Daehoon was in his office, holding a meeting with several people over a stack of documents.
As he reviewed the papers, something seemed not to his liking. He tossed them down onto the table and picked up the iced Americano beside him.
“Damn, my head hurts. What kind of suffering is this, all because I made the wrong friend?”
“Hahaha. Still, hyungnim, I think it would help a lot if you took this chance to acquire a construction company.”
At Daehoon’s groan, Geunsu, who was sitting beside him, soothed him.
“You think so?”
“To be honest, if we acquire a construction company, I think it’ll help us quite a bit too.”
“Why?”
“Wouldn’t it be good if we gradually moved into the light like this? A construction company business card looks a little better than a labor service company card, doesn’t it?”
At present, the Daehoon Faction managed its many members in two ways.
One was to put them in charge of businesses and have them manage things on their own there.
Many of the members were handled that way.
The second was to take in the guys who had nowhere else to go and create a labor service company.
It wasn’t so much because they needed a labor service company as it was an unavoidable measure to pay salaries and handle insurance.
It was also convenient to bring them in whenever they were needed.
“That’s true, but there are things I’m worried about. It costs more money than you’d think, and we don’t have any experts in this field. If we mess up, we’ll just spend money and go under. If we rush in saying we’ll buy one, we’re perfect targets to get scammed.”
“It’s not like we need some amazing technology, do we? If we need people, we can hire them. What we need is the signboard of a construction company that can let us advance into the Philippines, isn’t it? And I can guarantee you, it’ll probably go well one hundred percent. Has anything Inbae-hyungnim touched ever failed to work out properly? Let’s trust him and go for it.”
“That’s true. Then among the list, the two that are at least decent are Daeyeon Development and Jinwoo Engineering, right?”
“That’s what I think too. What do you think, Director Go?”
Receiving Geunsu’s gaze, Director Go Seungmin lightly pushed up his glasses before speaking.
Attorney Go Seungmin.
While working as a lawyer, he had formed a connection with Daehoon through legal advisory work for the Daehoon Faction, and in the end, he had even joined the company.
His legal knowledge was better than expected, and his ability to improvise by using the law was outstanding, so Daehoon had scouted him personally.
At first, Attorney Go Seungmin had refused.
He said he did not have many clients, but he would simply live as a lawyer.
But after seeing how Daehoon acted—
How he looked after his own organization and did not cling to the profit right in front of him—he changed his mind.
On top of that, half willingly and half not, he received training at the temporary shelter in Chungcheong Province—now called the training center—and came out brimming with loyalty.
His inner self was filled with faith.
“Both companies have clear strengths and weaknesses. Daeyeon Development used to be a mid-sized construction company. It was fairly large in scale as well. The problem is that after the current private equity fund acquired it, it became a complete mess.”
“A private equity fund operated it, so why did it become a mess?”
“The private equity fund didn’t buy Daeyeon Development because it wanted to operate a construction company, did it? These guys have no interest whatsoever in whether the company does well, falls apart, or goes bankrupt. They just sell assets, sell land, sell licenses to make money. They’ve probably sold everything they could sell. Now they’re trying to sell even the last thing that remains—the name.”
“What? They sold everything? Then isn’t there no need to acquire it?”
“It’s not as though there’s absolutely nothing. The title of Daeyeon Development is fairly decent. They still have some technical capability left too.”
“What’s so important about a mere name? Wouldn’t it be better for us to make a new one?”
“It’s because of the general construction license. If it isn’t expensive, it’s better to purchase it. We also can’t ignore the existing permits and the human network.”
“A general construction license? Can’t we just get a new one?”
“It’s possible to obtain one from scratch, but you should expect at least a month. And a new company has a lot of restrictions. No credibility either. If you’re considering advancing into the Philippines, Daeyeon Construction, which at least has a title and history, seems better.”
“What about Jinwoo Engineering?”
“Jinwoo Engineering is an emerging construction company led by a young CEO. Its strength is design, but they apparently present designs that are too creative, so they’re not very popular in the market. That’s why they’re currently in a difficult situation and should be available for acquisition.”
“So one only has its name left, and the other is run by a lunatic.”
“That’s right.”
“Both are useless but hard to throw away. One has technical capability, and one has design. Can’t we buy both?”
“Buying them isn’t the problem, but then we’d be making double expenditures for no reason. Also, this doesn’t end after we buy them. Money will keep going in. Even if we start construction in the Philippines now, it will take quite a while before we receive payment. Until then, fixed costs, including employee salaries, will continue to go out, so there’s no need to go as far as two. If necessary, it would be better to commission the other side and build a good relationship.”
At Daehoon’s reckless question, Director Go Seungmin explained the reason.
“In addition, most of the construction projects ordered in the Philippines involve basic maintenance work rather than remarkable creativity or originality, so Daeyeon Development seems better than Jinwoo Engineering. However, since Daeyeon Development was larger than expected, large-scale restructuring appears unavoidable.”
“Restructuring, huh…”
“It’s not something we do because we like it, but we can’t pour in raw cash and keep feeding people, can we?”
“First, tell them I want to take a look. What was the name there again?”
“MHK Private Equity.”
“Right. There. Tell them I want to see their faces.”
******
“You think you’ll be fine after doing this to me? I won’t let you get away with this later. Huh? Got it?!”
The outskirts of Darapanan.
Shin Junggi had been thrown onto the dirt ground, and the people who had brought him were turning the car around and leaving.
Shin Junggi shouted at the top of his lungs after them, but the car did not stop.
Shin Junggi was left alone.
Contrary to his bluster, inside he was terribly at a loss.
He had studied well. He was smart. But he had never learned about this sort of environment.
What is the proper response after being kidnapped by a gang and then released?
What is the first thing you should do when Interpol issues a red notice for you as a murderer?
If he had learned things like that, he might have been able to get through this crisis.
Naturally, he had never learned such things.
Because he had only lived in an orphanage, because he had lived as a smart guy who was simply good at studying,
he had never experienced overcoming something unfamiliar in a new environment.
He had only studied hard as he was told.
Perhaps because of that, he had no idea how to overcome this situation.
Honestly, he had not thought they would really chase him out like this.
He had thought they would scare him a little, then ask about the location of the data.
If they knew what Project Mangwol was, there was no way they would not covet it.
Did they perhaps know that Shin Junggi did not have the data?
That could not be.
If it was revealed that Shin Junggi did not even have the data, then he would truly be in serious trouble.
He would have no card with which to negotiate at all.
Shin Junggi began walking, dragging the suitcase that had ended up in the same situation as him—
thrown away.
And yet, those kind bastards had even seen fit to give him his suitcase.
Shin Junggi began dragging the suitcase down an unpaved road.
But before he had even walked ten minutes, a man appeared from somewhere.
“Hey. Chinese?”
“Korean.”
“Oh~ A Korean came all the way here? Normally people can’t get in here. What brings you all the way out here?”
“That’s none of your business. Would you move? I’m on a tight schedule.”
“Really? I have business with you.”
“With me?”
“Yeah. What you’ve got looks tempting.”
“What I’ve got? What? This suitcase?”
“Yeah. That suitcase, and the clothes you’re wearing.”
Shin Junggi was genuinely flustered.
A suitcase like this was the kind of thing that, in Korea, no one would take even if you just left it out on the street.
If you left it in one spot for several days and came back later, it would only have been moved to the side of the road.
All that was inside were a few pieces of clothing.
The clothes in a clothing donation bin were probably better than the clothes in this suitcase.
And yet he was targeting this?
It was deeply bewildering.
“This? These aren’t very good clothes. How about targeting someone else? This suitcase is too lacking for you to go after. And if I take these off, I won’t have any clothes to wear.”
“Do I have to care about that? I just need to steal the clothes. I’ll leave your underwear. Underwear feels nasty to me too.”
“Huh… Unbelievable.”
“Are you going to take a beating and then strip? Or will you just hand them over quietly?”
“I’ll give them to you. I’ll give them to you, but take only the suitcase and leave the clothes I’m wearing. I still need to have clothes on.”
“Fine. I’ll excuse that much.”
There was nothing Shin Junggi could do.
The best he could do was protect even the clothes he was wearing.
The Filipino man came to take the suitcase.
“Thanks. I’ll use it well.”
The man smiled happily, took the suitcase, and turned around.
Seeing the man leave with the suitcase made him angry.
Seeing the bastard’s smiling face made him even angrier.
He was short and small.
He looked like someone Shin Junggi could beat easily if they simply fought, but he had been robbed.
Thinking that he had been robbed by a guy like that made rage surge within him.
Unbearable fury burst out of his body.
Shin Junggi picked up a stone from behind and brought it down at the man.
No, he thought he brought it down.
But as if he had expected it, the man dodged and glared at Shin Junggi.
“You thought I’d get caught by a surprise attack like that? Haha. This is how you do a surprise attack.”
The man moved.
Shin Junggi did not even see the man’s fist, but an impact struck his face.
Thud.
Thud. Thud, thud, thud.
Impacts continued to hit his body.
They were fairly heavy punches, filled with anger.
“I was going to let you keep the clothes, but I’m taking those too. Your shoes as well. As promised, I’ll leave your underwear.”
The Filipino man stripped the clothes off Shin Junggi, who had been knocked down, then got on a motorcycle and disappeared somewhere.
A hollow laugh escaped Shin Junggi.
The state he was in was too ridiculous.
Just a few months ago, he had been one of the most successful elites in Korea.
In a single moment, his life had changed.
Now, a single pair of underwear was all Shin Junggi possessed.
He felt miserable.
Tears came for no reason.
The tears entered his wounds, making them sting even more.
He wanted to turn everything back.
He wanted to return to that time.
But life was the real thing.
There was no taking back what had already been done.
Wearing only his underwear, Shin Junggi sat in the middle of the road and agonized for a long time.
He thought and thought.
About what method there was for him to survive here.
Within ten minutes of getting out of the car, he had been robbed of his bag and all his clothes.
He did not know how long it would take before even his organs were taken.
He did not think it would take very long.
Here, being highly educated and smart meant absolutely nothing.
Even if he could build a fighter jet, even if he had the data for Project Mangwol, it was all useless.
Shin Junggi thought of a place that could protect him.
No matter how much he thought, only one place came to mind.
‘Right. Let’s go back to Darapanan, where I was.’
He had come by car, but he roughly remembered the road.
Shin Junggi began walking toward Darapanan.
Wearing only his underwear.
An unpaved road under his bare feet.
Pain throbbed in his feet, but he could not stop.
To live, he had no choice but to walk.
Step by step, he began to walk.
******
Han Ruichang, the boss of Beijing’s gangster organization Heilongtang.
Not long ago, he had attended an Ascend presentation held in Guangzhou.
A presentation where they gathered gangsters and sold drugs.
Even now, when he thought about it, it had been so stupid that he could not understand what he had been thinking, why he had gone.
There was an older senior in the industry he occasionally kept in touch with.
He said there was some kind of presentation. That they should go and come back as a change of pace.
If they went, they would give them food, liquor, a place to sleep, and even gifts. So he said they should go.
Perhaps because the entire schedule was free, he had felt even more at ease.
But the result was not light at all.
He had brought back the Beijing distribution rights for Ascend.
He wondered if perhaps this was a dream.
But the heavy bag in Han Ruichang’s hand—
the bag containing Ascend—spoke in place of everything, telling him that this was all reality.
Selling drugs was truly work done only by the very last of the last.
If you were caught, it was the death penalty.
No organization would try to distribute drugs while taking on that kind of risk.
And yet this time, Han Ruichang had bought those distribution rights.
Even as he thought it made no sense, he also wondered whether this might become another opportunity.
That was how desperate Heilongtang had become recently.
Heilongtang had failed to read the times.
Even though the times had changed, they still lived by collecting protection money, loan-sharking, and operating establishments.
But protection money had decreased to one-tenth of its previous level due to crackdowns by public security,
and profits from loan-sharking had also plummeted because of changes in how Chinese people made payments.
They had barely been scraping by on money from the establishments, but perhaps because the economy was bad, even the money from those establishments had shrunk drastically.
At this rate, they could not operate the organization.
They had to search for some way out.
So with a faint hope, he had gone to Guangzhou.
He thought that if he went there, there might be some way to save the organization.
Han Ruichang, who had gone to Guangzhou that way, unexpectedly won the contract rights for Ascend in Beijing.
It was a tremendous achievement, taking half of Beijing, but in truth, it was not that impressive.
There were only two groups that wanted Beijing.
It had been possible because not many organizations had participated in the first place.
Beijing alone had over a hundred organizations, but only two had participated in the presentation.
The two of them split Beijing in half.
The negotiation ended more quickly than expected.
Beijing, the capital of China.
A massive city where more than twenty million people lived.
Even if you got greedy, you could not eat it all.
In the case of a small organization, it could not control it all either.
So it did not take very long to agree on dividing it in half.
But on the way back, he regretted it.
He had touched something unnecessary.
He had done something pointless.
Drugs really were not it.
Even so, breaking the contract immediately felt wrong.
The bag in his hand made Han Ruichang hesitate.
Since the other side had shown this much sincerity, Han Ruichang thought he should show at least that level of propriety.
First, he would accept only a small amount at the beginning, immediately pass it on wholesale, and then wash his hands of it.
Thinking that, Han Ruichang felt much more at ease.
He decided he should start by selling the Ascend he had received and began selling it for fifty yuan.
If it did not sell, he thought he would discount it a little.
But it sold out completely in a single day.
Huh?
Was this right?
In just one day, he had sold 500,000 yuan’s worth of Ascend.
If that was the case, the calculation changed.
Han Ruichang began calculating again.
‘I need to make this bigger.’