The Cracking Bridge
Yoo Jae-won opened a new internet browser while keeping the writing button of the internet bulletin board neatly displayed on the screen. He then typed in a specific address consisting only of IP numbers and pressed enter. A login screen appeared on the browser. “This really does look like some kind of secret site.” Though his words were light, it was true that the site operated with only carefully selected members. It was the very site used by the information team of Korea’s ID Group.
The site integrated and digitized all the information collected by team members operating not only in Seoul but across the provinces. Because some of the information was gathered at the risk of breaking the law, it ran on a completely separate, small server isolated from the group’s main network. Yoo Jae-won immediately entered his ID and password. The screen changed. Instead of an HTML bulletin board, a directory structure like an FTP appeared. The top-level directory was organized by year. Yoo Jae-won selected 1994. Monthly directories appeared next. He entered the October folder. This time the display was different. Instead of consecutive dates from the 1st to the 7th, several dates were missing. He chose the five most recent days of data. Finally, document and photo files appeared.
“They’re strictly following the file-naming rules.” He had instructed that file names must include the region, date, and a brief summary so that the content could be understood at a glance. The Korean information team had followed his orders faithfully. Thanks to that, Yoo Jae-won could easily locate the files he wanted—the photographs of Suseong Bridge.
Suseong Bridge was one of the key bridges connecting Gangbuk and Gangnam, built by Dongah Construction. The sudden appearance of dozens of Suseong Bridge photos in the ID Group’s Korean information archive was because Yoo Jae-won had ordered monitoring. The reason was simple. In two weeks, the middle section of Suseong Bridge would snap and plunge into the Han River. The so-called Suseong Bridge collapse was an incident that perfectly illustrated Korea’s chronic problems. The primary cause was design flaws and poor construction by Dongah Construction. Next came Seoul Metropolitan Government’s negligence in maintenance and oversight. Finally, Seoul’s rapidly increasing traffic volume was also a factor. Even fully loaded ready-mix concrete trucks passed over it daily, accelerating fatigue cracks. Due to this combination of factors, a bridge only seventeen years old failed to reach its expected service life and collapsed.
When he had ordered the information team to take photographs, he had not explained the reason, so they had no way of guessing what was about to happen. That did not mean they found his instructions strange. The information team’s operations were conducted on a need-to-know basis; members were simply told what to investigate rather than being given the full picture.
“Even from the photos, it’s obvious.” The Suseong Bridge photographs were not limited to those taken on October 5th. Because he had ordered photos to be taken every time the team passed the bridge since last year, there were many images showing the bridge’s changes over time. Quite a few were taken from nearly identical angles. When arranged into a moving sequence, the widening gap in the bridge deck became immediately visible.
Yoo Jae-won selected just two photographs—one from last year and one from this year. With the bulletin board essentially dead, posting a single article was unlikely to trigger an immediate safety inspection. He judged it better to stockpile ammunition if he intended to keep posting until the 20th. Of course, if he revealed that he was the chairman of ID Group and verified his identity, action would be taken at once, but that would defeat the purpose of the anonymous bulletin board. It would also spark unnecessary controversy. So he planned to keep posting until the 20th. If nothing happened by then, he would make the “buster call” and contact Jeon Myeong-heon directly.
With his fast typing speed, Yoo Jae-won wrote a report stating that Suseong Bridge looked suspicious, attached the two photographs, and pressed the upload button firmly.
The next morning.
“As expected. I knew it would be like this.” Having risen early, Yoo Jae-won clicked his tongue in front of the computer. The screen displayed the Suseong Bridge report he had posted the day before. The only change was that the view count had risen from zero to two. There were no replies asking for confirmation, so it seemed a random netizen had clicked out of curiosity while browsing the board.
Since he had already anticipated this, Yoo Jae-won was not greatly disappointed. He still had plenty of material to upload. He only needed to keep posting steadily until action became unavoidable. With that in mind, he began the morning by posting another article. Though he wanted to demonstrate what a true flood of posts looked like, today was a busy day, so he simply reposted the same content with a few additional photographs.
Today was the day of President Park Sang-kwon’s wedding. Because Yoo Jae-won’s parents and uncle also had longstanding ties with him, the entire family planned to attend together. If President Park Sang-kwon had remained merely the president of the rice bran oil factory, the wedding would have been a neighborhood affair. But now that he was president of Busan Group, such a modest ceremony was impossible. They had rented a large hotel in Seoul instead.
It had been a long time since Yoo Jae-won’s family and relatives gathered in such numbers, so the scale was considerable. From his uncle to his cousins and other relatives, plus Yoo Jae-won’s parents’ cars and the bodyguards’ vehicles, more than ten cars had assembled. That was not all. Su-gyeong’s parents, who were close friends with President Park Sang-kwon, were also coming, and even the schoolteachers were preparing to go out after a long time.
Interestingly, among all the cars lined up, the lowest-grade vehicle belonged to Yoo Jae-won. His parents, uncle, and Su-gyeong’s family all drove large Mercedes sedans, while only Yoo Jae-won drove a Grandeur from Mirae Motors.
“I wonder if we’ve been living too extravagantly.” His uncle finally spoke up after looking at the cars gathered in the village lot.
“You’re right. The richest person here is driving the most modest car.” Su-gyeong’s father chimed in.
“No, I’m only driving a Mirae Motors car because I’m close with Grandfather Jeon Myeong-heon. If it weren’t for him, I’d be driving something else.” Yoo Jae-won quickly waved his hands. People with money needed to spend it for the economy to function properly. Besides, he had little personal desire for luxury cars. As long as a car was safe and comfortable, that was enough. Moreover, his work required more airplane travel than car travel. When he was in the United States he drove nice cars, and the Grandeur was only for use in Korea, so he had no complaints.
“All right, let’s get going.” As village head, his uncle possessed considerable leadership. After checking the time on his gleaming watch, he called for departure.
When Yoo Jae-won, his family, and the people of Deokjin-ri arrived at the hotel listed on the invitation, the wedding atmosphere was in full swing. The banquet hall attached to the hotel was decorated with lavish flowers, and the work was impressive. The decorations had been prepared solely for Park Sang-kwon and Kim Young-mi’s wedding. Another unusual feature was the strict identity verification—something rarely seen at other wedding halls. Yoo Jae-won, whose face served as his ID, was cleared immediately, but his parents and relatives had their invitations checked one by one. Only those President Park Sang-kwon truly wished to invite had been sent invitations, a measure to block uninvited guests such as reporters or people aligned with Park Sang-yong, who was currently at odds with him.
Once verification was complete, Yoo Jae-won and his family finally met Park Sang-kwon, who had been greeting guests at the entrance.
“President!”
“Oh! Jae-won!”
Without either of them needing to speak first, they greeted each other warmly and clasped hands. Park Sang-kwon had provided tremendous help in laying the foundation of ID Group, so Yoo Jae-won felt especially close to him.
“Congratulations on your wedding.”
Congratulations followed. Starting with Yoo Jae-won, his parents and relatives also offered their well-wishes and presented the gifts they had prepared.
“We packed some things that are good for the body.” Although the age gap between Yoo Jae-won’s parents and Park Sang-kwon was not large, his parents still felt somewhat intimidated by him. Having called him “President” for nearly ten years while living in Deokjin-ri, it was only natural. Yet because they had built a different kind of closeness with him, there was no awkwardness.
“Why did you bring all this? Thank you. I’ll enjoy it.” Park Sang-kwon carefully accepted the gift bundle. Inside were premium-grade pine mushrooms, wild ginseng, and other mountain products beneficial for men—items that could not be bought with money no matter how much one offered. It showed just how much respect Yoo Jae-won’s parents held for him.
“Oh, there doesn’t seem to be a place to leave congratulatory money.” His uncle’s flustered voice could be heard after he had gone looking for the collection counter while Yoo Jae-won’s parents were talking with President Park.
One characteristic of President Park Sang-kwon’s wedding was the absence of a congratulatory money counter.
“Uncle, thank you for the thought. We decided to forgo congratulatory money.”
Indeed, other chaebol weddings also did not accept congratulatory money. The families involved had no financial needs, and even a small chaebol family possessed an enormous network of connections. If they began accepting money, rumors would inevitably spread. Busan Group alone had numerous subsidiaries, and the partner companies connected to them were several times more numerous. If all of them came forward with congratulatory money, there would be no end to it. The invitation had clearly stated that congratulatory money would be respectfully declined, but his uncle had apparently overlooked that line. It was a minor incident. They decided to put the money his uncle had prepared to good use elsewhere, and he guided Yoo Jae-won and his family to a table inside the hall.
After his parents and relatives were seated, Yoo Jae-won moved separately to greet President Park Sang-kwon’s relatives. Being a chaebol meant practicing family-based management, and Busan Group was no exception. Although Park Sang-kwon held controlling interest in the group, his stake was not entirely stable. The shares he had inherited, the shares ID Investment had acquired through investment, and the shares held by relatives of the Park family who had originally opposed the former owner had all come together. After the phenol leak incident and various corruption scandals, the existing management—namely Park Sang-kwon’s half-brothers Park Sang-yong and Park Sang-o—had been removed, allowing Park Sang-kwon to take his current position.
Although these relatives were friendly toward Park Sang-kwon, they had been somewhat reluctant to attend today’s wedding. With his half-brothers now sidelined and sharpening their knives, they preferred to stay one step back and wait to see what would happen. They had sided with Park Sang-kwon after Park Sang-yong’s fall only because the benefits he offered were greater. Had Park Sang-o made a more generous proposal, the story might have been different.
Symbolically, no other Korean chaebols had shown their faces at today’s wedding. Their ties with the now-retired Park Sang-yong were far stronger than with the current president, Park Sang-kwon. In this situation, Yoo Jae-won’s attendance at the wedding had begun to shift some people’s thinking. If they could build a connection with Yoo Jae-won, they judged that a little risk was worth taking. ID Group far exceeded what Koreans had imagined. The market capitalization of Android alone—a mere subsidiary—already reached tens of trillions of won, and the shock Korean businessmen felt upon confirming this was enormous. If all of ID Group’s subsidiaries were listed, the total would clearly surpass several Korean chaebols combined.
Under normal circumstances Yoo Jae-won would have ignored them, but for President Park Sang-kwon’s sake he willingly rose to greet them and display their connection. The ceremony began afterward. The bride and groom, filled with happiness, entered and promised to spend their lives together. Yoo Jae-won and his family enjoyed the reception President Park Sang-kwon had prepared, saw the couple off on their honeymoon, and began the journey home.
In the returning car, Kim Dae-seok, who had just received a text message, immediately reported.
“Chairman, the information team has emailed the report on the Kkachi PC Bang Tournament you asked them to look into yesterday.”
“Is that so?”
Yoo Jae-won, who had been feeling somewhat bored, thought this was perfect timing. He connected his Tiffany phone to his notebook and went online. Mobile internet—something that would have been unthinkable in the past—was now possible for anyone thanks to the start of 2G mobile communications. Of course, the speed itself was painfully slow. In the early stages of 2G, full-speed areas were extremely limited, and speeds dropped even further while moving. Still, receiving a single document was no trouble at all.
“It’s a small, one-day tournament hosted by a private operator, but is there a special reason you’re interested, Chairman?” Kim Dae-seok asked cautiously while Yoo Jae-won was reading the downloaded document on his Shell Book. Even though Kim Dae-seok was his closest aide, he could not begin to guess the reason for this particular interest.
“Because I see potential in it.”
“Potential?”
The word “esports” rose to his throat but remained unspoken. It was still too early. Instead, Yoo Jae-won surprised Kim Dae-seok in a different way.
“So, shall we attend this tournament?”