“Can you manage it?”
“Of course! It’s no work at all.”
“You have to make it certain.”
“Just leave it to me. That something like a charity case should dare——”
An upmarket room salon in Gangnam.
Wang Jindeok, head of academic affairs, had called out Lee Jangyong the maths teacher.
Trickle.
Whisky filled the glass.
“Yes. A charity case coming first at Cheonghwa High School won’t do. In the whole history of it, children like that have never taken first place in a midterm. In mathematics above all.”
“Exactly! First in mathematics, from a boy who doesn’t even attend a cram school. He’s no genius.”
The two of them suited each other well.
They are the type who choose profit ahead of justice.
Wang Jindeok had his eye on the next principalship.
Which is the absolute reason he has to get on with Cheonghwa’s parents.
To a man skilled at flattery, the word of the parents’ association presidents passing through is no different from a royal command.
And Lee Jangyong, falling in with a thing like that and making common cause with it.
He lives for the fun of subduing clever children with mathematics alone.
Ha Tae-ung the charity case, who this time threw cold water over Lee Jangyong’s great pleasure.
An incident he absolutely cannot forgive.
“I’ll take care of what comes behind. Deal with it properly.”
“Heh heh. Don’t you worry.”
A leering air settled at Lee Jangyong’s mouth and in his eyes.
“Settle this well and you’ll be head of mathematics.”
“Thank you. Sir.”
“Pick a day next week. And wreck that bastard in front of the whole school!”
“Yes, sir!”
“That aside — let’s get slowly on with enjoying ourselves.”
“I’ve been waiting for it. Heh heh.”
The head of academic affairs, who had collected a thick allowance today.
There’s still daylight left, but he’d taken a room early and settled in.
He’s the type who always finishes his entertainments early so as not to fall out of favour with the wife.
He has had occasions like this with Lee Jangyong from time to time, and the two of them kept time together well, each reading the other.
Beep.
Wang Jindeok pressed the call button with practised ease.
And.
“Oppa! You’ve come early today, haven’t you?”
“Look after him properly. He’s a hoobae-nim I’m fond of.”
“Don’t worry. Sera here is a girl I vouch for.”
The junior madam, who stands as Wang Jindeok’s mistress, came in with a young woman in her early twenties.
Lee Jangyong’s eyes, unmarried and long past the age for it, went slack at once.
Stupid bastard.
Lee Jangyong, the lunatic teacher pathologically mad about mathematics.
Wang Jindeok watched Lee Jangyong’s slack eyes and bit down on a quiet sneer.
It was as plain as looking at a fire how that mad maths teacher would wreck the charity case next week.
All I have to do is watch the show and collect the envelopes. Heh heh.
A world turning with everything meshed perfectly, like cogwheels.
“Aah……”
Wang Jindeok’s and Lee Jangyong’s rough hands felt over the two women.
The air in the room heated up in a moment.
There’s one thing I understood for certain in the past.
For dealing with every legal problem that arises in this country, Jo and Jang is the answer, no question about it!
Jo and Jang lawyers were attached to the man who killed Dad as well.
Expensive Jo and Jang lawyers, whom a truck driver could never possibly have engaged.
Even then I knew Haryun Group was standing behind the man.
And what of it.
There was nothing at all I could do at the time.
Dad was plainly the victim, and nobody defended him.
The prosecutor and the judge, who ought to have put the victim first, were reduced from the very start to fumbling in front of Jo and Jang’s lawyers.
A fatal accident caused by running a light!
What is plain is that the truck driver was a suspect to whom the Special Cases Act on traffic accidents applied.
But with Jo and Jang out in front of him, he walked free on a suspended sentence at the appeal.
The court deposit was a mere thirty million won.
Three years was handed down at first instance.
But at the appeal it was reduced to a suspended sentence.
It was confirmed at the Supreme Court as though it had been settled already.
I experienced how frightening Jo and Jang is back then, when I knew nothing.
The humiliation and the shame of it, which I remember clearly.
This time I won’t have it done to me.
I came here to move first.
What I can promise is that from here on there’ll be a real war with Haryun Group, with the blood flying.
And before that, Jo and Jang, who will be Haryun Group’s shield and spear——
“How may I help you, sir?”
I parked the car in the car park.
I came straight up to the ground floor and the reception desk checked the purpose of my visit.
A woman in a dark grey uniform, her looks striking, was the one who asked.
A place with over a thousand lawyers alone.
And with patent attorneys and accountants added to them, the Jo and Jang Law Office has some four thousand staff attached to it.
The odd thing is that Jo and Jang is not an incorporated body.
Jang Muyeol, the representative attorney, and the attorneys attached to it are employed by Jo and Jang in the form of contracts.
It’s a structure where, if a particular problem arises, all they have to do is cut the tail off that one case.
An interest group that can always be maintained.
They have built lines that let them sway not only this country’s judicial system but its administrative and legislative systems as well.
Jo and Jang absolutely must not be set up as an enemy.
Walking alongside them is essential this life.
For the astronomical sums of profit I’m anticipating, and for safe management of it, Jo and Jang’s help is absolutely necessary.
“I’d like to receive comprehensive legal services.”
“Sorry?”
The women there are startled when I, who must look like a child, bring up comprehensive legal services.
“I’m thinking of about 1.2 billion won a year for the cost of the service.”
“……!!”
A year of service at 1.2 billion won.
Their eyes going round is only natural.
In terms of income it is by no means a small amount of money.
As a simple legal service cost, rather than a retainer connected to litigation, it is an excessive figure.
It’s a large sum, of the kind you could take from a mid-sized company with solid foundations.
“Not possible? Then to another law office——”
“S— sir! Would you wait one moment? Our Jo and Jang is an office that boasts the finest legal service in Korea. Let me show you to a consultation room.”
The treatment changed immediately at the figure for the service cost.
The woman at the desk, showing me through with a manner different from the look she had first given me, was courteous.
At the staff’s instant change of manner I found myself marvelling, thinking that this is Jo and Jang after all.
There was nothing flustered about it whatever.
The woman showed me straight to a consultation room on the ground floor.
A fair number of staff came and went all the while.
The colours the many staff were giving off were each of them different.
The surprising thing was that unexpectedly many of them gave off a clear energy.
Naturally there were no few giving off a muddy one either.
What stood out most was a muddy gold with black moving through it!
This looked like the light given off by people who have sold their conscience for money.
At the start, once you join Jo and Jang, remaining a lawyer with a conscience is all but impossible.
Such is the fate of a lawyer who has to win unconditionally for a heavyweight client.
“Tsk.”
I clicked my tongue inwardly.
I came into one of the consultation rooms among the rows of them.
There are several rooms in the same style.
Security for client consultations looked thorough to the same degree.
The inside of the room was quiet, well soundproofed.
A clean glass desk and chairs, and a vase with a bunch of fresh flowers standing in it.
A small refrigerator in the corner and one picture hung on the wall were the whole of the space.
“I’ll get you something to drink before the attorney comes.”
“Mineral water, please.”
“Yes.”
The woman set a bottle of mineral water and one glass on the desk.
What was placed in front of me was French mineral water.
Trickle.
I filled the glass with the water.
I leaned my back into the chair and crossed my legs comfortably.
Strangely, I was as easy as I would be at home.
Having something solid behind you is all ease that money brings.
Without any reduction, that power showed itself at Jo and Jang too.
Here I’m not the weaker party. I’m the one with the power!
Reason, with feeling shut out of it, took the lead in governing my mind.
Jo and Jang is absolutely not a group to be taken lightly.
If it isn’t at this point in time, when they have almost no information about me, contracting with them will be difficult from here on.
I’m not yet tangled up with Haryun.
Not an accident and not a contract has happened yet.
At present Haryun Group is operating with its internal legal team.
Directly after Father’s fatal accident, they contract with Jo and Jang over the truck driver’s case.
Knock, knock.
Sliiide.
It was about five minutes later.
With the sound of a knock the consultation room door opened.
A man and a woman came into the room together.
“……!!”
A middle-aged man with a clean look about him in a dark grey suit, and a woman following right behind him.
Seeing her, I was startled for a moment.
Found her!!
A woman whose light is clear and clean.
She gave off a light plainly different from the many other Jo and Jang lawyers I’d passed.
A smile spread at my mouth of its own accord, out of gladness.
She’s the lawyer I wanted to find.
Her looks are fine as well.
Dark brown waved hair swinging above her shoulders.
She’s a lawyer, and her face isn’t cold.
A straight, high nose and clean skin, and the large silver-rimmed glasses suited her extremely well.
She’s in a checked dark grey trouser suit that suits her slender height.
A harmony in the look of her that draws admiration.
Her intelligent eyes are full of quickness.
“I’m Kim Gyeongmin, senior attorney.”
A man in his late forties with a broad forehead handed me a card.
“I’m Ha Tae-ung.”
I took the card, but I’ve nothing to give.
I’m still a high schooler.
“Ahem……”
Attorney Kim Gyeongmin looked at me steadily when no card came out of me.
He seems slightly uncomfortable with how young I look.
The wavering in his eyes made his head look very complicated indeed.
He has the air of a man who can’t decide whether this is a high-value client or a lunatic.
I moved my eyes across to the woman.
“I’m A Yura, attorney.”
A lawyer with an unusual name, holding out the card she’d been carrying.
The long, very white hand that hands the card over is striking.
“Sir, the service you’re wanting is——”
“I want comprehensive legal services.”
“So it isn’t a matter of litigation.”
“No. Not yet.”
“……??”
Naturally Attorney Kim Gyeongmin knows nothing at present.
About what is going to happen after he contracts with me today.
Soon he’ll be sunk in a swamp of litigation of every kind, vast and deep.
I laced my fingers together.
I added a smile with something behind it at my mouth.
“I’m requesting legal services in every direction on matters concerning me personally and my direct lineal ascendants. Contract term, ten years at minimum. Cost paid per year, 1.2 billion won. I’ll pay a hundred million a month. And for litigation or other legal-action cases I’ll pay a fee per case separately.”
“……!!”
Conditions on that scale are considerably unorthodox.
The look on the two of them, eyes going round in surprise, proves it.
“On one condition——”
(End of Chapter 34)