Chapter 7
***
Chairman Han coughed softly, but it was so small and weak that it sounded like a ragged exhalation.
Han Dong-woo, who hadn't noticed Han's discomfort, laughed angrily and replied.
"He was unlucky to be caught with a pod. It's sales, sales. Nowadays, he's busy getting married and taking over the Capital."
"That's good, but the co-managers he's picked are pretty shady..................."
"Brother, can you afford to care about other people's children?"
At the same time, Han Dong-jin's one eyebrow shot up.
"What?"
"Aren't you busy with the suspicion of union busting? The control tower is out of control right now. If you don't want to look like president Choi, you're the one who needs to keep your nerves in check."
"Look what he's saying..................."
"Silent!"
A hoarse voice echoed through the dining room. The words cracked like dry tree roots. Everyone shut up in unison at the chairman's shout.
"Now, in front of the whole family...... What the hell are you doing!"
"...."
"How old are you, how old are you! The kids are watching...... Did you not listen to me when I said...... to keep the family harmonious?"
His voice was strained from the effort of speaking out loud, and his words came out in a series of ragged breaths.
"If it's this good in front of.................. me, I can see how..... it's going to be behind, kuluk, what a mess!"
"But Dad, he’s the one who said it first..................."
"Honey, stop it."
Han Dong-woo's wife, Jung Se-jin, stopped her husband. Han Dong-woo clenched his molars, still in a state of frustration.
The atmosphere turned icy cold in an instant. The meal continued in silence. Do-geon casually picked his chopsticks at the side dish of vegetables, muttering to himself.
'Shit here, shit there..................’
It was no secret that the inner workings of chaebol families were generally complicated and dirty. However, there was a more plausible reason for their relationship. Han Dong-jin and Han Dong-woo were fraternal twins, but Han Dong-jin won the title of eldest son by two minutes. In a business world where eldest son succession is the norm, it's not hard to imagine what Han's feelings were.
Of course, Chairman Han had secretly been considering Do-geon’s father, Han Dong-jae, as his successor despite being the third son, but Han Dong-jae had died 18 years earlier, and the dead are dead.
Anyway, Do-geon had no intention of getting involved in any of that shit; he just wanted to keep quiet and get back to America as soon as possible after his grandfather's death.
The last thing he needed was a distraction.
The only sound in the silence was the clinking of cutlery. As if out of nowhere, Jae-yeon, who was sitting next to the chairman, spoke up. "Mr. Chairman, isn't your water a little cold? Should I heat it up?"
The quiet, languid voice broke the silence. For a moment, Do-geon’s gaze met Jae-yeon's, then dropped.
****
The bluish light outside the window gradually dimmed to a dark glow as rows of sensor lights flickered on and off within the high walls.
Inside the second floor of the outbuilding, Do-geon reviewed the documents he had brought with him and pressed the corners of his eyes tiredly.
It had been four days since he'd arrived. His grandfather's condition was still deteriorating and improving, and he was stuck.
He had a lot of company business to take care of. The rush to come to Korea had thrown off all his plans.
'His health is better than I thought, but if I had known it’d be like this, I would have come later....................'
Do-geon flipped through the pages in disbelief. He'd thought his grandfather was as good as ever, though they say he could go from bad to worse in a hurry, but whatever.
He clicked his tongue low and read the lines. He turned the page again, underlined a sentence in the report, and scribbled a note next to it.
"Sensitive matter for investors."
"Mr. Han Do-geon."
His grip on the pen suddenly tightened.
"You're a little on the sensitive side, aren't you?"
His lips twisted faintly. He stared at his note for a moment, then frustratedly released the pen and buried his upper body in his chair. The wheels of the chair screeched backward.
Maybe I'm overreacting.
What if I had a nagging suspicion that she was hiding something.
As if to scare him away, his cell phone vibrated. Do-geon checked the screen. It was Mr. Yoon, the man he'd assigned to run Jeong Jae-yeon’s background check.
His mouth went dry. Do-geon picked up the phone.
"This is Han Do-geon."
[Ah, Mr. Director. I'm calling about the hot lead you mentioned last time. I'd like to briefly explain it to you over the phone and send you a summary via email, is that okay with you?]
"Yeah, that's fine."
Do-geon replied and rose from his seat. As he stood in front of the tinted windows, he caught a glimpse of the great hall that connected the outbuildings to the main building and the pond in front of it.
After clearing his throat, Mr. Yoon began to recite information about Jeong Jae-yeon.
[First of all, to start with family relations, both parents are now deceased. Jae-yeon's father's name is Jeong Young-jin, and he was a night thief when he was younger. When he got older, he just stayed at home].
Night thief. Honestly, I've never met him, and I don't think I'll ever meet him.
[Her mother's real name was Hong Mi-jin, but she used the pseudonym Hong Seri while working in a brothel. Jeong Young-jin was an orphan, and Hong Mi-jin has long since disowned her family, so as of now, Jeong Jae-yeon doesn't appear to have any relatives she's in contact with].
"Do Jeong Jae-yeon or her parents have any connection to Dae-jin, even the slightest?"
[No, it's clean].
"..................I see."
[But this, Jeong Jae-yeon's.................. record as a teenager is a bit sparse, according to a quick glance. Apparently, she ran away from home a lot in middle school].
"Runaway?"
[Yes. She got into an accident in middle school, transferred to a far away school once, and changed runaway shelters a few times].
"If an accident, what kind?"
[It's on her record as an assault].
Assault, that was ridiculous, such a fragile, demure-looking girl, assaulted someone to the point of transferring schools?
He furrowed his brow and continued.
"I heard that she.................. used to work in the entertainment industry, but when was that?"
[Oh, no, I did a little more research on that part, and it seems that as soon as she became an adult, she worked as a waitress at a jjumbo shop owned by an acquaintance of her mother Hong Mi-jin's, and then she also worked as a carpenter, but I'm not sure when that changed].
The more he heard, the more he realized how low life she was. It was also a life that would never involve people from chaebol families. Do-geon sneered.
'What a lowlife....................’
Do-geon was usually at least minimally polite to everyone, not because he was a particularly moral person.
It was just that he'd never let anyone out of his league into his life.
They existed outside the boundaries of his perfect life. So he didn't feel the need to be "polite" to them.
Despite his instinctive revulsion at Jeong Jae-yeon’s life, he continued to ask questions, half out of wonder, half out of sheer curiosity.
-----workshop?
"Is that what she’s always done?"
[No, she didn't last a year, and then she worked as an assistant in a woodworking shop for a few years, and then she opened her own shop].
"She opened her own shop, a woodworking shop?"
[Yeah. It was in Namyangju, Gyeonggi-do, and it was a workshop that did customization and ran hobby classes. There's still a building there, but I'm not sure if it's closed or not anymore].
A woodworking shop in an entertainment center? Just as his doubts were beginning to creep in, Mr. Yoon interjected,
[And it was through a related charity project that she met Chairman Han Yong-seop. Jeong Jae-yeon had been participating in a volunteer project selling crafts made by the disabled, and that must have been how they met].
"------I know that Chairman Han has been doing this charity project for a long time, but is there any circumstance that Jeong Jae-yeon started the workshop on purpose and approached him?"
[I don't know about that-----, but when I was researching the shelter's records, there were some photos of her doing woodworking as part of a youth class, so I wonder if that might have been the motive........]
He didn't deny it outright, but there was a nuance that made him wonder if it was unwarranted. Suddenly, Do-geon stopped looking out the window at the floor, his gaze fixed on one spot. He pulled the phone slightly away from his ear and frowned.
[You asked for a quick check, so I just got the highlights, but I can dig a little deeper if you want].
"------No, I'm good for now, thanks as always for your work."
[You're welcome, I'll email you the summary right away and let me know if you need anything else].
Do-geon didn't take his eyes off the window until he hung up the phone. Beneath the dim sensor light, a woman with long hair and slender silhouette stood on the floor. It was Jeong Jae-yeon.
***
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