“Try to get clever and you’ll just give yourself a headache.”

This is exactly what the old four-character phrase is for: use barbarians to control barbarians. (TL Note: 以夷制夷, a classical Chinese strategy—set your enemies against one another so they wear each other down.)

I’d quietly sold out my mother’s family—practically Mom’s sworn enemies.

The Ana Group bastards would keep quiet for a while.

Dongnyong wasn’t a top-ten group like Ana, but it wasn’t a two-bit group either.

Mom’s identity was a matter of record.

If they looked into me, they’d find it out sooner or later.

Mom’s fortune was on record in her own name; the deeper they dug, the worse their headaches would get.

They’d probably dream up a story that she was the former chairman’s hidden heir.

Thanks to me, an unseen war of nerves had started between Ana and the Dongnyong Group.

When two sly bunches go at each other, it’s quite a show.

“Come again anytime. Next time I’ll give you a real taste of fire.”

Nobodies who weren’t worth one punch had gotten cocky.

That kind of stunt only works on ordinary citizens.

They threatened people with a conglomerate’s name and bought muscle with money.

They’d come to raid my home base without an ounce of fear, and I’d lightly taken care of them.

From the moment I got my life extended, I’ve had no mercy to spare for people who use violence.

Two of them had their hands wrecked, and one had his leg smashed.

They couldn’t even report it.

The moment they filed a complaint against me, the Ana Group chairman’s attempted kidnapping would come out too.

From now on, they’d have a hard time making a living with their fists.

I dragged them to the car they’d come in and took down a recorded statement.

I shook every last bit of information out of them.

They were tough bastards.

At first they wouldn’t talk, so I gave their muscles a little massage with my internal energy.

After that, it all came pouring out.

I must have been pretty vicious with them, because I racked up dark karma points in abundance.

No regrets.

They even volunteered the people they’d taken care of on Chairman Oh’s orders in the past.

I knew it—that son of a bitch really was a son of a bitch.

Now I knew exactly what Oh Dong-seong had grown up watching.

I’d seen the true face of a chaebol gangster, the kind you only see in movies.

He was more brutal than the gang bosses back home.

He’d hushed everything up with money.

I couldn’t forgive it.

“Attorney Jo.”

I made a call.

“What’s up so early in the morning, CEO Jang?”

Whatever he said, he sounded glad to hear from me.

“The contract gets signed today, right?”

“The final contract gets signed at eleven. Something wrong?”

“No. Just please wrap it up cleanly.”

“Don’t worry. You don’t trust me?”

“I do. That’s why I’m giving you ten percent.”

“Heh heh. I’ll gratefully take it. Thanks to you, CEO Jang, I get to walk around the house with my chest out these days. The family trip over the New Year’s holiday was great. I’ll never forget this as long as I live.”

I’d handed Attorney Jo ten percent to make sure he was firmly on my side.

It was a stake in name only; he couldn’t do anything with it.

I’d sent him on a family trip over the New Year’s holiday.

First-class seats and six days, five nights in Europe in Pelton Hotel royal suites.

Thanks to Attorney Jo, everything I did in Korea went smoothly.

The Samu Law takeover would be wrapped up today.

Under Korean law, Litt Boy, a law firm I’d absorbed in the U.S., would take a forty-nine percent stake.

The press had covered it as an American law firm moving into Korea.

The existing shareholders sold out for a hundred billion won apiece.

We didn’t drag things out over a little money.

It was an enormous sum, in its way, but cheap for a law firm with that kind of name.

There were conditions, too.

The two shareholders would stay on as advisers and agree not to work in the same field for the next five years.

On top of my existing investment stake, some of Mom’s personal money went in, too.

Without even knowing it, Mom had become a shareholder in a law firm.

It was unlisted, so there was no disclosure requirement—convenient.

“How’s it going with recruiting a head for the firm?”

“Former Justice of the Supreme Court An U-hyeon, the one you wanted, CEO Jang, has half agreed.”

“That’s a relief.”

I’d picked former Justice An U-hyeon to head the firm.

He was famous in legal circles for his integrity.

With a just, incorruptible man at its head, the firm’s image would be laundered clean.

I didn’t have the slightest interest in making money off the law firm.

I could handle the profit-making businesses on my own.

The firm was strictly for giving back to society and for protecting me and the people close to me.

“Be honest with me. You’re cooking something up these days, aren’t you?”

We’d pulled off a few big jobs together, and Attorney Jo had started to figure me out.

He poked at it casually.

“I’m getting one big job ready.”

I let him get just a whiff of it.

“Yeah? From the sound of your voice, it’s no small fry…”

Ex-prosecutor that he was, he went straight for it.

“Don’t be curious. I’ll talk it over with you soon.”

I put up an iron wall.

“Okay! When the CEO says jump, you jump.”

“I’ll buy you a soju soon.”

“Pwahahaha. Forget it! I don’t drink with minors~.”

Got me. Damn it.

“…”

The age of majority hadn’t been lowered yet, so this was embarrassing every single time.

“Keep up the good work.”

I hung up in a hurry.

“Chairman Oh. Go ahead, squirm.”

I picked up my phone and made an international call.

“Boss.”

No matter how many times I heard it, Boss always sounded reassuring.

“Robert, is everything ready?”

“Boss, is something wrong?”

Robert hadn’t lived this long for nothing; he could tell from my voice.

Age had taught him plenty.

“Ana tried to kidnap me.”

“…I’ll send a killer.”

Whoa… a killer?

American style, all right—a different way of handling things.

Robert’s cold voice was full of rage.

“We have assassins from intelligence agencies, including former KGB. They can take care of it without a sound.”

Robert had no qualms at all.

But that isn’t how I do things.

“No killers. Is the plan finished?”

“All it needs is your order. The funds are standing by.”

“Then start. From today, finish it with carpet bombing.”

“Understood. We’ve got lines into the Korean press and politics. I’ll cut… them off for good.”

Robert’s voice hadn’t calmed down.

It was enough to make me worry he’d send a killer behind my back.

“We have to knock them out in one blow, before they can get their bearings. Go straight for the throat.”

“That’s my specialty.”

“I’m counting on you, Robert.”

“Please take care of yourself, Boss. I’ll send a security team.”

“No need. I’ll buy a security company in Korea.”

“Boss… the Ana Group are bad people.”

Robert had looked into the Ana Group.

“They must have taken me lightly.”

“I’ll pray for their souls.”

Robert Ryan’s voice always rang true.

Thinking of him made me feel secure.

A real bond, beyond nationality and age.

And so the call ended.

The Ana Group had it wrong.

It wasn’t that they could do something to me; I was the one holding the leash.

“Chairman Oh. You must’ve been awfully bored, huh? Starting tomorrow… let’s see you shit blood. Heh heh heh.”

I laughed like a villain.

There was no need to go easy on a man who only cared about his own precious son.

He was a man who’d used thugs to commit kidnapping and even murder.

I meant to put out everything I’d gotten.

Only then would he know what rock bottom looks like.

And only after a full-force beating from the very power he’d wielded would he understand how fleeting it all is.

“Guess I’ll get ready for the semester.”

With my present for Chairman Oh ready, I felt refreshed.

And I went back to my real job.

At last, the first semester of 2008 was starting.

A youth completely different from my last life was waiting for me.

“You’re sure she’s Chairman Ju of Dongnyong’s sister?”

“The background check finished this morning. She’s the former chairman’s daughter.”

“Right… Chairman Ju did have a half-sister.”

Chairman Oh Seung-hyeok nodded at Manager Yu’s report.

“And the kid’s tougher than we thought. Team Leader Hwang and the boys we sent yesterday are in the hospital.”

“…Damn fools. Can’t even handle one brat…”

Oh Seung-hyeok, in at the office, scowled.

Of all Korea’s chaebol owners, he had the biggest pride by far.

That pride was what had made this whole thing blow up, too.

“We could end up tangled with Dongnyong through a misunderstanding.”

“That bastard Chairman Ju is thick-headed, so this gets complicated.”

Dongnyong wasn’t a huge company, but it wasn’t one you could ignore.

If they fought, both sides were sure to get hurt.

“That Jang Tae-san kid’s family is very wealthy. It looks like they hold a large amount of stock money, too.”

“How much did the old man squirrel away and slip to that damn daughter of his? Shit!”

Secret inheritances were common in chaebol families.

Oh Seung-hyeok had inherited his father’s slush-fund accounts too.

He’d used that money to lobby the politicians.

A good chunk of Ana’s slush money had gone into the current administration too.

Now that the president had been sworn in, all that was left was to pick the fruit.

He had to make back a few hundred times what he’d spread around.

Beeeep.

The chairman’s intercom buzzed just then.

“What is it.”

“Chairman, Finance Team Leader Lee Nam-gyu would like to see you urgently.”

“Team Leader Lee?”

The management planning office’s finance team leader ranked with the company presidents.

The title was team leader, but he’d been the previous CEO of Ana Investment & Securities, one of the Ana Group’s companies.

“Send him in.”

The management planning office and the general secretariat were the Ana Group’s two core staff offices.

“I’ll excuse myself…”

“Stay and listen.”

“Understood.”

Oh Seung-hyeok trusted Manager Yu Byeong-seok without limit.

Manager Yu had been looking after him since he was a boy.

Click—the door opened, and Team Leader Lee Nam-gyu came in.

“What is it? Why the face?”

Sensing something was wrong, Chairman Oh asked urgently.

“Ch-Chairman. We’re in big trouble!”

“Trouble? What? Did somebody screw up again?”

“No, it’s… foreign money is short-selling every one of our affiliates, all at once!”

“What! Sh-short-selling all at once!”

Oh Seung-hyeok shot up out of his chair.

(End of Chapter 110)