"However I look at it, this is precisely the sort of case that gets you savaged."

Jeong-eun pointed a finger at Seong-ho.

"You should have shown some restraint. Unilaterally terminating a contract is exactly the kind of thing that invites a savaging. If the press gets hold of it, imagine how they'll paint you as a predatory company. The unions are already raising their voices about improving working conditions, and you've thrown them the meat and told them to tear into it."

Jeong-eun fired away as though she herself were a partner-company president.

"Representative Kim. Aren't you getting rather reckless, being off in Ulsan? Hm? Where is it written that you handle something like this without reporting upward?"

"Is terminating a contract with a partner company something that requires a report upward?"

"Of course it is."

"I'm the president of Ilhyeon Heavy Industries. Who exactly do you mean by 'upward'?"

Jeong-eun glanced around and pointed at Mun-jong.

"The Vice-Chairman is right there. Did you think there was no one above you?"

"You want me to report the culling of suppliers to the Vice-Chairman? Are you serious?"

Seong-ho looked at her as though asking whether she truly wanted that.

Evidently finding it a stretch even by her own reckoning, Jeong-eun turned her head away.

"Father, my point is this. Handling things this recklessly is going to earn us bad opinion. You know it as well as I do. Our suppliers and we exist in a relationship of mutual aid and symbiosis — and cutting them off outright, what is that if not an abuse of power? Am I wrong?"

"I didn't know you cared so deeply about our suppliers."

Tak-hyeon regarded her with open derision.

But she didn't back down.

"I don't think of suppliers as things to be used and discarded, the way Representative Kim does."

"And is that why a man who thinks so highly of his suppliers gets reported to the prosecutors by one?"

"Sorry?"

Jeong-eun's face registered shock.

It was Do-beom, not Tak-hyeon, who answered.

"Oljoy Industrial has filed a criminal complaint against Ilhyeon Card, alleging unjust…