Chapter 102
Chairman Kim Yeong-gil's son, Kim Ho-yeol, was a typical chaebol heir's wastrel.
Throwing his weight around was a given, and so was causing a scene in bars.
To make matters worse, he had recently been sued for leaving malicious comments online, earning a torrent of abuse from the public.
Nevertheless, the reason Kim Yeong-gil couldn't give up on his son was that he was his only child with his late wife.
And, despite everything, he was intelligent.
Otherwise, he couldn't have gotten into an Ivy League business school in the United States so easily.
He would surely come to his senses someday.
He would surely gain some insight someday.
Thinking that, Kim Yeong-gil had watched over his son.
The unfortunate thing was that it wasn't a very wise judgment.
Kim Ho-yeol never came to his senses, and the moment Kim Yeong-gil retired and his son took the chairman's seat, he began causing all sorts of trouble.
As if that weren't bad enough, he pushed out capable employees to fill positions with his own people.
As a result, the company gradually became a mess, and Kim Ho-yeol was ultimately excluded from management.
The company founded by Kim Yeong-gil's father, Kim Su-gyeong, and built up by Kim Yeong-gil collapsed in a mere ten years.
There was no hope for him.
I wondered what I should say to Chairman Kim Yeong-gil, who was looking at me with a faint glimmer of hope.
"......."
There was at least a little hope in his eyes.
In life, a tiger can have a bastard dog for a child.
And a tiger can be born to a dog.
Honestly, Chairman Kim Yeong-gil was a man who deserved to be called a tiger.
He was kind and led people through virtue.
That wasn't all.
He had even grown the company through outstanding ability, building it with the goal of avoiding enemies rather than gathering allies.
Chairman Kim Yeong-gil spoke to me politely.
"Please speak comfortably, Mr. Kang."
Oof. This is awkward.
"Sir, I'm much younger than you. Please speak comfortably with me."
"Ha ha. It's all right."
"Well, if you insist. Now, shall we begin?"
I held out a card to him.
He glanced at Hong Si-yeon, who had somehow come to sit beside me, let out a small sigh, and turned over the card.
The card was the Lovers upright.
Joy spread across Chairman Kim Yeong-gil's face.
He must have researched the meaning of tarot cards before meeting me.
In tarot, the Lovers signifies unity, passion, and opportunity.
For someone hoping for his son's fresh start, it was a card worth being quite happy about, but...
"Your son isn't going to come to his senses."
"........"
The expression of a man who had thought it was a good card instantly hardened.
Well, hearing that his son would live as a scoundrel for the rest of his life probably wouldn't put him in a good mood.
But for now, that was all there was to say.
"...Is that true?"
"Yes."
"To the point that he couldn't inherit the company...?"
"Yes. Once your son starts running the company, it will go bankrupt within ten years."
"......"
At my cold answer, he squeezed his eyes shut.
Then he asked cautiously.
"I knew he was bad... but is he really that hopeless?"
"Yes."
"...What on earth is that boy going to do?"
"Hmm. Chairman, your son went off saying he was going to start a business, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"And he asked you to invest in it."
"That's right."
"He said he lost that investment money, didn't he?"
"...It's embarrassing, but yes."
"That wasn't an investment."
"...What? What do you mean?"
"Your son gambled with it."
Chairman Kim Yeong-gil staggered.
His expression was one of disbelief.
But I could see it in Chairman Kim Yeong-gil's future.
A future in which he was deeply shocked to learn that his beloved son had taken money to start a business and gambled it all away.
"There is a foreign casino at the Pyro Hotel in Yongsan, isn't there?"
"Yes..."
"Your son has dual citizenship, right? He used that to go there, played cards privately with the foreigners he met there, and lost his money."
"....."
"Ask the manager of the Pyro Hotel. He can show you your son gambling there."
"...That..."
"And if you look at your son's investment records, there will be $1.5 million missing. Since he gambled with it..."
He clenched his fist tightly.
It wasn't that he couldn't accept his son's wrongdoing; it was rage.
"He scams people like this and gambles away investment money. If he becomes chairman, the scale will only grow, won't it?"
"...Ah..."
"And he has an illegitimate child as well."
There was a woman who had given birth to Kim Ho-yeol's child, but Kim Ho-yeol had never acknowledged the child.
He remained single to the end.
That was because he believed getting married would prevent him from meeting new women.
The one fortunate thing was that he had only one illegitimate child by the time Chairman Kim Yeong-gil retired.
"...That, that child of Ho-yeol's... And where is the child's mother...?"
"Would you like to meet them?"
"...Wouldn't that be the right thing to do?"
How desperate did someone have to be for a voice like that to come out?
But since he had asked, I had no choice but to give him an answer.
"The two of them are in Yongsan. She works at a restaurant called Dure Jokbal in Yongsan."
"A jokbal restaurant...?"
"Yes. She... Hmm. How should I put this? She's an orphan."
"What?!"
"Kim Ho-yeol seduced that young woman, got her pregnant, and abandoned her. But because she was an orphan, she could never abandon her own child."
"...Ahhhh... To do that to such a child... That son of a bitch...!!"
"So she quit the company she had been working for and gave birth. Since then, she has raised the child while working both day and night shifts. And the child started elementary school this year."
While she worked, the child was looked after by an older female friend.
After hearing the truth, Chairman Kim Yeong-gil covered his face and began breathing heavily.
"A-Are you all right?"
Hong Si-yeon, who was sitting beside me, grew flustered and tried to calm him down.
She asked the manager for some cold water and handed it to him, and Chairman Kim Yeong-gil gulped it down.
Then he slowly loosened his tie.
"Is, is that all?"
"There are many other things besides this. For instance, he threw his weight around with the company's employees..."
"......"
"Oh. Do you have an executive director named Oh Yu-cheon?"
"Yes... He's a very important person in the company. To me, he's like an older brother..."
"Apparently, your son got completely drunk and hurled every possible insult at him."
"......."
Chairman Kim Yeong-gil despaired upon realizing that his son wasn't merely an ordinary wastrel.
And because he was curious, I told him about the things he would eventually learn about Kim Ho-yeol in the future.
"Um, Noah? I think Chairman Kim Yeong-gil's HP is already at 0..."
Hong Si-yeon spoke as he slumped limply in his chair.
Well, perhaps we should stop here.
"...I never imagined my son could really be this bad...."
"You can choose to believe your son instead of me. If you ask him, he'll insist none of it is true."
"...Of course he will. That son of a bitch is hopeless... But he was intelligent, so I thought I could trust him with the future of the company..."
But if he was this hopeless, there was nothing that could be done.
Chairman Kim Yeong-gil let out a heavy sigh.
"What should I do?"
"If there's no suitable person to inherit the company, you should bring in a professional manager."
That would be the best option.
"And as for my grandchild... I think it would be better if I took him in myself."
"Really?"
"Yes. Whether I like him or not, he is still my flesh and blood."
Even if he was the son of that damned bastard.
The child was still innocent.
Kim Yeong-gil spoke firmly, and at that moment, the future changed.
Chairman Kim Yeong-gil was impressed by the intelligence of his newly discovered grandson.
And he resolved to raise that grandson properly.
Later, when his grandson skipped grades, graduated from a famous overseas university at the age of twenty, and returned home, he gave him a position in the company.
From there, the boy steadily worked his way up, eventually becoming chairman and running the company well.
He was completely different from his father, who ruined the company in ten years.
"That's good. Your grandson will grow up to be an outstanding person."
"He will...?"
"Yes. However, the future is always changing. So you must protect and support your grandson."
Otherwise, he would never have the chance to distinguish himself.
Chairman Kim Yeong-gil nodded.
"Thank you so much. And... I was thinking that perhaps we could repay you for this by giving you shares in our company..."
"Yes. That sounds fine. But you should discuss that with Ms. Si-yeon here rather than me..."
I didn't know much about that sort of thing.
Hong Si-yeon handled everything for me, so I simply trusted her and left it to her.
She smiled and discussed it with Chairman Kim Yeong-gil.
"I think we got a pretty good deal."
She smiled proudly.
Then she told me how much my income would be this year.
Hmm...
At this rate, money would pile up even if I did nothing but breathe.
"By the way, I never imagined Kim Ho-yeol was that much of a piece of trash..."
"You know him, don't you?"
"I know him. I've seen him a few times, but I never knew he was that much of a piece of trash."
"The world is big, and there are plenty of pieces of trash in it."
"After this, I think even more chairmen will become interested in Noah..."
"I suppose so."
That didn't seem likely to change anything in particular, though.
.
.
.
A few days after meeting Chairman Kim Yeong-gil,
Hong Si-yeon came to visit again.
"You must be free these days?"
"Hehe. Yes. The business in China has wrapped up, after all."
"Ah, I see."
"But Noah, do you always just stay in cafés like this?"
"I have a home too, you know."
"No... I mean, don't you ever go out somewhere for fun?"
"Would you like to go somewhere?"
"Yes."
"Then shall we? Where would be a good place to go..."
That was when it happened.
The café door was thrown open, and a fierce-looking man in his early thirties hurried inside.
He took off the sunglasses he was wearing, looked around the shop, and quickly approached me.
"Are you Mr. Kang Noah?"
"That's right."
"You'd better leave immediately."
His reaction was calm but slightly urgent, and the gazes of Mr. Cheolhon and Hong Si-yeon at the next table changed.
But something else was more important.
"Before that, why don't we turn this over first?"
He glared at the card I held out, then calmly turned it over.
It was the Ten of Spades.
I looked straight at him and spoke.
"Mr. Yoo Gi-tae, the second son of Yoo Jeong-mu, president of Goheung Foods. Kim Ho-yeol ordered you to bring me to him."
His eyes were trembling.
"...Yes. That bastard is after you. He told me to bring you to him, but I'll tell him I lost you. So hurry...!!"
I smiled at him.
"Mr. Yoo Gi-tae."
"...Yes."
"There's no reason for you to stay beside a sinking ship, is there?"
That guy had been abandoned by his own father.
There was no reason for him to stay at that bastard's side while being abused by him, right?
Even if the order had come from his own older brother.