“What is this? What rat has come at us first thing in the morning!”

“I-I don’t know. Money’s coming in from Kaum, Yeondae and Gubo and shaking the price.”

“Son of a bitch! How much in total?”

“About o-one billion won.”

“Which bastard is it this time? Isn’t it the same one as last time?”

“The scale of the money is different. It looks like a super ant has come in this time.”

“Bastard doesn’t know the first thing about professional courtesy…”

“What do we do?”

Cursing broke out in the Gangnam officetel that was running the Planet 77 operation.

After three straight limit-ups they had shaken the ants out with a week of lower limits and other work.

They had sucked the ants’ blood dry in the first round.

The operation was psychological warfare at a high level.

They were preparing to hit it with another filing and, with a change-of-hands strategy, to make it really run after three more limit-ups.

The oversight agency had been suitably greased.

Then, out of nowhere, a considerable sum came in and swept the shares up at the lower limit.

That was not in the plan.

“What do you mean, what! We go by the scenario. If he throws it out… take all of it!”

The team leader flew into a rage.

Having to take a hit while seeing it coming turned his stomach.

It looked like they would have no choice but to share.

“U-understood.”

“Hoo. There’s no doing this job anymore. Ant bastards these days have noses like dogs…”

The work team leader, a former brokerage man, let out a sigh and dropped into his seat.

It’s thin ice until the moment it ends.

After one big score they had to lie low for years, quiet as dead mice, until the statute ran out.

Unlike in the past, there were plenty of ants armed with every kind of information.

Get it wrong and a wind of blood blows, so the rings did not lightly walk into another ring’s work.

Professional courtesy was an unwritten rule even among rings.

But these days there were far too many clever ants who could smell a ring’s money like ghosts.

“Dad, Mom. You two go on ahead.”

“A-are you sure that’s all right?”

“Yes. I’m going to do some relaxed shopping with the twins. With my parents there I feel watched.”

“…Tae-san…”

Dad’s eyes reddened.

While we were buying the car, I quietly held out a bankbook.

When I opened my own stock account, I opened one for my mother at the same time, and a household account with it.

Money rolled over from credit into credit had swollen like a snowball.

I opened my mother’s stock account and invested with both at once.

My mother was rich too.

I hadn’t told anyone until now.

I had held it myself.

I intended to go on that way.

If my soft-hearted father had seen it, he would obviously have co-signed something or had it taken off him, the way he did in the past.

I boldly shot money into my mother’s account.

The amount, cleanly, was fifty million won.

An earthquake went through Dad’s and Mom’s eyes.

I was almost at a loss, in case they burst into tears right there.

And that was how we bought the car.

It was the display model, so it even had the windows tinted already.

The dealer transferred the insurance and finished the registration fast.

We ate at a Chinese restaurant, and when we came back the car was waiting, washed, with a flourish.

The used car wasn’t in a condition to be sold, so it was decided it would be scrapped.

The dealer looked at it and said we were lucky.

The frame itself had rusted through, he said, and it had nearly caused an accident.

Only then did it come back to me.

When I was in college, Dad was in a traffic accident.

At the time I didn’t think it was serious, but from then on his body troubled him.

“Dad. Congratulations. Your brilliant son has caused a huge accident.”

“Ju-hui. Say it more nicely.”

“What’s wrong with it? An accident’s an accident.”

The twins smiled brightly and had their usual affectionate(?) exchange.

“All right. Son, don’t come home too late. Your mother will make you something good.”

“Mom! Meat! Meat! Spicy stir-fried pork!”

“I want Mom’s japchae! Japchae with loads of beef in it!”

The twins chattered like sparrows.

It was a harmonious scene of a kind I had never seen before.

They had emptied a plate of sweet-and-sour pork at lunch and here they were asking for meat again at dinner.

“You two… Anyone watching would think your mom and dad starved you.”

Dad broke into a wide smile.

The cash his son had held out had brought his shoulders back to life.

Inside the first degree of kinship, officially, there’s no need for pride.

Dad was wise.

At the Chinese restaurant, Mom had confessed everything about what happened at my contract.

At first he didn’t believe it.

Dad couldn’t understand how selling a book could bring in close to a hundred million won.

I explained it simply.

Within a few days it had gone through successive printings, up to fifteen thousand copies a volume.

I said the president had paid the royalties for the fourth volume too.

The truth is it wasn’t book money.

It was a little more than the royalties would give, but my father believed it.

Dad’s expression went from laughing to crying and back.

But at the end of it he looked at me with pride.

What high school kid can earn tens of millions of won in cash?

“Have a good time. I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

“Thanks to my son I’ll have a proper date. Thank you.”

Mom smiled brightly.

“Thank you.”

My father didn’t say much, but the gratitude came through hard.

“Come on, between parents and children it should be I love you rather than thank you. There’s no way in a whole life to repay you for bearing us and raising us.”

“Ooh! Our oppa is the absolute best.”

When Mom and Dad said thank you, I went into dutiful-son mode.

Ju-hui stuck out her thumb and assisted me.

“We’re off, then.”

Dad and Mom got into the new car.

Vroom, vroom.

A pleasant diesel note sounded.

It suited the heavy body of the car.

“Tae-san… this car really is good.”

Mom was overdoing her delight.

“Drive safely.”

“Dad, don’t take Mom too far.”

“Bye-bye.”

With us seeing them off, the Rockstone pulled away.

Looking at that body, solid as a rock, I felt easier now.

“Oppa, where are we going?”

“Where do you think? We’re going shopping!”

“Kyaaaaaa! Oppa, you’re the best!”

Ju-hui, the youngest, grabbed my arm and bounced up and down.

Sweet-natured Ju-a only smiled.

This is why the more money the better.

My late grandmother used to say that if you’re born human and sing the song of honest poverty until you die, you’ll come back a miser in the next life.

You need money to give any away.

You need money to have a cultural life.

You need money… for there to be affection between siblings, as I was seeing for myself.

Better a brother with ability than a brother with a filthy, prickly temper, all else being equal.

“Oppa, do I look all right?”

“Ooh! Ju-a has a good fit on her too. You could model.”

“R-really?”

“Oppa, look at me too.”

“Our Ju-hui is too pretty to need a second look.”

“Oppa. Do you have mayonnaise smeared on your mouth? Why are you so good at saying greasy things all of a sudden? Are you really our oppa?”

Having died and come back, there was nothing left in life to be embarrassed about.

Everything was simply good.

It was good that my sisters were pretty.

Put any clothes on them at all and it was this rewarding.

They took after Dad and were already about a hundred and sixty-five centimeters.

Third-year middle schoolers, but well grown.

The fit of the jeans was like a model’s.

They took after Mom with white skin, and their eyes, noses and mouths had been made with real care.

At Calvin Kline, the jeans specialist, I bought my sisters jeans as a present.

I told them each to pick jeans they liked and three tops.

Having money didn’t mean I wanted to throw it around.

Keep to a reasonable line and they wouldn’t grow dependent on me.

I can’t live the twins’ lives for them.

I’d had hard times myself, so I valued today.

A reasonable amount of hardship is a tonic that matures a person.

First time I’ve worn these.

Calvin Kline, which I’d only ever heard about.

To me, who had only ever owned street-stall jeans, it was no different from a department store luxury label.

The same went for my sisters.

It lived up to being a real label, and it looked good even to my eye after living in 2020.

Jeans seem to follow fashion less than other things.

I firmly ruled out the wide-leg style.

Because it was summer, it was mostly shorts or the cool skinny styles.

“Oppa, pick something too. I’ll look at it for you.”

“But oppa, haven’t you changed some? Have you been working out? Your face too… it’s different from before.”

My sisters stopped picking jeans and tilted their heads at me.

Training the Taegeuk Five Elements Dual Intent Mind Art and the Taegeuk Five Elements Dual Intent Fist, my body had been changing steadily.

Flesh and muscle had come onto a body that had been nothing but bone.

Once the pressure points opened, my face and my bones found their proper places too.

Overall it had become a balanced body.

I had grown taller too.

“Whoa! Now that I look, our oppa is really handsome. Isn’t he, unnie?”

“Huh? You’re right…”

This is what family is.

My sisters were remarkably slow to notice the change in their brother.

The truth is they hadn’t had time to look.

Third-year middle schoolers, they had supplementary classes and evening study on top of them.

They left early in the morning, so there was rarely a time our faces met.

“Twins. Aren’t you a little too uninterested in your oppa?”

“Oppa. Sorry.”

“Your personality’s changed too. Where did the shy, easily embarrassed oppa go?”

Ju-a said sorry, and Ju-hui’s eyes shone.

“Your brother has a really good body. You’re in college, right?”

The young saleswoman who had been watching from the side showed her interest in me.

A noona in her early twenties with her acne covered by makeup.

Slim, with a cat-like face, and cute.

In the past, a woman at this level had never shown any interest in me.

A day like today was an event.

“Our oppa is good-looking, isn’t he? But what a shame. He’s a second-year at Jangju High School, I’m afraid.”

Ju-hui caught the saleswoman’s interest and threw a jab.

“What? A h-high school student?”

“Ha ha. Noona. Do I look precocious?”

“No… your air isn’t a high school student’s.”

Like a clothing-shop worker who deals with people all day, she read it uncannily well.

She had picked up that this wasn’t ordinary high schooler behavior.

“I’ll go and try these on.”

I picked out clothes myself and went into the fitting room.

I chose shorts, two pairs of jeans, a light summer shirt and a casual button-down.

Using my sisters as an excuse, I was enjoying a luxury for the first time myself.

A slide of fabric.

I took off my clothes.

A firm upper body showed in the mirror.

Still not there, but the muscles were forming their lines.

“Not bad at all.”

The old man’s present was superb.

My build had been upgraded from shoddy common stock to royal stock.

The illegal tutoring from the director of Immortal Healthcare was the real thing.

I’m not a pervert, but I ran my hands over my body.

The version of me from this period, with the ribs showing, was gone.

I took off the old jeans.

The solid thighs looked good.

The balance of the whole body looked good even to me.

The feel of the light skinny jeans clinging to my legs wasn’t bad.

With jeans added to a backside and thighs that had muscle on them, it was perfect.

And with a cool navy V-neck layered on top of that…

“Jang Tae-san. You really have turned into a dragon!”

Even to my eye, a distinctly decent-looking fellow appeared in the mirror.

Even the rough hair I’d let grow over the vacation couldn’t spoil it.

A man both soft and rough looked at me out of the mirror and smiled.

“Why is my skin this good?”

The skin of my face, when I touched it, didn’t have a single blemish.

With the impurities gone from my body, my skin got the benefit too.

Skin with a light tan on it gave off a masculine look.

The size 105 clothes were neither too big nor too small.

Slim but balanced — even to me, the build couldn’t have been more perfect.

Today I understood Narcissus’s self-love perfectly.

“Twins. What are you doing here?”

“Yu-ra, Hye-jin!”

“You two here to buy clothes?”

“Yeah.”

“Oho, did you get your allowance? Is your dad buying?”

“No. Our oppa said he’d treat us.”

“Oppa? Your actual brother? Or a boyfriend?”

“Eek! Where would I get a boyfriend!”

It was noisy outside.

It seemed the twins’ friends had arrived.

Snap.

I pulled off the price tag.

If I liked it, I bought it on the spot.

I threw the stretched-out, faded, grubby old clothes into the trash without hesitating.

Selling my past for nostalgia was over.

I walked out.

The feel of clothes clinging to my body was unfamiliar, but good.

Good jeans really were different.

“Oppa.”

Ju-hui, the youngest, called to me as I came out of the fitting room.

And the gazes of the bob-haired girls who seemed to be the twins’ friends turned toward me.

“Ah!”

“Oh my…”

The two girls, startled at the sight of me, covered their mouths with their hands.

Their cheeks reddened and their eyes grew enormous.

(End of Chapter 11)