Seong-ho took a moment to sip his coffee and catch his breath.

But to Chang-jong, watching him, it only felt as though his own breathing grew more labored.

In the end, unable to wait, Chang-jong shouted.

“Out with it. Why can’t I go and explain myself right now?!”

Even under Chang-jong’s badgering, Seong-ho didn’t stop drinking his coffee. Only once he’d gotten about halfway through the cup did he set it down and finally speak.

“Brother. Think about it. Going to the eldest and the second right now would look strange to anyone, wouldn’t it? You bare your ambition, and only now come running to say it wasn’t what you meant? No matter how you slice it, it’s a situation that can only invite suspicion.”

“Bare my ambition? Who bared any ambition? I keep telling you, I have no designs on the Ilhyeon Group!”

“And do you suppose the others see it the way you do, Brother?”

Feeling stifled by Seong-ho’s words, Chang-jong pounded his chest with a fist.

“That’s exactly why I’m saying I’ll go to my brothers and prove it.”

“It’s too late, I tell you.”

Seong-ho shook his head as if it pained him.

“If you’d gone to the eldest before coming here… or at the very least to Pyeongchang-dong, your brothers might not have misunderstood. Or, if even that was too much, if you’d at least not met with your sister before coming here, the two of us could have quietly gotten our stories straight and cleared up the misunderstanding.”

Hearing this, Chang-jong started.

“How… how do you know I came from seeing my sister? Don’t tell me you’ve put someone on my tail?”

“Brother.”

To a Chang-jong suspecting he was being watched, Seong-ho spoke in a voice tinged with exasperation.

“If you were angry about my slighting your face, you’d have come to me straightaway—not several days later. So what reason could there be for coming this late?”

“That’s…”

“Which naturally means you consulted with someone, and setting aside your brothers, it’s easy enough to deduce that someone was your sister.”

Just as Seong-ho said, it was all too simple and all too clear.

As Chang-jong’s pale face flushed red at how obvious it was, Seong-ho spoke in a low voice.

“Brother. Given that things have come to this, I think it would be better to pick one of the two brothers and offer him your firm loyalty.”

“That’s just it—how am I supposed to do that?!”

Talking with Seong-ho, Chang-jong had lost any sense of an opinion of his own.

It had become lodged in his head that Seong-ho’s words were unquestionably right, that Seong-ho’s judgment was sound, that Seong-ho’s decisions were the ones to follow.

“Everyone runs into a difficult situation sooner or later. Just as you have now, Brother. And if someone steps forward at such a moment and resolves that difficulty for you—wouldn’t that earn not only trust, but a future drawn together as well?”

“A future?”

Chang-jong looked at Seong-ho with a meaningful gaze.

Seong-ho gave a faint smile under that gaze and said,

“You have no interest in the group—but you do have an interest in the future, don’t you?”

“Then what kind of future?”

“You ought to have a business of your own, Brother.”

“I already run a busi—”

Chang-jong, about to say he was running plenty of business as it was, hit upon a single word at Seong-ho’s remark.

“A spinoff?”

Realizing that the future Seong-ho spoke of meant a spinoff, joy and anticipation flickered across Chang-jong’s face for an instant.

Seong-ho didn’t let that flicker of feeling escape him.

“Isn’t it about time you started thinking of when to leave the Ilhyeon Group yourself, Brother?”

“You…”

At Seong-ho speaking so openly of splitting off an affiliate, Chang-jong sprang up from his seat with a shocked face.

Seong-ho gave a light laugh at the sight.

“Brother. There’s no one here but you and the two of us.”

“Even so.”

Chang-jong lowered his voice and spoke carefully.

“Even so, watch your mouth. If that kind of talk reached Father’s ears, it’d be a string of funerals—for me and for the both of you.”

“Even if it comes to a string of funerals, we still have to prepare.”

“Prepare for what?”

“If you sit on your hands and do nothing, you may well be thrown out empty-handed.”

At the word empty-handed, Chang-jong’s face went blue.

For it wasn’t as though he’d never imagined such a scenario himself.

Seong-ho raised his half-emptied cup again and said,

“So we have to prepare. The Chairman isn’t going to live forever, is he?”

Seong-ho finished speaking and quietly drank his coffee.

Chang-jong wore a complicated expression, thoughts turning this way and that.

Then he asked Seong-ho in a cautious voice.

“So what you’re saying is—help out whichever brother lands in trouble down the road, and get his help when it’s time to split off?”

Seong-ho set the empty cup down and nodded.

“Exactly. There’s nothing to be done right now, so just let it pass. Then, when a difficult situation strikes, you step in to help him, Brother, and take hold of your future. Well? Doesn’t that seem like the best way?”

At Seong-ho’s words, Chang-jong’s head slowly nodded.

“Yes. It’s just as you say. If it comes to that, he’s sure to set aside a company or two more for me. But… which brother’s trouble am I supposed to solve?”

Chang-jong asked, his face all bewilderment.

“That, you’ll have to judge when the time comes.”

Seong-ho ran a finger along the rim of the empty cup he’d set down.

“The greater the trouble, the greater the gratitude that follows. More to the point…”

Saying there was nothing to fret over for the moment, Seong-ho tossed Chang-jong a question that seemed to have nothing to do with the conversation.

“Is your wife getting on well with the children over in America? I haven’t seen her once since the wedding…”

At the out-of-nowhere question, Chang-jong’s brow furrowed.

But recalling all the various counsel Seong-ho had given him thus far, he answered as earnestly as he could manage.

“How would I know whether the woman who hauled a four- and five-year-old off to America to school them is doing well or not? I haven’t laid eyes on her once since your wedding either. You and I are in the same boat there.”

“Is that so? Still, she’s devoted for the children’s sake.”

“The children?”

Chang-jong scoffed.

“What difference does it make whether I raise a child well or badly when I don’t even know if it’s mine?”

Gyeong-eun was startled at his words.

“Brother. How can you say such a thing?”

“You’ll see it too if you look. Not one feature resembles me.”

“You went and got a paternity test that came back saying they’re your children—stop being so contrary about it.”

“Contrary? I held my tongue because I couldn’t bring myself to say it outright in front of Kim, but you know, don’t you? What kind of woman she is?”

The voice that had briefly settled rose again.

This time his fury seethed not toward Seong-ho, but toward his own wife.

“A paternity test? Father told me to stop pressing the matter, so I let it go and played dumb—but the result came back inconclusive. Inconclusive!”

Chang-jong recalled the words written on that test sheet and spoke with a shudder.

“They said the sample was damaged and the test couldn’t proceed! How is that a result saying it’s my child? Huh? The test never went through properly—so how does it make the child mine?”

Gyeong-eun, feeling ashamed, glanced at Seong-ho’s face.

A flush of embarrassment rose in her, as if the family’s disgrace had been laid bare.

But there was no surprise in Seong-ho’s expression.

Because he already knew all of it.

Chang-jong shook his head and said,

“That woman and I both—we married looking only at each other’s families, so there’s no feeling between us. None for the child either. We’re better off living apart like this. But what made you suddenly ask about that?”

“It just crossed my mind to wonder how your wife was doing. There’s never been a chance to sit across from you like this and talk of such things, so with it on my mind, I asked.”

“Well, your curiosity’s satisfied now, so don’t ask again.”

As if he wanted neither to hear nor speak of it any further, Chang-jong said this and turned his head away.

Seeing him like that, Seong-ho realized his own thinking hadn’t been mistaken.

Yes. As I thought—you were the one who should have taken it on back then.

From the experiences of his former life and the sight of the man now, Seong-ho understood: the storm bearing down on the Ilhyeon Group was the one Chang-jong should have been made to embrace.

Seong-ho turned his head to glance at the calendar.

And silently, in his mind, he began counting the days until the storm would arrive.

Standing beside Seong-ho, who was gazing up at a building, Chung-seop laid out its details.

“It’s less than two years old, and occupancy hasn’t been fully finished yet. But given how prime the location is, filling every office won’t be a problem, I’d say.”

Seong-ho nodded and, still looking up at the building, asked Chung-seop,

“And this came onto the market at half the going rate?”

“Yes. It went up for just 20 billion won. Given the distance to the subway station, it’s a building that ought to fetch at least 40 billion, but it’s come out as a distress sale at 20.”

“Did the outfit that owned it go under, by chance?”

“How did you know?”

Chung-seop wore a startled expression at Seong-ho’s words, then spoke into his ear in a small voice.

“The owner is the president of Juma Construction.”

“The same Juma Construction that went bankrupt yesterday?”

“Yes. That’s the one.”

Hearing Chung-seop’s answer, Seong-ho put on a puzzled expression.

“If Juma Construction owns it, then wouldn’t this be tied up with the creditors too?”

“No.”

Chung-seop quickly waved a hand, and after confirming that the people walking by were passing them without the slightest interest, he spoke in a low voice.

“They say it came out of the Juma president’s other pocket.”

Hearing this, Seong-ho put on a look of dawning understanding.

“…So the owner is the Juma president, but he had the title put under a separate name. Which is why the creditors couldn’t seize it.”

“Exactly.”

Pressed close to Seong-ho’s side, Chung-seop explained in detail just what sort of building they were looking at.

“They say the Juma president scraped together his own private money to build it. Used only the finest materials, and set a construction period twice as long as for his other buildings, so it’s built rock-solid. He put it up hoping to pass it down to his children and grandchildren, apparently.”

Chung-seop gazed up at the building for a moment, then went on.

“They say that if Juma Construction hadn’t gone bankrupt this time, he’d never have put it on the market at all. Whatever else he let go, this was the one he absolutely wanted to hand down to his children.”

“Fifteen billion.”

“Sorry?”

Chung-seop stopped looking up at the building and turned to Seong-ho.

Still gazing up at it, Seong-ho said,

“Tell him I’ll buy it if he sells at 15 billion.”

“Fifteen billion? Isn’t 15 billion… far too cheap?”

Chung-seop wore an awkward expression.

“I wasn’t going to mention it, but even knocking it down to 20 billion was a struggle. The Juma president came out insisting he had to get at least 30 billion. I got him down to 20 on the condition of full payment upfront with no balance owing. If we push for even lower than that…”

“If he doesn’t like it, we simply don’t buy. That’s all.”

Seong-ho said it as though it were nothing and moved on down the street.

“How much for this building next to it?”

“Sorry?”

Following after Seong-ho, Chung-seop turned to look at the building he’d pointed to.

“This one isn’t up for sale.”

“Look into it. Look into all of them, from here to the end of that line down there. If they won’t sell, so be it—but if there’s even a little willingness to sell, price it against the Juma Construction building and negotiate.”

“Negotiate using Juma Construction—which dropped from 20 billion to 15—as the benchmark? If you set that as the standard, there may not be a single soul willing to sell you a building here.”

“That’s something you can’t know until you try.”

A smile at his lips, Seong-ho had one more condition attached.

“Tell them it’ll all be paid in cash, and settled in full the very day the contract is signed.”

“Paid in full that same day, with no balance owing?”

“Exactly.”

Smiling at the astonished Chung-seop, Seong-ho carried on.

“Juma Construction will accept these terms without any trouble too. Their president needs to offload the property and run, after all.”

“Run?”

“The creditors have filed a complaint against the Juma president with the prosecutors, for breach of trust and embezzlement. So he hasn’t much time.”

Recalling the Juma Construction of his former life, Seong-ho gave another light laugh and said to Chung-seop,

“Go and tell the Juma president. If 15 billion suits him, we can do the deal as early as tomorrow. And if he doesn’t like it, the whole thing’s off—that’ll get an answer out of him.”

Having told Chung-seop how to negotiate with Juma Construction, Seong-ho walked slowly on down the street.

Surveying the buildings standing in a row in the heart of Gangnam, he said,

“A good many of the buildings here will be the same case as the Juma Construction one. I want to acquire all of them, so look into it. Full cash, paid in full the day the contract is signed—there’ll be plenty who’ll say yes to that.”

Seong-ho said this to Chung-seop and walked on ahead.

And while Seong-ho went about his building-shopping, word came that the IMF’s managing director and the Republic of Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister had signed the official bailout agreement—and Korea’s economy began, in earnest, to enter the IMF era.

(End of Chapter 107)