“Officer Kang!!”

The lunch hour at Sokcho City Hall.

Jang Gwanyong called Kang Hongcheol out onto the roof and raised his voice the moment he saw him.

Jang Gwanyong’s head was swimming still.

“What? Has something happened?”

It was not Kang Hongcheol’s department, so he had asked his friend Jang Gwanyong to see to the flower shop business.

He had come up to the roof expecting good news, and the feel of it is nothing of the kind.

Has the bastard eaten something that disagreed with him?

Not every public official is clean.

As good and evil live together in the balance by which the world turns, so it is in the officials’ world too.

Jang Gwanyong, who became a friend of the spoiled official Kang Hongcheol by being the same age.

Both grade six officers.

The two of them help each other and take the benefit.

And today’s business…….

“Did you know? Is that why you drove me onto a killing ground!!”

“Officer Jang! Don’t lose your temper first — tell me in detail. What’s gone wrong?”

“All of it! Fuck! What will you do if my neck goes because of you, Officer Kang!! Will you answer for me!!”

Jang Gwanyong shouting on the roof loud enough to lift the place off.

The flower shop mistress’s words still lodged, ringing, in his ear.

Her husband is Haryun Group’s youngest son.

A family that owns one of the ten great groups.

To such people, a low-grade provincial official can be tidied away lightly, on a small irregularity.

The whole way back to City Hall Jang Gwanyong’s body shook.

Enough that he had to stop at a chemist’s in the parade and buy a calming pill for the heart.

He took one drink off Kang Hongcheol and very nearly lay down in a grave plot.

“What is it? You have to say it before I can answer!”

Kang Hongcheol’s voice rose too, out of frustration.

It was a thing he had been pushed into by a stubborn father’s temper, and it had been sitting wrong with him all along.

And as far as Kang Hongcheol knew, the flower shop’s mistress amounts to nothing.

Poor people, trading and barely earning the rent.

He had heard the husband’s work was not coming loose well lately and that they were struggling.

“Haryun!”

“Haryun? What about it?”

“You didn’t know either?”

“Didn’t know what? Say it in detail. Why does Haryun come into this?”

“The flower shop woman’s husband is the Haryun Group chairman’s youngest son!”

“Whaaaat! H— Haryun Group’s youngest son?”

Kang Hongcheol doubted his ears.

His face went white soon after.

Something nobody had imagined has happened.

“I checked the register the moment I got in. Fuck. Chairman Ha Cheolgon really is that woman’s father-in-law!”

“…….”

His face gone white, Kang Hongcheol’s body gave a faint tremor.

Senile old man! What in God’s name has he set me to do!!

“I look forward to working with you, President.”

“Yes…….”

Han Jiyun, seeing to the flower shop’s business, was thrown.

A part-timer had turned up out of nowhere.

A part-timer taken on without any advertisement for staff.

And she had come with an apron and everything.

A young woman who looks to be in her late twenties.

Hair neatly up in a ponytail, and smiling and smiling.

“Shall I start with the thorns on these roses?”

“Have you done it before?”

“I worked part-time in a flower shop while I was at university.”

“I see…….”

“President, do rest.”

Yu Huijin moved quickly as she spoke.

Her history of part-time work in a flower shop is true.

She trimmed the newly brought-in flowers quickly, sorted them and put them away in the flower cooler.

Han Jiyun watching her do it.

In fact, before Yu Huijin appeared, she had a text from her son.

—I’ve sent a bodyguard.

Which is to say Yu Huijin is Han Jiyun’s bodyguard, hired in under cover as a part-timer.

Han Jiyun understood her son’s meaning well enough.

The trauma of Kang Deuksu, who owned her former premises, is left deep in her.

Very well. If this is fate.

She took it for another present her son had prepared.

She does not know how the board is turning, and it was a solid thing to have.

She had heard her son had a hand in her husband’s company business as well.

A son at high school, and somewhere along the way he has become the household’s solid pillar.

Tae-ung-a……. Thank you.

Han Jiyun smiled, thinking of her dependable son.

“Vice president? A charity case?”

“Yes.”

“By whose leave?”

“By mine.”

“I’ll go mad…….”

Jang Jiyu, who had skipped lunch and stayed in the classroom.

She started at what the pupils were noising about.

Kang Junu, of all people under heaven, had gone to find the charity case Ha Tae-ung himself.

Judging that something serious had broken, she kicked off from her seat and shot out.

The charity case Ha Tae-ung’s true standing is a member of the Haryun Group family.

Get tangled in a quarrel for nothing and it is a serious accident.

And arriving at the Management Studies Society, it was Kang Junu and not Ha Tae-ung who threw the bomb.

A charity case appointed vice president.

“It’s my authority. And Ha Tae-ung is Haryun Group’s direct line. That alone qualifies him well enough.”

“I know that. And Ha Tae-ung’s father is a man who was put out of the group.”

Jang Jiyu knows something of the politics of those circles too.

With this, Kang Junu puts a foot into upper-class politics.

“Worried?”

“…… You and I are relatives, after all.”

“Thank you. For saying so.”

What is with him? Why does he look this lifted?

Kang Junu ordinarily wears the weight of his own presence about him like a trademark.

Apart from Jang Jiyu, everybody finds Kang Junu difficult and cannot properly get a word to him.

A swot who does nothing but study and go between school and home.

Today the feel of him is different.

“Th— thank me for what.”

“I’ll invite you home before long.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to have Tae-ung as well.”

“Ha Tae-ung? That charity case?”

“He’s a friend.”

“Mad!!”

Jang Jiyu’s mouth fell open.

This change in Kang Junu’s manner was past strange and into frightening.

“Are you a psycho?”

“Why?”

“Is this to torment a charity case? Because he’s being called the next crown prince?”

“Hh…….”

Kang Junu just laughs it off lightly.

“Is that it?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“We’ve agreed to be real friends. I like him.”

“Waaah…….”

Jang Jiyu caught that Kang Junu meant it, and lost her words.

The vice presidency is bewildering enough, and now a friend, and an invitation home as well?

“Chief Go will be astonished if she learns of this.”

“It’s all right. My mother trusts me.”

“…….”

Jang Jiyu shut her mouth at Kang Junu’s answer, full of certainty.

A mother — a thing that does not exist for her.

And the creature called her father…….

“If you see him, look after him.”

“Why should I, particularly?”

“……I’ve got a feeling. Tae-ung is going to cause something enormous soon.”

A firm statement from Kang Junu, whose hunches are ordinarily good.

Jang Jiyu had nothing to say against the ill feel of it.

What has happened now will be all round the school before long as well.

“Jiyu-ya.”

“……??”

“Have you got money?”

“Money?”

“If you’ve funds to spare, buy Bitcoin. Next week.”

“C— coin?”

An out-of-nowhere recommendation to invest in coin.

A remark that suits Kang Junu not at all.

“Tae-ung said so. If there’s pocket money left over, bury it in coin. A few years on it swells five times at the least.”

“F— five times? You believe that?”

Coin is the most dangerous investment there is.

Even now the coin market is going down into the pit because of Luna.

And in a situation like that he has been urged to invest in coin?

“For reference, I’m thinking of investing about three billion.”

“What? Three billion?”

“Yes.”

“……Haa.”

Jang Jiyu letting out a sigh close to a lament.

How the rational Kang Junu came to make a friend of a boy like Ha Tae-ung she cannot understand.

And investing in coin…….

Three billion, was it? Then shall I…… put in a billion myself?

Kang Junu’s positive manner was on her mind.

Without knowing it, Jang Jiyu’s ear was already pricked.

(End of Chapter 99)