Once dollars came in from the IMF, South Korea showed signs of catching its breath.

The won/dollar exchange rate, which had once approached 2,000 won, moved toward downward stabilization, and a South Korea that had seemed on the verge of declaring a moratorium at any moment announced that it was still alive.

But being alive didn’t mean it had fully recovered.

It was merely enduring a grueling stretch with barely a breath left in it.

The employment cold-snap cut loose even those who still had jobs, and households, beyond merely crumbling, had to worry about survival.

Market interest rates shot well past 15 percent, and even at that there was scarcely anywhere left to borrow.

Even Myeongdong’s private-lending market had long since shuttered, and the dollar dealers of Namdaemun were just as short on dollars.

Companies found even bond issuance difficult, let alone loans, and individuals were selling the rice bowls in their homes to buy a single day’s rice—the impact on daily life only grew more severe.

Even in such circumstances, the Ilhyeon Group alone stood firm in place, propping up South Korea’s economy.

[Twenty-two, including Restructuring Headquarters Head Seong-ho Kim, newly join the Ilhyeon Group’s presidential ranks]

[Ilhyeon Group to hold next year’s first-half and second-half open recruitment as planned]

[Recruitment scale, first and second half combined, at roughly 20,000—expected to kindle a spark in the job market]

[Ilhyeon Group’s investment for next year confirmed at 4 trillion won, including Ilhyeon Electronics’ 2 trillion]

[Ilhyeon Group…]

[Ilhyeon Group…]

Amid a country awash in nothing but bad news, the Ilhyeon Group alone delivered hopeful tidings.

In an atmosphere too bleak to embarrassing call it a year’s end, people awaited only the Ilhyeon Group’s news and looked ahead to the coming year with expectation.

But within the Ilhyeon family, there was someone awaiting different news.

“It can’t be. It isn’t. There’s no way.”

Trembling with anxiety, unable to sit still, Mun-jong kept circling round and round the office, muttering to himself.

Seated on the sofa, Seong-ho watched him quietly, sipping the coffee set before him.

Rrring.

Just then the office phone rang.

At the sound of the ring, Mun-jong dashed to the phone and made to snatch up the receiver.

But realizing this was Seong-ho’s office and not his own, he withdrew the hand he’d stretched toward the receiver.

And looking at Seong-ho, he sent a wordless glance urging him to answer at once.

Seong-ho nodded at Mun-jong’s gaze to signal he understood, and picked up the receiver.

“This is Seong-ho Kim.”

Having identified who had answered, Seong-ho quietly listened to the voice coming from the other end.

“You’re certain? Yes. Understood. Then get the written confirmation too and bring it back. And hand Su-yeon Jeong the money we promised and the plane ticket. Don’t forget to see her onto the plane for certain, either. Understood. Yes. Good work.”

Mun-jong swallowed dryly and looked at Seong-ho.

Since Seong-ho’s words alone gave no clue what the call was about, Mun-jong’s heart felt as though it were charring pitch-black.

After giving the person on the other end a few more instructions, Seong-ho set down the receiver.

And to Mun-jong, who was watching him with a face charred black, he opened his mouth.

“Brother.”

“What did they say? It’s not my child, right? Right? It isn’t, is it?”

Though he’d already decided within his heart that it wasn’t, the worry seemed to remain intact all the same, and Mun-jong pressed Seong-ho in a burning voice to hurry and say it wasn’t.

But the words that came from Seong-ho’s mouth were not what Mun-jong hoped.

“The paternity test result says there’s a 99.99 percent probability the child is yours, Brother.”

Bang!

“There’s no way!”

Mun-jong slammed a fist on the table and shouted.

“My child? There’s no way.”

“That’s how the test came out.”

Mun-jong went to Seong-ho, grabbed his arm, and said,

“99.99 percent, you said? Then that means 0.01 percent says it isn’t, doesn’t it? So there’s a possibility it isn’t. The possibility that it isn’t my child.”

Wishing by any means for it not to be his child, Mun-jong kept muttering to himself.

“Right. Something’s gone wrong. It’s a mistake. Let’s test again. Hm? If we test again, it’ll come out that it’s not my child. Hm? So…”

“Brother.”

Seong-ho looked quietly at the Mun-jong gripping his arm.

And with a hardened face, he said to him,

“Now isn’t the time to be quibbling over that.”

“What do you mean?”

Seong-ho pointed a finger upward.

“There isn’t much time left before it reaches upstairs.”

Mun-jong lifted his head, following Seong-ho’s finger.

And recalling where it was that Seong-ho’s finger pointed, he broke into a cold sweat.

“Would Father… find out?”

“Surely you didn’t intend to carry this out without the Chairman knowing?”

Seong-ho looked at Mun-jong with a pitying gaze and said,

“There’s no way around it—the Chairman will find out. What we have to think about is by what method it reaches his ears.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Mun-jong sat down, still gripping Seong-ho’s arm.

Because it occurred to him that sitting and listening to Seong-ho would be better than hearing it out on his feet.

Seong-ho looked at Mun-jong seated beside him and explained what needed to be considered right now.

“What do you think happens if the story reaches the Chairman’s ears as things stand? It’ll be past undoing.”

“My child is…”

“Brother!”

Seong-ho shouted.

“With the result already out, what’s the use of only insisting it isn’t your child? You have to accept the test result and think about steering the situation in the direction we want.”

“The direction we want…?”

“As I said a moment ago, if the story reaches the Chairman’s ears as things stand, you’re finished, Brother.”

At the re-emphasized words, Mun-jong’s hand, which had been gripping Seong-ho’s arm, went slack.

Seeing this side of Mun-jong, which struck him as pathetic, Seong-ho was tempted to just leave it be.

Because letting Mun-jong’s affair reach Tak-hyeon’s ears as it was and blowing Mun-jong away didn’t seem half bad.

But he shook off the temptation soon enough.

That would only amount to doing Mun-jong a kindness. I must never let it turn out that way.

Seong-ho thought Mun-jong’s disgrace couldn’t be exposed like this.

Seong-ho meant to repay the anguish he’d suffered tenfold, a hundredfold, and to do that, he judged that this affair must not become Mun-jong’s alone.

And he was hoping to hurl a spark into the whole of the Ilhyeon family.

Seong-ho seized both of Mun-jong’s shoulders and clamped down hard with his grip.

“Brother. Get your head on straight. There really isn’t much time left.”

“There isn’t much time?”

“The Chairman will learn of this the day after tomorrow at the latest, tomorrow at the earliest. Before then, we have to shape the situation the way we want it.”

“So how are we supposed to shape that direction?”

“By making the child someone else’s child, not yours, Brother.”

“Someone else’s child… that’s…”

Pausing for a moment, Mun-jong straightened his back, went wide-eyed, and looked at Seong-ho.

“How about making it your child? Yes. That’d be good. Let’s say it’s your child.”

Mun-jong spoke toward Seong-ho with a bright expression, as if he’d found the solution.

“We can just say it’s a child you made with a woman you met before marriage, can’t we.”

Mun-jong grabbed the arm of Seong-ho’s he’d let go of and said,

“I’ll look after you for certain. I’ll help you secure your place in the family and at the company. And if we send the child out along with its mother, no one will know. How about it?”

At those words, Seong-ho said nothing.

Mun-jong, seeing Seong-ho’s manner, thought he was mulling over the proposal.

“Right. Gyeong-eun will weigh on you, of course, but I’ll smooth that over well too. So trust me, and let’s say she’s a woman you were seeing before marriage, kept your distance from afterward, then slipped up with, and that’s how this came about.”

Seeing Mun-jong say the very same thing as in the former life, veins rose on Seong-ho’s forehead.

This time it’s your turn to go down into that pit. Along with your brother…

To the Mun-jong who kept on with his persuading, Seong-ho raised a hand and cut off his words.

“Brother. Think about it. That woman is your secretary. Would it fly that I’d known a woman like that before marriage? And that child is a child of the Ilhyeon family and your child. You’re saying we chase a child like that off to a foreign country?”

“Not my child… fine. Let’s say it’s my child. Even so, I’ve no feeling whatsoever for that child. I don’t care if we send it away. And there’s no law saying you and my secretary couldn’t have fooled around, is there? You know persuasiveness depends less on who’s speaking than on how it’s said. If you speak well, Father will look the other way too.”

“Brother. Get a hold of yourself.”

Seong-ho grabbed both of Mun-jong’s arms, shook him, and said in a booming voice,

“The one we have to persuade is the Chairman. It could be difficult even shaping it into something that makes sense—so why are you trying to handle it in a way that makes no sense?”

Mun-jong hung his head with a dispirited face.

Seong-ho lowered his voice a little toward him and said,

“I’m your wing, Brother. Do you intend to use me as your stand-in and snap off your own wing? If that’s how you want to use me, then so be it. Is that truly what you want?”

At Seong-ho’s question, Mun-jong hung his head lower still.

Because to his own mind too, saying it was Seong-ho’s child struck him as the worst of bad options.

Head bowed low, Mun-jong spoke in a spiritless voice.

“Then what are you saying we do? I can’t confess it’s my child, and I can’t say it’s yours, so whose child are we supposed to say it is?”

“Brother. Are you and I the only men in our family?”

At Seong-ho’s words, Mun-jong’s bowed head slowly lifted.

And with his eyebrows rising, he asked Seong-ho,

“What do you mean by that? That you and I aren’t the only men in our family?”

“There are the other brothers, aren’t there. If we promise one of them a sufficient future, there’ll be someone who could do it.”

“Would there… be such a person?”

Mun-jong asked in a trembling voice.

To the Mun-jong who had finally lent an ear to his words, Seong-ho, his expression relaxed, spoke with a smiling face.

“There will be. Trust me.”

“Right… we’ve come this far, so you’ll have to put in more effort. I’m counting on you alone.”

Mun-jong’s expression brightened as if he’d glimpsed hope, and Seong-ho too smiled back, watching Mun-jong’s expression.

The two of them looked at each other and smiled, but the reasons the two smiled were each different.

One was dancing in the palm of a hand, and the other was smiling as he watched the puppet dancing in his palm.

And the one who knew this fact was only one of the two.

Contrary to what Seong-ho had told Mun-jong, Tak-hyeon was, at the very time Seong-ho and Mun-jong were talking, being briefed on what was now unfolding.

Do-beom reported to Chairman Tak-hyeon with a gloomy expression.

And having finished the report, he cautiously asked Tak-hyeon, who until then had sat with his eyes closed and arms folded,

“Shall I step in and sort it out?”

“What need is there for that?”

Tak-hyeon’s closed eyes slowly opened.

And looking up at Do-beom, he said,

“Head Kim handled it, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He gave the woman money and booked her a ticket to America. And he’s given instructions to stand guard outside the hospital room and confirm her departure three days later, they say.”

“The fellow. Not bad at all.”

Tak-hyeon let the corner of his mouth curl up and praised Seong-ho.

“Handled it quite cleanly. The woman put up no particular resistance either?”

“Yes. I don’t know how Head Kim persuaded her, but the woman accepted it cleanly too, they say. But Chairman, that isn’t what matters—”

“If not that, then what? Are you saying I ought to get angry over my son’s indiscretion?”

Tak-hyeon looked up at Do-beom, arms still folded.

Chief Do-beom flinched under Tak-hyeon’s gaze and shook his head.

“No. That’s not what I meant…”

“Then just watch quietly. What answer those fellows bring back.”

“Surely Mun-jong wouldn’t say the child is his own?”

At Do-beom’s question, Tak-hyeon let out a scornful laugh and answered.

“If that fellow were going to do that, he’d have come to me and confessed long ago.”

“Then… would Seong-ho take the fall in his place?”

“That’s the highest-probability outcome. Take the fall in his stead and secure his place in the family and at the company. In the current situation, that’s the best move.”

“Then… what do you intend to do, Chairman? He’s still Mun-jong’s child, isn’t he?”

“When the father won’t acknowledge his own child, what’s for me, the grandfather, to say?”

Do-beom could say nothing.

Tak-hyeon kept up a heavy, scornful smile and said,

“If Seong-ho brings the child over as his own, then that fellow was never anything more than that. If he comes at it that way, I’ll have to drag him down from the Restructuring Headquarters head’s chair. The Restructuring Headquarters has much to do going forward, and I can’t have a fellow who doesn’t measure up sitting in the head’s chair.”

Hearing Tak-hyeon’s words, Do-beom came to understand that this affair was not a stage for judging Mun-jong.

He got the sense that Tak-hyeon regarded it as a stage for judging Seong-ho, the one handling the matter—not Mun-jong, the one who’d caused the trouble.

Do-beom felt a pang of pity for Seong-ho, endlessly put to the test even after rising all the way to the Restructuring Headquarters head’s chair.

But contrary to Do-beom’s thoughts, Seong-ho was in the midst of enjoying this situation.

And he was preparing a method Tak-hyeon hadn’t conceived of.

(End of Chapter 116)