The world is wide and there are a great many beautiful women in it.

The truth is that across my last life and this one, today is my first trip abroad.

As the son of a poor farmer, my university life was poor too.

I got a job, but for a non-permanent brokerage employee even domestic travel was a stretch.

At most, rest was Sunday and entertainment was one beer at home.

There were plenty of beauties at the company, but they never gave me a glance.

They knew perfectly well what life would be like for them the moment they chose me as a partner.

So I hadn’t seen much of the world.

But lately I’ve seen a lot of beautiful women.

The woman coming toward me right now with her white teeth on full display is one of them.

A beauty waving a sign with my name on it.

I went over to her.

She was mixed race.

The folk theory that mixed race produces beauties was proven.

She was close to a hundred and eighty, like a model.

The black flared dress with buttons down the front looked severely good.

The patterned collar scarf wrapped around her neck was the accent, and it showed taste.

Her legs were long, so the clothes simply worked on her.

A beauty this tall was a first too.

Her eyes were large and the line of her lips was large.

Blue pupils shining between black hair.

This is… well…

“Mr. Tae-san Jang? The CEO?”

“Yes. I’m Jang Tae-san. Please call me Daniel Jang.”

“Are you from the mainland?”

On the way over I made myself a name to use abroad.

In Hong Kong, the mainland means not China but Britain.

“No. I’ve only lived in Korea.”

“But your pronunciation is perfect. Your accent is so good I couldn’t imitate it.”

She hasn’t given her name, and she seems to have a lively nature.

Like Branch Manager Steven Benson, she praised my pronunciation without hearing more than a few words.

“But who are you?”

“Ah! Excuse me. Let me introduce myself the right way. I’m Clara Lee of the secretariat, assigned to attend Mr. Daniel Jang. I’ve come on behalf of the officers of HSBC to escort you.”

Only then did Clara give her department and her name.

“Me?”

“Yes. We were told to treat you as a VIP. I’ll do my best to see that you lack for nothing.”

Sending Clara alone was VIP-grade protocol.

She was dazzling.

In an international airport with crowds coming and going, she stood out without question.

I felt all right about it.

Branch Manager Steven Benson had contacted me to say every preparation was finished.

While I was in Seoul I worked out the details with the bank’s legal team.

My brokerage account was designated a withdrawal-prohibited account.

Investing was possible; withdrawing was not.

That account was taken as collateral.

The interest rate was… fifteen percent.

For a bank, that’s practically loan-shark level.

I was the one in need, so I signed readily.

Because I’m a minor in Korea, my parents’ consent form was attached too.

And then all I had to do was go to the Hong Kong head office.

A shell corporation has already been prepared in Hong Kong, they say.

A little illegality was mobilized.

The minimum age for setting up a Hong Kong corporation is eighteen.

I was still slightly short.

My birthday falls in the middle of February by the solar calendar.

I was born with an unusual four-tiger reading in my saju — the year of the tiger, the month of the tiger, the day of the tiger and the hour of the tiger, 四寅.

On top of that, my conception dream was a tiger.

My parents said they conceived me when they went on a spring outing to the hot springs at Jirisan in their newlywed days.

In the dream, they said, a great tigress of Jirisan appeared and carried me to them in her mouth, a tiger cub.

“I’ll take you there right away.”

Clara had a brisk, open nature.

She stood right beside me and led the way.

If I hadn’t been tall I’d have ended up looking like a squid.

I put more force into my shoulders and opened my chest.

My luggage was simple.

One leather shoulder bag was all of it.

I hadn’t brought a suitcase.

Hong Kong is an international city, unlike Seoul.

If I need things I intend to buy them there.

“Get in, please, sir. Thanks to you I’m living well today too.”

Clara pointed at a car waiting at the airport entrance.

“…”

My God, it was a Rolls-Royce limousine.

I have no idea how big a mark they took me for; the courtesy was excessive.

Top-grade protocol.

A Rolls-Royce limousine, the kind I’d only seen in movies.

Not one speck of dust, and the black gloss was killer.

“Please get in.”

A middle-aged European staffer, well along in years, opened the car door.

Clara and I got in.

I sat on the right of the back seat, the VIP spot.

The leather seat was simply murder.

This is a top-class hotel on wheels.

I kept the appreciation short.

Clara sat opposite me, demurely, with her legs gathered to one side.

She held Eastern grace and Western abundance at once.

Mysterious, you might call it.

“My father was from Hong Kong. My mother is French.”

Clara answered in advance, in case I was curious.

Full marks for sense.

If a woman is beautiful and clever too, that is a real blessing.

“You’re beautiful enough to be dazzling.”

I’m not making a move.

This is Hong Kong, where a compliment at that level goes down fine.

A compliment for pure beauty came out of me.

It’s all right for beauty, 美, to be sublime.

There are times you want to be satisfied by the thing itself without holding any desire.

This was exactly one of those times.

Clara’s eyes were blue and deep.

Look at them and you were pulled in comfortably.

Haa…

But for a high schooler it’s an ordeal.

My heart was sublime and my flesh was playing its own game.

These wicked hormones, sublimating even sublime beauty into desire!

My gaze kept going to Clara’s slender, snow-white legs without my meaning it to.

She’s at the level of the top models that womanizing footballer Ronaldo dates.

Enough to make me suspect a honey trap.

“You’re impressive yourself, sir. The short hair especially makes an impression. Have you been through the army? I hear Korean men have to complete military service as a duty.”

She doesn’t seem to know my details accurately yet.

It must be because I’m in a suit instead of a school uniform.

“Not yet.”

I have no intention of going into the army, not if it kills me.

Serving once was enough.

Two rounds of the army on one soul is a cruel thing.

I intend to get an exemption, as legally as possible.

If I pass the bar exam I could serve as an officer, but I’m not interested in that either.

The army is a nightmare all by itself.

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes. I ate the in-flight meal.”

Clara threw out a lot of questions about this and that.

She always laughed enough to show her even teeth.

A beautiful woman’s smile is a weapon all by itself.

My heart warmed without my meaning it to.

The image of my first love, Ye-rin sunbae, crossed my mind, and I made myself erase it.

Seo-ryeon, you lump of charm. I’m sorry.

Your oppa, with the mental age of a man in his thirties, is going to live freely just for today.

“Are you an IT venture businessman?”

“No.”

“Hmm… a third-generation Korean conglomerate heir?”

Clara seems to know about Korean conglomerates too.

Around this time the third-generation heirs of Korean conglomerates begin raising the national profile(?) in earnest.

With the Korean Wave, dramas were spreading across the world.

And a fair number of the leads are second- or third-generation conglomerate heirs rescuing a Cinderella.

Most of the dramas where the male lead is called Chief were like that.

“Sorry to say, I’m not a conglomerate heir either. My father is a farmer. He grows organic apples.”

“Ah~ apples. I like them too.”

Clara seems innocent, unlike her appearance.

When the word apple came up, the delight in her eyes was real.

“If you ever come to Korea, call me. I’ll show you our old Korean house and the farm.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve really promised now. Am I really allowed to visit?”

Clara checked several times.

It didn’t look like she was asking out of politeness.

“A visit from Clara is welcome any time.”

“Give me your card. Here’s mine.”

Clara and I exchanged cards quickly.

I’m not this kind of person, but lately I’m turning into a cool guy.

I don’t know why I’m this confident in front of a woman.

The money piled in my account seems to be my backing.

Training the Taegeuk Five Elements Dual Intent Mind Art has made my eye for the world bolder too.

There was no fear.

Even in front of a beauty like this I wasn’t cowed in the least.

“You’re remarkable.”

“How so?”

“It’s rare for anyone to get this kind of treatment from the bank.”

“It’s more than I deserve.”

“The director in charge of investment banking is waiting at head office. I think I’d better make a good impression on you, sir. An individual meeting the director is a major event that happens a few times a year, if that.”

You’re making a good impression right now.

Any better and it would be more than I could handle.

A woman’s dream about a successful man seems to be exactly the same as a man’s dream about a beautiful woman.

The look in the eyes of Clara, whom I met today for the first time, is not ordinary.

If she knew I’m a minor not yet eighteen…

At any rate, this damned age of mine has me by the ankle!

“We’ve arrived.”

The car stopped.

And the driver opened the door.

Unfamiliar treatment.

I didn’t refuse it.

In the future I have to live through, this kind of thing will be routine.

Shall we go borrow some quick cash from a tiger~.

I couldn’t transfer domestic funds abroad, so I had no choice but to take this route.

It was the best option for dodging fussy domestic law and the eyes of politicians and financiers who would be sick with envy.

Whew~ impressive.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank’s Hong Kong head office building stood squarely in front of my eyes.

It has a deep connection with Korea too.

It tied itself to Korea when it opened a Jemulpo branch in 1872.

It was the core of the HSBC Group, with total assets over five hundred billion dollars.

The group’s pre-tax net profit reached ten billion dollars.

Of that, this was the largest share.

It was enormous not only in substance but in outward form.

It’s a masterpiece, chosen as one of the world’s buildings you have to see before you die.

I’d gathered the information before coming to Hong Kong.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank head office, designed by an architect called Norman Foster, was sited according to Chinese geomancy.

The supports were placed outside rather than inside, and eight columns in four vertical ladders held the whole structure up.

In the eleventh-floor atrium, large mirrors that gathered sunlight and cast it inward were even adjusted by computer.

Forty-seven floors in total height.

The thing looked down at me over its enormous shoulders.

What are you looking at~, punk!

I raised my head and squared off with it.

Right now I’m a debtor come to borrow a mere hundred million dollars, but soon the positions will change.

One year from now, an enormous storm that shakes the whole world is going to sweep through finance.

At that point I will absolutely be the strong party.

I was not cowed in the least.

“Please go in. Everyone is waiting.”

“Yes.”

I moved off with Clara.

If they showed me the highest protocol, they have a purpose of their own.

I only hope they don’t touch my temper.

If it comes to it…

However much I’d regret it, I have more than enough self-respect to flip the whole thing over.

Step, step.

I walked slowly and at my leisure into the tiger’s den.

(End of Chapter 37)