowl set down as it was. So even while grinding ink on it, he hadn’t particularly thought about what sort of inkstone it might be.

Tak-hyeon glanced at Seong-ho looking at the inkstone, then dipped his brush again in the ground ink. Gazing at the paper, he spoke once more. “There are many Duan inkstones sold on the market that look the part — but those aren’t real Duan… So I asked friends at our China branch directly and received a genuine Duan inkstone. The belief has run for a thousand years that only by studying with a Duan inkstone could one pass the imperial examinations.”

“I see.”

Tak-hyeon wrote another character on the paper. This time it was 當 (matched). Seong-ho, seeing 當 written alongside 門, wondered what characters Tak-hyeon was writing — with just two, it was hard to guess the next.

Tak-hyeon looked down at 當 for a long while again, then spoke. “I think you’re like this Duan inkstone. It may look like nothing at a glance, but a renown built over a thousand years can’t be judged by appearance alone.”

Having said it, he wrote the third character, and only upon seeing the last one did Seong-ho understand what Tak-hyeon meant to write.

戶? Ah — 門當戶對!

The meaning: that marriage should be made between families with no difference in social standing or economic circumstance.

Having written the last character, 對, Tak-hyeon looked down at what he’d written for a long while. Whether it was his own writing that pleased him or the phrase written that pleased him, he gazed at the characters a good while, then handed the brush to Seong-ho and walked back to where the reception sofa was.

Taking the brush, Seong-ho set it carefully on the inkstone. He looked a moment at the phrase written — matched gates, matched homes — then turned and followed Tak-hyeon toward the sofa.

Seated, Tak-hyeon picked up the cigarettes on the table and spoke. “In China, long ago, they used to set stone ornaments before the gate of a house. It meant to drive off ghosts. Those were called mundang — the gate-stones.”

He lit a cigarette, drew a mouthful, and blew out a long stream of smoke. Then he slowly went on. “And above the gate they made protruding cylinder-shaped ornaments in even numbers to hang lanterns from — those were the hodae, the gate-posts.”

Seong-ho picked up the ashtray and carefully set it before Tak-hyeon.

Tak-hyeon gazed blankly at Seong-ho, who’d readied the ashtray and set it down without being told. Tapping his ash into it, he continued. “Both of these were devices indicating the standing of the people who dwelt in the house. By what gate-stones you set up and how many gate-posts you had, one could tell a homeowner’s social standing and how much wealth he held. In China they believed that only when families of matched gates and matched homes married could they feel a sameness in social standing and have no great trouble over money.”

Seong-ho only listened quietly. Because he knew well this was talk aimed at himself.

Cigarette at his lips, Tak-hyeon looked at Seong-ho bowing his head in silence. “It’s the same in Korea now. Only households alike can join and live smoothly. So I married off all four of my children that way.”

The meaning was that the four children other than Gyeong-eun had been married by the principle of matched gates and homes — but Seong-ho and Gyeong-eun had not.

Seong-ho lifted his head to look at Tak-hyeon, who pointed at him with the hand holding the cigarette. “Only you two are different. There’s a gap between you.”

Seong-ho felt, though he’d done nothing wrong, as if he had.

Reading his heart, perhaps, Tak-hyeon said with a smile, “I’m not saying it’s your fault.” He looked straight into Seong-ho’s eyes. “When you two married, the people around me said it — how well could you two live, mismatched as you are? That the path Gyeong-eun had walked and the path you’d walked were different, and marrying mismatched families would breed nothing but hardship, so it shouldn’t be allowed.”

“I understand. I’d have said the same.”

But setting aside everything the people around him said, Tak-hyeon had accepted Seong-ho.

Curling the corner of his mouth up, he stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “I didn’t then, and I don’t now, regret my choice. I figured one in five could live the life they wanted. But watching you lately, I do regret it a little.”

“You mean permitting the marriage?”

“No.” Tak-hyeon shook his head and met Seong-ho’s eyes. “I find myself thinking it’s a shame you came out of some other woman’s belly. Had you come out like Mun-jong and the rest… it would have been good.”

At his words, Seong-ho wore a stunned expression.

Having said, in a roundabout way, that he wished Seong-ho were his own son, Tak-hyeon looked at him and smiled. “You bought a building, and you’re working with the stock crowd, they say?”

“Yes.”

Tak-hyeon leaned back and said to him, “Don’t think any needless thoughts — just wait. Because I’ll be calling you back to the company.”

At that, Seong-ho was once again left stunned, unable to say a word. He’d had confidence he’d return to the company, but he hadn’t expected to get such an intimation from Tak-hyeon like this.

And at Tak-hyeon’s next words, Seong-ho’s body stiffened further still.

“And this time, you pushed it a bit too far. It would have been very good if you’d stopped Mun-jong when he said 300 billion. Well, it’s Mun-jong’s fault for saying to raise it to 300 billion, but even so, I find myself thinking it’s a bit of a shame.”

At that, Seong-ho nearly failed to manage his expression for a moment. Goosebumps rose at the fact that Tak-hyeon knew it was he who had provoked Mun-jong.

Tak-hyeon only looked at Seong-ho, a flower of a smile blooming across his whole face.

(End of Chapter 65)