Episode 13. It’s Not My Fault You Fell Flat on Your Face 6.
Noh Hyeoncheol poured traditional tea for Yang Gyeonghun, who was sitting ramrod straight, tense from head to toe.
“Drink.”
“Th-thank you!”
As he tried to gulp it down, Noh Hyeoncheol said a word.
“Drink it slowly. You’ll burn your mouth.”
“Ah, yes.”
Yang Gyeonghun lightly touched the teacup to his lips, then set it back down.
“I heard you handled this matter on your own.”
Not knowing whether it was praise or a scolding, he stayed quiet.
“You did well. I called you here to tell you that.”
It was praise.
Only then did Yang Gyeonghun speak.
“I didn’t do it on my own. I merely supported them and followed the team members’ opinions.”
Noh Hyeoncheol was startled.
“What, you’re saying the employees handled that themselves?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Huh... Well, now... Ah! Wait.”
As if something had occurred to him, Noh Hyeoncheol asked.
“There’s a new hire there, isn’t there? Kim... what was it?”
“Do you mean Intern Kim Hyeonu?”
“Ah, yes, Kim Hyeonu. Haha, he’s there, right? Sales Team 9.”
“Yes, President.”
“How is he? Is he keeping up with the work?”
Keeping up with the work?
He had no idea how to answer that.
“It’s only his fourth day, so it isn’t really the stage to discuss his work, but it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he did everything in this matter. The team members and I simply did as he suggested.”
Noh Hyeoncheol’s eyes went round.
He seemed very surprised.
“You expect me to believe that a new hire who’s been here only four days led this matter?”
“It may be hard to believe, but it’s true.”
Silence flowed between them.
After that silence continued for a while, Noh Hyeoncheol burst into a hearty laugh.
“Hahahaha, hahaha, this is truly amusing. A fellow who’s only been here four days did all that, hahaha. Truly amusing.”
“......”
“Good work.”
Noh Hyeoncheol took a wallet from his inner pocket, pulled out a card, and tossed it onto the table in front of Yang Gyeonghun.
To Yang Gyeonghun, who stared at him with round eyes, he gave a gentle smile.
“It’s a bonus. After work, buy the kids whatever they want to eat. Don’t worry about the money.”
“P-President...”
“Return the card to the secretary’s office tomorrow morning. You may go.”
Yang Gyeonghun sprang to his feet and bowed.
“Thank you, President.”
That day, Sales Team 9 drank until they were utterly plastered.
Half by choice and half by circumstance, it was their third consecutive day of company dinners.
As for Hyeonu, out of his four days at work, three had included company dinners.
Needless to say, their teamwork grew even tighter after that small, drama-like success.
Jin Seonghun ended things by writing a statement promising not to speak of the matter and submitting his resignation instead of being fired.
If he spoke of it, the contract with SHS could fall through, and if that happened, Jin Seonghun himself could be sued by the company, so they settled at an appropriate point.
And just as Hyeonu had said, Horsehead left the company right then and there and never returned.
It was because he thought he could no longer work at Mancheon Trading.
Even if he came to the company, he would only be disciplined, and it would be humiliating too.
As Yang Gyeonghun had said, both of them had fallen flat because of their own nature.
* * *
Noh Hyeoncheol knocked on the door to the chairman’s office in the Mancheon Construction building.
[Come in.]
Chairman Min Yanghong, his hair gone white, was putting walnut crumbs into his mouth.
“I’m here, Chairman.”
“Oh, yes. Sit.”
Min Yanghong held out a walnut he had just cracked.
“Here.”
“Thank you.”
After receiving the walnut, Noh Hyeoncheol nibbled off a small piece with his front teeth and chewed it.
“What kind of way is that to eat? You’re not some rat.”
“Ah, if I eat them too quickly, you keep giving me more. I’ll end up full for no reason.”
No one else could speak to Min Yanghong like this.
His tiger-like piercing eyes, a temperament just as fierce, the tenacity to see anything through to the end, a coldheartedness without blood or tears, and a charisma no one dared approach made it difficult for everyone even to meet his gaze.
Noh Hyeoncheol, Min Yanghong’s closest aide and the man said to be the reason the Mancheon of today existed, was the only person who could deal with him without hesitation.
“Do you know how good walnuts are for the body... Why did you come?”
“I just thought I’d check in on you. You’re not feeling unwell anywhere, are you?”
“Like hell... You came all the way here to ask that? You should be sitting at your desk doing your damn work.”
“Come on, Chairman, I’m hardly in a position to sit around doing deskwork. It’s a good thing I don’t even have time to go into my office because I’m out meeting people.”
It was true, but Min Yanghong knew very well that Noh Hyeoncheol was not the kind of man to come pointlessly just to check on him.
“So why did you come?”
Noh Hyeoncheol bit off the tip of a walnut with his front teeth, chewed it, and answered.
“The executives seem very busy these days. Ever since you gave shipbuilding and heavy industry to the youngest.”
“I told you not to worry about that and just do your work. You never listen, do you?”
“How could that not be on their minds?”
“Hmm...”
“When are you planning to decide? The next chairman.”
Min Yanghong tossed the walnut he was holding into the bowl and leaned back against the chair.
“It’s still far off. I still don’t like any of them. Choosing a successor is an important matter that will determine Mancheon’s next thirty years. How could I decide something so important carelessly?”
“That’s true, but if you miss the right timing, the problem could become even more complicated. You know, don’t you? What happened to chaebol groups that suffered a princes’ war.”
If a princes’ war broke out, the group splitting apart was inevitable, and the backroom schemes between siblings would naturally cause great damage to the company’s finances and image.
In severe cases, it was common for one of the siblings to end up serving prison time.
The cleanest management succession was for one person to inherit everything outright.
The rest would be satisfied with what their father gave them, or what the sibling who took the throne bestowed upon them, and simply live quietly as members of a chaebol family.
Min Yanghong chuckled.
“Children grow up fighting. If someone backs down even with a huge rice cake right before their eyes, then they’re disqualified from the start as Mancheon’s leader. In business, there’s no driving force greater than greed.”
“And what if the fight gets fierce? What will you do if someone like Yi Bangwon comes out among the children?”
Min Yanghong chuckled again.
“How could that happen when I’m here?”
“That may be true now, but no one knows the future. Imagine you suddenly collapse. Would this situation be manageable then?”
“I know my own body. I’m still perfectly fine.”
A king never likes handing his throne to someone else.
That remains true even if that someone is his own child.
It was common for them to hold out until the very end, only handing it over when they could no longer endure, or sometimes even refusing that and being forcibly pushed aside by their sons and the forces following them.
“If that’s what you think, Chairman, there’s nothing I can do. But it’s certainly time for you to start putting things in order. The children have already begun moving.”
“The children? My children?”
“Yes, your children, Chairman.”
“Did something happen?”
“The second one approached me a couple days ago.”
“Byeongsu did?”
“Yes.”
“So what did you do?”
“What do you mean, what did I do? I told him I wasn’t interested in that kind of thing and didn’t entertain him.”
“Kkeuk, as expected, that fellow moved first. He was the greediest one from the time he was young.”
“When all of Mancheon is at stake, who wouldn’t be greedy?”
“True... You know why I didn’t seat you as vice chairman and put you there instead, don’t you?”
In an irritated tone, Noh Hyeoncheol tossed the walnut into his mouth in one bite.
“I know. That’s why I didn’t entertain him. But do you really have to do that work?”
“Of course. You know, don’t you? That work is the lifelong project I’ve longed to accomplish. Once I open the way for it, I’ll hand everything over. To the one who can finish that work best, that is.”
Because he knew very well what “that work” meant to Min Yanghong, Noh Hyeoncheol said no more.
“Anyway, you did well. Not giving Byeongsu the time of day, I mean. Anything else?”
No Hyeoncheol, who had been working walnut crumbs around in his mouth, spoke as if something had just occurred to him.
“You know Gim Hyeonu, don’t you? The son of your late chauffeur.”
Min Yanghong was startled.
He hadn’t told No Hyeoncheol about him, yet the name had come out of nowhere.
“How do you know that guy?”
“Heh heh, turns out he’s the real thing. As expected, Chairman, your eye wasn’t wrong.”
His eye?
It wasn’t as though he had hired the boy at Mancheon Mulsan because of any eye for talent.
He had merely kept his promise to the boy’s father.
“Why? What did he do?”
“He produced quite a substantial result just four days after joining the company.”
“A result? What kind of result?”
After hearing the whole story, Min Yanghong was more than a little surprised.
He bent forward again from where he had been leaning against the backrest, picked up two walnuts that had yet to be shelled, and rolled them in his hand.
Tadadak, tadak, tadadak······.
He remembered what the boy had said a few days ago.
“You said there was also the promise you made with my father, so why not let me work at least during the intern period and watch me? If you still don’t like me then, it won’t matter if you don’t hire me as a full-time employee.”
‘With this level of performance, I suppose I’ll have to make him a full-time employee. Huh, honestly, I can hardly believe it. The results are one thing, but this means he intervened in office politics. Well, it was only the shallow little political arena among the people below, but still······.’
Even so, it was truly unexpected.
He had wondered whether the boy would even be able to adapt to company life, and now this was the news reaching his ears.
As he rolled the walnuts and sank into thought, No Hyeoncheol’s voice reached him.
“That kid’s way of handling work is no joke, is it? His insight into the situation is excellent too. And he’s only been there for four days.”
“Hmm······ That kind of insight in four days, you say······.”
The walnuts that had been turning like cogwheels in Min Yanghong’s hand slowly came to a stop, and a hollow smile drifted across his face.
“Well, well. I was completely fooled by his résumé. That’s not what matters in a person······. Listen, President No.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
“It’s not that someone who has seen a lot has insight. It’s that someone with insight sees a lot. Four days? That doesn’t matter. The ones who are going to make it are different from the sprout.”
“······.”
“Let’s keep an eye on him. He may have some extraordinary talent.”
“Yes, Chairman. I was already taking an interest in him and in Sales Team Nine, the team he belongs to.”
“Good. Take an interest and try developing him.”
The walnuts in Min Yanghong’s hand began to turn again.
Tadadak, tadak, tadadak······.
He recalled the last words the boy’s father had said.
“My boy may not have learned much, but he has a remarkable talent. If you use him well, I believe he will be of great help to you, Chairman.”
‘Hmm······ Driver Gim may have left me a blessing after all.’