“How may I help you?”

“I’m here to see the branch manager.”

“Yes? The branch manager?”

“Yes. The branch manager.”

I had come to the Seoul branch of HSBC.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank.

The largest subsidiary of the HSBC Group.

It was Hong Kong’s note-issuing bank too.

Founded in the mid-nineteenth century around Scottish merchants, it is a world-scale bank that moved its head office to Britain ahead of the handover of Hong Kong.

In Korea it is not widely known to ordinary people.

But it was an enormous global bank.

At the time of the IMF it came in to swallow Seoul Bank and was pushed out.

It got as far as preferred-bidder status, but it wasn’t on the same wavelength as the administration.

It put in the work again to gulp down Korea Exchange Bank through the Lanstar Fund, and that came apart.

With the wariness of foreign capital that suddenly blew up, they gave up investing in Korea.

In the future they close ten branches and leave one.

But right now was a stretch when they were running hot.

Financial capital hunting for prey is always hungry.

I went to the Seoul branch, that bank’s Korean head office.

I was wearing a minimal, dandyish suit put together in a hurry.

Over it I had a navy jacket.

I had dressed the part in my own way, but by anyone’s eye I looked young.

I carried a leather bag, and one look gave off the air of a new insurance salesman.

“Do you have an appointment?”

The woman at the reception desk, flustered a moment before, smiled as she asked.

Her professionalism looked thorough.

“No.”

“Then I’m afraid it’s difficult. Branch Manager Steven Benson refuses visits without an appointment.”

“This is a visit about large-scale business. I’d be grateful if you would show him this document.”

“Yes?”

Pleading to be met in a place like this doesn’t get you anywhere at all.

In her place I’d refuse too.

I had prepared a document.

Nothing special about it.

I had printed the total return account from every brokerage I had invested through.

And the valuation of the stock and the balance came to…

“Show it to him and he’ll know.”

“Yes? Y-yes…”

The one thing I absolutely must not do is shrink.

I smiled at my leisure and struck a confident pose.

I gave off the image that I was no peddler but a customer who had come to make them money.

The woman at the desk caught that energy off me.

She took the document carefully and called somewhere on the intercom.

“Please wait a moment.”

“Yes.”

Individuals who visit HSBC are rare.

It isn’t an ordinary bank for ordinary people.

It is the hunter’s lodge, set up with corporations and banks in view as the large prey.

I didn’t slack off on reading the room.

And time passed.

It’s been a while.

I had come to this bank a few times.

Jung-gu in Jongno, where the bank stood, was close to the brokerage I worked at.

On summer days I had come in with a coffee and rested in the cool.

There were fewer traces of the years on it than in the future.

A strange feeling rose in me.

It is an emotion only a time regressor can taste.

The past that had been the future and the past that is the present mixed together.

Every time this happened, the fact of having come back felt real.

“The branch manager has granted your visit. Please follow me.”

I followed the attendant into the elevator.

We went to the top floor of a nineteen-story building.

Through the window I could see Sungnyemun.

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry was faintly visible too.

The place where I used to run around.

“…”

I drew a short breath.

However much I had come back, this far was a first in my life.

The title is branch manager, but this was the road to meeting the head of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in Korea.

It’s a seat that executives of major corporations visit.

Ding!

The elevator stopped with a clear tone.

“Have a pleasant time.”

The attendant bowed her head inside the elevator.

When the door opened, a man in his mid-thirties was waiting.

“Pleased to meet you. I’ll show you to the branch manager. I’m his secretary, Kang Yun-mu.”

“My name is Jang Tae-san.”

We exchanged the short, formal greeting particular to office workers.

“This way.”

Secretary Kang Yun-mu led me.

Gray carpet was laid over the floor, so even our footsteps made no sound.

And then we reached the branch manager’s office.

Knock, knock.

Meeting a man in a senior post even once is never easy.

Secretary Kang Yun-mu knocked carefully.

The branch manager wasn’t watching, and still he didn’t drop the courtesy.

A model of a good subordinate.

“Come in.”

I heard British English with a slight accent in it.

The branch manager, dispatched from head office, seemed to be from England.

The door opened.

I went in with Secretary Kang Yun-mu.

Is he from an aristocratic family?

The scene that met me as I went in was the view of Sungnyemun through the window and the wide-open avenue.

The building isn’t that tall, but the sightline was clear.

And then the interior of the branch manager’s office, which caught the eye.

Northern European antique-style solid wood furniture, soft and heavy at once, was the main note.

A large red mahogany desk and bookshelves filling the wall.

One computer monitor, golf practice equipment and a large wooden globe stood out.

Overall it was clean and overflowing with dignity.

It felt like glimpsing a class of life that money can’t imitate.

“Haha, come in. Mister Jang~.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Branch Manager Steven Benson.”

“Ooh! Your pronunciation is very good! Did you study in Britain?”

“No. I taught myself at home.”

“Remarkable!”

The linguist Chris Barnsdale’s advice had worked.

At the British accent and intonation I sent him, the branch manager smiled broadly.

The first impression had landed well enough.

Steven Benson made a good impression himself.

A tall, handsome middle-aged European gentleman.

His blond curls left movie actors in the dust.

Instead of a suit he had dressed himself up in a checked cardigan, brown shoes and gray slacks.

The lightly grown mustache suited him too.

It’s a look most Korean men can only hesitate over.

“Take a seat. Do you like tea?”

“Of course. I love black tea.”

“That’s fortunate. Assistant Manager Kang, will you have a cup too?”

“Yes! Branch manager!”

A memory of black tea suddenly came up.

How much can an ordinary Korean know about black tea?

And yet an image of black tea surfaced.

My mouth watered.

I could imagine the taste you get from a warm, high-quality black tea with a spoon of sugar stirred in to balance it.

It seemed to be a side effect of the memories Chris Barnsdale had planted.

Steven brewed the black tea himself.

His behavior was completely different from Korean bank branch managers.

“With black tea, follow the rule of three-three-three and you won’t go wrong. Three grams, three minutes, three hundred milliliters is the standard formula.”

Steven looked as though he was enjoying himself.

Because a stranger he had just met spoke with a British accent, he poured the tea himself.

It was hospitality I couldn’t believe even while watching it.

“Try it. The aroma is especially good today.”

He used honorifics scrupulously, even with someone young.

It must mean he respects me instead of dismissing me for my age.

We had a short tea time.

When I drank the black tea like somebody used to it, he watched me with interest.

“It’s delicious. It’s the best black tea I’ve ever had!”

“Really? Hahaha. Thank you, even if it’s flattery.”

It really was the best.

Black tea with a little sugar was the finest drink there is for loosening fatigue and tension.

It fit my taste exactly.

“But how old are you, Mister Jang? I can’t believe the astronomical figure I saw in your document. Generously, you look like a university student…”

“In a month I’ll be a third-year in high school.”

“A third-year? High school?”

“Yes. I’m a high school student.”

“Oh! My Gaaaaawd!”

Steven was genuinely startled.

He had known my name from the information on the brokerage account, but he wouldn’t have known my year of birth.

“Mr. Jang Tae-san, this is no time for jokes.”

Assistant Manager Kang was startled too, and warned me.

“Shall I show you my ID card?”

I took out my ID card and my student card together and showed them.

“Jesus…”

Why Steven calls on God, I don’t know.

Assistant Manager Kang opened his mouth with a gasp and couldn’t get a word out.

And well they might: the total stock account balance I had shown them stood at two hundred and fifty billion won.

That a mere high school student had earned that amount investing in stocks would be something they could neither imagine nor believe.

“Your tea is delicious, branch manager. May I ask for another cup?”

Unlike them, startled as they were, I had room to spare.

The reason I had come here today was a separate one, and I didn’t lose my confidence.

If a man has that kind of money sitting in his account, he can square his shoulders in front of the conglomerate families.

Even for a conglomerate family, the stock that can be turned into cash right away isn’t much.

“Mister Jang… but what is the reason you’ve come to see me? Is it to deposit funds?”

Pouring another cup of black tea, Branch Manager Steven Benson looked at me carefully.

He would know what my age and the figure in my account mean.

I could be an enormous potential customer and investor from here on.

“No. The opposite.”

“Yes, the opposite?”

Steven never once talked down to me, not even by mistake.

He showed with his own conduct, as a banker, that a customer’s importance is not age but money.

A trustworthy British gentleman.

“I’ve come because I’d like to borrow some money.”

“Yes? Borrow money?”

“Yes. Not in won — in US dollars… Lend me those.”

I was asking to borrow money, and I was upright and shameless about it.

“That would mean…”

“I intend to open an investment corporation account in Hong Kong. I’d like to take the loan there.”

“Ah!”

The money I had took effect only inside the Republic of Korea.

Even if I wanted to invest abroad, I had no corporation and no business.

Buying a listed company and starting from there would take far too long.

The big table I wanted.

To sweep the enormous table that was coming, I needed a large stake.

And it had to have no connection at all with the Korean won.

There is no way Steven didn’t know this was secretive work.

“Do you have a corporation?”

“No. I plan to go to Hong Kong sometime tomorrow. Will you help me, Steven? I’ll see that you aren’t disappointed in the compensation.”

The HSBC Group, the parent of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, held not only banking but a number of subsidiaries such as securities and investment companies.

To play in the big water, their help was essential.

“Understood. Mister Jang looks likely to become a large customer of ours. But how much in loan funds do you need? Will your parents’ consent be possible? Is the collateral the brokerage account?”

Things were coming along smoothly.

Young as I was, he treated me as one top-grade client.

It was impressive.

That is exactly what a professional is.

He would investigate me after I left, but for now he showed absolutely nothing of it.

He must be dying of curiosity.

About the secret of how I swept up money in stocks.

“With the brokerage account as collateral… I want one hundred million in US dollars.”

“Huuuh!”

Steven and Assistant Manager Kang, startled by a mere hundred million dollars.

Come on, people, what’s there to be so startled about.

I haven’t even started on the big table yet~.

(End of Chapter 34)