“He told them to find a reason to give it up, you say?”

Tak-hyeon asked back at Do-beom’s report with a disbelieving expression.

Chief Do-beom answered with an understanding of why Tak-hyeon wore such a look.

“Yes. The Restructuring Headquarters is looking for the negative aspects of the Doa Motors acquisition, they say.”

“I knew that fellow was mad long ago, but he’s an even madder one than I thought.”

Tak-hyeon let out a sound of astonishment and wore a surprised expression.

Do-beom asked with a worried face at Chairman Tak-hyeon’s manner,

“Chairman. Shall I go and have a separate word with him even now?”

“A separate word about what?”

“About doing it properly.”

“Properly? Do what properly?”

At Tak-hyeon’s asking again, Do-beom hesitated a moment and answered,

“That… I was thinking the Restructuring Headquarters ought to be advancing in the direction of acquiring. Didn’t you say so yourself, Chairman? That Doa Motors absolutely must be acquired…”

Do-beom answered while reading Tak-hyeon’s mood.

But confirming that, though Tak-hyeon called him mad in words, a pleased look showed on his face, Do-beom couldn’t quite finish what he was saying.

Because it looked, after all, like a face that found Seong-ho’s decision to its liking.

And that thought of Do-beom’s wasn’t mistaken.

“To acquire Doa Motors without fail, finding the reasons not to acquire it is the faster road.”

Do-beom didn’t understand Tak-hyeon’s words.

But watching Tak-hyeon’s satisfied manner, he could tell at least that Seong-ho was going down the right road.

I thought it was an absurd instruction…

Do-beom had been aghast on hearing Seong-ho’s instruction to the Restructuring Headquarters.

He’d assumed that, having given an instruction in a direction completely different from Tak-hyeon’s will, Seong-ho had set foot entirely onto the wrong road.

But the one who’d thought it the wrong road was, rather, himself, and the fact that Seong-ho was walking down the proper road brought Do-beom surprise.

And watching Seong-ho, who moved according to Tak-hyeon’s will every single time, he imagined what satisfaction Tak-hyeon must feel.

“When is the gathering with the government regarding the Doa Motors acquisition arranged for?”

Do-beom stopped his imagining and answered Tak-hyeon’s question.

“After the presidential inauguration, a gathering of the five group companies is scheduled, presided over by the Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy. It’s expected that talk regarding the acquisition will come up there.”

“I see.”

Tak-hyeon nodded for a moment and instructed Do-beom,

“Send Head Kim out to that gathering.”

“To a gathering presided over by the Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy?”

Do-beom asked Tak-hyeon with a startled face.

Tak-hyeon nodded with an amused gaze and said,

“Given the occasion is what it is, I ought to bump up his rank a bit, no? Announce the presidential appointment right away and have the inauguration carried out right away too. It’s a gathering presided over by the Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy, after all—he ought to go with a president’s badge on.”

Do-beom looked at Tak-hyeon with a hesitant face.

It was a gathering where, if not group chairmen themselves, then people of comparable standing were expected to sit.

Each group’s real power-holder would go, and depending on the circumstances, important decisions might be made at the gathering.

Whether sending Seong-ho to such a place was right flashed through Do-beom’s mind for an instant.

“Chairman. Wouldn’t it be better to send Vice-Chairman Lee rather than Head Kim? That would match shoulder-height with the other places, and it looks better too.”

“What can the Vice-Chairman go and do?”

Tak-hyeon shook his head and said,

“It’s better for the one who makes the decisions to go and speak directly. No more talk—just move as I instructed.”

At Tak-hyeon’s words, which brooked no other opinion, Do-beom had no choice but to stop.

And in his heart, a doubt arose as to whether Seong-ho going to the gathering was really a good thing.

To Do-beom’s eyes, the strong impression came that Tak-hyeon was continually setting Seong-ho up on a tightrope.

But to Do-beom’s eyes only the swaying tightrope was visible; he couldn’t see the bundle of gifts waiting at the tightrope’s end.

And whoever else might not be, Seong-ho could be called a master of this tightrope-walking.

Because what he’d done his whole life was precisely tightrope-walking.

Contrary to Do-beom’s worry, Seong-ho rather welcomed Tak-hyeon’s decision.

“That’s good.”

The moment Seong-ho heard Tak-hyeon’s decision, “that’s good” came out first.

And calling in Byeong-jin, he instructed,

“Come with me to Doa Motors for a bit.”

Byeong-jin nodded in assent and said,

“All right. Then I’ll talk to Doa Motors’ head office and set a time. The management dispatched by the creditors is running Doa Motors provisionally, but they seem to have it rough. If we ask to meet, they’ll make time even where there is none. From their standpoint, the sooner the company changes hands, the better.”

“No. Not the head office.”

Seong-ho shook his head and spread a daily newspaper on the desk so Byeong-jin could see it well.

Byeong-jin looked down at the spread newspaper.

In the paper, a large photograph showed a Doa Motors union member with his hand raised.

“You mean to go here?”

Byeong-jin looked back and forth between the photo in the paper and Seong-ho with a disbelieving gaze.

Byeong-jin couldn’t believe it was true, what he’d heard—that they were to go to a place where a strike was raging at full intensity.

Seong-ho looked down at the photo and said,

“They’re calling for us like this, so we ought to go. Set a time as soon as possible and let me know. The sooner the better.”

“Um… I think maybe you’re misunderstanding something… but if we go here, I don’t think the people here will leave us in one piece?”

The people the striking union members hated most were precisely the people of the Ilhyeon Group.

It was enough to give the feeling that, at least at this very moment, they might hate the people of the Ilhyeon Group more than the figure up North who’d started the war.

Being told to leap into a place like that, Byeong-jin felt something close to cognitive dissonance.

“Ah!”

Byeong-jin recalled something and put on a face toward Seong-ho that said he understood.

“You mean to take off the Ilhyeon Group badge and go in secret, is that it? Because you want to see with your own eyes the strike scene you only ever hear about through the media. That’s it?”

“No.”

Seong-ho shook his head.

“We’ll visit this place officially, and I intend to visit and listen to what these people have to say. So get ready.”

“An official visit…”

At Seong-ho’s instruction, Byeong-jin came out of the office with an ashen face.

And with the eyes of an ox being dragged to the slaughterhouse, he sat down and put in a call to Doa Motors’ side.

“Ease up that expression a bit.”

Seong-ho spoke to Byeong-jin, who was gripping the steering wheel.

But Byeong-jin, lips jutting out, didn’t even reply to Seong-ho’s words.

“I told you it’s fine. You don’t have to worry.”

“Don’t worry, you say?”

Byeong-jin turned to Seong-ho, hands on the wheel.

“How am I not supposed to worry? The people where we’re going now are people who’ve made up their minds to kill us the moment they see us.”

“Why would they kill us?”

“Because that way we don’t get to acquire them, and they get acquired by the German company they want.”

Byeong-jin looked forward again, gripping the wheel, and said,

“To them, we’re the enemy. Beings that ought to disappear. When beings like that come to them on their own two feet, do you think they’ll leave us be? They’ll rush at us to kill us the moment they lay eyes on us.”

“So they would, huh?”

Byeong-jin turned to Seong-ho and said,

“Well, I’ll be—I thought you didn’t know, but you do?”

“Of course I know. I read the papers and watch the broadcasts too. And you and the Headquarters people report to me constantly—how would I not know?”

“Then why did you ask why those people would kill us?”

“What I meant was something like—they’d want to kill us, but they can’t.”

Byeong-jin looked at Seong-ho with a disbelieving expression.

He couldn’t keep looking at Seong-ho while gripping the wheel, but bewilderment was dripping from Byeong-jin’s eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll understand what it means once we get there. They can’t kill us. Never…”

Seong-ho looked out the window at the Doa Motors Gwangmyeong plant drawing steadily closer and said,

“—not if they want to get what they want. So don’t worry.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re on about…”

Just as Byeong-jin went to say he had no idea what Seong-ho meant, something came flying at the window.

Thwack!

“What the—”

Byeong-jin, startled at what had suddenly flown at the windshield, slowed down.

And just as he went to check what it was that had burst, something came flying again.

Thwack! Thwack!

Having confirmed what it was that struck the window and burst, Byeong-jin spoke with a startled face.

“Aren’t those raw eggs?”

Thwack! Thwack!

The eggs flew in and burst in an instant across the windshield, and the driver’s and passenger windows, the back seat and rear window too.

It wasn’t only the windows.

The roof, tires, hood, and so on—they came flying at every part of the car.

Around the time the eggs, flung all at once as if on a signal, had covered every part of the car, people’s voices could be heard.

“Ilhyeon Group, step back!”

“Step back!”

“Doa Motors rejects the Ilhyeon Group!”

“We reject!”

“We’ll choose our company with our own hands!”

“We’ll choose!”

“Ilhyeon Group, keep your hands off Doa Motors!”

“Keep off!”

Following someone’s lead, the people could be heard chanting the slogans in turn.

Byeong-jin, feeling the people’s voices tremble even into the car, turned to Seong-ho.

“Even with all this, those people aren’t trying to kill us?”

“Shouting and throwing eggs isn’t going to kill us.”

“Hey! That’s…”

Byeong-jin started to speak, then shook his head.

Because seeing Seong-ho’s expression, he realized he wasn’t saying it as a joke.

“Is it really okay?”

“Don’t worry, just drive slowly on in. Then they’ll stop too. Unless eggs sprout from the ground and fall from the sky, they’re bound to run out sooner or later.”

Thwack! Thwack!

Just as Seong-ho said, the frequency of the flying eggs had dropped a great deal from the start.

But the windshield was already impossible to see through.

Byeong-jin let out a short sigh, wiped down the windshield, and slowly drove the car forward.

When the car moved, the Doa Motors union members throwing eggs from a distance grew agitated and shouted.

“Block them! Block the Ilhyeon Group people from getting inside!”

When the cry to block them came out, the union members made to rush the car.

But the police watching the situation from the surroundings stopped the union members from rushing it.

Byeong-jin drove carefully, the wheel drawn close enough to touch his chest, and said,

“Should’ve blocked them sooner.”

“If you get out of the car, you might catch an egg.”

“What?”

Byeong-jin, who’d been carefully advancing, turned to Seong-ho.

“I’m telling you in advance in case you’re startled when an egg suddenly comes flying and hits you. When we get out, eggs will come flying, so don’t dodge—just take them.”

“Just take them?”

Byeong-jin furrowed his face at the smell of rotten egg already coming into the interior.

If the smell was this bad from being hit on the outside of the car, being hit with it properly seemed like it wouldn’t wash off even after a week of showering.

Seong-ho pointed a finger forward and said,

“Pull up over there. And when we get out, I’ll get out first, so you get out a little after. That way you’ll get hit a bit less.”

Byeong-jin drove the car toward where Seong-ho pointed.

And stopping the car, he turned to Seong-ho.

“If I get hit less, that means you get hit that much more.”

“That much I ought to do. Otherwise your lip would jut out all the way to Seoul, wouldn’t it?”

Seong-ho tossed out the joke with a smiling face and patted Byeong-jin’s shoulder.

And opening the car door, he said,

“After I get out, count to ten and get out. I’m off first, then.”

Saying he was off, Seong-ho got out of the car.

“It’s an Ilhyeon Group man!”

As if he were the enemy of their parents, eggs came flying at Seong-ho.

Thwack! Thwack!

The eggs struck and burst right on his face, body, head, and so on.

Seong-ho took the eggs with his whole body, standing his ground in place.

Whether they’d been deliberately spoiled, the smell the eggs gave off as they broke was nothing but foul.

But Seong-ho took the eggs without furrowing his face one bit, and spent a good while like that, standing his ground in place.

“That one’s an Ilhyeon Group man too!”

When Byeong-jin got out of the car, part of the eggs that had been flying only at Seong-ho came flying, divided, toward Byeong-jin.

Byeong-jin raised his hands to guard his face, but he couldn’t dodge the eggs flying at the rest of him.

The eggs burst all over Byeong-jin’s body, and Byeong-jin dry-heaved at the smell.

“Ugh!”

Around the time the egg-shower that continued for a while was ending, Doa Motors officials appeared and stopped the union members throwing eggs.

“Please stop. These people are guests.”

“Guests, my foot. Ilhyeon Group, get lost!”

The egg-shower ended, but the cursing at Seong-ho didn’t stop.

But at any rate, having confirmed that the egg-shower had ended, the Doa Motors official approached where Seong-ho and Byeong-jin were.

“My apologies. I’m… Doa Motors’ provisional manager appointed by the creditors… Yu-cheol Han.”

Yu-cheol Han couldn’t finish his greeting in one go at the smell coming off Seong-ho’s body.

But Seong-ho, the party actually concerned, offered his greeting with an unbothered face.

“A pleasure to meet you. I’m Seong-ho Kim, head of the Ilhyeon Group’s Restructuring Headquarters.”

“The Head himself has come?”

Yu-cheol Han looked at Seong-ho with a startled face.

Because though it had been said the Ilhyeon Group would come, he hadn’t thought it would be the Head.

Seong-ho looked at the union members still shouting at him from beyond the police holding them back, and said,

“There’s no special reason I’ve come today. I came wanting to talk with the union representative, so I ask you to arrange a place where I can speak with them.”

Yu-cheol Han wore a flustered expression at Seong-ho’s unanticipated words.

(End of Chapter 121)