Tak-hyeon fell silent for a moment.

And looking at Chief Do-beom, who was tidying the surroundings one thing at a time, he brought up the matter in a bitter voice.

“Did I accept it too easily?”

“Does the third daughter-in-law trouble you?”

“What is there for me to be troubled by? Unless it’s the daughter-in-law who’s troubled by me.”

Tak-hyeon shook his head and folded his arms.

“It’s only the person behind the daughter-in-law who troubles me.”

Chang-jong’s wife—Tak-hyeon’s third daughter-in-law—was known to the outside world as roughly the daughter of a well-off family who’d majored in art.

Unlike the other daughters-in-law, who were daughters of famous figures in politics and business, she came from an ordinary family, and so her marriage had been quite the talk at the time.

But the reality was a little different.

The only daughter of Chairman Chan-pyeong Jang—said to split the Korean private-lending market in two alongside Il-gyeong Dan, the one called the pawnbroker of the business world—was precisely Chang-jong’s wife, Tak-hyeon’s third daughter-in-law.

Arms folded, Tak-hyeon called Chairman Chan-pyeong Jang to mind and said,

“It’s the fellows behind Chairman Jang, in particular, who trouble me.”

“You mean the Japanese capital?”

“Yes.”

Tak-hyeon spoke with a displeased expression.

“The funds Chairman Jang has pulled in are Japanese capital. And the money of the bottom-crawling Japs at that. The sort who lose all sense at the scent of money and will use any means whatsoever—those fellows down at the very bottom.”

Having roughly finished tidying, Do-beom stood before Tak-hyeon and said,

“Even so, surely there’s nothing they can do to us now, is there? We’re no longer a company selling fish to Japan as in the old days.”

The seed from which the Ilhyeon Group grew—founded by Tak-hyeon’s father, the founder—had been a company selling marine products to Japan.

In those days, Ilhyeon Trading had had no choice but to tremble before Japanese capital.

Because if the Japanese merchants who took the goods didn’t come collect them, the dried fish piled in the warehouse would rot away as they sat.

Do-beom set Tak-hyeon at ease, telling him that the Ilhyeon Trading of back then and the Ilhyeon of now were different.

However much Japanese capital was attached behind Chan-pyeong Jang, he was saying in a roundabout way that the Ilhyeon Group had grown too large for them to do anything about it.

But what troubled Tak-hyeon wasn’t strictly about money.

Arms folded, Tak-hyeon said what it was that troubled him.

“It’s not only money. The connections Chairman Jang holds. His connections in politics and government. And the Japan-side connections we don’t possess. It troubles me that he has them. If Chairman Jang plays games, the whole Japan line could be cut off. And yet…”

Tak-hyeon looked up at Do-beom.

“And yet I told the only daughter of that Chairman Jang to take on a child Chang-jong fathered outside… good grief.”

Even knowing it was a matter he himself had ordered, Tak-hyeon couldn’t hide his difficulty.

“I suppose I’ve grown old now. I’d forgotten it clean away. Were I even a year younger, I wouldn’t have missed a thing like this.”

As if he’d been bewitched by something, it was only after giving the order that the fact the third daughter-in-law was Chairman Jang’s only daughter had come back to him.

“Not having seen her for so long, I didn’t even know who my own daughter-in-law was… I suppose my time’s about up too.”

“That’s not so.”

Do-beom shook his head at the self-reproaching Tak-hyeon, telling him it wasn’t so.

“Anyone could do the same. It’s not as if it’s been just a year or two since you last saw the daughter-in-law’s face. And if not the third daughter-in-law, who would raise that child? A wholly unrelated daughter-in-law, or Jeong-eun or Gyeong-eun, can’t raise it. And the madam could raise it even less.”

Do-beom set Tak-hyeon at ease, telling him what he’d chosen was the only way.

“However much a child was born from another woman’s belly, isn’t it only when the legal mother raises it that it becomes a legitimate child? Your decision was not a wrong one, Chairman.”

“The trouble is that the third’s wife isn’t the legal mother.”

“What? Not the legal mother? If the third daughter-in-law isn’t the legal mother, then who is?”

Do-beom looked at Tak-hyeon as if he couldn’t understand.

Tak-hyeon looked up at him and snorted a laugh.

“You missed it too.”

“Missed what?”

“Who the child’s true father is.”

At Tak-hyeon’s words, Do-beom’s eyes went wide, as if in shock.

He’d recalled that the child’s true father wasn’t Chang-jong but Mun-jong.

“If Chairman Jang… learns of this…”

“He mustn’t learn of it.”

Tak-hyeon spoke in a firm voice.

“As if it weren’t enough that her husband fathered a child elsewhere—if he learns that it was in fact another brother’s child, do you think Chairman Jang, with his temperament, would sit still?”

Tak-hyeon called Chan-pyeong Jang’s temperament to mind for a moment and shook his head.

“He’d come at us hell-bent. He’s the sort who, even at the cost of his own life, would sink his teeth into us and come dragging us down to die together. So he must never, ever find out.”

“But how long can that be…”

Do-beom had been about to ask how long they could keep it hidden.

Because pulling the wool over the eyes of Chairman Jang, of all people, was no easy matter.

“The water’s already been spilled. Once I permitted it to be the third’s child and spoke of it before the family, then come what may, that child has to become Chang-jong’s child.”

Tak-hyeon closed his eyes for a moment and bit his lip.

Then he let out a hollow laugh.

“Ha ha. As if forgetting Chairman Jang clean away and ordering it made Chang-jong’s child weren’t enough, I told the daughter-in-law to raise it… I really am finished.”

Tak-hyeon unfolded his arms, rested his head against the chair, and closed his eyes.

Today, of all days, Tak-hyeon was keenly feeling the weight of the passing years.

While the Tak-hyeon seated in the chairman’s office was keenly feeling the weight of the years, Seong-ho, arrived at the Restructuring Headquarters, was savoring his delight to the fullest.

“Being young, my body’s certainly light.”

He felt refreshed when he woke in the morning, and even after working late, his head was clear the next day.

Even after drinking until late at night, he had no worries about the following day, and climbing the stairs left him no more out of breath.

Seong-ho found each and every day nothing but a delight in his youthened body.

Just then a new instruction came down to Seong-ho.

“Yes, understood. Then I’ll proceed right away.”

Seong-ho took the call from Do-beom, who conveyed Tak-hyeon’s instruction, and rose from his seat.

And he immediately summoned the Restructuring Headquarters team leaders and relayed the instruction Tak-hyeon had handed down.

“As of today, we devote our full efforts to the Doa Motors acquisition.”

“Has the bidding date been set?”

Deputy Head Gyeong-deuk asked Seong-ho.

By what was known so far, Doa Motors would decide its acquirer through competitive bidding.

So Deputy Head Gyeong-deuk had thought a bidding date had come out and they’d be handling bidding-related work.

Gyeong-deuk wasn’t the only one who thought this.

All the other Restructuring Headquarters staff present were thinking the same.

Only Seong-ho knew of the promise between the government and Tak-hyeon.

Seong-ho looked around quietly at the Restructuring Headquarters team leaders, then told them the truth.

“The Doa Motors acquisition is a matter already settled in talks with the incoming government.”

“Settled in talks? What do you mean by that?”

“It means the bidding is nothing but a formality, and Doa Motors coming over to us is already a confirmed matter.”

“Is that really true?”

Gyeong-deuk and the other Restructuring Headquarters team leaders looked at Seong-ho with startled eyes.

The incoming government’s public promise had been to hand Doa Motors to whoever offered the best price through fair bidding, thereby minimizing the creditors’ losses.

And yet, contrary to that announcement, the fact that there’d actually been a behind-the-scenes agreement was what startled the team leaders.

“The people who knew this fact were, until now, only three—the Chairman, the Chief of Staff, and myself. But from now on, you’ve come to know it too.”

“Telling us as well—does that mean we may move openly?”

“No, we can’t move openly.”

Seong-ho shook his head at team leader Byeong-ju Jeong’s question.

“In any case, the incoming government promised bidding competition, and it has to be seen keeping that promise.”

“Then why have you told us?”

Deputy Head Gyeong-deuk looked at Seong-ho with a puzzled expression.

The fewer people who knew a secret, the better.

Of course, since the Restructuring Headquarters team leaders didn’t number in the hundreds, it couldn’t be said the secret had been passed to many.

But there was a clear difference between three people knowing and more than ten people knowing.

On top of that, telling the team leaders meant the team members should know and act on it too, so the odds were thick that the secret would be disclosed to still more people.

It was with puzzlement over a story that had ceased to be a secret by Seong-ho’s words a moment ago that Gyeong-deuk had asked Seong-ho.

The other team leaders held the same thought as Deputy Head Gyeong-deuk.

They looked at Seong-ho with faces curious as to why he’d told them something as important as a behind-the-scenes agreement with the incoming government.

Seong-ho looked around at the team leaders for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth.

“The reason I’ve told you this fact is none other than my wish that you enter the acquisition process with an accurate grasp of the present situation.”

Hearing Seong-ho’s words, Gyeong-deuk turned to look around at the team leaders present with him.

And seeing the team leaders’ expressions, confirming that they were all thinking the same as he was, he slowly opened his mouth.

“Is it because of Doa Motors’ strike?”

“That’s right.”

Seong-ho nodded and said to the team leaders,

“The strike is emerging as the most important problem in the acquisition process. If we can’t resolve it, we can’t make the acquisition, and even if we do, there’s a high likelihood of considerable blowback.”

“The mood right now is certainly no ordinary thing—even if we acquire them as is, the union’s backlash might be considerable.”

“So it’s in the sense that we must enter the acquisition process knowing accurately that I’ve told you.”

“Knowing accurately—knowing what…?”

Seong-ho looked around for a moment at the curious Gyeong-deuk and team leaders, then spoke in earnest about what the Restructuring Headquarters had to do.

“The direction we must advance in isn’t to become the winner of the bidding competition as the acquisition negotiator—it’s to calculate whether or not it benefits us after the acquisition. Don’t bother analyzing the intermediate steps; skip ahead and analyze the situation after the acquisition negotiations.”

Hearing Seong-ho’s words, Gyeong-deuk finally understood why Seong-ho had disclosed such an important secret.

Rather than keeping the secret tightly hidden and spending energy in a useless place, he’d disclosed the agreement with the incoming government so they’d spend their energy where it truly needed to be spent.

“I understand what you mean. Then we’ll start right away with a post-acquisition synergy analysis.”

“Head.”

Deputy Head Yong-nam Mun, who had been quietly doing nothing but listening to Seong-ho, cautiously opened his mouth.

Specialized in number-crunching and focused on support work, Yong-nam Mun didn’t open his mouth particularly often at meetings, this occasion aside.

Because he thought that if he calculated the numbers as instructed and passed them to Seong-ho, the decisions were for Seong-ho and Tak-hyeon to make.

Yong-nam Mun thought he need only calculate the numbers without error, and he’d shown that consistently.

Everyone present knew this side of Deputy Head Mun well.

So they looked at Deputy Head Mun as if it were a curious thing, and Seong-ho asked him with a smile on his face,

“Yes, Deputy Head Mun. Is there something you’d like to say?”

Deputy Head Yong-nam Mun, his lips dry from quietly keeping them shut, wet them and said why he’d called on Seong-ho.

“If a conclusion comes out that, for various reasons including the union strike, it won’t benefit the Ilhyeon Group after acquisition… then what happens?”

The team leaders present all wore startled expressions at the unexpected words.

Not for a single moment had they thought of taking a loss upon acquiring Doa Motors.

The team leaders had thought that if anything it would be a gain, a gain—never a loss.

So Deputy Head Yong-nam Mun’s words came as all the more of a surprise.

But Seong-ho wasn’t surprised.

Whoever else might not, he’d figured Yong-nam Mun would harbor this doubt.

And it was in anticipation of it, too, that he’d gathered the team leaders and disclosed the secret that a behind-the-scenes agreement with the incoming government existed.

Seong-ho looked at Yong-nam Mun and said in a low but forceful voice,

“If it won’t benefit the Ilhyeon Group, we give it up.”

“Give it… up?”

Deputy Head Gyeong-deuk wore an even more startled expression at the wholly unanticipated answer.

Seong-ho stopped looking at Yong-nam Mun, looked around at the team leaders present, and said,

“Naturally, if it won’t benefit us, we ought to give it up. There’s no reason to embrace something that won’t work and sink into the swamp for nothing.”

“Give it up…”

Gyeong-deuk, the shock not easily leaving him at the word “give up,” didn’t know what to say.

And the other team leaders were all the same.

Seong-ho looked around at them and told them the true reason he’d disclosed the secret.

“That’s why what we must find is not the reason to acquire, but the reason to give up. If there’s even one reason we ought to give up, I intend to give up this Doa Motors acquisition without regret. So keep that in mind as you calculate.”

“Find not the reason to acquire but the reason to give up… does the Chairman know of this too?”

“Have you forgotten? We are now the Chairman’s directly-subordinate department. That is, my thinking is the Chairman’s thinking, and what I say is what the Chairman says.”

Seong-ho finished speaking and looked at the Restructuring Headquarters team leaders, and they, unable to easily shake free of their shock, were looking at Seong-ho with startled expressions.

(End of Chapter 120)