After Tak-hyeon had left, Chang-jong turned to Mun-jong with a bewildered face and asked, “Brother, what on earth was that about? Gyeong-eun, president of Ilhyeon Hotel?”

“What were you even listening to, if you weren’t paying attention while it was being discussed?”

At Mun-jong’s contemptuous tone, Chang-jong said, “Brother, that’s not what I mean. How can Gyeong-eun be president? She’s just a housewife.”

“Just a housewife? Have you forgotten that until she married, Gyeong-eun took management training and worked, exactly like the rest of us?”

“That was… just playing house, wasn’t it…”

“Where do you get ‘playing house’ out of actual work?” Cutting Chang-jong off, Mun-jong looked around at his other siblings. “I proposed it and Father approved it. Anyone else object?”

At that, no one in the room could voice a complaint. Once even Mun-jong had agreed, they figured there was no way to change Tak-hyeon’s decision.

But that didn’t mean they could back down here. Unlike them — currying favor with Tak-hyeon to wring out one more thing, whatever they could — Gyeong-eun had just been handed an entire company the size of Ilhyeon Hotel, sitting still. There was still a great deal of time before Tak-hyeon stepped down, and with no telling what more Gyeong-eun might gain in the meantime, they felt it had to be ended at the hotel.

Jeong-eun spoke first. “Fine. Let’s say the hotel is Gyeong-eun’s due.” As if she’d made a great concession, she turned her head to look at Seong-ho. “I’ll grant Gyeong-eun taking the president’s chair, but I can’t grant Kim along with it. I’d like Kim to step down.”

“On that, I agree too,” Chang-jong chimed in.

Mun-jong looked between the two of them. “Why state the obvious? Once Ilhyeon Hotel is stabilized, of course Kim steps down.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Mun-jong looked at Jeong-eun as if to ask what else she could possibly mean.

“I mean I’d like Kim to wash his hands of company work entirely.”

“What?”

“Sister!”

Gyeong-eun, silent until now, cried out. “Sister, what are you saying? Why should my Seong-ho leave the company?”

“He got that land in Nonsan from Father, didn’t he? Have him take it and go back to the farming he used to do.”

“Sister!”

“She’s got the president’s chair now — is there any need for husband and wife both to be working at the company?”

“You and your husband are both at a company, exactly the same!” Gyeong-eun shouted, raising Cha’s case to demand why only Seong-ho was barred.

Jeong-eun turned her head toward Cha, seated beside her. Then, with a short sigh, she muttered quietly, “It’s a different matter from a man who might as well not be there…”

Gyeong-eun, about to demand how it was any different, couldn’t get the words out — because it was an admission of her own husband Seong-ho’s ability.

When Gyeong-eun fell silent, Chang-jong spoke next. “I agree with sister too. If Kim washes his hands of company work… then I’ll grant that the hotel is yours.”

“Brother!”

Sang-jong, who’d been quietly watching the mood, also cut in. “Right. Don’t get greedy — pull back at this point. Just having the hotel as your due is a big gain, isn’t it? Be satisfied with Ilhyeon Hotel.”

At the sight of everyone, of one heart and mind, wanting Seong-ho gone, Gyeong-eun felt her heart sink. She’d always known what her brothers and sisters thought and how they behaved, but she hadn’t imagined their blades would ever turn on her too.

Gyeong-eun looked at Seong-ho with a gaze steeped in apology. From deep in her heart, sorriness for him welled up.

At that look, Seong-ho quietly smiled and took her hand. Having watched her a moment, he turned his head and met Mun-jong’s eyes.

Mun-jong had been quietly watching things unfold exactly as Seong-ho had said they would; meeting Seong-ho’s gaze, he slowly opened his mouth. “If that’s what everyone thinks… it can’t be helped. Kim. You understand, don’t you?”

“Yes. I understand.” Seong-ho nodded and looked around at the seated company. “As it happens, I’d been wanting to rest a while anyway. I’ll rest, look into some other things, recharge a bit.”

“It’s a relief that Kim understands.” Mun-jong wrapped it up quickly. “As we close out the Ilhyeon Hotel matter, we’ll settle it with Gyeong-eun in place as president and Kim withdrawing from group work — so this business ends here. No more objections.”

Jeong-eun, who’d opposed most fiercely, wore a faintly unconvinced look, but for now she had no choice but to accept it ending as she’d wanted. Chang-jong and Sang-jong nodded at Mun-jong’s words too.

Ilhyeon Hotel had shown startling growth after its restructuring, but the share it occupied in a company as vast as Ilhyeon Group was still small. If anything, taking out one rival by way of the hotel wasn’t a bad trade — and so they all accepted what Mun-jong said.

Seong-ho watched them and thought.

They call it one step back for two steps forward, but not me. It’s one step back for ten steps forward. Just wait. You’ll come looking for me, begging me to please come back to the company.

Gyeong-eun wore a thoroughly nervous expression at the long-overdue visit to her in-laws.

However much she was a daughter of Ilhyeon Group, for a married woman her husband’s family home was a place of pressure. And since Seong-ho had come into her household as the live-in son-in-law, Gyeong-eun carried a heavy sense of having wronged her parents-in-law, which only made her tenser.

“It’s all right,” Seong-ho reassured her. “My parents are fond of you.”

“Still… I should have bought Mother one more gift. I wanted to bring a couple of Birkin bags…”

“We’re bringing a gift bigger than that, so you don’t need to worry.”

At his words Gyeong-eun looked at him, eyes glistening. “Will they like it?”

“They’ll like it. People who spent their whole lives tenant-farming other people’s land are finally getting land of their own.”

“Then I’m glad, but…”

Still worried, it seemed, Gyeong-eun kept fretting in the car on the way to Nonsan. But contrary to her worry, the land Tak-hyeon had handed Seong-ho was a gift beyond any comparison with clothes or handbags. The land Tak-hyeon had bought came to 20,000 pyeong of paddy and 3,000 pyeong of field — to Seong-ho’s parents, who had never in their lives owned a single pyeong, an enormous gift indeed.

When Seong-ho reassured her a few more times that it was fine, Gyeong-eun finally looked out the car window with an easy face.

“It’s so pretty.” Looking at white snow lying soft and thick over the paddies emptied after the harvest, Gyeong-eun rested her head on Seong-ho’s shoulder. Gazing at the scenery through the window, she said, “Seong-ho. Shall we come down to Nonsan and live? Together with Mother and Father. Farming here, raising animals — cows, chickens — living at ease like that… how does that sound?”

She turned her head and looked up at him.

Seong-ho knew that wasn’t idle talk. She truly wanted to leave the tangled, fiercely competitive city. Knowing it, he warmly wrapped an arm around her shoulder and answered, “We will. But not now.”

“Not now?”

Seong-ho looked down at her a moment and thought to himself, When Ilhyeon Group is in our hands — when my revenge is finished — then let’s come down.

He answered only inwardly and merely smiled at her. Gyeong-eun gazed up at him a moment, then buried her head against his chest. And, waiting only for that time to come, she closed her eyes a while.

The car that had set out from Seoul drove some three hours and reached Seong-ho’s family home.

Frozen stiff from the edge of the village onward, Gyeong-eun caught sight of Seong-ho’s parents come out to meet them, and stepped from the car wearing the prettiest smile she could manage.

“Mother. Father. We’re here.” Greeting them in a voice two tones higher than usual, Gyeong-eun embraced Seong-ho’s mother and father in turn.

“Aigoo. Dear. You’ll get dust on your clothes.” Seong-ho’s mother pushed Gyeong-eun back a little, worried dust might get on her fine clothing. But Gyeong-eun put strength into it and hugged her all the tighter. Smiling at the girl embracing her so warmly, the mother patted her back.

“You had a hard trip. Wasn’t it tiring?”

“Tiring? I fell dead asleep in the middle and didn’t even know how long it took.”

Gyeong-eun linked arms with Seong-ho’s mother, Myeong-ja Jang. Then she asked Seong-ho’s father, Pan-seok Kim, “Is that the newly built house? It looks wonderful.”

Hands clasped behind his back, Pan-seok looked at the house with a satisfied expression. “Yes. Built it not long ago, and it’s very fine. But…” He turned his head to look back at Seong-ho, who was sorting the gifts and the luggage packed for a few days’ stay out of the trunk with the driver. “That boy gave the money for it — I’m not sure it’s right to accept.”

“Dear. I’m sorry.” Myeong-ja added her agreement and patted the hand of the arm-linked Gyeong-eun. “Did Seong-ho talk it over with you? Do you know he sent us that much money to build a house?”

Pan-seok and Myeong-ja turned to Gyeong-eun, hearts uneasy in case. If Seong-ho had sent money home without telling Gyeong-eun, it could have blown up into a serious marital fight.

Gyeong-eun, arm around Myeong-ja’s, smiled at the two of them. “Of course I’m the one who told him to send it first. Mother, Father — surely you’re not worried that Seong-ho sent money behind my back?”

Myeong-ja let out a sigh of relief. “Aigoo, if so then it’s a relief. I was afraid the boy had sent money without a word to you… that would be no small matter.”

“Don’t worry. Seong-ho hides nothing at all from me. And it’s the same for me.”

Gyeong-eun laughed brightly, took Myeong-ja’s arm, and walked toward the newly built house. Turning to the following Pan-seok, she said with a smile, “Father. Show me around the house.”

His worry gone, Pan-seok walked ahead with a smiling face. “Yes. Come this way. Let’s start here. Of the things that came out of the old house, whatever was hard to bring into the new one I meant to put here in the shed. And…”

With a delighted face, Pan-seok began showing his daughter-in-law around the newly built house. Having made a full circuit, Gyeong-eun looked at Seong-ho carrying things inside, and led Pan-seok and Myeong-ja indoors — to give them the gift she’d brought.

“Director. I’ll wait in town, then. Call me anytime you need me. And I’ll leave the car key here.”

“No, take the car. That way it’ll be easier for you coming and going.”

The driver looked at Seong-ho as if to ask whether it was really all right for him to take the car.

Seong-ho glanced back at the three gathered in the living room talking, and said with a smile, “There’s a car at my family home too, so if we need one we can use that.”

“Then the moment you need me, please call right away. Night or dawn, I’ll be standing by.”

“Thank you.”

Seong-ho saw the driver off, returned to the house, and sat down beside Gyeong-eun. Gyeong-eun, deep in conversation with her in-laws, only now wore an unburdened expression.

“With Driver Kim gone too, I feel like I’ve finally become properly free.” Gyeong-eun spread both arms wide and laughed brightly. She felt the lightness of everything bound under the name Ilhyeon having now fallen away.

“Father. Mother. I said it to Seong-ho in the car on the way, but I truly want to serve you both and live here together.”

“Dear. Just the words are thanks enough for us.” Pan-seok looked between Gyeong-eun and Seong-ho with a flustered face.

“I mean it.” Gyeong-eun, as if in earnest, even set herself to name a date they’d come down.

Seong-ho, with a smiling face, took her hand to stop the words, and told Pan-seok and Myeong-ja the reason they’d come today. “We can talk about that in time. The reason we came here today is that Father-in-law gave a gift for you both — we came to deliver it.”

“Your father-in-law did?”

At the mention of Tak-hyeon, Gyeong-eun’s talk was pushed aside before anyone noticed.

“Yes. Father-in-law has some land he’d bought, and he said he’d give it as a gift.”

“Land? Wh-what do you mean?”

“He said he’d give 20,000 pyeong of paddy and 3,000 pyeong of field in Buin-ri and Deokpyeong-ri as a gift.”

“What? Twenty thousand pyeong of paddy and three thousand of field…?”

Pan-seok and Myeong-ja were so astonished at Seong-ho’s words that they dropped the forks with which they’d been spearing apples.

(End of Chapter 54)