“Hoho, why not stay a little longer? Rushing things like this won’t help anything get done. Ah, or is it that you’re in such a hurry because you’re going to start repairs on the departnt store right now...? My goodness, you’ll be the death of .”
“...Phew. I’ll take my leave now.”
In the end, he had to leave Sangam Daily’s headquarters without gaining anything.
He’d only been subjected to humiliating mockery and hadn’t gotten a single useful piece of information.
‘Damn it, if at least a departnt head or bureau chief had shown up, I might’ve been able to apply pressure sohow...’
But with the CEO himself stepping in, pulling rank didn’t work. No, looking back, it was probably proof that Father had been right.
Most likely, this had all been orchestrated under direct orders from Chairman Yoo Seong-pil. They’d already laid the entire plan, and he’d walked right into their web and been toyed with.
‘Still, I gained sothing. At least now I know it’s a project backed by Daehwa Group...’
He wasn’t sure yet how to use that information, but knowing and not knowing were two very different things. With an absolute gap in knowledge, you were bound to be blindsided eventually.
Thinking that way, Lee Cheon-sang returned to Sampoong Group headquarters.
.
.
.
“...So, as Father said, it seems the order did co from Daehwa Group headquarters. The CEO himself ca out. He doesn’t even et with National Assembly mbers unless absolutely necessary.”
–Tak.
Chairman Lee Jun slapped his knee and shouted triumphantly.
“That’s right! I knew it. Didn’t other papers only ntion it in a tiny blurb in the back pages? This is clear evidence that Daehwa Group’s behind it.”
“As expected of you, Chairman! To see right through Yoo Seong-pil’s intentions...!”
It was lip-service flattery, but from the staff’s perspective, it wasn’t entirely wrong—so it counted as high-quality bootlicking.
“Hmph, don’t flatter too much. Hoho, I’ve worked with that guy a few tis—I know how he thinks.”
“B-but... what do we do now...?”
The problem was that knowing didn’t an there was a way to stop it.
Daehwa Group, the #1 conglorate in Korea, was now hunting them directly—who could possibly stop that? And Sampoong Group wasn’t a towering chaebol. It was barely even worthy of the word “group”—just a mid-sized family-run company.
Sure, Sampoong’s assets exceeded hundreds of billions of won... but Daehwa Group was operating in the trillion-won scale.
Chairman Lee Jun knew this well. And he also knew how to fight it.
“There’s nothing to be done. Just endure.”
His smile was sharp and crooked. One of the subordinates’ eyes widened.
“Uh... just endure? But how—”
“Hmph, don’t you /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ know? Hm? Don’t look at the branches—look at the root. Why would Yoo Seong-pil attack us?”
The answer ca naturally.
“Money..., I suppose.”
Why do chaebols fight? Nine tis out of ten, the motive is money.
“Exactly! Departnt stores are a money-making business. Sure, running factories or building structures brings in money too, but the real goldmine is taking money directly from people who already have it.”
The eyes of the businessman, who had made profits by stoking consur desire in a society that condemned luxury, glead intensely. At least this ti, there was no one who could disagree.
He had proven it himself. This business... was profitable.
“Construction’s heyday is over. I an, I set aside construction just for this departnt store business... and word is, even Yoo Seong-pil is focused on semiconductors these days.”
“Hm. I see what you an, Father. Different priorities, is what you’re saying.”
“That’s right, Cheon-sang. For us, the departnt store is top priority. But for Daehwa, it’s semiconductors right now. If we use that to our advantage, even a giant like Daehwa Group can be hit.”
He thumped his chest with pride, as if telling them to trust him.
“All we have to do is show that going after us doesn’t make financial sense. That damn Myeongil Departnt Store—just a place for spoiled girls to waste money, isn’t it? Let’s pump up the advertising, call up so loyal custors! If we do that, they’ll fall back soon enough.”
From a businessman’s perspective, it was a fairly sound judgnt. If you ignored the part about not considering that the building might actually collapse.
“Yes, sir!”
“Once we get through this, it’ll be sumr, won’t it? Wasn’t it scorching hot last ti? Let’s get more air conditioners installed. Oh, and... close off the ceiling areas that’ve sunk. Make sure no one talks. Got it?”
“Yes, sir...”
There was sothing faint and uneasy behind those words.
***
Tilted head.
I cocked my head after receiving a report from my informant inside the newspaper.
[Sampoong Group’s Executive Vice President personally visited Sangam Daily to protest. I’ll explain in more detail when we et tomorrow.]
“Grandfather...?”
What the hell are they talking about?
Logically, Grandfather wouldn’t stir up succession chaos just to swallow a tiny business like that.
Sangam Daily is influential enough to get involved in Daehwa Group’s succession structure. If Daehwa openly interferes here, it sets a precedent for the Do family to start ddling too.
He’s a man who cut off relatives just to avoid internal conflict—what are they even saying?
“I believe... from their position, this was a rational conclusion. Most likely they don’t think it was you who did it, Miss.”
A blonde, blue-eyed bodyguard from Russia (very pretty) gave her opinion.
“Hm... but wouldn’t the rational thing be to start by checking the building’s condition? Still struggling with Korean?”
“...It’s because of you that I haven’t adjusted to Korean culture, Miss. From my perspective, you are the standard, and these people are the outliers. Don’t forget—I lived in the Soviet Union until you took in.”
“Tch. Yelizaveta. It’s been bothering —stop saying ‘eumnida,’ it’s ‘seumnida.’”
“...?”
She folded her arms beneath her chest and blinked with her blue eyes.
“Miss, please don’t tease . I speak Korean well now. The grammar book I used when teaching my brother, and even the Bible, wrote it as ‘eumnida.’”
“That’s from the old days. The spelling changed in ‘89.”
“...!”
The bodyguard, who couldn’t work in Korea due to her foreign appearance and usually operated out of Koreatown in the U.S., opened her eyes wide and trembled.
“To think... I taught Mikhail the wrong way. I am heartbroken.”
“Yeah, you should teach the kids properly.”
I nodded and asked her a question.
“Anyway, what do you think of Sampoong Departnt Store? As a forr architecture student.”
My bodyguards—especially the ones I picked up during the Soviet collapse—were elites among elites. Hiring them as bodyguards was practically an insult.
But to them, that ant nothing. Even forr prosecutors and judges had to sell their bodies to survive. What was being an elite college student worth in that world?
“...Mm. I’m not sure I should be saying this since I dropped out, but... well, I now carry a gun instead of a pen.”
“It’s fine. Even the executives in the construction company don’t know much.”
“...? If they don’t, who does?”
Exactly.
“Well, even though the aesthetics are poor, I was good at physics, so here’s my opinion... structurally, it’s a nightmare.”
“It’s not ‘gujo sipnida,’ it’s ‘gujo imnida.’”
After hearing that, her pale face scrunched up.
“What? But earlier you said ‘eumnida’ beca ‘seumnida.’ Did you trick , Miss?”
Uh... well. What should I say? I’m not a linguist, so I don’t really know how to explain it.
“...It’s a little different.”
“If ‘eumnida’ changed to ‘seumnida,’ shouldn’t ‘imnida’ beco ‘sipnida’? Korean spelling is too hard.”
Muttering, she irritably tapped on a photo of Sampoong Departnt Store.
Visible cracks on the wall, fallen concrete dust. Even the floor of one level had visibly sagged.
“Anyway. Flat slab construction is common, so let’s overlook that. But the warning signs are all there. Leaving this alone is just like the Yeltsin governnt. I’m getting hosick from halfway across the world, but it’s not a pleasant feeling.”
I nodded, then cautiously asked her the most important question.
“Alright then... when do you think it’ll collapse?”
I could roughly predict when stock prices would crash even with big market changes, but for this kind of thing, I needed a specialist’s opinion.
And the architecture student, who had skimd the blueprints and current state of the departnt store, replied as if it were obvious.
“At any ti..., imnida.”
“Any ti?”
“Yes. If soone upstairs moves heavy equipnt, if too many people crowd in suddenly, or just if more ti passes... it could collapse at any mont. Actually, it’s already collapsing.”
The iron fortress was already falling.
Only those who hadn’t noticed, or those who noticed but chose to look away, remained.
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