Jeong-eun Lee spoke in a voice full of irritation.

“I’m incredibly busy these days.”

“You’re not the only one who’s busy.”

Mun-jong Lee reproached Jeong-eun in a displeased voice.

But Jeong-eun didn’t back down even at Mun-jong’s words.

“I’m the busiest. The busiest of anyone here.”

Jeong-eun sat down and looked around at her other siblings.

And confirming there was no one likely to refute her, she gave a small snort and said,

“What you’re all doing is pretty much of a muchness. Eldest brother is a Vice-Chairman who might as well not exist, second brother went into the prosecutors’ office once and came out half out of his mind… fourth’s the odd one out as always… and the only one you could say is anything like me is the youngest, but she isn’t here — so I’m the busiest person here.”

“Fine. You’re wonderful.”

Realizing he couldn’t win against Jeong-eun in words, Mun-jong gave up arguing.

When Mun-jong turned his head away, Jeong-eun lifted her chin with a triumphant expression and said to Suk-ja Chu,

“So why have you gathered us all together?”

At Jeong-eun’s question, Suk-ja, who had been sitting quietly and saying nothing, slowly opened her mouth.

“Are you so busy that you don’t even pay attention to how the company is running?”

Jeong-eun put on a bewildered expression.

“Don’t know how the company is running? What do you mean by that?”

Jeong-eun turned to look at Chang-jong Lee, seated beside her, and sent him a glance that asked whether he understood.

But Chang-jong was just as much in the dark.

Sang-jong and Mun-jong too asked Suk-ja with puzzled faces,

“Mother. What do you mean?”

“Ugh, these witless things. These witless things.”

Realizing she wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand, Jeong-eun said to Suk-ja,

“Come on. You have to explain properly for us to follow — who’s going to understand talk like that?”

“Do you really not know whose hands Ilhyeon is being played by right now?”

Jeong-eun narrowed her eyes and looked at Suk-ja.

And, recalling a certain name, she slowly opened her mouth.

“Don’t tell me you’re about to say the company is being played with in Kim’s hands right now?”

“Yes. And knowing that, this is the time you’re pouring your attention elsewhere?!”

“Aih~ and here I wondered what you were going to say.”

Jeong-eun let out a remark laced with a sigh, looked around at the siblings present, and said,

“Who is there who doesn’t know that? You know it too, don’t you, brother?”

Jeong-eun pointed at Mun-jong and asked.

Mun-jong nodded with a dark face.

“Yes. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately too. Whether the company isn’t being led around too much by Kim’s hand…”

Pausing for a moment to think, Mun-jong looked at Suk-ja and said,

“But that’s because the company is undergoing restructuring, and the one holding the key to that restructuring is Kim — so it can’t be helped. We have to understand it.”

“Understand? What a generous heart you have.”

Suk-ja gave a snort and looked at Sang-jong.

“Second son. Was it something you could understand?”

“I…”

When Sang-jong hesitated for a moment, Suk-ja raised her eyes at him and said,

“Don’t you even feel wronged? You were hauled off to the prosecutors and it doesn’t make you angry?”

“That’s…”

Sang-jong couldn’t answer properly.

Mun-jong looked at Sang-jong like that for a moment, then spoke to Suk-ja in his stead.

“Mother. That wasn’t because of Kim. If we’re being honest about it, you could see it as Father’s decision.”

“And who do you suppose it was that told your father to make such a decision?”

Suk-ja looked around at her children as if exasperated and said,

“Who is it that’s moving your father right now?!”

Suk-ja beat her own chest with her hand in frustration and said,

“That I gave birth to idiots like these and called them my children. Called them my children. That I bore these things and ate the seaweed soup afterward — I’m the fool. I’m the imbecile.”

“Mother.”

“Don’t you even call me Mother!”

When Mun-jong tried to soothe her, Suk-ja suddenly shouted.

And raising her hand to point at her children, she cried out,

“You idiots! Do you intend to let that man keep playing with the company? Who was it that went into the Blue House in your father’s place, and who is it that — unlike a certain someone barely just risen to a president’s seat and thrilled to death over it — sits astride two president’s seats at once?!”

“Mother. Even so, that’s…”

“Are you going to tell me it was all Father’s decision?”

Suk-ja cut off Mun-jong’s words.

“Think about it properly. How your father has moved from the moment that Seong-ho Kim fellow entered our house up to now, and how that fellow climbed all the way to that position… When you were delighting over getting one thing, count up properly how many things fell into that fellow’s hands.”

Unable to bear her frustration, Suk-ja spat out an indignation she couldn’t contain and stormed out of her seat.

“Mom…”

“Mother…”

At the sight of Suk-ja leaving without even a word of farewell, Mun-jong and the others rose awkwardly, half out of their seats, with flustered faces, and watched her go.

Watching the back of Suk-ja, who had left radiating a chill, Jeong-eun sat back down.

And she looked around at her other siblings and asked,

“Why is Mom like that?”

“Did you not hear? Didn’t she tell us to come to our senses because Kim is trying to manipulate Father?”

“But she gathered us — busy as we are — just to say that?”

Jeong-eun shook her head as if dumbfounded and looked around.

“I’m not joking, I’m really, truly busy, you know? The company’s booming and I’m run off my feet, and I don’t know what she’s on about. No — honestly, I have those thoughts too. And it’s been a grievance of mine as well. But what are we supposed to do about it now?”

Having spoken looking at Mun-jong, Jeong-eun this time turned to Sang-jong and said,

“The day we talked about handing over Ilhyeon Power, Mom told me — that second brother going into the prosecutors’ was because of Kim. Brother. Did you tell Mom you went in because of Kim?”

Sang-jong shook his head.

“Why would I say a thing like that?”

“Then Mom thought that up on her own.”

Jeong-eun looked at the corridor Suk-ja had left down and said,

“And what are we supposed to do about what she said just now, either? When Father dotes on him, what is there that people like us can do?”

Having finished speaking, Jeong-eun slowly turned to look at Mun-jong.

Because whether it was cutting Kim down or pressing him underfoot, the only person who could crush the present Seong-ho — whom Tak-hyeon doted on — was Mun-jong.

Feeling the gazes gathered on him, Mun-jong crossed his arms and sank into thought for a moment.

Mun-jong had thought of Seong-ho as being on his side.

Of course, Sang-jong had thought this too, and Chang-jong was not greatly different.

They had all thought of Seong-ho as a blade to help them, and so, even with Seong-ho in a high position, they hadn’t felt greatly threatened.

“Still, Kim is a son-in-law.”

At that, Jeong-eun relayed to Mun-jong what she’d heard from Suk-ja.

“I said that to Mom too. And do you know what Mom said back? She said there’s nothing that can’t happen at Ilhyeon.”

“Nothing that can’t happen at Ilhyeon?”

“She told me to recall how Father, who was the second son, inherited the group from Grandfather. But that and Kim are two different stories…”

Jeong-eun shook her head, still seeming not to understand Suk-ja’s words.

But Mun-jong’s heart was stirred by them.

“Yes. There’s nothing that can’t happen.”

Mun-jong nodded.

“…There have been a lot of line-crossing things lately, come to think of it.”

Mun-jong turned his head to look at Sang-jong and asked,

“How much did you say the fine is that you’re paying this time?”

“The fine Ilhyeon Construction is getting comes to about 20 billion won.”

“Perhaps even that is Kim’s handiwork.”

Mun-jong, arms still crossed, twisted his lips and said,

“Just leaving it alone won’t do. Just as Mother says, we need to keep a wary eye on it. And it wouldn’t hurt to stamp it down before then. Before that fellow catches on.”

Mun-jong had concluded that, however much Seong-ho was on his side, it wasn’t a good thing for him to hold too much power.

Because he wanted it to be Seong-ho grabbing hold of the rope that was himself in order to survive, rather than himself receiving Seong-ho’s help.

Hearing Mun-jong’s words, Jeong-eun grinned and grinned as if it would be fun.

And with a face that said she was already looking forward to how Seong-ho would react to a decision made in his absence, she wriggled in her seat.

But it wasn’t as though Seong-ho, for being absent, didn’t know a decision like this would come out.

Because for Seong-ho, the behavior of the Ilhyeon family, endured since his former life, was carved into his very bones.

Seong-ho was seated together with Byeong-jin Jo, Byeong-ju Jeong, and Deputy Head Gyeong-deuk Lee.

It wasn’t a meeting but a gathering Seong-ho had called with the idea of talking for a while — you could call them Seong-ho’s closest people, those who’d been with him from early on.

They gathered in Seong-ho’s office and made small talk.

“The group restructuring’s about wrapped up now too.”

Sitting with his legs crossed, Gyeong-deuk Lee spoke in a relaxed tone, this being an unofficial setting.

Byeong-jin Jo, sitting beside Gyeong-deuk on the sofa with his legs crossed in the same posture, picked up on Gyeong-deuk’s words.

“You’ve no idea how fortunate it was that we started before the wave came crashing in. Thanks to that, we were able to proceed smoothly.”

“That’s not all. With the stamina we banked that way, we could get our hands on the prime assets that came onto the market — so for Ilhyeon, the wave crashing in was, if anything, an opportunity. I wasn’t here from the company’s founding, so I don’t know for certain what happened before, but at any rate, since I came to Ilhyeon, this has to have been the biggest opportunity. Head Kim was right when he said it would be Ilhyeon’s second great leap.”

Gyeong-deuk looked at Seong-ho and gave a thumbs-up.

Gyeong-deuk thought that without Seong-ho, they couldn’t have produced this kind of result.

And he was convinced that even if someone had foreseen it, they couldn’t have achieved results as outstanding as Seong-ho’s.

That was how dazzling Seong-ho’s achievements were, and how brilliant.

Byeong-ju Jeong too put on an expression of agreement with Gyeong-deuk’s words and said,

“With this Big Deal successfully wrapped up on top of everything, you could say the results are staggering.”

Knock knock.

Seong-ho’s secretary knocked on the office door and came in.

“Head Kim. I’ve brought four coffees here.”

“Well done.”

Seong-ho told the secretary well done and personally took the iced coffees out of the carrier.

And he personally set the coffees down in front of the three people seated across from him.

“Ooh~ is this that famous star-shaped coffee?”

“Yes. A branch opened in front of the company this time, so I gave it a try ordering.”

“I’d heard people line up to buy the coffee… this is 4,500 won a cup, they say?”

“The smaller size is cheaper.”

“Ugh~ 4,500 won is enough to buy a home-style set meal with change to spare, and to spend that on a single coffee — I just can’t understand it.”

Byeong-jin brought his mouth to the straw with an expression that said he couldn’t understand lining up to buy coffee costing more than a meal when you could just buy a meal instead.

And after taking a sip of the iced coffee, he said,

“Still, coffee someone else is buying, you’d best enjoy.”

Byeong-ju drank his coffee after Byeong-jin and said to Seong-ho,

“Expensive is one thing, but I hear this is doing incredibly well?”

“They say the goal is fifty stores opened within the year.”

“It doesn’t seem long since the brand launched, and the goal is fifty stores this year? Impressive.”

Gyeong-deuk, having drunk his coffee, followed with admiration.

“Coffee more expensive than a meal is selling like hotcakes like this, so how much money must they be raking in? Since it makes money, they ought to expand stores aggressively too. The husband and wife are setting off jackpots in tandem, one after another.”

“That’s right. And because of that, some of the staff are starting to say that Seong-ho might be Ilhyeon’s number two.”

“Why wouldn’t they? He pulled off the Blue House and the Big Deal in the Chairman’s place, so of course Seong-ho is the number two. It’s not wrong.”

“I think the same.”

When Byeong-jin broached the “number two” idea, Gyeong-deuk agreed, and Byeong-ju too joined in that the thought was correct.

And this wasn’t something they were saying just to please Seong-ho’s ears.

This was the thinking of the ordinary staff working at Ilhyeon, and the way Ilhyeon was viewed from the outside.

It wasn’t that Seong-ho was unaware of the “number two” talk.

“It’s because of that talk that I said I wanted to speak with the three of you for a bit.”

“That talk?”

Byeong-jin, straw in his mouth, blinked, asking what talk.

Seong-ho, who had only been holding his coffee without drinking, looked Byeong-jin straight in the eye and said,

“The number-two talk. It’s that talk I wanted to have.”

Seong-ho opened his mouth with a hardened face.

(End of Chapter 160)