“Hong Kong at night is just like Wall Street.”

In the Royal Suite of the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, a man stood gazing out the wide window, lost in thought.

The city lights, bright as noon, were nothing new to him.

No—out there he could see a hunger even hotter than the one that breathed in Manhattan, home of Wall Street.

If Wall Street is the official dueling ground, this is the world where schemers fix the fights.

Robert Ryan.

Forty-nine years old.

A first-rate mind, with an economics degree from the University of Chicago and a master’s and a doctorate from the same school.

He’d cut his teeth on Wall Street. (TL Note: The Korean idiom is that his “small bones grew thick” there — he grew up in the trade, hardened by it from the start.)

He’d worked as a dealer on the New York Stock Exchange, and investment banks and hedge funds had come calling.

But at some point he’d grown tired of the greedy game and settled into life as an administrator.

He had no stomach for a battlefield where the blood flew, so he stepped back, away from promotions and money.

Wall Street had no rules and no code.

He hated the masters of Wall Street, men who would sell their souls for money and betrayed people as routinely as they sat down to a meal. (TL Note: Korean says a person does something “like eating rice” when they do it all the time, without a second thought.)

Even colleagues who used to laugh and drink coffee with him had stabbed him in the back.

Now and then the old hunger surged up in him—to storm world finance the way he used to.

Every time, Robert reined himself in.

He did his best as a manager of systems and staff.

He had political connections all over the place.

His school ties, spread across the business world, were nothing to sneeze at either.

But a while back, just as the financial crisis started taking shape for real, Robert was fired.

He’d warned the futures fund he worked for again and again, and every warning had been brushed aside.

Yet when things actually blew up, the firm pinned the blame on Robert, the manager.

He protested that it wasn’t fair, but not one person would listen.

Robert was furious.

He ground his teeth over Wall Street’s final betrayal.

He wanted revenge.

Being fired out of the blue cut off his credit.

For several years he’d been spending a fortune on medical bills for his mother-in-law, who was fighting Alzheimer’s and cancer.

All that money and effort, and his mother-in-law passed away anyway.

Even so, Robert had no regrets.

But then… his wife betrayed him.

She had an affair with her boss at work, a divorcé with plenty of money.

She demanded a divorce and took a big chunk of what he had left.

He’d believed he had done his best by his family in his own way, but the verdict added one more charge: neglecting his home.

With an expensive lawyer behind her, she took ninety percent of everything he owned.

When he was fired, she even cleaned out his severance.

Even his children kept their distance from a father with no job and no money.

His life was falling apart.

The greedheads of Wall Street wouldn’t hire a man his age.

He was trash that had outlived its use.

On top of that, word got around: divorced, and not even a home to his name.

At this rate he was one short step from homeless.

That was when the rope of salvation came down.

“Clara, she said. One of Professor Matthew’s students…”

In his despair, Robert had poured out his troubles to a fellow alumnus, a professor at the University of Chicago.

If he could just land a job somewhere, he’d told him, he’d give that outfit his total loyalty, even if he had to sell his soul to do it.

Not long after, unbelievably, the call came.

They gave him an interview date in Hong Kong and sent him a first-class ticket.

It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Knock, knock.

Just then, a light knock sounded from outside.

“Yes. Please come in.”

This is a room that goes for ten thousand dollars a night, easy.

Even Robert, who’d once been a hotshot fund manager, had never set foot in a room this luxurious before.

The door slid smoothly open.

Click-clack.

Two pairs of shoes appeared on the red carpet spread over the floor.

In came a woman who looked like a model, perfectly at home in her high heels. Beside her walked a strikingly handsome young Asian man who didn’t look the least bit outshone.

“Mr. Robert Ryan? The manager? I’m Clara Lee.”

Clara held out her hand first.

“Nice to meet you, Clara. I’m not a manager anymore—just an ordinary nobody without a job.”

“I’ve heard about you from Professor Matthew until my ears ached. He said you were a better student of economics than he was, but that you let the world’s temptations blind you and turned his back on scholarship.” (TL Note: The Korean is “until my ears stung” — said of hearing something over and over, far more than enough.)

“Matthew ought to thank me. If I’d stayed, Matthew would be the one standing here instead of me.”

Robert’s sense of humor wasn’t bad.

The polish he’d picked up dealing with the upper crust as a manager hadn’t gone anywhere.

Maybe because they’d gone to the same school, Clara and Robert hit it off.

“Let me introduce you. This is Mr. Daniel Jang, our CEO. He’ll be conducting today’s interview.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Daniel Jang.”

“Mr. Daniel, first let me thank you for treating me to Hong Kong and that view.”

The two of them shook hands too.

He’s the CEO, at that age? It’s hard to guess how old Asians are, but he looks awfully young…

Robert was thrown.

The interview was in Hong Kong, so he’d half expected an Asian boss.

But the man was far too young.

Plenty of Wall Street’s power players had moved into Hong Kong.

There was no better base than Hong Kong for going after China as it opened up.

Many Chinese companies whose shares were hard for foreigners to buy were listed on the Hong Kong exchange.

More people invest in them than you’d imagine.

Among them are plenty of Asians who operate in the dark.

He’d heard more than a few stories about rich Asians quietly running corporations and money in secret.

“Not at all. Let’s sit down and talk.”

The young man named Daniel settled easily into one of the meeting chairs by the window.

Nothing he did was the least bit awkward.

“Coffee for both of you?”

“Thank you, Clara.”

“I’d go so far as to say coffee is my heart’s blood.”

Robert worked at keeping his composure.

“Make yourselves comfortable and talk.”

Clara smiled and went to the kitchenette for the coffee.

“Mr. Daniel, I can’t afford to take my time, so I’ll ask you straight out.”

“Robert. Go ahead.”

“What use could you have for a piece of Wall Street scrap like me? The wife divorced me, and I don’t have a home. And these days I’m too old for the battlefield where money gets made.”

Robert wanted revenge on the people who had looked down on him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to lose who he was.

So he laid out, honestly, where he stood.

Daniel quietly studied Robert.

And then…

“So you gave up on your dreams too?”

“!!!”

I could see Robert’s pupils dilate.

He was running himself down, but I caught a powerful scent of a real man’s man coming off this Robert guy.

He looked like a man whose wings had been broken, but he wasn’t.

It’s the face of a man whose hardships are over and whose second act is about to start for real. (TL Note: 관상, gwansang — the traditional East Asian art of reading a person’s character and fortune from the face; in Korea it is still consulted seriously, for hiring, marriage and business.)

By everything I know of face reading, Robert is the best number two you could ask for.

So now I’m deep into face reading too…

Even I had no idea how far I’d go.

It had happened on the plane to Hong Kong.

I’d left Seoul to interview a man recommended by Clara’s faculty advisor.

I badly needed talent to be my hands and feet.

To really set up the game in America, I needed someone America would take seriously.

Visa-free travel hadn’t come in yet, so I couldn’t fly to America whenever I felt like it.

So I had to invite the candidate to Hong Kong instead.

I booked the suite and sent a first-class ticket, plus travel money.

It fell short of Zhuge Liang’s three visits to the thatched cottage, but I did my best. (TL Note: 삼고초려, “three visits to the thatched cottage” — the warlord Liu Bei called three times on the hermit strategist Zhuge Liang before the man agreed to serve him; the phrase stands for going to great lengths to recruit talent.)

If he joined me, he’d be the first to become my hands and feet.

But inside, I had plenty of worries.

This was nothing like hiring Team Leader Yu Se-ra. This was recruiting for the big leagues.

I’d lived past thirty in my last life, but I’d never been in this situation before.

Hire the wrong man, and everything I had under the skin would be laid bare.

I could get branded part of some international finance mafia, end up on Interpol’s wanted list, or get shot dead by some secret CIA operative.

That was when those two showed up.

First time the gods have come as a pair. Heh~.

I was sitting on the plane worrying when the scene suddenly changed.

That’s how it goes when I make contact with the gods.

Gods had come to me before, back when I couldn’t sleep, so it didn’t startle me.

But I never expected them to show up two at a time.

The gods don’t seem all that bright either~.

Just thinking about it made me laugh.

About five hours earlier…

“Child~ was it you who asked to see me?”

“Huh? Who are you?”

“I am called Nam Sa-go.”

“Nam Sa-go???”

I’d never heard the name.

The space around me changed, right there in the first-class cabin of the Hong Kong flight, which had only two passengers.

I was standing in a great crossroads, roads running off in every direction, lined on all sides by grand tile-roofed houses. (TL Note: 사통팔달, “through on four sides, reaching all eight directions” — a four-character phrase for a place where roads run off every way.)

A red banner pole stood there, the banner lettered First in Heaven, Knower of All Ten Thousand Things.

And there stood an enormous village guardian tree that had to be a thousand years old, easy.

Under the tree was a solid square stone. On it, sitting cross-legged and looking right at me, was a grandpa with a long white beard, done up like an immortal.

He looked like a noble with the air of an immortal and the bones of a Taoist sage. (TL Note: 선풍도골, “an immortal’s wind and a Taoist’s bones” — said of someone whose looks and bearing seem not of this world.)

Like one of those high-end Taoist masters out of the comics.

“You don’t know me?”

“No. I’ve never heard your honorable name before.”

The name sounded kind of Chinese, but the man looked like a Korean grandpa.

I’d met so many strange gods lately that I couldn’t read anything off appearances anymore.

“Well, you may not have heard it. Once, the name Gyeogam Nam Sa-go meant something, but now it is a name the world is forgetting.”

“I’m sorry. My knowledge of history is thin.”

I had a rough idea what being forgotten meant to a god, so I bowed my head low.

Being widely known meant a god had a long shelf life.

But the more a god was forgotten, the more his god-pull faded—or so Nova hyung had told me.

“You’re not to blame. It’s all my own fault. My pull has run thin.”

Old-model gods or not, they sure had the latest slang down.

“So, your specialty is…”

“Weren’t you the one who said you wanted to read faces?”

“Ah! So you’re a face-reading expert!”

“Ahem! I may not look it, but I am the very prophet who foresaw the Imjin War back in the days of King Myeongjong. I learned astronomy, geomancy and face reading from a master of a secret school who came to our house when I was a boy.” (TL Note: The Imjin War was the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, the great catastrophe of the Joseon dynasty; King Myeongjong had died a generation before it began.)

“Ah! You were a great man.”

“In my day there was no one who could keep up with me. In King Danjong’s time there was a fellow at General Kim Jong-seo’s side who made something of a name for himself… But he made the fool’s mistake of taking Grand Prince Suyang’s fake for the real thing, and he paid dearly for it in the Gyeyu Coup.” (TL Note: In 1453 Grand Prince Suyang seized power from his twelve-year-old nephew, King Danjong, killing the boy king’s chief protector, General Kim Jong-seo, in what is called the Gyeyu Coup; Suyang then took the throne himself.)

“King Danjong’s time… Oh! You mean that guy?”

“You know him?”

Yes, I do! You’re talking about the guy from the movie Face Reader.

The movie Face Reader came out in 2013 and made a huge splash.

He’s the man who fell for Grand Prince Suyang’s trick, read a fake face, and failed to stop the treason.

“He really existed?”

“Of course. He isn’t in the royal Annals, but that man existed.”

Even I was surprised to hear he’d been real.

“Then can I learn face reading from you, Elder Nam Sa-go?”

“Your points are a little on the thin side, though…”

I hadn’t been doing my point-begging lately, and it had left me a little short.

The money in this life kept piling up, but money in the gods’ world was hard to build up.

“Please, give me a discount. I’ll settle up properly next time.”

I asked, a little desperate.

Face reading was exactly what I needed right now.

“Then how ’bout halfsies, and the rest on the tab?”

Whoa!

The lofty immortal grandpa uses slang that drags his dignity right down.

Whatever his looks, he had a cheap streak.

The look in his eyes when he said on the tab was full of desperation.

Which could only mean…

This immortal grandpa is seriously short on points~.

In an instant, our positions flipped.

He’d obviously been waiting for his chance and pounced the moment I wanted something.

No house, just a stall thrown down by the side of the road~ That means he’s badly short on divine-world points.

I snapped to attention.

That’s exactly how people get taken by phone scams.

I sized up my surroundings fast.

He was no different from the street-stall fortune-tellers you still see now and then around Jongno.

He’d tried to lure me in with a banner and a bargain price in points, but this wasn’t my first time doing business with the gods.

My naive days were long gone.

“Whoa there! Elder brother! You can’t do this! This isn’t fair trade, if I may say so!”

Then, out of nowhere, someone appeared beside us, shouting at the top of his lungs. And wh-what’s this—another immortal?!!

(End of Chapter 61)