The Pyeongchang-dong home of Ilhyeon Group Chairman Tak-hyeon Lee bustled every weekend.

Because Chairman Tak-hyeon Lee had the whole family gather at Pyeongchang-dong for a meal every Sunday morning.

The daughters-in-law gathered in the kitchen to cook, while the children went out to the yard to run and play.

And the adults gathered in the living room to talk about company matters, the state of things around them, and market conditions.

Onto this ever-similar weekend scene, a slightly special situation was staged today.

“Father. There’s something I’d like to say.”

Sang-jong Lee, president of Ilhyeon Construction, turned his body to face Tak-hyeon Lee and sat.

Chairman Tak-hyeon Lee, both arms resting on the arms of the sofa, gestured with his chin.

“What is it you want to talk about?”

“Jisan Cement.”

Sang-jong Lee shot a glance back at Seong-ho Kim, seated at the very end.

The moment Seong-ho Kim met Sang-jong Lee’s gaze, he felt he knew what the man was about to say.

This was the height of the period when Mun-jong Lee and Sang-jong Lee were locked in a war of nerves over the next chairman’s seat.

And it was a time when, behind them, Chang-jong Lee and the eldest daughter, Jeong-eun Lee, read the room and watched hungrily for their chance.

Only Seong-ho Kim’s wife, the youngest daughter Gyeong-eun Lee, stood apart from the succession.

And so they were all frantic to seize any opportunity that appeared, and to Sang-jong Lee, Jisan Cement was one such opportunity.

At the words Jisan Cement, Tak-hyeon Lee nodded for a moment.

“Right. Go on.”

When Tak-hyeon Lee granted him leave to speak, Sang-jong Lee scooted his backside a little further forward and said,

“I want to acquire Jisan Cement.”

“Want to acquire it? Aren’t acquisition talks underway right now?”

Tak-hyeon Lee said, looking at Seong-ho Kim.

Seong-ho Kim glanced back at Sang-jong Lee once, then answered toward Tak-hyeon Lee.

“Yes. Matters relating to the Jisan Cement acquisition are still in progress.”

After hearing Seong-ho Kim’s answer, Tak-hyeon Lee made a puzzled face at Sang-jong Lee and asked,

“Something that’s already in progress — what do you mean you want to acquire it?”

Sang-jong Lee lifted his head toward Tak-hyeon Lee and said,

“I’m saying I want to acquire Jisan Cement — not at the group level, but for Ilhyeon Construction.”

“Ilhyeon Construction… wants to acquire it?”

“Yes. We want to acquire it and make it an Ilhyeon Construction subsidiary. Chairman, please grant your permission.”

From the sight of Sang-jong Lee bowing his head as he said Chairman, you could feel how desperate he was for this, how badly he wanted it.

Watching Sang-jong Lee wait for Tak-hyeon Lee’s answer, Seong-ho Kim thought to himself.

‘Right. To Sang-jong, trailing a step behind Mun-jong, Jisan Cement must feel like an opportunity. If he secures cement too, Ilhyeon Construction’s profit structure gets that much more solid.’

Seong-ho Kim turned his gaze and looked at Mun-jong Lee.

Sang-jong Lee surging up meant, for Mun-jong Lee, a crisis.

Seong-ho Kim didn’t for a moment think Mun-jong Lee would quietly let something arise that would become an opportunity for Sang-jong Lee.

And just as Seong-ho Kim expected, Mun-jong Lee moved.

“Chairman. The Jisan Cement acquisition is already a matter moving at the group level. And now, out of nowhere, Ilhyeon Construction wants to acquire it? This is something that mustn’t be accepted.”

“Brother. Isn’t Ilhyeon Construction part of the Ilhyeon Group family? Even if Ilhyeon Construction acquires Jisan Cement, it comes to the same thing in the end, doesn’t it? Why do you oppose it?”

“How is Jisan Cement being folded in as a group subsidiary the same as Ilhyeon Construction acquiring it so it’s folded in as a grandchild company?”

Mun-jong Lee opposed it desperately.

“I believe anything to do with the acquisition is a matter for the group to decide. Whether we acquire or give up, that’s the group’s decision, and the remaining companies should move according to the group’s decision — that’s what I think.”

At Mun-jong Lee’s words, Sang-jong Lee tried to put forward his own opinion again, but Tak-hyeon Lee raised a hand to stop him.

“Making a racket, and it’s only Sunday morning.”

Tak-hyeon Lee cut off the argument and rose from his seat.

Then, looking at Mun-jong Lee and Sang-jong Lee seated on the sofa, he said,

“Whether the group acquires it, or Ilhyeon Construction acquires it, or you give up on the acquisition — you two exchange your opinions, decide, and tell me. I’m no judge — why on earth are you asking me to make the decision? How long do you suppose I’ll sit in front of you making your decisions for you?”

Tak-hyeon Lee drew a line, saying he wouldn’t be the one to decide.

And then, saying he had no wish to hear noise from Sunday morning, he turned around and went back to his study.

When Tak-hyeon Lee went into the study, Mun-jong Lee bellowed at Sang-jong Lee.

“What in the world are you doing? A matter the group has already entered negotiations on, and Ilhyeon Construction steps up to acquire it? To borrow your own words — are you saying Ilhyeon Construction isn’t a company of the Ilhyeon Group?”

“I’m saying it because you dither and drag it out!”

As much as Mun-jong Lee, Sang-jong Lee too raised his voice.

Watching the two of them, Seong-ho Kim smiled without a word.

‘Still a long way to go. If anything, it starts from here. Because that’s how it was back then, too.’

Seong-ho Kim recalled his past life.

Back then, he’d been too busy adjusting to his in-laws’ household to understand what the situation unfolding around him — as it was now — even was.

But having gone through it once, the shape of it was clearly visible to Seong-ho Kim’s eyes.

The eldest and second sons competing with each other.

And Jeong-eun and Chang-jong, watching hungrily for their chance.

And the father-in-law, looking down on all of it from above.

Seong-ho Kim took in the swirling, churning scene of Pyeongchang-dong at a single glance.

And within a situation like this, he gauged exactly how he himself ought to act.

In a Pyeongchang-dong clamorous from Sunday morning, only Seong-ho Kim maintained his stillness, sitting in the living room and quietly watching Mun-jong Lee and Sang-jong Lee bicker.

“I’ll be going.”

Having had a good fight and gotten his mood spoiled, Sang-jong Lee left Pyeongchang-dong first.

Following him, Chang-jong Lee and Jeong-eun Lee, too, gathered their respective families and set out from Pyeongchang-dong.

Lastly, just as Mun-jong Lee was greeting Chairman Tak-hyeon Lee and about to leave Pyeongchang-dong, Seong-ho Kim approached.

Of all the Ilhyeon Group family in Pyeongchang-dong, Seong-ho Kim hated Mun-jong Lee the most.

Because — not content with having drained him to the marrow for the longest of anyone — he’d laid hands on him at the very end, and hatred was carved into the deepest places of Seong-ho Kim over it.

But Seong-ho Kim didn’t let this feeling show.

Because Seong-ho Kim knew perfectly well that, in order to sink Mun-jong Lee into the deepest mire, hatred and the thirst for revenge had to be buried, for now, in the depths of his chest.

And he began the work of drawing close to Mun-jong Lee’s side.

“Brother. There’s something I’d like to say to you.”

At the sight of Seong-ho Kim saying he had something to say, Mun-jong Lee stopped where he stood and furrowed his brow.

“What could you possibly have to say to me?”

It was a gaze from which a sense of looking down on a person came through all on its own.

But Seong-ho Kim, even under that gaze, spoke as if it were nothing.

“It’s about the Jisan Cement matter. If you’d spare me a moment, I can tell you something that might be of help to you, Brother.”

“You’re going to tell me something helpful? Someone like you?”

Snorting, Mun-jong Lee told his family to wait a moment, then threw Seong-ho Kim words laced with derision.

“Fine. As if someone like you could say anything all that helpful… but it’s not as though my ears will wear out from listening, so go on, out with it.”

Even under the unrelenting derision, Seong-ho Kim, unshaken, guided Mun-jong Lee off to one side of the yard.

Mun-jong Lee snorted at Seong-ho Kim leading him somewhere no one could hear.

“Picked up a thing or two somewhere, haven’t you… All right, this is far enough, so let’s have it.”

Arms crossed, Mun-jong Lee muttered, As if he’s got anything so grand to say, and looked at Seong-ho Kim with a scornful gaze.

Toward that Mun-jong Lee, Seong-ho Kim delivered, in a single stroke, words that would change his expression.

“The Jisan Cement acquisition — I’m the one who delayed it.”

“What?”

“I found there’s a problem with the Jisan Group, so I delayed it.”

“There’s… a problem with the Jisan Group?”

Mun-jong Lee’s crossed arms came undone.

And, wiping the derision from his face, he said to Seong-ho Kim,

“Tell me in detail. What do you mean, there’s a problem?”

When Mun-jong Lee showed he was ready to listen, Seong-ho Kim stepped one pace closer and spoke in a low voice.

Starting from the conversation he’d had with Tak-hyeon Lee and Sang-jong Lee, all the way to the fact that the Jisan Group had dropped the price by a full 20 billion won in one go, he laid it all out for Mun-jong Lee.

And lastly, he gave Mun-jong Lee something he’d told no one.

“I have a suspicion their loans may have been cut off by the financial sector.”

Mun-jong Lee’s eyes rolled rapidly.

“So they’re trying to sell off Jisan Cement to secure cash?”

“Yes. And the problem is that this has reached its limit, so…”

“We could end up losing our down payment.”

Mun-jong Lee wore a startled expression and asked Seong-ho Kim,

“Have you reported this to the chairman?”

“Not yet.”

“How can you still not have done it?”

Mun-jong Lee turned his body toward the house.

“Let’s go together right now and report it to the chairman.”

“Brother. Wait just a moment.”

Seong-ho Kim caught Mun-jong Lee’s arm as he made to walk toward the house.

Mun-jong Lee furrowed his brow and looked down at the hand that had grabbed him.

Ordinarily, Mun-jong Lee would have shouted about how dare he lay a hand on him.

But given that he’d been told something important, Mun-jong Lee swallowed his anger and turned his gaze.

“What is it, then?”

“Didn’t you just see the way the second brother was a moment ago?”

“What about Sang-jong?”

“The second brother wants Jisan Cement tremendously, doesn’t he?”

“So what of it? If that fellow acquires it and Ilhyeon Construction takes a bomb to the face…”

Mun-jong Lee, about to say that it could deal a blow to the group as well, stopped his words.

Toward him, Seong-ho Kim let a faint smile show and said,

“Tell them that if Ilhyeon Construction raises the funds itself and pushes the acquisition through without reaching out to the group, you won’t oppose it. That way, if the bomb that is Jisan Cement goes off in Ilhyeon Construction’s arms…”

“…the one who takes the biggest hit will be Sang-jong.”

At Seong-ho Kim’s words, Mun-jong Lee curled up the corners of his mouth and pointed a finger at him.

“You…”

Mun-jong Lee laughed and clapped Seong-ho Kim on the shoulder.

“Seems you’re not as useless a fellow as I thought. Looks like you’ve quickly figured out which line you ought to stand in, too. Well done.”

Unlike when they’d first begun talking, Mun-jong Lee’s face was now brimming with amusement.

“Keep it up like that from here on, and I’ll take responsibility for you and the youngest. Very well done.”

“Thank you, Brother.”

Seong-ho Kim kept his head bowed and curled up the corners of his mouth.

Seong-ho Kim was trying to slip into Mun-jong Lee’s bosom.

Because he knew that a knife in the bosom, against which one holds no guard at all, can leave a far deeper wound than a knife across the way, against which one’s wariness is raised.

And through Mun-jong Lee, he could wound Sang-jong Lee as well — so wasn’t this precisely killing two birds with one stone, he thought.

While passing the test as a bonus, of course.

Seong-ho Kim stood in the yard and quietly watched the retreating back of Mun-jong Lee, who — satisfied — had praised him once again before heading off.

(End of Chapter 11)