Whether or not he sensed what was on Seong-ho’s mind, Il-gyeong Dan turned his head and looked out at the office scene visible above the conference room window.

“Now, from what I understand, this Future Advisory or whatever it’s called is an office for stock-jockeys—so why is a stock-jockey playing at being a real-estate broker too?”

Seong-ho followed Il-gyeong Dan’s gaze to the office, where people had now come back in and resumed their work, and answered.

“It started with stocks, that’s true, but the business is gradually expanding.”

“Expanding? What’s there for stocks to expand into?”

“Not just stocks—bonds, real estate, and even deposits; we plan to broaden the scope of the business by degrees. And we intend to expand the territory too, from Korea across Asia and on to Europe and the Americas.”

“You plan to? Are you the spokesman for this place?”

Il-gyeong Dan looked strangely at Seong-ho, who spoke as if he were the one running it.

It wasn’t the sort of thing a client would say.

Seong-ho gave Il-gyeong Dan a slightly sheepish smile and explained why.

“I’m an investor in this place.”

“An investor? You mean the owner?”

“Not the owner. I merely hold a 20 percent stake, that’s all.”

“You hold 20 percent of this place? Ha ha.”

Perhaps finding it unexpected, Il-gyeong Dan burst out laughing and said,

“You’re a busy man, aren’t you. Holding the most important post in the Ilhyeon Group while being an investor in Future Advisory and sweeping up buildings all at the same time. However many things are you juggling—each one hard enough to handle with a single body?”

“It’s all just done in odd scraps of time. With Future Advisory I’ve only invested; I don’t take part in the management. And the buildings I’m only buying because the chance came up—it’s not as though I’m devoting myself to real-estate investment.”

“An interesting fellow. Very interesting indeed.”

Il-gyeong Dan laid the cane he’d been leaning on across the table.

Had he been displeased, Il-gyeong Dan would have kept gripping the cane so as to rise and leave at any moment.

Seeing him set it down, Seong-ho knew he meant to have a proper conversation.

Just as Seong-ho thought, Il-gyeong Dan studied him closely for a moment, as though he had something to say.

Then, stripping the laughter from his voice, he spoke.

“I won’t ask you any more about how you stole my livelihood by lending to the companies and cut in line ahead of me on the real estate I’d already marked as mine. So tell me. Sunwoo Group. What should be done about those fellows?”

The talk of Sunwoo Group came out of nowhere.

Seong-ho, not knowing what Il-gyeong Dan meant by raising Sunwoo Group, could say nothing at all.

Il-gyeong Dan nodded as if he understood, and spoke first.

“Coming at you out of the blue, it’s bound to be unsettling. Simply put, that Kim fellow from Sunwoo Group got in touch a little while ago. Said he needed money to acquire something called Duryong Motors. So he asked me to urgently float him just 200 billion won. Money he needed in a hurry for the down payment and initial outlay, he said. Once he acquires it and the loan comes through from the bank, he’ll pay me back right away—so what do you think? Should the money be lent? Or should it not?”

“What did he say he’d put up as collateral?”

“Collateral? Ha ha ha.”

Before saying whether it was good or bad, Seong-ho had asked first about the collateral.

Perhaps liking that about him, Il-gyeong Dan let out a great laugh and said,

“The site of Sunwoo Motors’ Incheon plant. That’s what he offered to put up.”

“That would seem to fall short.”

“Oh?”

Il-gyeong Dan looked at Seong-ho with a puzzled expression and said,

“I say this in case you don’t know the real-estate side well, but the value is right. Property prices have crashed and dropped a good deal from before, but the Incheon plant site is roughly on par as collateral, more or less.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“It isn’t?”

Even though Il-gyeong Dan could only know real estate better than he did, Seong-ho stated flatly that it wasn’t so.

“Its worth as real estate may be right, but if you look a little more deeply at the surrounding circumstances, its worth as collateral can only fall.”

“So what you’re saying is that the surrounding circumstances are dragging down the property’s value? Sunwoo Motors… Sunwoo Group…”

About to ask what circumstances were dragging the value down, Il-gyeong Dan fell silent for a moment.

Then, deep in thought over something, he brought a hand down on the table.

Bang!

At the sound, the burly men who’d been waiting outside came rushing in.

“Elder!”

“Chairman!”

They hurried to check on Il-gyeong Dan’s condition, faces worried that something might have happened in the conference room.

But contrary to their worry, Il-gyeong Dan flashed a bright grin at Seong-ho.

“You’re an even worse rascal than I thought.”

“Thank you.”

Taking Il-gyeong Dan’s words as praise, Seong-ho bowed his head toward him.

Perhaps liking that side of Seong-ho even more, Il-gyeong Dan wore a bright expression as he picked up the cane laid beside him.

“Up we go.”

When he raised himself, leaning on the cane, the burly men came to Il-gyeong Dan’s side to support him.

Il-gyeong Dan got to his feet with the men’s support and looked back toward the door.

There stood Chung-seop at the doorway, peering worriedly into the conference room.

“If a man leaves his money here, you’ll put it to work for him as you see fit?”

At Il-gyeong Dan’s sudden question, Chung-seop answered as he came into the conference room.

“Yes. For a set fee, we put our clients’ money to work.”

“From what I hear, you don’t fuss over whether it’s stocks or real estate?”

Seeing that Il-gyeong Dan seemed interested, Chung-seop answered with a more earnest face.

“That’s not all. We’ve rated the Chinese market highly of late and opened a branch in China as well—”

“Enough. I’ll send someone over for the details, so talk it over with him.”

“Sending someone over means… you’re saying you’ll become our client…?”

Tap!

Il-gyeong Dan walked slowly forward, leaning on his cane, and said,

“Let’s start with 10 billion won first.”

“Sorry? Ten billion?”

“I’ve got to watch how you move, so let’s start with a small sum. Once I’ve got a grasp of how you invest here, I’ll raise the amount little by little—so bear that in mind and put it to good work.”

“Th-thank you.”

Chung-seop wore a delighted expression at Il-gyeong Dan’s declaration that he’d become a client.

“We’ll do our utmost to satisfy you with returns no less than your main line of work.”

“Ha ha ha. Yes. That’s a fine thing to say, that is. That you’ll turn a profit no less than my main line of work.”

Il-gyeong Dan burst into a great laugh at Chung-seop’s words and stopped his walking.

Then he turned to look back at Seong-ho and said,

“You… let’s see each other often.”

With that word—let’s see each other often, and nothing more—Il-gyeong Dan turned and left the conference room.

Chung-seop followed the departing Il-gyeong Dan out to see him off, then returned to the conference room where Seong-ho waited.

“What on earth happened?”

“Just what you saw. Chairman Dan has become a client of Future Advisory, and I can now go ahead and buy the Iljae Building and the rest. Is the paperwork all ready?”

“It’s in a final legal review. But more to the point…”

Thinking the buildings were no issue at all, Chung-seop turned his head to look out the door and asked,

“Why do you suppose Chairman Dan became our client…?”

“Might it be because he took a liking to you and Future Advisory, President Jo?”

Chung-seop, who had been looking out the door, turned his head to look at Seong-ho.

“And not because he took a liking to you, Head?”

“That too, I’d imagine.”

Seong-ho let the corner of his mouth curl up and brushed off his backside where he’d been leaning against the table.

“Well then, let’s go write up the contracts. Everyone must be waiting.”

As Seong-ho led the way out of the conference room, Chung-seop followed him out.

Recalling the storm that had blown through just moments ago, Chung-seop looked back at the conference room once more.

After gazing at it for a moment, Chung-seop drew his eyes away and shook his head.

Then, closing the conference room door behind him, he set off to proceed with the building contracts.

“You met with Chairman Dan?”

At the dinner table, Tak-hyeon asked Seong-ho about the matter with Il-gyeong Dan.

“Yes. When I went to Gangnam four days ago, he came and found me, so I met with him.”

Jeong-eun looked back and forth between Tak-hyeon, who’d thrown out the question from nowhere, and Seong-ho, who’d answered as if he’d met some fellow from next door, then asked Seong-ho,

“Which Chairman Dan are you talking about? Chairman Dan of Siso Foods over there? Who else is there named Dan besides him?”

Jeong-eun tried to call to mind what chairman there might be whose surname began with Dan.

But the name of a chairman beginning with the rare surname Dan didn’t come to her easily.

Jeong-eun looked at Seong-ho with eyes that begged him to answer quickly, and Seong-ho, meeting her gaze, only looked at Tak-hyeon instead of replying.

“Don’t tell me you mean you met the Chairman Dan of Myeongdong?”

Mun-jong, who’d been listening at the table, saw Seong-ho and threw out the question with a shocked expression.

“You met that man? Is it true?”

At Mun-jong’s astonishment, Jeong-eun spoke as if stifled.

“And who’s the Chairman Dan of Myeongdong, now?”

“You don’t know the Chairman Dan of Myeongdong?”

“Second brother knows him too? If even second brother knows, then why can’t I—”

About to ask why she couldn’t remember, Jeong-eun caught a name flashing quickly through her mind and went wide-eyed.

“Don’t tell me… you mean Chairman Il-gyeong Dan? The pawnbroker of the business world?”

“Yes. What Chairman Dan worth Father’s attention could there be other than that man?”

At Mun-jong’s remark—who else could it be but Il-gyeong Dan—Jeong-eun quickly accepted it and turned back to Seong-ho.

“You really met Chairman Il-gyeong Dan? Why?”

“I just happened to run into him in passing.”

“Chairman Il-gyeong Dan isn’t a man you run into by chance in passing.”

Mun-jong didn’t believe Seong-ho’s claim of a chance encounter.

He set down the spoon he was holding and questioned Seong-ho as if interrogating him.

“Out with it. How did you meet him? Did he ask to meet you? Or did you ask to meet him?”

At Mun-jong’s words, the gazes of the other siblings present all gathered on Seong-ho.

Seong-ho looked at Tak-hyeon, who had changed the whole mood of the meal with a single short question about whether he’d met Chairman Dan.

Unlike his children’s, Tak-hyeon’s spoon and chopsticks kept right on moving.

But the upward curl at the corner of his mouth conveyed the sense that he found the mood he’d changed at the table amusing.

Seong-ho stopped looking at Tak-hyeon and answered Mun-jong’s question.

“He told me he’d had his eye on a building I meant to buy before I did. So on account of that, he came to the place where I was signing the contract.”

“A building? A contract? Kim, you bought a building?”

At the word building, Jeong-eun’s eyes went round, and she turned to Gyeong-eun, seated beside Seong-ho, and asked.

Gyeong-eun answered Jeong-eun’s question with an awkward, sheepish laugh.

“It’s nothing. We bought a small building.”

“However small a building it is, if it’s a building it’ll run into the billions… where is it?”

“In front of Gangnam Station… just a small building over there.”

“What? Gangnam?”

Jeong-eun wore a shocked expression.

Mun-jong, Sang-jong, and Chang-jong were no less startled.

Unlike what they’d pictured—a commercial storefront tucked in some neighborhood back alley—the fact that they’d bought a building in Gangnam delivered a jolt of surprise.

“Where did the money come from? Weren’t your in-laws farmers? Did they get some fat compensation payout because a new town went up on the land they were farming?”

“However much compensation they got, it wouldn’t stretch to buying a building in Gangnam.”

“Then did you win the lottery?”

“Do you even know how much a lottery jackpot is, saying such a thing?”

“Oh, come on. Then eldest brother, you tell us. Just what money did they buy a building with?”

Jeong-eun had grown irritated at Mun-jong, who kept throwing up objections no matter what she said.

She looked at Mun-jong, telling him to explain it himself, then, and the others too looked at Mun-jong—not Seong-ho, the man in question—with eyes curious as to what he’d say.

“That’s…”

Just as Mun-jong went to speak, Mun-jong’s secretary came to the dinner table.

About to speak, Mun-jong raised his eyebrows at the secretary’s sudden intrusion and barked at him.

“I told you not to come when the family’s having a meal.”

At Mun-jong’s bark, the secretary bowed at the waist and apologized to Tak-hyeon first.

“Chairman. My apologies. I have something urgent to report to the Vice-Chairman, so I came in knowing it was a family meal.”

“Must be something urgent. It’s fine, so report it.”

Tak-hyeon took it in stride, but Mun-jong, the one concerned, didn’t know what to do with himself.

“My apologies.”

“It’s fine, so just hear the report already. The fellow’s standing there like a puppy that needs to relieve itself—looks like there’s something urgent.”

At Tak-hyeon’s words, Mun-jong dipped his head slightly, then turned to glare at the secretary.

“If it’s not something important, you’d best brace yourself. Speak.”

At being told to speak right there, the secretary hesitated a moment.

Hesitating as if it were a matter hard to speak of in front of everyone, the secretary approached Mun-jong, and Mun-jong furrowed his face as if even that displeased him.

“What in the world could it be that you’d go this far…”

Wearing an expression that didn’t understand the reason for all this, Mun-jong listened to the secretary’s report.

Mun-jong’s secretary covered his mouth with his hand and spoke to Mun-jong in a voice so low that even the person seated beside him couldn’t hear.

Before he’d even finished hearing it out, Mun-jong shot up from his seat.

“What?”

He was so shocked by the secretary’s words that his eyebrows were practically twitching.

Those present were flustered by Mun-jong’s sudden reaction.

Only Seong-ho knew what Mun-jong had just heard.

And so the typhoon that would strike the Ilhyeon Group was making landfall at the very heart of Ilhyeon.

(End of Chapter 110)