Seong-ho Kim and Gyeong-eun Lee watched Dae-su Park appearing on the living-room TV screen.

“Dae-su takes to the camera better than I’d have thought.”

“You’re right. Seeing him like this, he seems like a different person.”

Seong-ho Kim and Gyeong-eun Lee watched, through the TV, as Dae-su Park stood before the cameras giving an interim briefing on the Jisan Group corruption investigation.

—It has been confirmed that the Jisan Group, which began as a private-education foundation, is entangled in numerous cases including embezzlement. We have confirmed that the group’s chairman’s family illegally misappropriated some 200 billion won siphoned off through such corruption, and the prosecution has launched an internal inquiry. On the strength of the facts already uncovered alone, we are confident in indicting the Jisan Group’s controlling family, and—

Watching the TV, Gyeong-eun Lee asked Seong-ho Kim,

“So what happens to the Jisan Group now?”

“For now, the fact that they committed crimes like embezzlement has been confirmed, so they’ll expand the investigation. And if it comes out that they even took loans by illegally lobbying the financial sector, they can’t help but take a serious blow. Maybe… they might even collapse.”

Gyeong-eun Lee looked at Seong-ho Kim with fresh eyes.

Under her gaze, Seong-ho Kim gave an awkward smile and rubbed his face with his hand.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s just, you seem terribly clever. Like I’ve seen a side of you I didn’t know before… That’s why I was staring.”

“Seem clever… so does that mean I wasn’t, up until now?”

“Aw. Since it’s just us, let me be honest — you’re not exactly the super-smart type, are you, Seong-ho? You were the good-hearted one.”

“Leave my head out of it, then — what about my face?”

“Your face is my type, obviously. But that’s strictly my type, mind you. Not that you’re objectively handsome.”

“Hahaha. Understood. Well, so long as I look handsome to your eyes alone, that’s enough, right?”

“That’s right. That’s all it takes.”

Seong-ho Kim and Gyeong-eun Lee sat in the living room watching TV in warm good humor.

But there was someone who wasn’t pleased at the sight of the two of them.

“What have you two got to grin about, sitting there smirking?”

Suk-ja Chu — Seong-ho Kim’s mother-in-law and Tak-hyeon Lee’s wife — approached with a furrowed brow.

And with a displeased face, she looked back and forth between Seong-ho Kim and Gyeong-eun Lee.

“Mother. You’ve come?”

When Seong-ho Kim rose from his seat, Suk-ja Chu looked him up and down once and said,

“Do you have that little to do? Is it because people won’t even give the chairman’s son-in-law any work that the laughter just comes bubbling out of you like that?”

As if displeased to see him at home, Suk-ja Chu kept spitting out one nonsensical reason after another, sniping at Seong-ho Kim.

In Seong-ho Kim’s stead, Gyeong-eun Lee answered Suk-ja Chu.

“Mother, leave Seong-ho be. It’s a day off, so of course he’s resting.”

“Resting because it’s a day off? My, my, what a fine world it’s become.”

Suk-ja Chu clicked her tongue and said,

“At your age, the chairman ate and slept at the company. And is that all? Your elder brother-in-law — Gyeong-eun’s eldest brother here — was the same. Sang-jong, too…”

Just then, at the sound of the door, Suk-ja Chu, mid-speech, stopped and turned her head.

The one who’d opened the door and come in was the very Sang-jong Lee she’d been about to mention.

Suk-ja Chu looked at Sang-jong Lee, who’d shown up without any word ahead, as if it were strange, and asked,

“What brings you here at this hour?”

Because although today was a day off, it wasn’t the Sunday when the family gathered every week.

Sang-jong Lee undid the top button of his suit and asked Suk-ja Chu,

“Mother. Father’s here, isn’t he?”

“Your father’s always home, of course. Why? Something come up that you need to see him about? Did you cause some trouble?”

Suk-ja Chu asked with knitted brows.

As if uncomfortable under that gaze of hers, Sang-jong Lee waved a hand.

“Do you still think I’m a child? Trouble, honestly…”

“No? Looking at your face, you did cause some kind of trouble. What is it? Tell your mother. What did you do, to be like this?”

At the sight of Sang-jong Lee trying to avoid her, Suk-ja Chu tugged at his clothes, trying to study his face.

Sang-jong Lee kept turning his head to dodge her gaze and shook off her hand.

“Aish, that’s enough. I have to see Father, so I’ll go on in.”

“…Right.”

At Sang-jong Lee’s words that he’d go see Tak-hyeon Lee, Suk-ja Chu couldn’t hold him back any further.

Curious as she was, part of it was that she figured she’d find out naturally soon enough.

Sang-jong Lee straightened his clothes with his freed arm and pointed a finger at Seong-ho Kim.

“You come in too.”

“Me too?”

“Yes. You come in too.”

Then, with a furrowed brow, he looked at the TV.

Talk about Dae-su Park’s briefing was still flowing out of it.

As if that sight displeased him, Sang-jong Lee clicked his tongue, withdrew his gaze, and turned his body toward the study.

Gyeong-eun Lee and Suk-ja Chu watched Sang-jong Lee’s retreating figure with faces curious as to what on earth had gotten into him.

Telling Gyeong-eun Lee he’d be back, Seong-ho Kim followed after Sang-jong Lee toward the study.

Entering the study, Sang-jong Lee bowed his head toward Tak-hyeon Lee, seated at the desk.

“Father. No — Chairman.”

Sang-jong Lee couldn’t bring himself to state his reason for coming right away, and hesitated a moment.

Tak-hyeon Lee, without so much as asking, merely watched him wordlessly.

Avoiding Tak-hyeon Lee’s gaze, Sang-jong Lee kept his head down and opened his mouth.

“The Jisan Group… looks like it’s going to go bankrupt.”

“Looks like it’s going to go bankrupt?”

Tak-hyeon Lee let out a dry laugh, then picked up the document he’d been reading and hurled it at the head-bowed Sang-jong Lee.

Fwsssh.

The papers struck Sang-jong Lee in the head and fell to the floor.

They were documents in which the secretariat had organized matters relating to the Jisan Group’s bankruptcy.

Tak-hyeon Lee shouted at Sang-jong Lee, who still stood fidgeting with his head down,

“You call that a report?!”

Into the eyes of the trembling, head-bowed Sang-jong Lee came one portion of the document Tak-hyeon Lee had thrown.

[Loans taken out from nearly every institution. Total loans estimated between 800 billion and 1 trillion won. Having assessed the Jisan Group’s loan-repayment capacity as converging on zero, the financial sector is coordinating the timing of a bankruptcy announcement.]

“It’s as much as 1 trillion won?!”

At the fact that the total loans came to 1 trillion won, Sang-jong Lee lifted his head with startled eyes.

Tak-hyeon Lee looked at him as if he were pathetic.

“Which means you came scampering to me on hearing the single word bankruptcy, without even checking how much the damage is.”

“It’s just that I was so shocked…”

“Enough.”

Tak-hyeon Lee looked at Seong-ho Kim, who was wordlessly picking up the documents he’d flung, then asked Sang-jong Lee,

“Did you really have no idea a thing like this would happen?”

At Tak-hyeon Lee’s question, Sang-jong Lee, as if wronged, pointed a finger at Seong-ho Kim and said,

“Who could have known Assistant Manager Kim’s friend here would suddenly pull something like that?!”

When Sang-jong Lee tried to turn the arrow onto him, Seong-ho Kim gathered the documents he’d picked up, set them on Tak-hyeon Lee’s desk, and said,

“Chairman. It’s something I didn’t know about either. And I understand the bankruptcy was already a settled matter before Prosecutor Dae-su Park began his investigation.”

Tak-hyeon Lee stared into Seong-ho Kim’s face, then shouted at Sang-jong Lee,

“As far as I know too, the bankruptcy came first and the investigation second. Are you trying to pin your own fault on someone else right now?”

“Father…”

Tak-hyeon Lee furrowed his brow at Sang-jong Lee and asked,

“If it’s gone bankrupt and the prosecutors have moved in, you ought to prepare a response plan and bring it — and here you come having prepared nothing, without even checking the extent of the damage, and the word out of your mouth is Father…”

Fwsssh.

Tak-hyeon Lee picked up the documents Seong-ho Kim had neatly gathered, hurled them into Sang-jong Lee’s face again, and shouted,

“Are you telling me to clean up your mess right now?!”

Struck in the face with the paper, Sang-jong Lee dropped his head once more.

Tak-hyeon Lee kept shouting at him,

“You’re about to lose the whole 100 billion won you put in as a down payment — who’s going to take responsibility for this? Will you cough it up out of that fine pocket of yours?”

“Fa— Chairman. How could I possibly cough up 80 billion won…?”

“If you don’t have it, then earn it and pay it back!”

Tak-hyeon Lee looked at Sang-jong Lee with a displeased expression.

“With it already bankrupt, you come scurrying to tell me it looks like it’ll go bankrupt — what did you think I’d do for you? The 100 billion is already sunk into the Jisan Group, so you ought to find a solution and bring it. What in the world are you even capable of?”

At Tak-hyeon Lee’s words, Sang-jong Lee flushed.

The truth was that he’d thought it over on the way here, but no clear solution had come to mind.

He’d simply come to the main house with the thought of at least avoiding a scolding for reporting too late.

As if he had no wish to talk any further, Tak-hyeon Lee instructed Do-beom Hwang.

“Chief Hwang! Drag that fellow out. And for the time being, even if he comes around, don’t let his face be seen in front of me.”

“Father.”

“Don’t call me Father, you fool!”

Tak-hyeon Lee bellowed at Sang-jong Lee.

“Do you even know what kind of money that 100 billion you frittered away is? It’s money scraped together with the blood and sweat of workers in Ilhyeon Construction uniforms, boring through everything from sites far overseas to the Jirisan tunnel. And you threw it away like an idiot! You’ve no right to say a word with that mouth of yours.”

Tak-hyeon Lee gestured at Do-beom Hwang to hurry and take him out.

Then, muttering to himself, he turned around.

“You look into what state the Jisan Group’s in first, and then decide whether to acquire the company or not. Why charge in when you know nothing? Foolish fellow. If he had a head on his shoulders, he’d at least stop to think about why his brother gave it up so readily. Ugh. With a fellow like that sitting in the president’s chair, how could the company possibly run right.”

Listening to Tak-hyeon Lee’s muttering, Sang-jong Lee left without even being able to lift his face.

Through all of it, Seong-ho Kim had been wordlessly picking up and tidying the documents fallen to the floor.

‘His disappointment in Sang-jong must have grown quite a lot.’

This was precisely the reward Seong-ho Kim had wanted.

Seong-ho Kim didn’t want a revenge of gripping a knife and blindly jabbing it into an opponent’s gut. To pile things up carefully over a long time and then shatter them in a single stroke — that was the revenge Seong-ho Kim wanted.

So with this Jisan Cement matter, he’d gained Mun-jong Lee’s trust and made a crack run through the trust in Sang-jong Lee.

‘If I keep moving forward like this, a moment will come when I can plunge knives all over their bodies from behind.’

Thinking that he was patiently, continually tempering and building it up, Seong-ho Kim picked up the documents strewn across the floor.

And as he set the gathered documents on Tak-hyeon Lee’s desk and made to leave the study, Tak-hyeon Lee’s gaze turned toward him.

“You — stay a moment.”

Seong-ho Kim, about to leave the study, turned at Tak-hyeon Lee’s stay and returned to where he’d been.

“I hear you’re adjusting well in your new department.”

Seong-ho Kim looked back at Tak-hyeon Lee and bowed his head.

“Yes. Thanks to the help of many people around me, I’m adjusting well.”

“I had a lot of worries, since you’d only ever worked in sales, but that’s a relief.”

Seong-ho Kim, startled, lifted his head slightly and looked at Tak-hyeon Lee.

Because he’d never imagined he’d hear the words a lot of worries come out of that Tak-hyeon Lee’s mouth.

‘Has the trust that fell away from Sang-jong come to me?’

Looking at Tak-hyeon Lee’s gaze upon him, Seong-ho Kim came to think that perhaps a little trust had, in fact, taken root.

And as if to tell him his thinking wasn’t wrong, Tak-hyeon Lee’s words continued.

“The rank of assistant manager may not sit well with you, but it wouldn’t look good for you to become an executive like a director or managing director the moment you became my son-in-law, so I told them not to do that. But keep doing well like this, and there’ll be no one to complain if I raise your rank, so work hard from here on out, just as you do now.”

“Yes. I’ll take that to heart.”

At Tak-hyeon Lee’s trust-laden words, Seong-ho Kim calmed his pounding heart as best he could and bowed his head.

(End of Chapter 14)