Coming off the aircraft, Mun-jong Lee and Seong-ho Kim went straight to Seongjungwon.

"I shall speak of it the moment I see Father, so take it as settled."

Mun-jong Lee did not say what it was he meant to speak of, but Seong-ho Kim could tell well enough.

"Very well."

Seong-ho Kim answered so composedly that Mun-jong Lee glanced sidelong at him.

Then he turned his head away without a word and walked on.

"You have had a hard time of it."

Do-beom Hwang had come out to meet them, and said it to them both.

"Your faces are much thinner. Was it so very hard, what you went for?"

"There was a great deal of drinking. So my face is somewhat the worse for it."

"…Yes. The Chinese do drink a great deal."

Do-beom Hwang nodded as though he understood, and gestured them inside.

"Let us go in. The Chairman is waiting."

Do-beom Hwang went in first, and Mun-jong Lee and Seong-ho Kim followed him into Seongjungwon.

"We are back."

Having greeted Tak-hyeon Lee, who had been waiting in the study, Mun-jong Lee and Seong-ho Kim sat down on the reception sofa.

"Yes. Did it go well?"

"It did."

"There is something I must tell you."

Seong-ho Kim answered the question briefly; Mun-jong Lee spoke as though he had been waiting for it.

"We received a very good proposal in China."

"A good proposal?"

Tak-hyeon Lee looked at Mun-jong Lee with interest.

Mun-jong Lee glanced round at Seong-ho Kim, then began on what had happened in China.

What proposals they had made, which company would take which affiliate in, how they must go back to China shortly to draw up the memorandum of understanding — he told the whole of it without leaving out a thing.

And at the end he laid emphasis on Seong-ho Kim's decision.

"But Seong-ho received the Chinese government's proposal and said no to it."

"He said no?"

"Yes. Even when the Chinese government—"

Mun-jong Lee set to listing, at length, the sort of chances Seong-ho Kim had refused.

Adding a little exaggeration besides, he…