“Truly remarkable! Stocks like this at that age… can you believe this report?”

“The legal team says they’ve confirmed it as fact.”

“Have we checked in Korea? Isn’t he some conglomerate’s hidden illegitimate son?”

“Not at all. They say he’s an ordinary high school student. Except that word has come through that his mother’s family are near-conglomerate.”

“Near-conglomerate, is it… there’d be no reason to leave a slush fund of that size with a minor… an inheritance nobody’s disclosed? Or else a genius at investing?”

The VIP reception room on the forty-seventh floor of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank.

Leo Stewart, the bank’s director in charge of investment banking, and Harry Lawrence, his team leader, were talking.

They had taken a particular interest in the documents that had flown in from Korea a short while ago.

Steven Benson, branch manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in Korea, is an outstanding resource.

He was HSBC’s leading investment player, put in to solve the bank acquisition and merger problem in Korea.

He had applied for a special loan.

The loan grade was A+++.

A mere individual cannot receive a grade like that.

But if the collateral was sufficient and it was a large transaction with a high chance of recovery, it was possible.

This time was that case.

The content was that an individual wanted to borrow one hundred million dollars against a stock account worth hundreds of billions of won.

Super ants are hidden all over the world, so that much could happen.

A stock-secured loan was one of the routine transactions too.

But the problem is that the loan applicant is a high school student.

He had just turned eighteen, and in Korea he was a minor.

A loan of a hundred million dollars is not small.

For a corporation there would be no particular problem, but for an individual it wasn’t easy.

A director-level meeting was held at the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank.

A large loan needs the approval of senior officers.

Leo Stewart, the director in charge of investment banking, took the loan on.

There were incomplete points in the documents, but the collateral was no problem.

The Korean branch’s legal team had secured the collateral perfectly.

The interest rate was fifteen percent a year, too.

A perfect and thorough profit.

Beeeeep.

The intercom rang.

“What is it?”

“The VIP is on his way up.”

“Show him in right away.”

“Yes, director.”

The report from the secretariat had come up.

The two men looked at the door with their eyes full of curiosity.

They were curious whether he was a conglomerate family’s heir or a self-made genius of investment.

If he was a genius, they had to hold on to him.

On Wall Street in America, they were preparing new investment techniques through mathematical engineers and physical scientists.

They were geniuses at designing tangled derivatives.

They took loan products like mortgage loans as their main line in particular, and created enormous profits.

The HSBC Group had jumped into the American housing market too.

Worldwide, mortgage loan investment was the fashion right now.

If an astonishing investment technique had appeared at a time like this, they had to grab it, no question.

Sliiide.

The door of the reception room opened.

And a Korean came in with Clara of the secretariat.

A handsome young man, coming in without a trace of nerves, smiling as comfortably as if it were his own house.

“…”

Leo was thrown.

Young as he was, here was a young man taking his ease in front of a heavyweight of world finance.

Leo caught it with a financier’s instinct: this was not a man to take lightly.

The tigers in charge of the review are looking at me.

Their faces stiffened slightly at my expression.

They probably thought it would be easy and then got tense.

I circulated internal energy and gave off an invisible force.

It was energy an ordinary person could sense well enough.

“Director, I’ve brought Mr. Daniel Jang.”

Clara introduced me.

“Welcome to Hong Kong. I’m Leo Stewart, director in charge of investment banking. This fellow here is Harry Lawrence, our team leader.”

“It’s an honor to meet you. Both of you are from noble English aristocratic houses, I see. I’m Daniel Jang. Please call me Daniel.”

I sold my English name well.

I didn’t want to hear foreigners tangling their tongues around Tae-san Jang.

That pronunciation of Tae-san Jang, the one Clara used when she first met me, was no good at all.

Come to Rome and you follow Roman law.

At the same time I put the other side up on a pedestal.

The memories the linguist Chris Barnsdale planted seem to have gone to work.

The lineages of the English aristocratic houses of Stewart and Lawrence drew themselves in my head.

Both surnames belong to houses of standing.

“You know about our family. Hahaha. Did you study in Britain?”

“I think anyone who didn’t know the distinguished house of Stewart couldn’t call himself civilized. I wasn’t a student there, but I have a great interest in Britain.”

The HSBC Group, unlike other American financial groups, was closed off.

Its origin lies with a bank made by Scots.

That an aristocrat of the Stewart house, a line of ministers who served the kings of Scotland for generations, holds a senior post is only natural.

Even in the civilized society of the twenty-first century, most members of the British upper house are from noble houses.

British aristocrats had enormous pride in their houses.

Team leader Harry Lawrence’s Lawrence house is a great noble line too, enough that the name gets mentioned in films.

I won their goodwill with a few words.

“Haha. I find myself liking Mr. Daniel the moment I see him. Please, take a seat. Clara, would you give us the room for a moment?”

“Yes, director.”

Clara bowed her head demurely and went out.

Even to a mere secretarial employee, Director Leo’s manner of speech was gentle.

That is exactly the look of a true aristocrat with centuries behind him.

Before she left, Clara and I exchanged a look in greeting.

My way of speaking and my manners seem to have added to her goodwill.

“Will you have tea?”

“The scent of the black tea I had in Branch Manager Steven Benson’s office still seems to be at the tip of my nose. I’d be grateful for a cup.”

Black tea again.

Just as Chinese guanxi starts with hard liquor, English men seem to open a relationship with tea. (TL Note: 꽌시 — guanxi, the Chinese web of personal obligation that business runs on. It is built by drinking, eating and doing favors long before anything is signed, and a deal without it is not really a deal.)

The English, unlike Americans, have a musty flavor to them.

I kept to their rhythm.

British aristocrats and the upper class don’t enjoy coffee.

In the past, the aristocracy and the upper class pushed back against a coffee culture where anybody could drink for a penny.

For the sake of distinction of rank, they imported and drank the Chinese tea you could only get with silver.

Think of the black tea culture that even set off the Opium Wars and you can guess the rest.

Their love of tea was particular enough to create a culture called afternoon tea.

“Daniel… you truly are the finest of the Koreans I’ve met. Your pronunciation, and your ability too, are very much to my liking.”

I felt fresh regret toward Chris Barnsdale, whom I had beaten down to twenty-five percent.

Things had gone this well.

Lately I feel the truth of the saying that a language is the sum of a people’s culture and civilization.

A few words in and these English gentlemen had fallen for me too.

In a world full of American English, a foreigner using a British accent must look different.

I ought to visit him once and plant a few trees at least.

I missed Professor Chris Barnsdale intensely.

If I get the time it might be all right to pay him a bonus.

Trickle-trickle-trickle.

As befits a people who enjoy black tea, there was a fine tea set on one side of the office.

Director Leo Stewart brewed the black tea.

It’s no different from our own custom of offering juice or coffee when a guest comes.

While the tea was being brewed, I studied them carefully.

They looked different again from Steven Benson, the branch manager in Korea.

These were descendants of genuinely high English noble houses.

The ash-blond hair with white mixed naturally into it was handsome.

The light gray cardigan worn over the shirt looked comfortable.

A natural aura and a dignity soaked into every single movement.

An everyday class the newly rich can never imitate came off them by itself.

I watched quietly and took it all in.

Professor Chris Barnsdale was certainly a member of an aristocratic house.

Director Leo’s and team leader Harry’s movements were familiar to my eye.

The memories he planted as a bonus.

The performance on them was… murder.

“This is a product Twinings sells specially, called Royal Lady Grey.”

“Ah! That’s the black tea they supply to the royal household.”

“Oh! You knew that too?”

Leo seems to have become a definite fan of mine.

We drank our tea companionably that way.

Look at how leisurely these people are.

Unlike their movements, their eyes were bright.

I could all but hear the tigers’ small calculations turning.

Cookies came out with the tea.

I savored the taste of the black tea with dignity.

And then our eyes met.

“Daniel. I’ve reviewed the collateral documents. A loan against the stock is possible. In Hong Kong, anyone eighteen or over can establish a one-person corporation. This bank will take responsibility for that part.”

“Thank you. I won’t forget HSBC’s goodwill.”

The Hong Kong corporate account was absolutely necessary.

Profits on foreign investment funds were untaxed.

With a tax treaty in place on top of that, domestic exemption would be possible in the event of a tax investigation.

Of course, I intend to use Hong Kong as a waypoint.

I mean to open corporations not only in the safest Swiss accounts but in tax havens.

Pass through a few stages here and there and nobody will be able to find me.

Just as nobody knows the real owner of the world’s hot money.

“The funds will be deposited in the account at the same time the corporation is established. Do you agree?”

“Yes. I agree.”

The legal issues had been finished with the legal team at the Korean HSBC branch.

“You need only sign this document. For the time being, until the Hong Kong corporation is running stably, you will receive every administrative, legal and accounting service. Including office secretarial functions.”

For fifteen percent interest, these boys are devotion itself.

One signature from me and I receive a hundred million dollars into a Hong Kong corporate account.

It really was like a dream.

That there is a bank lending a hundred million dollars to a mere high schooler was hard to believe.

But…

“There is something I’m curious about, though.”

At this point team leader Harry stepped in.

“Please, go ahead.”

I hadn’t thought it would end this simply.

“I’ll ask you directly. Have you by any chance developed some new stock investment program? If you have… we are willing to pay a considerable royalty.”

Leo’s and Harry’s eyes shone as though they would simply eat me.

Tsk, tsk. Do these people take me for a fool?

Even if I had developed one, would I be insane enough to sell it?

It’s a world where I’m busy enough sweeping it up alone.

“My investing is purely…”

Watching the tigers drool, I picked up the black tea cup at my leisure.

Elegantly~.

“A feel.”

“Yes? A feel?”

“Yes. It’ll be hard to understand, but when I look at a stock, the feeling of when it will rise hits me, hard.”

“…”

At my words the expressions of both men went stiff.

Their faces said, what is this nonsense.

To finance men, who live and die by numbers and principles, saying you invest in stocks on a feeling is a fine way to be called a lunatic.

Exactly as now.

I wanted to tease them once more.

Their faces said, what kind of jam-on-ghost-toast talk is this?

“How should I put it? Simply put, it’s something like the psychic powers of the spiritualists you talk about in the West. It’s specialized, so when I’m looking at stocks on a monitor I can pick out the ones that will rise. If I watch quietly, some of them are shining. That’s when I snap them up. Then, if the shine flickers, I sell. I’m investing, and I’m afraid too. I don’t know myself when the god’s touch will run out and I’ll lose everything. It’s like a bonus the gods gave me.”

The two of them looked at each other with dumbfounded expressions.

That’s what you get for being greedy.

If you feel truly hard done by, you can die and come back.

Like me~.

“Director Leo Stewart.”

“Yes? Yes.”

“I’d like to change the contract.”

“Which part do you mean? The documents couldn’t be more perfect. The interest… there is investment risk, so it has to be set at that level.”

Like the bank men they are, they hung their necks on one percent of interest.

That’s why you get bitten by an American house ghost and lose ten billion dollars in the mortgage loan crisis!

If you felt it collapsing you should have cleaned it up for certain.

I sat there and saw their future.

But I would absolutely never tell them.

Their misfortune will soon be my happiness.

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“Then???”

The initiative had passed to me.

Right! Now let’s cast the float!

“I’d like the loan amount raised.”

“Raised? How much are you thinking of?”

Director Leo looked at me, straightening his face.

His concentration is very good.

A good posture for a financier.

“Two hundred million in US dollars.”

“Huh!”

Startled, gentlemen! I told you I haven’t even started.

“The interest is twenty percent, the term is one year. How is it? Doesn’t my condition whet your appetite?”

A delicious lump of meat dangled and tempted the rich tigers.

Heh~ do you think you can hold out without eating?

Rich tigers!

Come on, hand over the blind money!

(End of Chapter 38)