The moment Seong-ho Kim finished talking with Director Gyeong-deuk Lee and stepped out, Ki-seok Yun, team leader of Strategic Planning Team 2, hurriedly called the team members together.

And with Team 2 gathered, he began relaying the very talk Seong-ho Kim had heard in the deputy head’s office.

“You’re all aware, I’m sure, that acquisition negotiations for the Jisan Group’s Jisan Cement are underway with our Ilhyeon Group. Well, our Team 2 has been put in charge of running it. We’re going to shelve everything currently in progress and concentrate on the acquisition talks, so everyone, focus on the Jisan Cement negotiations.”

“The Jisan Cement negotiations… us?”

Normally, work this important was handled by Team 1, while Team 2 did nothing more than head out to help with negotiations for scrap-tier companies or with laying off affiliate employees.

But starting with the recent Hi-Dot-Com acquisition and now this Jisan Cement acquisition, Team 2 had ended up handling weighty jobs back to back.

Every one of the Team 2 members present turned to look at Seong-ho Kim.

Because they all understood exactly why the Jisan Cement matter had suddenly dropped onto Team 2.

They knew as well as anyone that it wouldn’t have happened if Seong-ho Kim, the chairman’s son-in-law, hadn’t joined the team.

Team Leader Ki-seok Yun clapped his hands to turn the gazes headed toward Seong-ho Kim back to himself.

“It’s a 150-billion-won acquisition, so everyone stay sharp and let’s not make mistakes. Got it?”

At Team Leader Ki-seok Yun’s words, the members present answered that they understood, and the meeting broke up.

Heading back to his desk, diary in hand, Seong-ho Kim called out to Manager Byeong-ju Jeong walking ahead of him.

“Manager Jeong.”

Manager Byeong-ju Jeong turned to look back at him.

Falling into step shoulder to shoulder with him, Seong-ho Kim asked in a low voice,

“Did you go to the hospital?”

“Hmm…”

Byeong-ju Jeong hesitated a moment, then said in a small voice,

“That… my wife says to tell you thank you.”

“Did they do the surgery?”

“It’s scheduled for next week. The doctor said — if it had been even a little later, it could’ve been beyond saving for good. I really am grateful. But how did you know our kid has a congenital heart condition, Assistant Manager Kim?”

Manager Byeong-ju Jeong looked back at him, marveling.

Seong-ho Kim gently pressed on Byeong-ju Jeong’s back to keep him walking toward his desk, and answered,

“You were asking around quite a lot, weren’t you, Manager? It reached my ears secondhand, through the grapevine. It sounded similar to symptoms I knew of, so I told you to have them looked at.”

“That reached even your ears?”

Byeong-ju Jeong regarded him for a moment, then nodded.

“Well, I suppose it could have. I asked around so much there was hardly anyone I didn’t ask.”

Byeong-ju Jeong’s child would sometimes seem to have trouble breathing, or show a purplish tint beneath the fingernails — but since it wasn’t like that every time, he hadn’t thought it warranted a hospital visit.

Being a first-time parent, he’d simply assumed it was some part of the growing process he didn’t know about.

But when he found no one around him who recognized symptoms like these, he’d grown a little uneasy — and then, right at that point, the transfer to Strategic Planning Team 2 had come through, and he’d never gotten around to taking the child to the hospital.

Then, thanks to Seong-ho Kim, the Hi-Dot-Com acquisition had fallen through, and he’d finally found himself with some breathing room — and at Seong-ho Kim’s insistence that he absolutely take the child in, he’d brought the child to the hospital for tests.

And there he’d been told the child was currently suffering from a congenital heart condition, and that surgery to widen the cardiac blood vessels was needed right away.

Recalling the situation in which he might have assumed it was fine and never taken the child in, Byeong-ju Jeong felt a chill run down his spine.

“Anyway, thank you. Thanks to you, Assistant Manager Kim, I was able to get them to the hospital.”

“I’m glad they’re all right.”

Seong-ho Kim lightly pulled Manager Jeong into a hug and said with a smile,

“So — shall we focus on the Jisan Cement acquisition now?”

“We should.”

“Then I’ll be counting on your good work, Manager.”

Seong-ho Kim looked at Byeong-ju Jeong, held up a fist, and went to sit down at his desk.

Byeong-ju Jeong blinked at him for a moment, watching him go.

Caught in a situation where you couldn’t tell who was the manager and who was the assistant manager, he wore a dazed look for a beat — then snorted a laugh and headed for his own seat.

While Byeong-ju Jeong was staring at Seong-ho Kim with a short-circuited expression, Seong-ho Kim, now seated, opened the diary and read the parts concerning Byeong-ju Jeong.

‘If things had gone as they originally did, he was a man who’d be badly shaken after his child died, and would leave the company.’

Seong-ho Kim shot a sidelong glance at the seated Byeong-ju Jeong.

Back then, Byeong-ju Jeong had been famous for being good at his job.

So when he left the company, there had been no shortage of people who spoke of him with regret.

Looking at the part of the diary where he’d written down people’s remarks that Byeong-ju Jeong could have produced even better results had he stayed, Seong-ho Kim thought to himself.

‘For now, the first thing is to make Manager Jeong my ally. That’s what will make things easier.’

What Seong-ho Kim was setting out to do was not something that could be accomplished in a day or two.

To bring down a fortress packed solid and firm, people were the first thing he needed.

Seong-ho Kim had chosen Manager Byeong-ju Jeong as the very first of those helpers, and had made up his mind to draw him onto his side.

‘Bundling it together with the Jisan Cement matter, it looks doable.’

Seong-ho Kim checked the diary and began laying out a plan.

On the road to Danyang, where Jisan Cement was located, Seong-ho Kim rode alongside Byeong-ju Jeong.

“Did the surgery go well?”

“Yeah. Thankfully, it went well. My wife said she’d like to invite you over for a meal sometime, whenever the chance comes up. To say a proper thank-you.”

“I’d be grateful for the invitation. Set a time and let me know. I’ll come with my wife, too.”

Byeong-ju Jeong turned to look at Seong-ho Kim, who answered without a moment’s hesitation, with startled eyes.

Then, since he had his hands on the wheel, he quickly turned his head back to face forward and said,

“You mean it, Assistant Manager Kim? The young miss would come along too? To our house?”

“Yes. Is that strange somehow?”

“No, it’s just — the young miss is the chairman’s daughter, isn’t she.”

“And I’m the chairman’s son-in-law, am I not?”

At Seong-ho Kim’s reply, Byeong-ju Jeong made a bewildered face and shot him a sidelong glance.

Facing forward, Seong-ho Kim said,

“Don’t worry. My wife isn’t a person who’s much swayed by appearances, either. If she cared about appearances, would she have married me?”

“That’s… true.”

At his words, Byeong-ju Jeong nodded.

But even so, still finding it strange, he tilted his head and muttered,

“Still… the young miss, of all people, coming to our house…?”

“Manager. For today, let’s not worry about anything else and just focus on Jisan Cement.”

At Seong-ho Kim’s words, Byeong-ju Jeong nodded.

“Right. It’s not as though we could invite you over before the child’s recovered, anyway.”

Having cleared the strangeness and worry from his head, Byeong-ju Jeong pulled himself together to focus on the meeting with the Jisan Group that lay ahead.

Watching Byeong-ju Jeong with his eyes now wide and sharp, Seong-ho Kim smiled without a word.

At how utterly different Byeong-ju Jeong was from when they’d first met, a smile came to him all on its own.

There was no longer any hostility toward Seong-ho Kim to be seen.

If anything, Byeong-ju Jeong’s whole demeanor had softened so much from the start that it verged on genuine camaraderie.

Thinking that drawing Byeong-ju Jeong onto his side might not prove difficult after all, Seong-ho Kim sorted through his thoughts in the car on the way to Danyang.

The car, having set out from Seoul, drove for about three hours before arriving at Jisan Cement in Danyang.

The first thing to greet them was an enormous banner.

“What is that…?”

Pulling slowly into the plant, Manager Byeong-ju Jeong read the words on the banner with a look of disbelief.

“‘We sincerely welcome the visit of Manager Byeong-ju Jeong and Assistant Manager Seong-ho Kim of the Ilhyeon Group’? Why is that hanging up?”

“They must sincerely welcome us, I suppose.”

At Seong-ho Kim’s words, Byeong-ju Jeong turned to look at him with a dumbfounded face.

Seong-ho Kim raised a finger, pointed ahead, and said,

“Looks like it’s not just the banner welcoming us.”

Byeong-ju Jeong, who’d been looking back at Seong-ho Kim, followed his finger and turned his gaze forward again.

There, a crowd of people holding bouquets stood watching the car carrying Byeong-ju Jeong and Seong-ho Kim.

“Uh…”

When Manager Byeong-ju Jeong faltered, at a loss, Seong-ho Kim spoke up first.

“Manager. Let’s pull the car up over there for now. Whether they truly welcome us or not, we’ll know once we go over and meet them.”

“R-right. First things first, I should stop the car.”

At Seong-ho Kim’s words, Manager Byeong-ju Jeong collected himself and stopped the car.

And when the two of them got out, the sound of applause and cheering rose to greet them.

“Welcome to Jisan Cement.”

Clap, clap, clap, clap.

When a young female employee held out a bouquet to the two men, Byeong-ju Jeong took it on reflex, still flustered.

“Hold on. What on earth is all this…”

When Byeong-ju Jeong stammered in his confusion, Seong-ho Kim stepped forward first.

“Thank you. You really needn’t have gone this far to welcome us — I only hope you haven’t put yourselves out too much on our account. We’ve merely stopped by briefly before beginning the negotiations proper.”

“Hahaha, that’s not important. We’re simply grateful you came at all, so we prepared a little something.”

The man, wearing a spotless work uniform, spoke with a bright smile on his face.

“Ah, I haven’t introduced myself. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Su-cheol Bang, president of Jisan Cement. And this here is…”

After introducing himself, Su-cheol Bang went on to introduce the Jisan Cement employees standing with him.

Bouquet in hand, Manager Byeong-ju Jeong accepted the greetings with an awkward expression, exchanging pleasantries with each and every one of them.

Seong-ho Kim, too, exchanged greetings just as Byeong-ju Jeong did.

But unlike Byeong-ju Jeong, who was studying the faces of the people, Seong-ho Kim’s eyes were on something else.

‘The work uniforms are clean.’

It wasn’t just the clothes of the president and managers he’d greeted that were clean.

Even the work uniforms of the employees standing in the back as a decorative backdrop were all clean, as if freshly laundered.

Deciding there was no way they’d deliberately changed into new clothes just to welcome the two of them, Seong-ho Kim quietly called the diary’s contents to mind.

Then he turned his head and shifted his gaze to the enormous cement plant.

‘So even at this point in time, the plant’s already been shut down for quite a while, it seems.’

Just as it said in the diary’s contents, Seong-ho Kim confirmed — through the clean work uniforms and the cement dust settled around the plant — that Jisan Cement’s plant had been at a standstill for a good while.

Having verified the state of the cement plant with his own two eyes, Seong-ho Kim felt confident that he could proceed exactly with the Jisan Cement acquisition-delay plan he’d drawn up before coming here.

(End of Chapter 8)