“We’ve come into a run of work, haven’t we. Sokcho this time?”

“His parents are there.”

“Kang Deuksu? One look and he’s a man of standing in the district.”

Saturday afternoon, the Jo and Jang office.

On the client’s instruction Kim Gyeongmin’s team came in, weekend or not.

The crown prince Ha Tae-ung has gone to Sokcho, where his parents are said to be.

He has sent Kim Gyeongmin one person’s brief particulars, and a message.

Kang Deuksu!

A man living in Sokcho, and the content of it is a request for his ruin.

Read the requirements closely and a will to blow that household to pieces comes across.

Very occasionally instructions like this come in to Jo and Jang.

The subject is sometimes a particular politician or entertainer who has provoked somebody of the upper class, and sometimes people of the middle class besides.

“How badly marked is the man, to have the crown prince this furious.”

The content had been passed on briefly, by text.

“If there is anything unlawful, drive it to the furthest point……. Kang Deuksu. No need to look — this gentleman is finished. Heh heh.”

Kim Gyeongmin took in what the text said and let a queer laugh out of him.

Jo and Jang can manufacture a crime on the spot where there is none, and meet the client’s requirement anyway.

And there is something unlawful?

Better simply to repeat back that he is finished.

“Are the chaebol houses all like that?”

Ah Yura asked it as though she wanted to know.

“Attorney Ah. You don’t know yet, do you?”

“No…….”

“A chaebol house’s revenge is secret and it’s cruel. Once you’re marked, take it that a decent life is over. If they think there’s a crime in you, prosecutors fasten on and investigate one unrelated matter after another and put the whole lot away with you. There are few people alive today who get through a life avoiding every illegality perfectly.”

“…….”

“Haryun Group in particular……. Ugh.”

Kim Gyeongmin cut himself off and shuddered.

“Why?”

Curiosity went off in Ah Yura.

A reaction like this from Kim Gyeongmin, senior attorney, is a first.

“Get marked by Chairman Ha Cheolgon and everybody dies.”

“D— dies?”

“Everything short of killing you himself. Get marked and the house is pulled up by the roots and burned.”

“Ah…….”

“The crown prince, our young master, is a Ha. Where would that blood go?”

“…….”

At Kim Gyeongmin’s words Ah Yura bit lightly at her lip.

There was a pressure she could not name, felt while they sat side by side tipping glasses.

Not like ordinary charisma.

The crown prince Ha Tae-ung had met even the goblin lord’s eyes straight on and carried the conversation.

It has the look of him taking up Jo and Jang, the famous sword of the legal side, and beginning to swing the blade in earnest.

“Attorney Ah.”

“Yes.”

“You put the broker order in, I hear?”

Jo and Jang’s influence may be limitless, but the organisation runs inside a finite system.

In particular, when Ah Yura, new in, uses the Jo and Jang system, it is reported upward at once.

“I’m sorry…….”

“Sorry for what. The crown prince picked you.”

Kim Gyeongmin said it smiling, which was not what she expected.

“In fact I want to tell you thank you.”

“Sorry??”

“The crown prince’s broker…… if it goes wrong…….”

Kim Gyeongmin does not say it at length.

He has guessed where that work ends.

A Haryun Group crown prince has appeared.

Upper-class society is already noisy with it.

The child of a crown prince cast out of the house and deposed.

There is no chance the Ha family leaves a seed like that alone.

“Our client the crown prince is no ordinary person, and the other side is Haryun. He’s tied us in well enough, whatever brought it about…… and that isn’t the whole of it.”

“…….”

Ah Yura’s ears went up.

She knew a report on her every move went in to Attorney Kim Gyeongmin.

She was measuring the timing of her own report, and the senior attorney has raised it first.

“I don’t know what he wants to do with Haryun Group, but if a fight to seize power opens up…… the loser dies. And if the crown prince hasn’t got some ability he’s keeping hidden…… the result is obvious.”

Kim Gyeongmin has knocked about as much as a man knocks about, as a senior attorney of Jo and Jang.

Thud! Thud

Ah Yura’s heart went roughly.

It was certain she had set foot on a board bigger in size than anything she had imagined.

And now the foot cannot be drawn back.

She has taken the crown prince’s hand directly.

“All that lives must perish. That’s the thing I want to say to you, Attorney Ah.”

“All that lives must perish…….”

“Everybody dies. And if you take the chance well when it comes, and you succeed…… is there anything finer than that to do before you die?”

Kim Gyeongmin comforted her with words of encouragement, laughing as he gave them.

He has already got some sense of the board.

Ha Tae-ung is the client the two of them carry.

A submerged dragon, certainly, preparing a board larger than anything imagined.

“That aside — the documents went to the crown prince?”

“Yes. Sent by email.”

“A gambler, is he……. That board will fall to us as well, I should think?”

Jo and Jang is an organisation where work is ability.

A pleased smile spread at the corner of Kim Gyeongmin’s mouth.

Trickle.

Sorghum liquor filling a porcelain cup.

Three cups set in a row, filled to the top.

“Let’s all have one. This is the sorghum liquor I drink whenever a big piece of business comes off, and today the sweet smell on it is stronger.”

Song Jeonggeun put the cup to his nose, took the scent and made a sound of admiration.

A present he gives himself every time he puts his seal to a trade of any size.

Mengzhilan, the sorghum liquor the present Chinese head of state is said to enjoy as well.

“A big piece of business, and jjajangmyeon and tangsuyuk is the whole of it?”

Hwang Haksu threw the joke in.

“Haksu-ya. When we were small, was there anything better than this?”

“Heh heh. True. Jjajangmyeon and tangsuyuk, and that was that.”

The customer had gone with the trade done, and Song Jeonggeun and Hwang Haksu were talking as they always do.

Three of them left in the Sokcho estate agency office.

Hwang Haksu, Song Jeonggeun, and Kim Juhui with them, all staying on to mark it.

Three bowls of jjajangmyeon in front of them, and tangsuyuk with the steam coming off it.

“Thank you again, both of you.”

Kim Juhui, flushed, gave them what she meant.

A trade this large was a first in her life.

On a single trade the commission is nine tenths of one per cent from each side.

Seventy-two million won earned in one shot.

Kim Juhui takes thirty per cent of the total commission into her hand.

Several months’ earnings in one shot.

The trading does not end here.

One trade after another is to follow.

The big player, the young master, has named Kim Juhui as his agent for the property dealing.

The commission on that run of trades comes to her entire as well.

Which is why her face was flushed red before the drink ever touched her mouth.

Thud! Thud

The racing feeling will not settle.

A different order of thing from residential lettings and ordinary sales.

“Thanks nothing! I’m the grateful one. You brought a remarkable money man in.”

“President Kim, the great luck has burst on you. A young master isn’t caught by just anybody.”

Song Jeonggeun and Hwang Haksu talked Kim Juhui up.

Capital is gathering quietly in Sokcho.

Chaebol investment of this kind is a class of its own.

“I’ve got to hold on tight! It’s a chance that won’t come again in a lifetime.”

Strength went into Kim Juhui’s voice.

“True. A chaebol isn’t caught by just anybody. And the great Haryun Group at that.”

“Jeonggeun-a, is it really Haryun Group? The Ha surname is rare enough, and to be certain from that alone that he’s a chaebol house’s son seems a stretch to me.”

“Tut, tut. Haksu-ya, what would you know about Seoul information?”

“What is there?”

“You know Oh Gyeongjeong, our hoobae from school?”

Song Jeonggeun lowered his voice quietly.

“The section head at Sokcho Police Station, intelligence and foreign affairs?”

“That’s him. Something I heard over a drink a few years back. Haryun Group’s chairman’s son and his wife made their place in Sokcho.”

“Was there such a thing?”

“Heh heh. This is what having information means, isn’t it.”

“So he really is a chaebol house’s son? Hohoho.”

Colour came up in Kim Juhui’s face.

Making enquiries about persons of importance in society is a principal part of a provincial police station’s intelligence and foreign affairs work.

“Let’s drink to it. We’ll be busy from here, finding the young master the land he wants.”

“I’ll be trusting you, President Song.”

“President Kim, let’s make a good job of it. I ought to earn myself a bit of a retirement out of this chance too.”

Song Jeonggeun put his cup out toward Kim Juhui.

“You know it’s my land you sell first?”

“Are you really going to sell?”

“I need it cleared quickly. I’ve had enough of watching the children fight.”

Hwang Haksu shook his head and shuddered at it.

Every time he saw his children with their eyes up over the property fight, the heat ran through him.

“Right. Clear it out! What is property, that it should matter……. Who gains when the children fight each other?”

“My crop of children failed. Tut.”

Two men of older middle age, speaking with one voice on the question of their children and money.

“Excuse me, gentlemen…….”

Kim Juhui looked at the two of them.

Their cups empty, both looks turned toward her.

“Would you happen to know who owns the empty ground beside President Hwang’s building?”

“Where?”

“The vacant lot in front of the Hanjin Apartments, to the right of the meat place.”

“Ah! Go’s land.”

Hwang Haksu understood at once and answered.

“Someone you know?”

“Know him well. That land will come onto the market soon.”

“Really?”

“Go’s boy is a player at the Jeongseon casino. He said he’s selling this time to clear the debts.”

“Ah…….”

A sound of pity escaped Kim Juhui’s mouth.

In Gangwon Province there was a bad son blowing away gold-dust land in every other house.

Sokcho landowners and their descendants, who cannot govern themselves against a land price that has shot up.

“That land…… why?”

Song Jeonggeun asked it obliquely.

Kim Juhui smiles shyly.

And.

“It seems the young master means to build a villa.”

“Ah! A villa!!”

The two of them, listening, nodded.

It is the villa anybody with money enough dreams of.

It went down as entirely reasonable.

“Put a building on that ground and the view finishes you! A chaebol’s eye is a different thing after all!”

Song Jeonggeun admired it inwardly.

The land in front of Sokcho beach is the core future development area Sokcho is pushing.

Let a few years pass and it is certainly good land that will return five times over at the least.

“Right! To our young master, and to the endless development of Sokcho! Cheers!”

“Cheers!!”

(End of Chapter 88)