The Key in an Empty Warehouse
"This the place?"
"Yes, sir!"
It was a storage company of a particular kind—the sort of place where you paid monthly rent to pile up odds and ends that had nowhere else to go.
"I didn't even know we had places like this in Korea."
"Moving companies use them all the time. The day you have to be out and the day you can move in almost never line up."
"Grandfather told you to bring me here?"
"Yes, sir."
Choi Seonggi had come to the warehouse company with Secretary Na Dohyung leading the way.
"How much gold and treasure did the old man stash, that he had to rent a whole warehouse?"
Na Dohyung stole a glance at him.
Seonggi's mouth hung open, his eyes bent into pleased little crescents. Na Dohyung had seen that face more times than he could count—the greedy face of a man who had caught the scent of money.
People who wore that look usually lost everything inside their own greed. Young as he was, Na Dohyung had seen enough of the world to have learned at least that much.
"Hard to say."
He answered as he stopped in front of a unit. The shutter opened on a passcode.
"This one?"
"Yes, sir. I'll wait downstairs."
Seonggi stared at the keypad, his eyes already stained with greed. He knew exactly which numbers to press. That was why he had given the code to Cha Jinpyo and his two sons without a moment's hesitation.
If you didn't know the numbers belonged to this warehouse, having them did you no good at all.
"So what kind of present did you leave for me?"
Brimming with expectation, he entered the code.
Beep. Beep. Bee-beep.
He pressed 1106, then confirm.
Clank... clank, clank...
The shutter began to rise.
"Huh? Wh-what?"
Seonggi's eyes flew wide, and he froze where he stood as if he'd turned to stone.
"What's wrong? May I come up?"
"Yeah. Go ahead..."
What on earth could be so extraordinary that he'd locked up in shock like that? Na Dohyung stepped up beside him.
"Huh? Wh-what is this?"
The warehouse was empty.
"Why is it empty? What happened?"
"How should I know..."
An empty unit meant someone had cleared out whatever had been inside. The moment it occurred to him that the only person who could have done that was Na Dohyung himself—
"Sir, I didn't touch a thing. I didn't even know it was empty."
Seonggi gave the flustered secretary's shoulder a couple of pats.
"Secretary Na! Don't worry about it. I trust you, no conditions."
"Sir?"
Na Dohyung stared at him, eyes wide open.
"You're my man. Aside from my wife, I mean to share everything with you, so don't sweat it. You don't need to explain yourself. I know it wasn't you."
"Ah... yes, sir."
Something heavy settled down into Na Dohyung's chest. They had barely known each other, and the man was handing him a trust this absolute?
"There might be something in here. Let's tear the place apart."
With that, Seonggi stepped into the unit. The interior was too dark to see well, but that it was utterly empty was beyond doubt. If there had been so much as a desk or a cabinet, he might have let himself hope.
Click!
He flipped the switch, and the lights came on.
What opened before them was a bare space a little over two meters high and wide, and about six meters deep.
"Hm?"
From outside, the dark had hidden it. Once he was in, something caught his eye. A nail jutted from the wall, and something hung from the nail. Seonggi took it in his hand.
"What is that?"
"A key."
Seven centimeters long, maybe. A key of a very old design.
"Secretary Na, where's the safe?"
"I'm not sure."
"At the Yangpyeong mansion?"
"There's nothing there you'd call a safe. President Cha Gihyeok already went through the place inch by inch, and there was nothing unusual."
"Second Brother did?"
"Yes, sir."
Since when had he been searching the Yangpyeong mansion? The key looked as if it were meant for a safe, or some hidden room.
"The Chairman must have given me this for a reason. Let's head home for now."
Somewhere, someday, there would be a lock this key was meant to open.
"Yes, sir. But as I mentioned yesterday, you need to meet Attorney Jeong."
He had already made Attorney Jeong's acquaintance while the late Chairman Cha Wonseok's estate was being executed.
"Oh? Perfect. I needed to stop by the bank anyway."
The two of them turned back the way they had come and headed for the parked car.
"Come in."
"Good afternoon. Thank you for going to so much trouble on my behalf."
In Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan's office there was another middle-aged man besides Jeong himself.
"Only doing what ought to be done... Ah, let me introduce you. This is President Lee Gukjin of GJ Asset. He worked alongside the late Chairman Cha for a great many years."
GJ Asset was a name that surfaced in the news now and then—a VIP investment firm that managed the fortunes of chaebol families and took on the awkward accounting and tax work no one else would touch.
"How do you do."
"Good to meet you."
A short man, bald across the crown, his face shining with health, held out his hand.
"Sit, sit."
At the attorney's word, Seonggi took a chair. President Lee Gukjin looked him over with glittering eyes.
"The long and short of it is this. If we're to carry out the late chairman's wishes, you need to meet President Lee Gukjin of GJ Asset here."
"I'm sorry? What do you mean by that..."
"So you still don't know."
Lee Gukjin glanced at Attorney Jeong and grinned.
"I can't walk you through every detail. First, though, we'll need to establish a company in your name."
"What?"
What kind of bolt from the blue was this? Seonggi was still frowning when the attorney spoke.
"Looks like you haven't found it yet."
That was Jeong Byeonghwan.
"Found what, exactly..."
"That old man... always so mischievous. He might have made things a little easier for the people he left behind. Even on his way out, he's still playing games."
Lee Gukjin grumbled.
"Don't misunderstand. President Lee and I both owe the late Chairman Cha Wonseok a great debt. He's gone, but we aren't the sort to throw away our faith with a dead man for some private gain. You can trust us."
Click.
TRUE
Besides Secretary Na, there were now people worth believing. Even so, Seonggi had already made up his mind to honor Cha Wonseok's last instruction: keep it secret from everyone.
"You don't seem to know yet, but Chairman Cha hid away an enormous fortune. At the end, it appears he left that fortune to you... You still haven't found it?"
Lee Gukjin asked it while looking straight into Seonggi's eyes.
"Honestly, I'm completely at a loss. My father-in-law and brothers-in-law keep asking what Grandfather's will said, and today the two of you are asking whether I've found the late chairman's assets. My head is spinning."
"Well, the funeral was only a few days ago. Of course you're overwhelmed."
"When you find Chairman Cha's assets, get in touch with us. You won't be able to manage a fortune like that on your own. And as I said, you'll need a company in your name. If you'd rather your name not appear on the outside, I'll take care of it. Chairman Cha Jinpyo and that second son of his are dangerous men."
They were grateful people. They had asked to see him in order to keep faith with Chairman Cha Wonseok.
"Understood. If I do discover assets the chairman hid away, I'll contact the two of you first."
"Good. I hope you succeed."
"And it must stay a secret from Chairman Cha Jinpyo and from the brothers, Cha Dohyeok and Cha Gihyeok."
"Yes, sir. I'll remember. I'll be going, then."
Seonggi rose and dipped his head in a bow.
"Yes... until next time."
Once Seonggi had gone out, Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan looked at President Lee Gukjin.
"That fellow hit the lottery. No—calling it a lottery doesn't do it justice. A thunderbolt of cash came down on him and blew his whole life wide open."
Lee Gukjin muttered, and Jeong answered.
"President Lee, do you know how large the fortune Chairman Cha Wonseok hid actually is?"
"Hard to say. He tidied it up himself at the end, so I don't know the details, but it has to be at least in the trillions of won."
"What? What kind of nonsense is that?"
"You spend your days rummaging through statutes, so of course you wouldn't know. Those shares alone—how much are they worth?"
"He already inherited 0.2 percent of the stock! Ten billion won at most."
"Not that. Have you forgotten?"
Lee Gukjin said it with a smile, and Jeong Byeonghwan felt as if someone had struck him across the back of the head.
"You mean... those stock certificates?"
"What else would Chairman Cha have hidden? Quick as he was with money, would a man pushing a hundred buy Bitcoin and stash it away?"
"B-Bitcoin? Good heavens..."
"What? Why?"
Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan's face had twisted into something grotesque.
"About ten years ago... the chairman called me in and asked what Bitcoin was. How one buys it. What happens with capital-gains tax and the rest of the taxes if you buy and sell. So I made him a wallet."
"That would have been... when a coin was five or six hundred thousand won, wouldn't it? How many did he buy?"
"I don't know. Back then I only made the wallet and showed him how to buy and sell. No—wait. I think I bought him five or six as a little souvenir and put them in the wallet..."
"Good lord... five or six? What's that worth now?"
President Lee Gukjin of GJ Asset's face crumpled as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Why are we here?"
"Don't follow me this time. Take this."
Seonggi pulled a wad of cash from a paper envelope and tossed the whole bundle onto the passenger seat.
"What is this?"
"A hundred million, plus another ten on top. The ten million is for your trouble!"
"S-Sir, I..."
Seonggi didn't wait to hear the rest. He got out of the car.
Of the cryptocurrency he had invested, the three hundred million won parked in the high-risk coins had returned fifty percent and become four hundred fifty million. Of the other four coins, one had collapsed, but the rest had done decently enough to come to five hundred million. Luck rolls in all at once, as they say—the seven hundred million Cha Jiyeon had given him had already swollen to nine hundred fifty million.
He withdrew a hundred thirty million of it, gave a hundred ten million to Secretary Na Dohyung, and carried the remaining twenty million toward Family Love Loan.
Seonggi knew the instincts of gutter thugs better than anyone. Kill them, and maybe it ended there. Finish it the way Na Dohyung had, and sooner or later those bastards would make trouble again.
Knock, knock.
"Who is it."
The door hadn't even finished opening before Seonggi stepped inside.
"Wh-who are you?"
The men inside were a sight to behold. Three with black eyes, one with gauze stuck across his nose, others with pain patches on their necks and arms—and the boss of Family Love Loan himself was wearing a neck brace.
"Tsk, tsk... Quite the look on all of you."
"You—you! You're the one who sent that guy to terrorize us, aren't you? The bastard who borrowed a hundred million and then vanished on the run! Hey, office manager! Get Yang Seongchil! I'm splitting this punk's belly open today."
At the boss's word, the staff grabbed baseball bats and steel pipes and glared at Seonggi.
"Hahahaha..."
Seonggi burst out laughing.
"Laughing? This son of a bitch... What are you standing around for? Kill him!"
"Hold it!"
They were just about to charge when Seonggi raised a hand. Then he reached inside his coat and threw four bundles of cash down in front of the boss.
"Wh-what is this?"
"Ten million is the interest, calculated at the legal maximum. The other ten million is for the beating, so put it toward your medical bills."
The boss's hand, clutching the money, trembled.
"Y-you think I'll back off because you handed me this? Look what you did to my boys. I ought to take your eyeballs at least..."
"Don't kid yourself."
"What?"
"Yeah, I ran. Not because I was scared of you—because I had no money, and you were a nuisance, so I avoided you. Come at me in the state you're in and you'll die. I paid back the principal, I paid the interest, I paid for your treatment, and you want to swing bats and pipes at me and get yourselves killed? Then what? Tsk... You."
Clang!
Seonggi whipped around toward the man trying to sneak up behind him. The man lost his grip on the bat, dropped onto his rear, and sat down hard.
"What? Think I'm lying? Want to try me? Fight me like this—you've got weapons, and there are five of you—I could half-kill the lot of you, call the police, and it'd still come out self-defense. Ah, if one or two of you die, well, that can't be helped."
Seonggi turned his head and smiled at them one by one, perfectly at his ease. Only the killing light in his eyes drove in sharp, into every one of their skulls.
"You especially—I won't let you off. I'll put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life and have you sucking your meals through a straw..."
"Urgh..."
It didn't sound like a joke.
They couldn't brush him off just because he had come alone. Last time, a single man had wrecked them. And just as he said, even if they fought and ended up in pieces, call it self-defense and that would be the end of it. That presence, that confidence—wasn't every word he spoke precisely, undeniably right? On top of that, he had come in person and handed over twenty million won in the name of interest and medical bills.
The boss of Family Love Loan, who had been glaring into Seonggi's eyes, let his gaze slide off to the side. The killing intent pouring out of those eyes made him look away before he even knew he had.
"Good. You thought it through. Anyway, thanks for everything up till now, and I'm sorry about how it ended. Let's not run into each other again. All of you, get those injuries treated."
With that, Seonggi walked out at an unhurried pace, opened the door, and was gone.
"Haaah..."
Jeong Hyeongseok, president of Family Love Loan and a man with a reputation as one of the worst on the private-loan circuit, let out a sigh of relief before he realized it.
The man who had come before had been frightening. The one just now had been truly terrifying. Not a ripple of emotion, calm the whole way through, and he had smiled while telling them that if they rushed him, he would kill them.
A dog that bites doesn't bark, and a tiger makes no sound until the hunt begins. That ease. That presence. That killing intent.
They hadn't traded a single blow. But if they had fought... he had the feeling they really might have died.