In the chairman’s office, where the Ilhyeon family had all gathered around Tak-hyeon, only Seong-ho sat among them belonging to no camp at all.

Tak-hyeon looked around at his children seated before him and slowly began. “The reason I called you here from morning is none other than—” He turned his head to look at Sang-jong, still frowning as if the drink hadn’t yet worn off, and said, “Sang-jong came with an important matter, and I gathered you to make it known to you.”

Mun-jong looked at Sang-jong with disbelief. Whatever important matter Sang-jong had brought, he thought, how important could it possibly be?

But Sang-jong spoke wearing a triumphant expression. “I’ve brought something truly important, so you’d all better listen well.”

“Chairman. This fellow may just have been talking nonsense after drinking.” Not knowing what Sang-jong had said but suspicious first as a matter of course, Mun-jong studied Tak-hyeon’s expression. And seeing not a trace of doubt on Tak-hyeon’s face, he realized Sang-jong’s matter was real.

What on earth is it, that…

To the puzzled Mun-jong, Tak-hyeon put it simply. “Last evening, Chairman Jeong of the Dubo Group met with Sang-jong, it seems.”

“Chairman Jeong?”

“Yes. And at that meeting he urged Sang-jong to invest in Dubo Steel.”

“What?”

At the wholly unexpected words, Mun-jong looked at Tak-hyeon with a startled expression. And not only Mun-jong. Every one of Tak-hyeon’s children present looked between Tak-hyeon and Sang-jong, unable to hide their surprise.

Only Seong-ho, who had already lived through this in that former life, kept a natural expression as he sat.

Chairman Tak-hyeon nodded at the anticipated reaction and said, “The investment figure was 1,000 billion won, for a 5% stake, they say he offered.”

“And I turned it down and came away. Me.” Sang-jong cut in with an excited voice, as if about to spin a tale of his own valor. “1,000 billion for a 5% stake is far too little, isn’t it? A 5% stake — who’s supposed to make do with a crumb like that?”

“So you demanded more?”

At Mun-jong’s question, Sang-jong nodded with an excited expression and answered, “I told them to give me a 10% stake for 200 billion.”

At his words, Mun-jong’s eyes widened. Sang-jong wore an even more triumphant look at the reaction.

By simple arithmetic, doubling the investment figure doubled the stake acquired — but for a company to hand over a 10% stake was no ordinary risk. One misstep and even the company’s management rights could be threatened, so the correct calculation was that as the stake rose, the investment figure should rise in proportion to double, triple, or more. Yet Sang-jong had raised the investment and the stake by the same ratio.

Mun-jong hurriedly turned to Tak-hyeon and asked, “And Dubo accepted that?”

“They’re deliberating, it’s said.”

“Deliberating…?”

Mun-jong looked at Sang-jong in surprise. That a proposal one should reject outright on the spot was being deliberated meant that the mere fact of deliberation made the odds high. And depending on what additional terms the Ilhyeon side put forward, the chances of closing the deal would clearly rise sharply.

Sang-jong curled the corner of his mouth up and said to Tak-hyeon, “Chairman. You know, don’t you? That it’s good to have at least one steel company.”

“With a steel company, you can expect good synergy for everything from construction to heavy industry to automobiles, so yes, it’s good.”

“Exactly. That’s just what I’m saying.”

Satisfied with Tak-hyeon’s answer, Sang-jong looked around with a confident face at the other siblings present.

Chang-jong, Vice-President of Ilhyeon Distribution, looked at Sang-jong for a moment with envious eyes. Sang-jong, who stood to earn good marks from Tak-hyeon, looked enviable. But judging that he couldn’t just let it pass in envy, Chang-jong tried to insert himself actively into the situation. “Chairman. Leave the investment negotiations to me.” He’d decided he had to get at least one foot into this. “I’ll mobilize every employee of Ilhyeon Distribution and see the negotiations through well.”

“Fourth brother. What makes Ilhyeon Distribution so capable that you’d step up to negotiate? Father.” Having caught Chang-jong’s angle, Jeong-eun cut in. “Leave it to me. I have an acquaintance with Chairman Jeong, and Chairman Jeong’s second son and I are classmates — I’ve even been to that house a few times, so I could approach them naturally.”

At that, Chang-jong said to Jeong-eun with a displeased look, “What does being classmates with that house’s son have to do with negotiations? And sister, you’re in fashion — what business have you butting into negotiations?”

“And what business does your Ilhyeon Distribution have with Dubo Steel?”

“There’s a connection, of course there is.”

At Chang-jong manufacturing a relationship that hadn’t existed, Jeong-eun snorted and shot back. As the two of them went at it a while, Mun-jong finally stepped in and settled it. “Enough, both of you. The chairman hasn’t even finished speaking, and what are you doing!”

At Mun-jong’s words, the bickering Chang-jong and Jeong-eun fell quiet.

Tak-hyeon watched all this quietly, as if amused, then opened his mouth. “So you all agree to investing in Dubo Steel, then? In that case—”

As Tak-hyeon moved to go on, Seong-ho jabbed Gyeong-eun’s side with a finger.

At his signal, Gyeong-eun recalled what Seong-ho had told her on the way out of the house and hurriedly spoke up. “Da— no. Chairman.”

When Gyeong-eun, the youngest, who’d only been listening quietly, spoke, every eye in the room turned to her. Tak-hyeon, his words halted, put a question to her. “Yes. Does President Lee of Ilhyeon Hotel have some opinion?”

“Chairman. I’m against it.”

“What? Against it?”

At Gyeong-eun voicing opposition, Sang-jong looked at her with a face that couldn’t grasp the reason. Because he thought there was nothing whatsoever to oppose in this matter.

Gyeong-eun turned her head to look at Seong-ho — to judge from his face whether this was right. Seong-ho looked at her and nodded. Seeing it, Gyeong-eun looked at Sang-jong and said once more, “Yes, I’m against it.”

“I’m asking what it is you’re against.”

“Everything — from investing in Dubo Steel to the plan to negotiate for it.”

“You’re against investing in Dubo Steel too? You…”

The instant Sang-jong jabbed a finger at Gyeong-eun and made to loose a stream of curses, Seong-ho stepped in front of her. Then, looking at Gyeong-eun, he offered a persuading word. “Dear. The one thing our Ilhyeon Group lacks is a steelworks. For Ilhyeon Group, which has been jerked this way and that by steelmakers’ terms every time, to gain a stable supply source and hold priority in unit-price negotiations — and you oppose this? Why on earth are you against it?”

With the shape of his mouth, Seong-ho conveyed to Gyeong-eun that he wanted her to play along with his act, and she caught his meaning. The rest of the family was all seated behind Seong-ho, so his face could be seen by Gyeong-eun alone.

“We must not invest in Dubo Steel. However much profit there is in it.”

Seong-ho smiled at Gyeong-eun, who’d caught his signal and carried the act straight on. Then, conveying with the shape of his mouth that she’d done well, he wiped the trace of a smile away and sat down. And, wearing an expression wholly unlike the one he’d shown Gyeong-eun, he said, “What you mean is that we should be suspicious from the very fact that Dubo Steel made such a proposal? Because a company that’s perfectly sound wouldn’t try to attract investment by handing over a stake. And not a trifling sum, either — on the order of a hundred billion won.”

Seong-ho went on, nodding his head up and down gravely as if in earnest. “It’s only natural to be suspicious that a place which should have borrowed first from the banks and its existing creditors instead came to us. Because if things go wrong, not only might we fail to recover the investment — we might not even be able to dodge liability.”

Then he raised his head and looked at his wife’s family, who were glancing back and forth between him and Gyeong-eun. Those who’d heard him were nodding as if they understood the reason for Gyeong-eun’s opposition. Because, just as Gyeong-eun had argued (?), several points did look less than clean.

Sang-jong, too, wore a somewhat softened expression compared to when Gyeong-eun had first said she opposed it. But from Sang-jong’s position — the one who stood to gain the most from investing in Dubo Steel — he had to push this investment through by any means.

“Even so, this is the right thing to do.” Sang-jong pointed a finger at Gyeong-eun. “As long as the company doesn’t go under, it’s fine. And if worst comes to worst, we just acquire it.”

At Sang-jong’s words, Seong-ho silently curled the corner of his mouth up.

I was waiting for you to say that.

The very reason Seong-ho had put forward the opposition through Gyeong-eun was to draw those words out of Sang-jong’s mouth.

He said it with his own mouth in front of everyone, so he won’t be able to wriggle out later.

At the sight of Sang-jong speaking so confidently, Seong-ho couldn’t hold back the corner of his own mouth from rising. And Tak-hyeon was watching that, without a word.

Chairman Tak-hyeon of the Ilhyeon Group had sent his children and son-in-law out and sat alone in the chairman’s office. He was passing the time turning over once more in his mind the situation that had just played out there.

Knock, knock.

Then Do-beom knocked on the office door and came in. Entering, he greeted Tak-hyeon — still seated on the reception sofa — and held out the papers he’d brought. “This is Dubo Steel’s bank debt, as grasped by the secretariat.”

As Tak-hyeon took the papers, Do-beom laid out the relevant details. “Debt maturing within three years comes to about 200 billion won, and long-term bonds of ten years or more are grasped at roughly 100 billion.”

“A lot of short-term debt.”

“Yes. That seems to be why Dubo Steel is struggling.”

“If they took investment from that Sang-jong fellow, what do you suppose they meant to do with the money?”

Tak-hyeon put the question while examining, one by one, the debt positions of each creditor written on the papers Do-beom had handed him.

“From what was learned inside Dubo Steel and the Dubo Group, I heard that on receiving the investment, they’d use part for debt repayment and the rest for investment in production facilities at Dubo Steel’s Incheon steelworks.”

“They’re saying things remarkably close to the model answer.”

Setting down the papers he’d been reading at the flawless reply, Tak-hyeon folded his arms. “It’s unsettling.”

“Is the Dubo Steel matter not to your liking?”

“Yes. It’s too clean, too close to the model answer… and that’s why it’s not to my liking. And… Kim’s expression keeps surfacing in my mind.”

Wearing an unsettled look, Tak-hyeon told Do-beom the feeling he had now. “I have a feeling we might be about to take a great loss — this business, after all, may not be as clean a thing as it seems.”

(End of Chapter 60)