The More You Dig, the More You Sell, the Better the Deal

March 21, 1992.

Exactly one year after my regression, I returned to Garden Queens.

With both hands on the wheel of a four-seater truck, I looked out over the town’s streets.

“······.”

Only a year ago, this had been a quiet backwater in the middle of nowhere.

Now it was different.

Along the two-lane road, long-haul trailers with Texas and Oklahoma plates rolled in steady lines, and the diners by the roadside were packed with truckers out for lunch.

The signs on the new shops lining the street caught my eye.

.

.

.

Our company’s logo, yellow with black droplets, had practically taken over Main Street.

It was proof that my father’s gas station was no longer just a place to buy fuel, but a rest stop for truckers, a provider of convenience, and, beyond that, the hub of the town’s economy.

So this is what happens when you expand the infrastructure.

It had all started with the gold mine in Wishville.

To develop a mine, you needed workers. And once workers gathered, they needed somewhere to eat, sleep, and spend their time.

So I started bringing in the necessary conveniences one by one: lodging, restaurants, laundromats, barbershops, convenience stores, bathhouses.

The problem was that Wishville was such a dead-end little town, with fewer than two hundred people, that there was no labor force at all to run those facilities.

So I built it myself.

I bought up the nearby shops that had gone bankrupt in the recession at bargain prices, moved their operations, or built new facilities from scratch.

I hired en masse from among the self-employed owners who had been driven under, and I paid the bonuses for mine workers in the form of “vouchers” that could only be spent at those facilities.

The structure was simple: the wages I paid out came back into the businesses I had created and were spent on employees I had hired.

Once that kind of ecosystem was in place, my money stopped leaking out into the world and instead kept spinning in my own hands, feeding countless people along the way.

When a mine worker got paid, he ate at a Lee Energy direct-run restaurant, slept at a Lee Energy direct-run motel, dropped his laundry at a Lee Energy direct-run laundromat, and washed up at a Lee Energy direct-run bathhouse.

The money that went out came straight back into my safe, and with that I paid everyone’s next month’s wages all over again.

Of course, direct management alone had its limits.

If I tried to run every shop myself, the administrative headcount would balloon exponentially, and with it the fixed costs.

So I ran a partnership model alongside it.

Instead of branding their stores with Lee Energy signage, I gave local mom-and-pop owners the right to accept vouchers from the mine workers.

From their point of view, there was no reason to refuse.

When customers suddenly started flooding a shop that had been suffocating under the recession, who in their right mind would turn that away?

I took 3 percent of monthly sales as the price of the sign, and in return I handled voucher settlement, promotion, and quality control.

I earned margins at the company-owned stores and royalties from the partnered ones.

After confirming that this system worked well in Wishville, I transplanted the same structure back to my hometown of Garden Queens.

It was even easier to apply here than in Wishville.

Garden Queens already had the solid network of the Korean community led by my father and uncle.

I bought up a string of bankrupt grocery stores and opened Lee Energy Market, then purchased vacant buildings and turned them into twenty-four-hour convenience stores, motels, and bathhouses in quick succession.

During the construction and remodeling, I hired a large number of workers, which brought an unprecedented liveliness to the labor market.

I also approached the existing small business owners, the restaurants, laundromats, and barbershops, and proposed partnerships. Most of them accepted.

And just like that, the yellow logo with black droplets spread across the entire town.

The initial revenue structure was simple.

Just as in Wishville, truckers who fueled up at our gas station chain received Lee Energy Points in the form of vouchers.

Those vouchers, and the local currency they functioned as, could be spent like cash at Lee Energy direct-run stores and partner stores.

From the truckers’ point of view, there was no reason to go anywhere else.

They could fuel up, eat, sleep, and do their laundry all under one brand, all nearby, and most importantly, they could use the bonus points earned from fuel they were going to buy anyway to get free shopping.

Once points started accumulating, loyalty followed.

A trucker who fueled up at our station once would come back again, and then again after that.

As more visitors came through and gas station sales rose, convenience store sales rose with them; as convenience store sales rose, restaurant sales followed; as restaurant sales rose, motel sales rose right along with them.

A beautifully healthy virtuous cycle.

And a fixed percentage of all that revenue flowed into my pocket.

Direct-run stores gave me all of their net profit; partner stores gave me a very cheap 3 percent of sales.

On top of that, even the fuel sold at my father’s station was refined from crude oil pumped from my own field, so once you subtracted drilling and refining costs, the production cost was practically nonexistent.

Dig more, sell more, and I was left with profit to spare.

Money began circulating actively throughout the town.

The residents of Garden Queens now seemed to call my father not “the immigrant Lee,” but “Boss Lee” or “Chairman Lee.”

It was the kind of title reserved for a local power broker, someone who controlled the regional economy, someone worthy of respect as a true pillar of the town.

A savior who had given jobs to a dying town and set money flowing again.

That was the status my parents now held in Garden Queens.

Honestly, it was a little satisfying.

When I had spoken with my mother on the phone a few days earlier, she had told me the local gossip in a voice so bright it practically sparkled.

There was an old neighbor nearby named Myers, who ran a tool-rental shop.

Long ago, when my father had just immigrated and gone there to borrow tools to fix his truck, the man had barred him at the door, sneering that he didn’t lend to “stinking Chinese bastards.”

And then, apparently, not long ago, that same old man ran into my father on the street, whipped off his hat without warning, and bent at the waist in a ninety-degree Eastern-style bow.

“Oh my, Chairman Lee! I hear your business is booming these days! Please, do use our store’s goods as well! Our quality is excellent! We carry many things used in China too!”

The tool-rental shop had been on the verge of bankruptcy in the recession, and he’d been desperate to become one of our franchisees, she said.

My mother laughed through the entire call, clearly relieved to the bone.

“And then the old man hurried off somewhere and even brought your father coffee himself, asking how many spoonfuls of sugar Chinese people usually put in! He kept going on about China this and China that, so I don’t think he was trying to be racist. He really must have thought we were Chinese!”

At that, I had burst out laughing before I could stop myself.

The reunion atmosphere will be a little different too, then.

Lost in those thoughts, I drove on.

Then.

“Wow-”

Caroline, seated in the passenger seat and looking out the window, turned to me.

“The last time I came to visit my cousin here, it was a complete country town. Now there are so many convenience facilities, Boss?”

Caroline Channing.

Ever since she’d started working as my secretary, she had called me Boss.

In other words, she used the same title the townspeople used for my father.

I had once promised to show Caroline around Garden Queens, and as a side benefit I had brought her along so she could get some practical experience handling scheduling, transportation bookings, and the like.

And maybe, just maybe, her beauty and social skills would also help in gathering public opinion from the community.

Then Caroline turned to me and asked,

“By the way, to be honest, this is a little unexpected.”

“What is?”

“A reunion. It feels almost sentimental, which doesn’t really seem like your style, Boss. For successful people, isn’t a reunion usually just a waste of time?”

Caroline looked out at the Lee Energy shops sliding past the window and went on.

“At a reunion, you’ve got the friend who sells insurance, the friend handing out wedding invitations, and then everyone else probably just digging up worthless old memories or trying to soothe their inferiority complexes by showing off their shallow success. Hehe, am I being too prejudiced?”

But it was, in its way, an accurate observation.

Even at Harvard, reunions were little more than social mixers for maintaining connections, and a rural high school reunion would be even more of a pointless exercise.

As I turned the wheel, I replied calmly,

“Usually, yes.”

“Then why go at all? Why squeeze it into your schedule when you’re already busy?”

Caroline tilted her head, giving me a teasing look.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to meet your first love or something. Is that it? Boss’s secret romance? Now I’m curious. No, not curious, very curious!”

“For me, this reunion isn’t a nostalgia trip. It’s more like a kind of town hall meeting.”

“A town hall meeting?”

“Right. I’m going to set up a drilling company here. I’ll need to buy up more land bit by bit, lay pipeline, and hire a large outside workforce. If the big corporations start interfering, things get annoying.”

“Ah. So before that, you’re going to make the local residents your allies first...”

“Exactly. That’s why I transplanted the same infrastructure model I used for the mine into Garden Queens. To win over the locals.”

“Then even if the big corporations want to come in and stick a straw in, they won’t be able to!”

“That’s right. The choice between slick outside speculators and a second-generation hometown businessman who was born here, grew up here, and reinvests his earnings in the community is obvious. My goal is to make people hear the noise of a drill not as pollution, but as the sound of our town getting rich.”

“That’s so like you, Boss. I thought this was going to be a sentimental homecoming, but it turns out it’s a full-on business trip. This is exciting.”

“Good. Since you’re here, start getting used to secretary work too.”

“Leave it to me. Making sure Boss looks good is the one thing I’m confident about.”

Caroline tugged lightly at my tie and winked.

“Though I’m having a dilemma. Should I go with the concept of a cool, icy beauty secretary today, or a devoted partner who’s hopelessly smitten with her boss?”

“······? Does that really matter? Just do whatever you want.”

Before long, the car pulled into the parking lot of the gymnasium at Garden Queens Public High School, the familiar red-brick building.

A banner reading Welcome! Alumni Reunion! fluttered in the wind at the gym entrance.

Pushing open the heavy iron doors of the gym, I was hit in the face by warm, damp air.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

From the speakers came Right Said Fred’s new song, I’m Too Sexy.

I could see dozens of classmates scattered in small clusters, plastic cups in hand, chatting in low, restless bursts.

Then.

“······!”

“······!”

“······!”

The moment I stepped into the hall, the noisy chatter slowly began to die down.

Dozens of eyes locked all at once on me and on Caroline standing behind me.

I was dressed in a fine Italian suit.

And beside me stood Caroline.

“Boss, I’ll wait over here. Please call me anytime if anything comes up.”

It seemed she had chosen today’s concept as “cool beauty ice-princess secretary.”

I walked toward the center of the party.

I could tell at a glance.

The classmates no longer saw me as one of them. They saw me as the king of this community, or as the employer who gave jobs and paychecks to their parents and siblings.

Whispers drifted from all around.

“That’s him, right? Sanha Lee.”

“He’s completely different. I didn’t even recognize him.”

“Look at his clothes. Is that Armani? It probably cost more than my dad’s car.”

“Who’s the woman next to him? A model?”

“She just called him Boss a second ago. Must be his secretary.”

I moved forward slowly.

The crowd naturally parted left and right to make a path for me.

The first to break the silence were ordinary guys with neither especially good nor especially bad relations to me, the sort I had exchanged a sentence or two with in school.

“H-hey, welcome! Sanha... no, Mr. Lee.”

A man in horn-rimmed glasses held out a hesitant hand.

It was Mike, from my old class.

“Long time no see, Mike. Let’s speak casually, all right? It’s a reunion.”

When I took his hand and shook it warmly, his face lit up at once.

“R-right! Good to see you! Wow, it’s been forever. You look so much better now! I think you even got taller! I heard you went to Harvard! Congratulations, even if I’m late!”

“Thanks. How’ve you been?”

“Same as always, really. Looking for work after graduation. If anything comes up later, please hire me. Oh! And actually, my father works as a manager at your gas station number eight. His name is William...”

“Ah, Manager William! Of course I know him. I’m always grateful for how hard he works. Honestly, that station runs because of him. If it weren’t for Mr. William, I’d really have been in trouble.”

“R-really? That’s a relief! It’s the first real job my dad’s had in ages. The recession has been brutal lately. He got laid off from his old company and used to drink every day, but lately alcohol is completely! Absolutely! Not a drop!”

“That’s great to hear. Bring me your resume anytime too; I’ll give it top priority. I’m actually putting together a local-talent-first hiring policy right now.”

As Mike and I fell naturally into conversation, the other friends seemed encouraged and started stepping closer too.

“Sanha! Do you remember me? I’m Jessica! You were always number one, and I was always number two.”

A curly-haired woman waved as she approached.

I greeted her in kind, warmly.

“How could I not remember you? We were always competing over grades.”

“Wow, thanks for remembering! I really wanted to say hello. My little brother just got hired part-time at the laundromat your company runs!”

“Is that so? What’s his name? I’ll take care of him when he comes by.”

“Really? Thank you! My brother’s name is Charles! He looks just like me, so you can’t miss him. Think of him as the short-haired version of me!”

Jessica smiled brightly and clasped her hands together.

Then, from behind Jessica, a broad-shouldered guy I vaguely recognized raised a hand and shouted,

“Sanha. Do you remember me? We used to play basketball together sometimes...”

“Of course I remember you, Austin. I didn’t have any friends, so I was always practicing dribbling alone, and you were the one who put me on the team so I could actually play games.”

“Wow! I’m seriously so moved that you remember me!”

“What’s there to be moved about? How’ve you been?”

“Good. I actually sent my resume to your company this time. Along with my uncle.”

“Did you? Which company?”

“The Lee Energy transport team! The first round of results is next week, so I’m super nervous!”

“Don’t be. I’ll make sure they hire you right away.”

“R-really?”

“What are friends for?”

“Thanks! Thanks, Sanha! My uncle and I even pooled our money and bought a new truck this time! It’s used, but still...”

Before long, classmates from the entire hall swarmed over.

“Sanha! I’m Tony! We used to snack together in the school store! Anyway, my little sister Mila runs a food truck, but she’s been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the red every month. But lately she says she’s been going often to the area around your new factory! She says the workers there buy a lot, so now she’s finally barely avoiding losses.”

“Ah, right. There really weren’t many restaurants over there, so the employees were complaining. How about this? Mila can work inside the factory cafeteria instead. That way her income will be steady, and if the new menu is well received, she’ll get a bonus too.”

“Wow! Really? We can do that? If that’s possible, I’d be incredibly grateful!”

And so on, countless requests for jobs followed.

To classmates looking for work in the recession, I handed out jobs immediately, and to classmates already working for my affiliates, I promised raises, tips, or bonuses on the basis of a local-talent-first hiring policy.

And when I answered yes to every job request from classmates’ families, friends, and acquaintances, the reunion atmosphere changed dramatically, growing warm and almost cheerful.

Then, along with a strong scent of perfume, a familiar face appeared.

“Oh, Sanha! You finally came!”

It was Stephanie.

The waitress from the cafe I frequented had dressed herself up beautifully and came to my side.

“Long time no see, Stephanie. Good to see you.”

“Mhm! I’m so happy to see you too!”

“You been doing well?”

“Not really. The customer who used to stuff my pocket with two- or three-hundred-dollar tips every time he came by doesn’t come anymore.”

Stephanie tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled shyly.

That set the surrounding crowd buzzing again.

“Wow, Sanha really gives out two- or three-hundred-dollar tips at a time?”

“Different level. Completely different league.”

“Of course. You saw how he just fixed my mother’s job situation with one phone call.”

For reasons I couldn’t quite explain, Stephanie seemed to lift her shoulders a little higher at the praise aimed my way.

Then she said,

“Oh, Sanha. Do you remember that time? The dance party two years ago. You asked me to dance, didn’t you?”

To be honest, I didn’t remember clearly, but I nodded anyway.

“I did. I thought you turned me down, though I can’t remember why.”

“Never! It wasn’t because I didn’t like you or anything! I think I was just a little tired that day!”

“Was that so? Didn’t you dance with the guy who was vice captain of the football team?”

“No way! I’m telling you, I was tired that day, so I didn’t dance with anyone! Really, I didn’t!”

Stephanie let out a wistful sigh.

“Thinking about it now, I really regret not dancing with you. If it were now, would it still count? That dance request from that night... is it still valid?”

Just then, another voice came from beside us.

“Boss. Sorry to interrupt while you’re talking with old friends. You have one hour left until your next appointment, so I’m informing you in advance to avoid any issues.”

Caroline reported to me in her calm tone.

There wasn’t actually another appointment, but I nodded with suitable seriousness.

Meanwhile.

“······.”

Stephanie stared blankly at Caroline.

Then she quickly scanned the luxury suit Caroline was wearing, the one I had bought her before coming here, from head to toe.

“Oh my... are you his secretary?”

“Yes. I help Boss with his work at Harvard.”

“You’re from Harvard too?”

“Yes.”

Caroline answered with a smile.

Stephanie quietly bit her lip while still smiling.

“······.”

“······.”

When the two women stood there facing each other with polite, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wordless smiles,

“!”

my gaze locked onto a group gathered in a corner of the hall.

Four or five big men, whom I remembered as the starters on the football team, were crouched together with punch bowls in hand.

Back in school, they had been the ones who would deliberately shoulder-check me in the hallway or pull their eyes into slits and mutter “ching-chong” as they passed.

I remembered my father’s worn work clothes from the shabby gas station he used to run in town, the black grease always caked under his fingernails.

They had pinched their noses and said they could smell it on me, and sometimes they had even punched me in the stomach.

They looked down on Asians, saying we were the sort who should do dirty, dangerous work.

But now they were hunched up tight, glancing at one another nervously.

Half of their parents worked as attendants at our gas stations, the other half drove trucks for subcontractors contracted with our company, and the rest were still sending in résumés and waiting desperately for a chance at employment.

As I walked toward them, they all averted their eyes at once.

But I stopped right in front of them.

Sensing that there was no way out, Robert, the football captain and their apparent leader, shut his eyes tightly.

He was two heads taller than me, but his gaze was fixed on the tips of my shoes.

“Uh... Sanha. You came. Long ti...”

“Yeah, long time no see. Why are you acting so awkward?”

“It’s just...”

Robert rubbed his sweat-soaked hands against his sides.

“My dad... when he heard I was coming to the reunion today... he really told me... that if you happened to show up... I absolutely wasn’t allowed to make any mistakes with you...”

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Robert’s father runs a restaurant nearby, and more than ninety percent of his customers are employees of the factory I built.

In other words, with a single word from me, Robert’s family would lose ninety percent of its household income.

Watching the guys who used to be so high and mighty in school now shrink themselves in the real world left me with a feeling that was hard to define.

I had thought that this would feel refreshing, satisfying even, but when it actually happened, all that remained was a vague discomfort.

I tapped Robert’s arm lightly.

Robert jerked as if he’d touched an electric shock baton and nearly jumped in place.

“Still, it’s good to see you like this. You’re not holding any grudge about the old days or anything, right?”

“A-grudge? Look how we ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠treated you! We’re the ones who should be sorry... no, who should apologize...”

“Forget it. Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to keep bringing up childhood stuff. I really don’t care at all. I’m just glad to see you after so long, that’s all.”

That wasn’t an empty courtesy. It was the truth.

From the perspective of a regressor, those events were already decades in the past, and I had no desire to growl about them now.

Looking at them now, they were just soft-faced young country boys, that was all.

With Robert at the center, everyone’s expressions brightened at once.

“R-really? You’re really forgiving us?”

“I keep telling you, there’s nothing to forgive.”

“T-th-th-thank you! Thank you, Sanha! We really thought we were done for... It’d be one thing if only we paid the price, but we were terrified our families might get dragged down because of us too...”

At last, Robert even started to cry.

Maybe because the recession was so severe, everyone seemed to be worrying a great deal about jobs for their families and friends.

I patted Robert and the others on the shoulder and said,

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Everything will work out.”

And then I slid in the real purpose at the end.

“By the way, Robert. I wanted to ask you a little about the mood around town these days...”

Should I start my public opinion survey for the new business now?