The talks went on through the second day and the third.

In that time Mirae and DN, and Ilhyeon besides, and a great many of the companies that had joined the delegation, declared their intention to enter China, and China put forward support measures suited to each of them.

And the support measures were more than enough to satisfy most of them.

"Do you really not mean to take Electronics in?"

All the talks being over, a last banquet was laid out before the departure for the Republic of Korea.

Mun-jong Lee, worn down by drinking day after day, took his seat in the banquet hall clutching at his heaving chest, telling himself that today was the last of it.

China had kept holding out its finest proposals for Ilhyeon Electronics, and Seong-ho Kim had sat through it all and refused. More than anything, it was that sight which had made him feel, the whole of the talks through, that he would die of frustration.

"You. Fifteen trillion, was it not? They offer to lend you fifteen trillion at no interest and you say no? Borrow it and simply put it back on deposit with a bank, and what does that come to? Why refuse when you could sit still and make hundreds of billions a year?"

"They are not lending fifteen trillion in cash, are they?"

At Mun-jong Lee's words Seong-ho Kim said with a smiling face,

"And did we not promise to go in with something else instead?"

"That coffee shop?"

Mun-jong Lee gave a snort of a laugh.

"Is that the same as Ilhyeon Electronics? Do you know the faces the Chinese made when you said you would go in with a coffee shop? Their faces came very near to cursing us out loud."

Through the talks the Chinese side had gone on doing everything it could to secure a semiconductor plant from Ilhyeon Electronics.

Every day it put a different support measure in front of Seong-ho Kim, and the scale of it climbed higher and higher.

When Seong-ho Kim would not stir for any support at…