Seong Ha-yeong (2)
The dining table was crowded with more side dishes than anyone could count.
Only after Seong Hun picked up his spoon did the rest of the Ilseong family follow suit.
Seong Ha-yeong sat beside Seong Hun and ate in silence.
She had only one thought in her head: finish quickly, stand up, and get out of this house.
But Seong Hun kept talking to her, and she could not even eat properly.
“How’s work going?”
“It’s manageable.”
“Not too hard?”
“I’m fine.”
“Anyone you’re seeing?”
“No.”
“Want this old man to introduce someone?”
“I’m okay.”
Seong Hun’s words were warm, like an affectionate grandfather’s, while Seong Ha-yeong’s answers were as cold as ice.
The rest of the family looked displeased.
“Ha-yeong. Your grandfather is speaking. Is that any way to answer?”
Her uncle, Seong Gi-hyeon, chided her with thinly veiled annoyance.
Seong Ha-yeong said nothing and looked at him.
The moment she saw him, nausea rose in her throat.
Not just him—the entire table was disgusting.
Filth. Less than animals.
She clenched her molars so hard they ached.
There had been a time, long ago, when she had been close with them.
A time when everyone gathered in this house, laughing together and running across the lawn in peace.
Then Seong Hun called her again.
“Ha-yeong.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“That’s enough now. Stop working for the state and come under your grandfather’s wing.”
At his words, the atmosphere that had only just managed to stay cordial froze over.
“Come on, Father. Why stir up the girl when she’s doing well?”
“Exactly, Father. It would be wonderful for our family to have someone in the presidential office.”
Before Seong Ha-yeong could say a word, Seong Gi-hyeon and his wife, Kim Mi-young, cut in and stole her answer away.
But Seong Hun did not even glance at his second son and daughter-in-law.
His eyes were fixed only on his granddaughter.
“Construction, chemicals, defense—anywhere you want, I’ll send you there.”
“Really?”
“Ha ha ha. So you’re genuinely interested? Just say the word.”
“What about Ilseong Materials?”
Seong Hun had already distributed stakes in the key affiliates to his children several years ago.
But the shares in Ilseong Materials, the core company that controlled the Ilseong Group, were still held solely by Seong Hun.
So when Seong Ha-yeong named that one affiliate, everyone at the table went rigid.
“If you want it, I’ll make room for you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Of course, she had no intention of doing any such thing.
She wanted nothing to do with the Ilseong Group.
Still, she did want to shove a nasty surprise down the throats of the blood relatives seated at the table.
As she had hoped, they all wore expressions like they’d swallowed stones and glared at her.
After the meal ended, Seong Ha-yeong left Seong Hun’s mansionlike home.
Before she left, Seong Hun told her to stay for dinner too, but she used work as an excuse and stood up anyway.
Seong Gi-hyeon and his wife, Kim Mi-young, saw her to the front door.
“Hey.”
Kim Mi-young called after her in a dissatisfied tone, giving her a side-eyed look.
“Yes?”
“Even if your grandfather’s acting all warm now, you know better than anyone that he could turn on you any time.”
Seong Ha-yeong knew it very well.
That fickleness was exactly why her father had ended up the way he did.
“If you’re going to come back, go to the cultural foundation or the department store. Not Materials.”
“Why?”
“What…?”
“Why not? It used to be our father’s.”
“……!”
“See you again next time.”
Even then, Seong Ha-yeong did not bow her head.
Leaving behind the hostile stares fixed on her back, she slowly made her way down the steep hill of Seongbuk-dong.
She felt lighter than she had when she first stepped into that house.
And after Seong Ha-yeong left, the Ilseong family rushed one after another into Seong Hun’s study.
“Father, are you really going to put Ha-yeong to work?”
“Exactly. If she keeps working in the presidential office, won’t that help us later too?”
“If you want to keep her close, why not assign her to the baseball team or the cultural foundation?”
Seong Hun quietly drank the oolong tea on his desk.
Before, even when he saw his children clawing at one another over every last scrap, he had felt nothing.
Had he himself not fought his own brothers in a brutal struggle for blood and inheritance?
He had always thought it was only natural.
He had even believed that only the one who won such a fight deserved to inherit a company.
I’ve grown old, haven’t I…
But now, as he stood on the brink of eighty, watching them made him feel sour instead of indifferent.
And this was because, in the end, that struggle had led to the ruin of his eldest son.
“All of you, leave.”
Seong Hun sent his children away.
Then he called for the chief secretary, Choi Tae-seong.
“You were looking for me?”
For twenty years, he had supported Seong Hun and handled whatever dirty work was needed.
He was the man known as Seong Hun’s right hand.
“The more Ha-yeong grows, the more she looks like her father. That straight nose, that sharp eyeshape—she’s the spitting image.”
“Is that so?”
“She was still a little kid at her father’s funeral, but now she’s grown into a fine young woman.”
“Lady Ha-yeong has matured a great deal.”
“Is Ha-yeong doing well?”
“Her reputation around her is good. She seems to be handling her work quite well, too. I understand she’s also earned the trust of the newly appointed chief of the security office.”
“Find out a little more.”
“Yes, sir.”
After Choi Tae-seong left, Seong Hun fell into thought.
He had handed down the major affiliates to his children, but the profits had been shrinking year by year.
And his children’s abilities were nowhere near what he had expected.
At a time like this, Seong Ha-yeong’s appearance might be just the thing to sharpen the slackened nerves of his children.
And if he judged that his own blood granddaughter had the makings of someone who could lead the group, then Seong Hun would place Ilseong Group in her hands.
* * *
At a bar in Haebangchon, Itaewon.
“All right, everyone, cheers!”
Ha Seok-jun raised the beer bottle in his hand.
Kang-hae and Seong Ha-yeong clinked their bottles against his.
Clang.
On a Saturday night, Itaewon’s Haebangchon was packed with people out to enjoy the weekend, and Kang-hae, Seong Ha-yeong, and Ha Seok-jun were among them.
Kang-hae and Seong Ha-yeong had both been summoned by Ha Seok-jun.
Gulp, gulp, gulp—
As soon as their bottles touched, Seong Ha-yeong drank half her beer in one go.
The call to go drinking the moment she left her grandfather’s house had been more than welcome, and it felt as if the congestion from the day had been blown clean out of her chest.
And Kang-hae, after everything he had gone through in Macau, needed a drink just as badly.
“Ha ha ha. Seeing you two like this makes me happy. Aren’t we the seasoned warriors who pulled off some big things together, all the way from Hong Kong to Macau?”
Ha Seok-jun was genuinely buoyant, and he chatted away excitedly about what had happened in Hong Kong and Macau.
But before long, he shut his mouth.
He had been distracted by two beauties entering the bar.
At a glance, the two women who walked in were stunningly beautiful, and their clothes and features made it obvious they were not Korean.
Everyone in the bar turned to look at them.
Ha Seok-jun, too, stared blankly, completely taken in by the sight.
I want to ask them to hang out…!
Should I ask them to hang out…?!
This is Itaewon, after all?!
While Ha Seok-jun swallowed the words he could never bring himself to say out loud, the women walked over to his table.
“Can we join you?”
The taller of the two asked, looking at Ha Seok-jun.
Ha Seok-jun still couldn’t tell whether he was dreaming or awake, and he kept his mouth shut.
“We’re exchange students. We came here to hang out. Itaewon.”
The shorter woman said this while looking at Kang-hae.
“Oh, of course, of course. Sit down, sit down, please.”
Ha Seok-jun offered them seats without even asking Kang-hae or Seong Ha-yeong for their opinion.
“You’re very kind.”
“Thank you.”
The two women smiled at him.
And Ha Seok-jun thought that smile was angelic.
* * *
Two days earlier.
A warehouse at Heirin Port in Macau.
Tony Jeong, the VIP manager in charge of the Venetian Casino, was being surrounded by Macau triad gangsters and beaten mercilessly.
“Hah… hah… hah…”
Tony Jeong lay sprawled on the floor, gasping for breath.
Then, a moment later, he heard the warehouse door open, followed by the click of high heels.
Click, click—
Tony Jeong forced his eyelids open and looked up at the face of the woman standing over him in a Versace dress.
Stacy Ho.
The eldest daughter of Stephen Ho, king of Macau, and the owner of Grand Lisxua and Lisxua Casino.
Why is she here…?
The moment Tony Jeong saw Stacy Ho, he tried to remember why he had been dragged here.
But he couldn’t think of a single convincing reason.
Stacy Ho knew that those with shares in MS Holdings had sided with Miki Ho.
She had been turning over every stone, and she found out that Miki Ho had gotten to them with materials showing their shipping lines running between North Korea and Macau had been involved in illegal activity.
Those were the very materials Stacy had also sought in order to take control of their leashes.
But she had not been able to find them.
How did he find what even I couldn’t?
She needed to know how that little brother she had always dismissed as harmless had managed to dig them up.
“Why are you doing this…?” Tony Jeong asked Stacy Ho in a voice full of terror.
“My little brother seems to have done something rather adorable lately.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“That’s heartbreaking. Why do you keep underestimating yourself?”
“That’s all I did, ma’am—bring in people who could play a game with your brother.”
“There. You see?”
“What…?”
“You already know a great deal.”
After that, Tony Jeong began rattling off the names of the people who had stayed at the Venetian recently and played games with Miki Ho.
And the moment he mentioned a Korean couple in their twenties, Stacy Ho felt something click into place.
She ordered her secretary to look into them.
With one phone call, the secretary tracked down the passport information they had used when checking into the Venetian.
“The woman works for South Korea’s National Security Office.”
“The National Security Office?”
“It’s an agency directly under the South Korean presidential office.”
“……”
Stacy Ho sank into thought for a long moment.
Did the South Korean government get involved?
She shook her head.
After long consideration, she concluded that the South Korean government had not been involved.
If they had been trying to stop the North Korea deal, they would not have handled it this way.
“He’s a good-looking one.”
Stacy Ho said this as she looked at Kang-hae and Seong Ha-yeong in the CCTV footage from the Venetian Hotel.
“What should we do?”
“If we don’t show our dear little brother anything at all, what kind of dignity would that leave me with as his sister?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Stacy Ho’s secretary made another call somewhere.
“They’re leaving for South Korea right away.”
The report came the moment the call ended.
“Who’s going?”
“Lin Xiaojing and Chu Meijun.”
“Good.”
Those were names Stacy Ho knew very well.
Killers raised by the Macau triad’s Uyuk faction.
* * *
Drunk now, Ha Seok-jun stared at the shorter of the two exchange students seated across from him and hummed happily to himself.
I found her, my love, the one I was looking for…!
Fair skin, a small face, delicate shoulders and a neckline fully on display in a ponytail, dimples that appeared every time she smiled, eyes that looked as if diamonds had been set into them.
She looked like the heroine of the Taiwanese youth films he had loved in his childhood.
Ha Seok-jun decided then and there that he absolutely had to get her number.
So he used the alcohol in his blood as an excuse and kept firing questions at her without pause.
“What’s your major?”
“When did you come to Korea?”
“What Korean food do you like?”
“What do you think about Korean men?”
“What do you think about Korean men in their thirties?”
“What do you think about Korean men in their thirties with stable incomes?”
Ha Seok-jun’s questions grew more and more blatant.
Yet she showed no annoyance, answering every one of his questions with apparent sincerity.
And as Ha Seok-jun kept talking with them, he realized something important he had failed to ask.
“Ah, come to think of it, we still don’t even know each other’s names. I’m Ha Seok-jun. This here is Na Kang-hae, and this is Seong Ha-yeong. What are your names?”
The two women looked at each other, smiled, and then spoke.
“I’m Lin Xiaojing.”
The taller one spoke first.
“I’m Chu Meijun.”
After a moment, the shorter one told them her name.
Lin Xiaojing and Chu Meijun.
Ha Seok-jun thought even their names were beautiful.