"Brother. Have you come ahead of me?"

"Yes."

As Seong-ho Kim stepped up into the yard, Mun-jong Lee caught his eye.

Mun-jong Lee had not gone into the house but was smoking in the yard.

The cigarette still in his mouth, Mun-jong Lee gestured to Seong-ho Kim to come over.

And with a smile playing about his face he said to Seong-ho Kim, who had come up to him,

"Why do you suppose Father has called me here?"

Mun-jong Lee had said not us but me.

It was a question whose motive was plain to see, but Seong-ho Kim answered as though he had not noticed.

"Surely he has called you to discuss the matter of the second brother? And while he is about it, no doubt he means to discuss the question of the succession as well."

"That's it, isn't it? I thought as much myself."

Mun-jong Lee let out a low laugh and threw his finished cigarette on the ground.

And putting an arm around Seong-ho Kim's shoulders, he began walking toward the house.

Drawn along by Mun-jong Lee's arm, Seong-ho Kim looked back.

He saw Mun-jong Lee's secretary bending to pick up the cigarette butt thrown down in the yard, and thought,

I used to do that job.

Recalling the days in the life before when he had trailed about after Mun-jong Lee, Seong-ho Kim knitted his brow slightly.

Because the feeling of those days had come back to him.

But Seong-ho Kim hid the thought, and outwardly showed himself as obedient to Mun-jong Lee as he could.

"What I think is this. While we're at it, I'd like Sang-jong finished off completely. So he can never crawl his way back up."

Mun-jong Lee patted Seong-ho Kim's shoulder and said,

"And I'd like you to do it."

"I am to do it?"

Mun-jong Lee nodded and said,

"You put it to Father yourself, and I'll make a show of holding you back."

"You mean we are to put on a play."

"The play is mine alone. You must speak from the heart."

Mun-jong Lee raised the corner…