A Letter from Shoichi
It looked like the shoot was about to begin.
The plan had been to film in my yard again today, but Choi Hee-ah, who had gone off to Gangneung, was running late, so they decided to shoot at the vacant house instead.
Which meant I didn't have to clear out of my own home for once.
"Should Chai make fried rice?"
"Let's keep it simple. Doenjang stew, grilled dried pollack, some kimchi out of the jar. Ah, and a quick steamed egg—that'll do."
At my words, Chai made a face of pure horror and shuddered from head to toe.
"That is not what anyone calls simple!"
"I moved around way too much last night, that's all. Besides, a farmer who skimps on his meals can't put in a day's work."
I rolled up my sleeves and set about making breakfast. Seo Jinwoo had been up all night too, but he still stepped in to help me.
"Hyung-nim, this fermentation pit—this is where you're going to age your soybean paste, right?"
"That's right. I'm planning to make paste from beans I've grown myself and sell it. I'll start with small batches first, and once the business takes off, I'll worry about scaling up then."
Now that billions of won had flowed into my agricultural corporation, I had to run a business one way or another.
And if I was going to do it anyway, better to build it around something I loved—something that brought me joy.
Doenjang and cheonggukjang. Those two are perfect.
Under the local food program, produce grown in Pyeongcheong-gun could be processed and sold through their first-tier distribution channel.
If it sold well there, it could go on to reach the national agricultural cooperatives, and eventually department store shelves as well.
And since Mrs. Han Su-ja promised to advise me on the paste-making, the taste is basically guaranteed.
Then Seo Jinwoo stepped up to offer his help as well.
"All you have to do is make the doenjang and cheonggukjang, hyung-nim. I'll handle the selling. If I run group-buy campaigns on Byulstar and YouTube, it'll fly off the shelves in no time."
"We've only just planted the beans, but... sure, let's give it a shot. In exchange, we split the profits."
Was I about to watch my own little company, Ugok's Yard, write a legend in the doenjang industry?
But then, an even bigger windfall came crashing in.
"Sunbae-nim, this is the letter Shoichi wrote."
Lee Ho-young had come bearing Shoichi's letter. And it turned out the letter was no simple message of well-wishes at all.