Gang Palchun, head of the Triad’s Korean branch.
Gang Palchun received a special order from Mao Qin, the organization’s head of intelligence.
“Take over the Korean market.”
Upon receiving the special order, Gang Palchun was a little flustered.
No, he was slightly annoyed.
Take over the Korean market with candy?
If they were going to say that kind of crap, they could have at least done something for him normally.
And now, out of nowhere, they wanted him to conquer the Korean market.
It was absurd.
Of course, he knew that the candy was Disand, the knockoff of Asand that had caused an uproar in China.
He also knew that while it was different from Asand, it did have some effect.
But distributing it was an entirely different problem.
Just because it sold well in China didn’t guarantee it would sell well in Korea.
Most importantly, unlike in China, Disand was illegal in Korea.
He couldn’t just scatter it openly like they did in China.
That was why Mao Qin must have come to Gang Palchun.
Because they had no way to bring it in themselves.
The key issue was how to supply an illegal product like Disand, and it was absolutely not easy.
In Korea, there was a powerful and tremendous gatekeeper called the Daehoon Faction.
The Daehoon Faction might let other things slide, but when it came to drugs, they fought tooth and nail to stop them.
They dug everything up, down to the very bottom.
If you got caught by them, even the smuggling routes you had painstakingly built would all be shut down.
It wasn’t as if Gang Palchun hadn’t tried.
After the Daehoon Faction rose up, he heard here and there that drugs were in short supply, so he secretly brought some in.
He tried several times, but they never even reached land before getting cut off by Coast Guard ships.
They were caught in the middle of the sea, with no hole to escape through.
When he was truly lucky, he could dump the drugs into the sea, and when he couldn’t even do that, all the drugs they had gone to such trouble to bring in were confiscated, and every last one of the transporters was arrested.
After that, he didn’t even try.
Thanks to that, even the smuggling routes he had struggled to create were ruined.
Of course, even if he brought them in, distributing them was difficult because the Daehoon Faction blocked them.
So he hadn’t touched drugs at all.
And now, out of nowhere, they were telling him to distribute Disand.
Mao Qin’s words left him dumbfounded.
Still, he couldn’t talk back.
Mao Qin and Gang Palchun were on different levels.
If the Triad were a nation, Mao Qin held a high position equivalent to the director of the National Intelligence Service, while Gang Palchun was about on the level of an ambassador from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Aren’t diplomats high-ranking too?
If it were the ambassador to the U.S., China, or Japan, sure, that might be true. But what about the ambassador to Moldova?
What about the ambassador to Tuvalu or Gambia?
Could they compete with the director of the National Intelligence Service?
There was no comparison.
That was Korea’s position within the Triad.
Korea was a backwater among backwaters.
It was extremely difficult to enter, but compared to that, there was no money in it.
Its social systems were well developed, making it hard to commit crimes, easy to get caught, and the arrest rate was high.
Korea was a place where it wasn’t easy to run or hide.
Even if you committed a crime and wanted to flee, there was nowhere to run.
Cities were difficult because there were too many eyes.
People pretended not to look, but they saw everything.
The neighborhood aunties might not say anything, but they knew it all.
They knew who lived in that house and who came and went.
There were plenty of CCTVs and dashcams too.
You couldn’t live while avoiding them all.
Hiding in the mountains was even more foolish.
The mountains were already inhabited by people living off the land.
On top of that, there were hikers, trekkers, campers, wild ginseng diggers, and grandmothers picking wild greens.
Even more people roamed every corner of the mountains than the cities.
They even went into rugged places with no trails.
There was no way not to be discovered.
If not the mountains or the cities, then you had to go overseas.
Planes were out of the question.
The system was well organized, so a forged passport would be caught one hundred percent of the time.
It would be nice if you could go by land, but the borders of the Republic of Korea were unusual.
Three sides were surrounded by sea, and to the north was North Korea.
It was better to stow away by sea; going north could bring about even bigger problems.
That was why it was a backwater.
It was hard to enter, hard to commit crimes in, and even harder to escape from.
It didn’t even make money.
But they couldn’t just leave it alone either.
Korea was always an attractive market.
It was a mouthwatering market they would gladly swallow up if only they could do so at any time.
So they kept checking on it.
But that was all.
They didn’t actually do anything.
They had merely left behind a connection or two through Chinatown.
That was also why Gang Palchun, who had nothing to his name, had been able to become the Korean branch head.
Gang Palchun, an ethnic Korean from China, had lived in Yanbian before crossing over to Daerim-dong because he heard he could make money there.
He hadn’t actually made any money, but life in Seoul wasn’t bad.
To be honest, it was much better than Yanbian.
So he stayed.
To live in Seoul, he had to work.
In order to remain in Seoul, he did any job he could get, without discrimination.
He didn’t distinguish between legal and illegal either.
Living like that, he ended up with a small organization of his own, and he even acquired the title of Triad Korean branch head.
He remembered what Mao Qin had said.
The Triad was struggling.
Korea was the future of the Triad.
Disand had to devour Korea.
Only then could the Triad develop.
Mao Qin had spoken as if he were desperate, but to be honest, it didn’t have much to do with Gang Palchun.
If they were going to say crap like that, they could have at least done something for him normally.
They never supported him at all, and now they were giving him this kind of task?
They gave him the empty title of Korean branch head and then entrusted him with the future of the Triad?
It was absurd, but in any case, Gang Palchun had to take some kind of action.
He couldn’t just ignore it and do nothing.
He had to do something.
So rather than using a smuggling route, he brought it in bit by bit through peddlers.
Centered around Chinatown in Incheon and the ethnic Korean-Chinese street in Daerim, he began spreading Disand among the overseas Chinese.
Disand quickly spread among the Chinese overseas community.
The overseas Chinese began secretly sharing Disand among themselves.
They already knew of Asand’s effects through China, so there was no sense of burden.
If anything, they had been curious because exports were blocked, and they were glad they could get it even like this.
The overseas Chinese began taking it without even knowing whether it was Asand or Disand.
Watching that, Gang Palchun smiled.
He thought it was a success, in its own way.
Chinese people living in Korea were Koreans too, weren’t they?
At this point, hadn’t he taken over the Korean market?
For the role of a Korean branch head in name only, this much was enough.
.
.
.
“Those fucking bastards. If they’re told not to do it, they should just not do it. They never fucking listen.”
After hearing the report, Daehoon spoke irritably and put a cigarette in his mouth.
The report said that a strange candy was spreading around Chinatown.
That it was gaining popularity among the overseas Chinese.
That there was a very high possibility it was a drug.
“Still, aren’t they only doing it among themselves? Shouldn’t we just leave them be?”
Beside him, Geunsu asked cautiously.
“You think that won’t spread?”
Daehoon’s thoughts differed from Geunsu’s.
For now, Geunsu might be right.
Since the overseas Chinese were doing it among themselves.
They were a closed-off group, so for a while, they might continue taking Disand only among themselves.
But how long would they keep that to just the overseas Chinese?
It would spread in no time.
In the brief moment they looked away, it would be eating away at Korea.
They had to smash it while the scale was still small.
Only then could the damage be minimized.
Addicts were like cockroaches, spreading in an instant.
They were everywhere, and even if you thought you had crushed them all, some still remained.
They had to be exterminated.
Every last egg had to be burned away.
Even after doing that, what appeared again were cockroaches—and addicts.
Blocking drugs was a promise with Alex.
No, it was Alex’s request.
He had asked Daehoon to make sure, as much as possible, that drugs weren’t distributed in Korea.
To be honest, he hadn’t even put it that way.
He had only asked him to at least prevent an environment where someone could easily buy drugs at a business just by putting down money.
Alex’s request was that Daehoon not allow drugs to be sold in the establishments he managed.
Because of that, Daehoon had taken control of Seoul and formed an alliance with organizations nationwide.
Organizations in Busan, Incheon, and elsewhere had helped a great deal.
They knew selling drugs could make them a lot of money, but they had agreed on the larger framework of not bringing drugs in.
Thanks to that, drugs had seemed to disappear completely.
The peace agreement between the organizations was also being kept well.
But then, out of nowhere, candy had been found in Chinatown.
“Geunsu. Don’t you think we should stop that?”
“Understood. First, I’ll look into who’s distributing it.”
“Yeah. As quickly as possible.”
******
Bituin of La Camara mobilized every route to find Raksa.
He brought in every resource he could mobilize, from the police and military to the media and gangsters.
Finding Raksa was the only way Bituin could keep himself alive.
Bituin could not forget Celeste’s cold gaze.
Every time he thought of it, he shuddered.
But nowhere could he find any trace of Raksa.
It was as if the man had vanished completely, as though he had never existed in the first place.
It was truly driving him mad.
He had to find Raksa.
.
.
.
“Boss. They say a guy named Bituin is going around looking for Raksa?”
“Who’s Bituin, and why is he looking for Raksa?”
The kimchi stew restaurant in Zamboanga.
For the first time in a while, we had gathered and were having a meal together.
Should I say we had finally gained a little breathing room?
To be honest, not quite breathing room. It would be more accurate to say the urgent matters were finished.
The small modular reactor had arrived safely and was under construction.
Some of the solar panels were already producing electricity.
Akbayan, seeing its chance, had made electricity production its main agenda and was carrying out an election campaign that wasn’t quite an election campaign.
With Unity Town as the backdrop, they were showing through shorts just how useful and convenient electricity was in people’s lives.
Akbayan was a party that continuously advocated lowering electricity rates.
They kept sending the signal that if people voted for Akbayan, they could live a life like that in Unity Town.
Although the local elections had ended, Akbayan continued doing this.
The Philippines truly needed electricity.
And more than anything, this was groundwork for the election three years from now, to make Patrick president.
It was progressing steadily and well.
Unity Town was stable too.
Residents continued to increase, and the town was growing little by little.
Asand was also being produced stably.
With the fully automated system in place, Edward had gained some breathing room too.
The arms smuggling from China was fairly stable as well.
As long as that bastard Sin Junggi didn’t rip open the shipments in the middle, inspect them, and throw them away.
For reference, the Philippine troops who had been deployed in the rebel suppression operation last time were still staying in the warehouse.
It was all over now, so they could go back, but they didn’t.
So we told them to go back, and they said they wanted to stay here.
The truth was, soldiers weren’t treated all that well in the Philippines.
Their pay, welfare, and social perception weren’t particularly good.
Even so, their circumstances were bad enough that they had to enlist in the military.
So we were in talks with the unit in Zamboanga.
About whether they could be assigned there.
We had decided to pay the salaries of the Zamboanga unit from now on too.
They said everyone had been dishonorably discharged for the crime of not participating in the last rebel suppression operation, so we decided to take responsibility for them.
Their livelihoods had been cut off because of us, so we had to look after them.
Even if we added up all the soldiers’ salaries, it didn’t amount to much.
We could have paid them easily with the money we had, but we used Melchor’s assets.
A country’s money should be used to pay soldiers’ salaries.
Thanks to Melchor, we could look after them sufficiently without spending any of our own money.
No, even then, there was far too much left over.
The amount deposited every month was no joke.
At any rate, there was nothing urgent now.
We were just waiting for construction to be completed or waiting for the election.
So everyone had gathered to eat.
Sandro, Simon, Patrick, Ana, Chen Zhihao, Dennis, Magiting, Scott, Edward, and even Gang Jaeho.
But was kimchi stew really the right menu?
We were eating in such a light atmosphere when we heard that Bituin was looking for Raksa.
But?
Who was Bituin?
“Bituin is the commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.”
“Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue?”
“It’s a post that manages the government’s fiscal revenue. It manages all revenue, including taxes.”
“Why is that person looking for Raksa? Raksa is the president’s friend. He had no point of contact with Bituin.”
“We don’t know that either. Maybe the two of them are friends?”
Simon replied.
“Raksa is twenty years older than Bituin. Would the two of them become friends?”
Sandro answered.
“What does age matter between friends? If they’re not friends, are they lovers? Heh heh.”
Simon replied with a sly smile.
With everyone gathered like this, it was utter chaos.
They were all just saying whatever came to mind.
Just then, Sandro spoke.
“This isn’t certain. I only heard it as a rumor myself, but I heard that for a long time there’s been a secret closed-door council that decides all government policy. The president, government officials, chaebol, and journalists would gather and decide policy. What if Raxa wasn’t managing the president’s slush fund, but the closed-door council’s slush fund? And if Bitouin is looking for that money, doesn’t that make a certain amount of sense?”
“I’ve heard similar stories myself, but since nothing has been confirmed yet, I didn’t mention it separately. But if Melchor was providing slush funds to that closed-door council, if he kept supporting them in order to push policies the way he wanted, then it’s entirely possible. That Bitouin would be looking for Raxa, I mean.”
Patrick added to Sandro’s words.
“Should we catch Bitouin and ask him?”
Scott asked.
“He’s not like Raxa. If he disappears, the Philippines will be in an uproar trying to find him.”
Sandro answered.
“For reference, to add a little more, everything in the Philippines is concentrated in the capital, Manila, and the Luzon region—the largest island in the Philippines, where Manila is located. Politics, economy, culture, industry, education—it’s all gathered there. Economically speaking alone, the Luzon region, with Manila at its center, accounts for more than seventy percent of the country’s GDP. Even if you combine all of Mindanao, which we’re using as our base, it doesn’t even reach thirteen or fourteen percent. That’s why the forces that move the Philippines never paid any attention to Mindanao. There was no money in it, and it was crawling with rebels, so they had no interest in that land at all. But the situation is different now. If we want to leave Mindanao and advance as far as Luzon, we can’t keep doing things the way we have. That’s a place where public authority is truly alive. If Bitouin disappears, starting with the police, they’ll dig into it like crazy. Bitouin is the son of a prestigious family.”
Patrick had been a mayor, and he knew quite a lot.
“That’s true. We took Cebu without much trouble too, but when we tried to go farther north, it was difficult. It’s completely different from Mindanao and Cebu.”
Sandro also backed up Patrick’s opinion.
To summarize.
Things had been loose until now, but they were going to get tight from here on out?
If Mindanao had the nuance of having no public authority, so you were left to deal with things among yourselves, did that mean from Luzon onward, the appearance of a real nation was still alive?
But it didn’t really matter.
I had no intention of advancing into the Luzon region.
Once the things I’d set in motion were wrapped up, I intended to go back to being a guide.
Elections, closed-door councils—I had no interest in any of it.
I didn’t care whether they found Raxa or not.
As long as they didn’t touch us, I wouldn’t move either.
“Whether those guys find Raxa or not has nothing to do with us, does it?”
“That’s true, but I don’t think it would hurt to be careful.”
“Then should we look a little more into that closed-door council or whatever it is? If we dig into it, won’t something come up?”
“Understood.”
“Got it.”
“I understand.”
“We finally got together like this, so let’s stop talking about difficult things and have a drink.”
With kimchi stew and rolled omelet in front of us, we gathered our soju-filled glasses together.
“Cheers.”
Everyone emptied their glasses cleanly.
They put ramen noodles into the kimchi stew, and everyone ate with relish.
Scott looked like he could stop eating now, but he was eating the best out of everyone.
I need to put Scott through the wringer.
I’ll let him eat only until today, then I’ll work him hard.
I was making that resolution when Sandro called me.
“But Alex.”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you buy a private jet?”
“A private jet?”
“Yeah. You go all over the place. Isn’t it too inconvenient to go to the airport and buy tickets every time? Matching flight schedules is a hassle too.”
“I’ve never thought about it.”
I hadn’t thought about it, but the idea did occur to me that it would be nice to have one.
No matter how much I flew first class, the timing was seriously inconvenient.
The hardest part was having to move according to flight schedules, and I hated wasting time on planes too.
What I hated even more was having to circle around because there was no route.
The only reason traveling from Bohol to Zamboanga was comfortable now was because Patrick had opened up a direct route; before that, I used to stop in Cebu and then enter Zamboanga.
I’d wait for hours just to take a one-hour flight.
I went to China often too, and I had to go to Korea as well, so I thought it wouldn’t be bad to have one.
I’d never considered a private jet, but it did seem like it would be nice to have.
“That’s a good idea, actually.”
Unexpectedly, Anna agreed.
“Buy one. I’ll purchase it under Emerald Casino’s name. If we say it’s for customer service, I think there’ll actually be a lot of benefits.”
“But why bring up a private jet all of a sudden?”
“I went to a casino representatives’ meeting last time, and someone said they were selling a private jet, so I was asking if you might be interested. There’s no one around me who flies as much as you do.”
“Then should I buy one?”
“I’ll prepare it.”
And so, the long-awaited meal gathering ended well.
On the way back to their respective places.
Sandro, sitting in the car, asked his subordinate.
“You took care of Raxa properly, right?”
“We handled it cleanly. No one will find Raxa anywhere. How can they find someone who doesn’t exist?”
“Good work.”
Sandro was still uneasy about Alex.
Traitors must not be trusted.
The DNA of betrayal activates sooner or later.
That was why bastards who had betrayed once had to be dealt with.
But Alex couldn’t do that.
He was too soft-hearted.
So Sandro did it in his place.
Without Alex knowing.
Bitouin was searching for Raxa, but he would never find him.
This was how work had to be done to be clean.
Sandro sat in the back seat with a satisfied expression.
Then, as if something had occurred to him, he gave his subordinate an order.
“And look into that closed-door council a bit.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alex, known as the ruler of the South.
But to Sandro, that Alex still seemed like a child, and he made him uneasy.
He was like a child left by the water’s edge, making Sandro anxious and concerned.
So Sandro had no choice but to watch his back.
If something seemed like it might become a problem, he just had to cut it off at the bud.
And that sort of work suited Sandro extremely well.
It was fun.
Sandro smiled faintly.