"All right, all right. Let's go over it."

Sitting in the waiting room, Ju-cheol Seong and Byeong-hui Jang looked over a stack of documents together as they talked.

"The nine thousand pyeong at Dojeong-ri in Sindo-myeon is in your wife's older sister's name, the seven majigi of rice paddy at Cheoin-ri in Hwangin-myeon and the twelve majigi at Hongji-ri are in your mother-in-law's, and the twenty majigi of field at Muso-ri is in your wife's name. Is that right?"

"Yes, that's right. And I talked to the village headman at Pungan-ri in Sindo-myeon. He says if we meet a hundred thousand won per pyeong he'll hand over thirty thousand pyeong in one lot."

"A hundred thousand? Isn't a hundred thousand too expensive?"

"I told him it was expensive too. But what can we do? The word's already out, and there are people creeping in saying they'll buy land, so he won't sell for anything under a hundred thousand. There's no persuading him."

"Still, a hundred thousand… wasn't it twenty thousand a pyeong to begin with? That's gone up five times. At a hundred thousand, buying thirty thousand pyeong alone would take three billion. Isn't that too much?"

"All the same, we have to buy the Pungan-ri land. It's the heart of the thing. The Sindo-myeon land we've bought so far was only the pieces to fill in around Pungan-ri."

"Hmm…"

At Byeong-hui Jang's urging, Ju-cheol Seong folded his arms where he sat.

And he looked down at the map spread out on the floor and screwed up his face.

The map had the land they'd bought and the land they still meant to buy marked on it.

And drawn around it all was the large area zoned for the development plan.

Ju-cheol Seong looked down at the map for a long while and then spoke.

"All right. Buy at a hundred thousand and sell at two hundred thousand."

Ju-cheol Seong muttered it like a man who had decided, and Byeong-hui Jang played along.

"Exactly. Once we have this piece the rest fits together, and we'll be able to sell at…