The Legacy of Chairman Cha Wonseok, Part 4
"Find something?"
"Find what? Oh—the money? Yeah, well. There was a little."
"Was there a USB, by any chance? There ought to be Bitcoin in a crypto wallet on it."
CEO Lee Gukjin and Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan asked it with their eyes glittering. Word really did get around. It wasn't as if someone had buried a treasure map on an island.
"There was."
He had half a mind not to say so, then decided it was better simply to tell them.
"H-how many Bitcoin were in there?"
Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan's eyes shone as he asked, thinking of the five or so Bitcoin he had once placed in a coin wallet for the old man.
"Five."
"Ah... just as I thought."
"I wondered, but... he never bought any more, did he."
Disappointment sat plain on both their faces. Seonggi was glad he had not mentioned the extra thousand sitting in front of that five.
"There's something I'd like to ask. Do you know which charities the Chairman—no, Grandfather—was looking after?"
"Of course I do. I screened them myself. There are so many fraudulent outfits out there... ten in all. And they're already on edge, worried the donations will dry up now that the Chairman's gone."
"How much was he giving?"
"Let's see... all together, about a hundred and twenty million won a month?"
"I'll keep that going. In my name. No—I'll establish a welfare foundation and run it through that."
At Choi Seonggi's words, Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. A hundred and twenty million won a month. For a man who, until not long ago, had been unemployed, it was a crushing sum, and Attorney Jeong understood exactly what the offer meant.
"How much was in that treasure vault?"
Seonggi knew the question was not asked with ill intent. Even so, he had no intention of answering honestly. In matters like this, the more people who knew, the worse the outcome tended to be.
"A little under thirty billion."
"Th-thirty billion?"
"Only that?"
"If you leave this out."
Choi Seonggi set down the bag he had brought and opened it.
"Ha ha ha ha..."
"Ha ha ha..."
Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan and President Lee Gukjin burst out laughing.
"I'd only ever heard the Chairman speak of them. First time I've seen the real thing. President Lee, you know what these are?"
"Know them? Of course I do. This was my father's work."
"Your father's?"
"Forty years ago. I was still in high school. First time I've laid eyes on the paper itself, though."
The two of them drew the paper securities from the bag and studied them one by one.
"Fourteen percent of Gwangmyeong Corporation. At the current price, what would that come to?" Choi Seonggi asked.
"Well... valued as Gwangmyeong Corporation alone, barely over ten billion. But if you're asking what it's worth as the holding company of Gwangmyeong Group, it clears ten trillion without breaking a sweat."
Lee Gukjin, CEO of GJ Asset, said it with a glint in his eye. Paper certificates had long since fallen out of use, but stock itself had begun as paper. Attorney Jeong and President Lee turned the certificates this way and that, as if they could hardly believe the things were real.
"As the two of you suggested, I'm thinking of founding a welfare corporation—and an investment company as well. I'd like that investment company to manage these shares. Ownership remains mine, of course, but on the surface I need it concealed. I'll need both of you for that."
Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan answered with a smile.
"I know what you mean. I'll work it out with President Lee."
President Lee nodded.
"And, President Lee, there's something else I wanted to ask."
"What is it? Go on."
"I want to short a stock. How do I go about it?"
"A short... Hard for an individual. A newly established investment corporation would have to meet a stack of qualifications, so jumping into short selling from day one won't be easy. If the sum is reasonable, GJ Asset could execute it on your behalf. With thirty billion we could do it, if you insist... but succeeding would be tough. Which company?"
"Yujin Semiconductor."
"Aren't they in the middle of a semiconductor supply contract with T-Solar?"
"Yes. That's right."
"Yujin Semiconductor's market cap is still somewhere around thirty trillion..."
He meant to dive into a short with thirty billion at the outside? That was not even a drop in the bucket. Lee Gukjin shook his head.
"With that, you wouldn't raise so much as a smell before you got flattened. In a word—no effect at all."
"Then what about this?"
Choi Seonggi went on, grinning as if he had the rest already prepared.
"What if we put these paper shares up as collateral for about a hundred billion? No. There's this thing called leverage, isn't there? We use that, triple it nice and lightly, and put in three hundred billion."
At the words three hundred billion, President Lee Gukjin's eyes went wide as saucers.
"Mr. Choi—no, President Choi. This would be your first short. You can't go in that reckless from the start. Unless you're unusually certain, this is far too rash. I can say this because everyone in this room can be trusted, but short selling is arranged in advance, all of it. Half of them collude with the major shareholders and strike; the other half collude among the shorters themselves. What on earth makes you think you can pull something that reckless?"
"Well. I've got information I consider reasonably trustworthy."
"Most of that is fake, too! They leak false information on purpose."
"Even so..."
Choi Seonggi looked at Lee Gukjin with a broad, open smile and went on.
"Will you help me? I'll give you a three percent fee."
"Three percent?"
"Win or lose. Three percent."
Lee Gukjin had been studying him in silence, and now the corner of his eye twitched. He had taken the man for a green kid barely past thirty, and yet it felt as if a financial master, worn smooth by the years, were sitting across from him. He had watched countless young things—if one could even call them that—strut and show off without the faintest idea what they were doing. And this one? What was he supposed to call it? Excessive self-confidence? If not that, then the man really was holding something.
"Fine. I'll do it. The Gwangmyeong Corporation shares we'd be posting as collateral are right here anyway. Even if we lose the lot, it's no skin off my nose."
He said it while rapping the bag of paper securities. Thump. Thump.
"Secretary Na. Bring what you prepared."
At Choi Seonggi's word, Na Dohyung fetched the paper envelope he had left by the office door. It was the sort of generously sized shopping bag one might get at a department store, and across the front ran the words Gangnam Korean Medicine Hospital.
"I didn't get the chance to greet you properly last time, so I brought a little tonic for the two of you. I hope you'll look after me from here on, the way you looked after my grandfather, Chairman Cha Wonseok."
With that, he handed one bag each to Jeong Byeonghwan and Lee Gukjin.
"You didn't have to go to such trouble... President Choi, you really are... Don't worry. I'll look after you as closely as I looked after the Chairman."
"Chairman Cha never even thought to give us something like this... I'm genuinely moved."
Once the bags were passed out and Choi Seonggi rose, Jeong Byeonghwan and Lee Gukjin stood with him.
"Then I'll be counting on you. If you ever need anything, contact Secretary Na Dohyung. He'll have it all ready. We'll be going."
Choi Seonggi bowed his head, and Jeong Byeonghwan and Lee Gukjin bowed in return.
"Go safely. Heh heh."
"Thank you. I'll call if I need you."
The moment Choi Seonggi stepped out of the office, the two men looked at each other.
"How is he that courteous—and that decent a man? He's nothing like the people in the Cha family. Nothing at all."
"I know... Even the Chairman never did this..."
"Well. Shall we see what the gift is?"
They sat and looked inside the paper bags. Each held two boxes. One, when opened, was packed with tonic ampoules, the label reading Ginseng + Deer Antler. They opened the other.
"Hm?"
"This isn't only medicine."
"Hold on. How much is this?"
The box was packed tight with fifty-thousand-won bills. A rough count put it around three hundred million won.
"That friend of ours is a frightening man..." Attorney Jeong Byeonghwan murmured.
"I don't understand. Why give us money?" Lee Gukjin asked.
"Why do you think? He means to make us his people."
"But we'd have helped him even without the money. The Chairman's will said as much."
"Which is exactly why it's more frightening, isn't it? He isn't asking us to take his side over some rough split of the profit. He's asking us to do everything in our power to help him."
"Ah... When you put it that way, he really is frightening."
Even as he said it, he quietly closed the box of cash and set the paper bag down beside his leg.
"As for Mr. Cha Yohan... to be frank, his situation is poor on several fronts. We have to administer his medication half by force, and because he isn't in a private room, the other patients harass him. It's a shame to lose even one patient, but if I'm honest... if there were a quiet sanatorium somewhere in the mountains, he would be better off there. His condition has deteriorated badly..."
"What illness is it?"
"It's complex. Autism, savant syndrome, cognitive dissonance, a neuropathic syndrome... Lately he hasn't been sleeping properly either, so we've prescribed sleeping pills. He refuses even those, so we get him to take them by giving him pizza. He loves pizza. Give him pizza and he does as he's told. Originally the symptoms were so mild he was almost no different from a healthy person..."
Dr. Yang Hwi-chan of the psychiatric ward felt like an honest man, because everything he said was the truth. The door was shut, and still, from here and there, came the sound of people groaning and gibbering.
"And on a human level, isn't he far too young to be in a place like this? Someone so young, and so remarkable... locked inside a hospital room. As a doctor, it pains me. I'm speaking to you with complete honesty. If he only had someone beside him to help, he's a patient who could improve a great deal... Being here does nothing for Mr. Cha Yohan."
The attending physician's face was earnest to the point of pleading. He was asking them to take the young man away and look after him. But this was not a decision one could make on sympathy alone.
"I'll see him first. I'll judge after I've seen him."
He had come only to confirm that the boy was all right, and the conversation was already sliding in another direction.
"Yes. Please, have a look."
When the doctor stood, Choi Seonggi and Na Dohyung followed him. Past several iron doors, the corridor held a great many people in patient gowns, and not one of them looked well.
"This side is an open ward, so it's the better of the two. Behind that iron door is the closed ward. In there, it's really..."
He said that much and did not go on. Whatever lay back there, the implication was that it was no good place. They went on down the corridor until the doctor stopped.
"The last bed, there. He's sitting."
Seonggi looked where the doctor indicated. A thin, boyish figure—if one could call him a boy—sat on the bed with his head buried between his knees. He looked pitiful. To think that a man born the son of the richest person in the country was locked away in a place like this.
"Ordinarily, if we just let him use a computer, he stays quiet and gets along. He's been like this ever since he heard the Chairman had passed. Even a patient has to know his father is dead. So I had no choice but to tell him..."
"Bwahahaha!"
Something cracked through the air. Clack!
"You little bastard!"
Thwack.
From the opposite side of the room, someone was suddenly hurling a toothbrush, a plastic cup, toothpaste, and whatever else came to hand straight at Cha Yohan.
"What do you think you're doing? Mr. Yang Seong-cheol! Mr. Jo Tae-man!"
The attending physician flared up and stepped in.
"Ack—it's the doctor."
"Just a joke, Doctor... bwahahaha."
A toothless man in his sixties and a man in his fifties with a bruised face cackled where they stood.
"Mm..."
Having seen even this, there was nothing else for it. Choi Seonggi looked at Na Dohyung, and Na Dohyung nodded as if he understood.
"Doctor!"
"Ah, I'm sorry. Sometimes the patients take a joke too far... If this is uncomfortable, I'll have him moved to another room."
The physician had gone tense, thinking they were about to complain.
"You said he's almost no different from a healthy person. You said he would improve in a quiet place surrounded by nature. And you said that if you give him pizza, he'll do as he's told, no matter what."
"Yes, of course. If the environment improves, he's someone who can adapt perfectly well and get better."
"Then... please discharge him. We'll take him with us."
"Y-you really mean to?"
In a psychiatric ward, the number of patients was tied directly to the hospital's revenue. Discharge Cha Yohan, and a scolding from the director was all but certain. Even so, Yang Hwi-chan's conscience as a physician would not let him leave the young man like this any longer. He was barely into his early twenties, with his whole life still ahead of him. Healing was entirely possible, and instead he would waste away hemmed in by the mentally ill. That was too cruel.
"There's a chance this discharge could put you in a difficult position, so I'll leave a donation of no small size."
"I-if you would, I'd be more grateful than I can say. I'll help with the discharge paperwork. Please, follow me."
As the attending physician led the way, Choi Seonggi turned to Na Dohyung.
"Madam Go is going to have her work cut out for her."
"Mr. Cha Yohan isn't a particularly active person, so it should be fine."
"No, not that. From now on she's going to have to make at least one pizza a day, isn't she?"
"Ah..."
"Have them install a wood-fired oven in the kitchen."
With that, Choi Seonggi walked on ahead. The more Na Dohyung watched him, the more extraordinary the man seemed, and he shook his head. Cha Jinpyo, Yohan's own blood, had tried to have him killed, while Choi Seonggi—a stranger until not long ago—meant to live with him. And this even granting that it was Chairman Cha Wonseok's will. By the common sense Na Dohyung had lived by until now, he could not understand Choi Seonggi. The scale of the man's thinking itself seemed different from an ordinary person's.
"What are you doing back there? Keep up."
"Coming."
At Choi Seonggi's word, Na Dohyung followed.