Episode 15: A Wise Answer 2.
In the morning, he woke up, dressed himself in clean clothes, and went to the arboretum where his parents lay at rest.
He sat for a long time beside his mother, who had sacrificed her life to save him when he was on the verge of death, and his father, who had set him right when he had completely collapsed in life.
'Thank you, Mom, Dad. I don't think you need to worry anymore now. I'll keep living hard, and I'll definitely succeed at work too.'
The early winter cold wind brushed against his face, but he didn't feel cold in the slightest.
* * *
Min Byeongsu, president of Mancheon Chemicals and Mancheon Petroleum, emerged from the arrivals hall at the airport.
As he walked, several people who had been waiting followed behind him.
He asked the man walking right behind him.
"Anybody looking for me?"
"On the 12th, Assemblyman Kim Gapsu of the New Korea Party sought you out, and Prince Al Zahad sent an invitation to a party. And on the 13th, Executive Director Choi Jeonggeun of Mancheon Trading……."
"Choi Jeonggeun?"
"Yes, sir."
"……Tell him to come."
"When, sir?"
"Right now."
"Ah, w-where should I tell him to come?"
Min Byeongsu stopped walking and furrowed his brow.
"Hey, you bastard. Didn't I tell you to prepare Blue Castle?"
"Ah, understood."
Watching Min Byeongsu turn on his heel and stride away, the secretary thought himself fortunate.
Because they were at the airport with many onlookers, he had avoided getting his head bitten off.
* * *
Choi Jeonggeun got out of the car and looked up at something.
Where his gaze landed was a luxurious room salon sign that read 'Blue Castle.'
Guided not by a room salon employee but by a bodyguard, he stood before the private room where Min Byeongsu was.
The bodyguard spoke toward the door.
"Executive Director Choi Jeonggeun has arrived."
[Tell him to come in.]
Entering through the door the bodyguard opened, he saw Min Byeongsu sitting alone at an enormous table, eating kimchi jjigae and rice.
The sight of him sitting alone at a table large enough for an executives' meeting, eating kimchi jjigae in the private room of a high-end room salon.
At the utterly incongruous scene, Choi Jeonggeun was bewildered.
But suddenly, this thought occurred to him.
A being who could do as he pleased in any situation, regardless of common sense. And an inner self filled with the consciousness of privilege that allowed him to feel no awkwardness whatsoever.
'This is what a chaebol is!'
"Welcome back, sir."
Min Byeongsu didn't reply, finishing his rice first before raising his head.
"Have a seat."
"Ah, yes."
Choi Jeonggeun sat at the very edge of the seat directly in front of him.
"You asked for me?"
"Yes, sir. It's regarding the matter you mentioned previously; I met President Noh."
"Oh? What did he say?"
"He said he had no comment."
"'No comment?'"
"Yes. He said he had no interest in the succession and would not interfere in the slightest. So he told me not to come bother him needlessly."
A sly smile tugged at the corners of Min Byeongsu's eyes.
'Heh, that old man is quite the amusing one. Did he think I'd leave him alone just because he says he's not interested? I'm not interested in an old geezer like you either. I'm interested in Mancheon Trading. Because Mancheon Trading is the core of the circular shareholding structure.'
Min Byeongsu took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit it.
"Huu…… Anything else?"
"Nothing of note."
As if something displeased him, Min Byeongsu's brow furrowed slightly, and he smoked in silence.
Though the silence was brief, to Choi Jeonggeun it felt terribly long and heavy.
"You know that I absolutely need Mancheon Trading to take over Mancheon, don't you?"
"Yes, I'm well aware."
"Then let me ask you one thing."
"……."
"In terms of actual seniority, President Noh Hyeoncheol should be sitting in the position of Senior Vice Chairman. Why do you think he sits in the president's seat at Mancheon Trading instead?"
There wasn't a single executive who didn't know that.
"As I understand it, it was to maintain the balance of the succession structure?"
"That's right. That's why the Chairman placed President Noh Hyeoncheol there. President Noh also knew the reason and followed without a word. However…."
Min Byeongsu exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke before continuing.
"Huu…… Yet when I approached him, he said nothing beyond those words?"
"No, I……."
"Think carefully once more. Anything President Noh Hyeoncheol said, whatever it was."
The atmosphere of Min Byeongsu, quietly watching him with the cigarette between his fingers, was oppressive.
If he couldn't say anything here, he would undoubtedly be judged an incompetent subordinate and have his throat cut.
He gulped.
Rumors about Min Byeongsu were widely known.
A ruthlessly cold man who seemed like he wouldn't spill a single drop of blood even if stabbed.
That wasn't it.
This man wasn't a simple cold-blooded creature; he was a sociopath.
One of those who would do anything to achieve their goals.
But Choi Jeonggeun didn't think he had made a mistake in choosing such a Min Byeongsu.
Because to beat all those brothers and sit in the chairman's seat, such an inner nature would rather be an advantage.
Looking into his eyes, he cautiously opened his mouth.
"I……. President Noh said this. When he spoke of having no comment, he had written it in calligraphy. He said he was like ink that is ground and dissolves away in Mancheon. But he said he does not think of it as making a sacrifice or suffering a loss. He said that, in the end, he would remain as these characters."
A sly smile slowly spread across the face of Min Byeongsu, who had been tilting his head in puzzlement.
"President Noh said that?"
"Yes."
"Heh, that's amusing. That old man……."
The meaning of those words was not that he would not interfere no matter what was done.
That he would dissolve himself to remain as characters…….
A symbolic expression that he himself was the directive.
Meaning that in Mancheon Trading, he himself was the law and the power.
Thus, it was also a declaration that if anyone tried to seize Mancheon Trading with a presumptuous ambition for succession, he would fight with his life on the line.
Min Byeongsu took one last drag of his cigarette and dropped it into the earthenware pot of cooled kimchi jjigae.
Chiiik—
"If you meet President Noh, deliver a message for me. Tell him I understand well. That I only meant to greet him, and that I don't have the slightest intention of provoking him."
Choi Jeonggeun felt a strong sense of incongruity, just as before.
Though the words seemed like a step back, Min Byeongsu's voice and atmosphere were not like that at all.
Because he needed to know Min Byeongsu's exact intention, he asked.
"Are you perhaps stepping back from President Noh Hyeoncheol? Ah, please don't take offense. I'm asking because I need to know how to conduct myself."
Fortunately, perhaps because his mood wasn't offended, Min Byeongsu let out a short laugh.
"Let's say I'm stepping back for now. Making unnecessary enemies can create obstacles in truly important matters."
* * *
HR Director Gu Hyeongjun and Yang Gyeonghun went up to the rooftop.
The moment they stepped onto the rooftop, Yang Gyeonghun asked Gu Hyeongjun, who was lighting a cigarette.
"Why did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"The rookie. Why did he get an excellent evaluation? I didn't even evaluate him."
"Tell me about it. I put up three other guys……. The fourth and fifth places were different too."
Gu Hyeongjun turned to look at Yang Gyeonghun, exhaled smoke, and let out a short laugh.
"The president told me to put him in."
As expected, the president's influence was at work.
"So now he's become public enemy number one among the new recruits."
"……."
"Is that guy good-natured?"
Good-natured?
He didn't really know. The guy never showed any emotion at all.
"Like a block of wood."
"That's a tough personality for company life."
“That’s why I’m telling you this. Anyway, when you go to the training program, look after him a bit. Kids always make a damn fuss at places like that.”
“Do I really have to look after a guy who’s got the chairman’s backing and even the president’s?”
“But I don’t think it’s like that.”
“What isn’t?”
Yang Gyeonghun furrowed his brow and thought for a moment.
The time he had called himself a squid, his always courteous attitude, the way he came to work at dawn every day to study English.
“He’s definitely a parachute hire, but it didn’t seem like anyone above was pulling him along.”
Gu Hyeongjun gave a snort of laughter.
“Then what was the president intervening in personnel matters this time?”
“That was because the kid produced that much in results.”
“What?”
After hearing the whole story, Gu Hyeongjun pursed his lips and let out a breath.
“Whew, you’re saying he really did that? At that level, he’s already produced more than an assistant manager’s annual performance.”
“Yeah. The president judged him fairly enough. It’s just that the others misunderstood.”
Drawing in cigarette smoke, Gu Hyeongjun stared fixedly at Yang Gyeonghun and said,
“Hoo… You seem to like him quite a bit, huh?”
“What do I like? He’s a brat who came under me, so I’m just paying attention to him.”
“Heh, sentimental and timid bastard… After getting burned by people that badly, you’re still like this. You really are…”
“Haa… I annoy myself too. But what can I do when I was born like this?”
“…I get how you feel, but don’t worry too much. Just leave him be. If he’s the kind of guy who fails at human relationships, he’ll end up being nothing anyway.”
“Like me?”
“You just set up your human relationships wrong. In a way unbecoming of an office worker.”
“……”
“Anyway, I’ll call him in and say something.”
* * *
Hyeonu got off at the Sokcho Intercity Bus Terminal.
The new employee training was already underway, and first-year employees with excellent evaluations were scheduled to join toward the end of the program, so he had to make his own way to the training center.
When he took a taxi and arrived at the training center, he saw a large banner hanging at the entrance.
“Mancheon Trading, Mancheon Chemical, Mancheon Oil Joint New Employee Orientation”
Since it was only a three-day, two-night schedule, he had no need to pack much and was walking with just a backpack slung over his shoulder when a foreign car pulled in.
It stopped in a parking space, and a man and a woman got out.
It was Lee Minju, the daughter of a National Assembly member who had been sitting on the rooftop bench smoking yesterday, and the man who had been sitting beside her.
Yesterday, he had asked if they would be going together, but they had given no answer and had come together by themselves.
When their eyes met, Lee Minju turned her head away with a cold expression, and the man, whose name he did not even know, lifted the corner of his mouth as if sneering.
Open hostility.
As if it did not bother him at all, Hyeonu simply turned away with an indifferent face.
He had no intention of forcing himself to get close to such childish kids by catering to their moods, and it was even more bothersome to put up a fight.
When he turned the corner where the administration office was located, the offices for Mancheon Trading, Mancheon Chemical, and Mancheon Oil were divided on either side of the hallway.
He entered the Mancheon Trading office, checked in, received his schedule and room assignment, and was coming out when someone called to him.
“Are you Kim Hyeonu from Sales Team 9?”
It was the head of personnel he had seen on his first day at work.
“Yes, that’s right.”
As he walked past, the man said,
“Follow me.”
As he followed the head of personnel down the hallway, he ran into Lee Minju and the man who had gotten out of the car with her.
“Hello, Head of Personnel. I’m Lee Minju from the PR Team.”
“I’m Seok Jiyeol from Planning Team 1.”
It seemed the man’s name was Seok Jiyeol.
The head of personnel, his face expressionless, glanced over the two of them, gave a slight nod, and simply passed by.
The inner thought Hyeonu heard when they greeted the head of personnel.
[No, why is that guy going with the head of personnel? Is it because he’s a parachute hire?]
The look in their eyes as he passed seemed to have grown even more envious.
* * *
The head of personnel sat on a bench lined with Japanese holly trees.
“Sit.”
“Yes, sir.”
He lit a cigarette and opened his mouth.
“Hoo… In company life, if you don’t have ability, you get treated like an idiot, and if bad rumors start going around, you end up dropping out on your own. You understand what I mean, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
After blurting out that rather abrupt remark, Gu Hyeongjun said nothing more.
Once he had finished smoking the cigarette, he rose from the bench.
“If anything happens, tell me. Got it?”
“Yes, I understand.”
He was about to move off, but as if something still did not sit right with him, he spoke again.
“Aren’t you curious why I called you here to say this?”
“I am curious.”
“Your team leader asked me to. A guy who’s on the verge of getting laid off any day now was worrying about you. Not even knowing his own place.”
[Ugh, here I am saying all kinds of filthy things to a parachute hire. Still, if I say this much, he’ll at least throw Team Leader Yang a lifeline when it’s needed. If this guy really does have backing.]
He turned and walked away.
In the end, what he was saying was that, keeping in mind that Hyeonu had the chairman’s backing, he should do something for his team leader.
And that, if necessary, he could also provide help at his own level.
It made Hyeonu think that perhaps this was how connections were formed in company life.
That was right.
Without even realizing it, Hyeonu was slowly becoming connected to the key figures of Mancheon Group.
There were even cases where someone was truly close by, yet he did not know who that person really was.
And at this training program as well, he was about to encounter an extremely important figure.
* * *
The next day…
Min Byeongsu, the president of Mancheon Chemical, was riding in a car.
The place he was headed was Mancheon Group’s Sokcho Training Center.
He was going to say a few words to the new employees of Mancheon Chemical and Mancheon Trading, then have dinner with several first-year employees who had received excellent evaluations.
His mind, however, was complicated.
He had gone to Africa because of the chrome mine issue, but unexpectedly, a good proposal had come in regarding an iron ore mine.
However, there was a rather delicate issue involved in securing the contract.
A slush fund that was burdensome to handle alone.
After all, if an excessive amount of slush money was used in one place all at once, problems were bound to arise.
Moreover, in the midst of a behind-the-scenes battle among the siblings over management succession, he could not recklessly get involved in the iron ore business, which belonged to the domain of Mancheon Steel and Mancheon Trading.
War always began with stepping into someone else’s territory.
It was even more burdensome because he might offend President No Hyeoncheol of Mancheon Trading, who could become the joker in the battle for management succession.
His head was in turmoil.
It was such a good opportunity, too.