Chairman Cha Jinpyo's Scheme, Part 1

Cha Yohan was looking at him with pure loathing in his eyes, but Choi Seonggi only let out a short, crooked laugh.

"You're an employee of SK Asset, and I'm the boss. Since when is it spying for a boss to look over an employee's results? I put a billion won into you. A boss who does that and then pretends you don't exist—that's the strange one. And this is SK Asset's registered address. The computer, the monitor, all of it was bought with SK Asset's money."

Yohan seemed to think it over for a moment. Then he nodded.

"Even so. Privacy. Respect for an employee's private life. The rights of personhood."

"All right! I'll be careful next time, so explain it to me. This thousand-percent return—how did you pull that off?"

Where was the boss who could invest a billion won and honestly say he didn't care if he lost it? Of course, once you'd made something on the order of two hundred billion, that kind of money was pocket change. Still.

Yohan came over at a steady tread and dropped into the chair.

"A game of raising the odds."

He began to explain his method. He started with how he gathered every piece of information an investment could possibly require, the way an artificial intelligence might, then how he searched out undervalued names—the actual targets—and then the way he traded when a price was rising, and the way he traded when it was falling. By the time the explanation was finished, Seonggi's mouth had fallen open.

The Yohan method was this: once he bought a stock, he simply watched a band of about two percent, whether the price rose or fell. If it dropped three percent, he watched it with everything he had. If it fell close to four, he sold, no exceptions. On the way up, he would wait through a ten-percent gain so long as the buyers were still there and the trading stayed lively, but once the profit hit fifteen percent he sold, special cases aside.

A stock price goes up or it goes down. Buy one, and the chance of either is even. Yohan had concentrated on dragging the odds that a stock he owned would rise up to sixty percent—on walking into the game with his win rate already lifted. If the price fell, he cut it without hesitation. If it rose, he gave it a little more room. He answered the market almost by the second, so there was no such thing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as glancing away and watching ten or twenty percent vanish in a blink. That was why, even while the losses came in huge, the profits piled up high enough to cover them and still leave something over.

"You really were a genius? And here I had you down for an idiot."

"Not a genius. Not an idiot either."

"Then what are you?"

It felt like someone had struck him across the head. People had trotted out every diagnosis under the sun and locked Cha Yohan away in a psychiatric hospital. He had turned out to be a genius at investing, and the man himself believed he was nothing more than an ordinary person. It was an answer that left Choi Seonggi, for no good reason, ashamed of himself.

"Understood. Then I'll see what strings I can pull."

The line went dead. Having heard from his aide that the mood was turning against the Large Enterprise Export Support Act, Cha Jinpyo had put in a call to Kwon Dongseon. Kwon told him that Assemblyman Lee Sangdong—the one nicknamed the Chihuahua—was frothing at the mouth in opposition, and that even passage through the Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs and Startups Committee, the Industry Committee for short, had become difficult.

Lee Sangdong, four-term opposition lawmaker from Mungwang in Gyeonggi Province. Jinpyo had no personal grudge against the man. And yet to have him standing in the way of every last thing he tried to do—

"Hey, Secretary Kwon! Get in here a minute!"

He called for him over the intercom. Secretary Kwon opened the door, ducked his head, and came in.

"Secretary Kwon! I've got something important. Tell Yang Seongchil to look around Mungwang for the punks who are active out there. You know the type. On the surface they bustle around pretending to be civic groups, but scratch that and they're thugs skimming the local interests."

"Chairman, why President Yang all of a sudden..."

The moment the name came up, Secretary Kwon went rigid and asked again. Every time Cha Jinpyo summoned Yang Seongchil—the nationally connected fist who worked out of Gyeonggi—blood followed in the air behind him.

"Don't ask. Have Yang Seongchil introduce you to someone we can trust. Tell them the job pays."

"Ah—yes, sir."

"And that bastard. The youngest son-in-law. Tell him I want to see him. You meet him in my place. No—don't meet him in person. Do it by phone!"

"M-me, sir?"

Cha Jinpyo scowled, his voice thick with irritation.

"You've worked for me more than twenty years and you still can't tell what I mean?"

"N-no, sir. I understand."

Whenever something filthy needed doing, Cha Jinpyo had always put it on Secretary Kwon.

"You know the rule. I don't know a thing about this."

"Yes. Of course."

"Good... Get out. Call Yang Seongchil first and get the introduction."

"Yes, sir!"

Secretary Kwon bowed his head and left. Cha Jinpyo glanced at the clock. Lunchtime, as it happened. At this hour, the man would pick up.

Chief Prosecutor Yu Byeongheon knew exactly what a seven-band grouper meant. Take the money Cha Jinpyo slipped him, and draw the press onto a case with real scale. It meant landing a prize catch.

The call was over. His youngest son-in-law, Choi Seonggi—a lucky charm, the man he'd handed a safe combination and fourteen billion won. A bit of a waste to spend him like this. But it couldn't be helped. While he was at it, he might as well force the divorce through and push the merger with Howon Group.

Without his quite noticing, one corner of Cha Jinpyo's mouth had begun to twitch.

Choi Seonggi was on his way to Daemang Pharm, the visit arranged by Lee Gukjin, CEO of GJ Asset. Seonggi had said he wanted to see the place and judge what Daemang Pharm was worth, and Lee Gukjin had stepped in. Thanks to that, they had appointments with the head of Miradam's development and with the representative of the Daemang Pharm consortium. It was the sort of thing possible only because CEO Lee Gukjin was the "investment expert" who had struck it rich on a three-hundred-billion-won short.

Na Dohyung, eyes on the road as he drove, ventured a careful opening.

"Sir. About Mr. Yohan's mother."

"Oh. You looked into her?"

"I'm told she used to be Chairman Cha Wonseok's secretary."

"Figured as much."

"After his wife passed, the chairman seems to have had a very hard time of it."

"He would have."

His only child had been that cold-blooded Chairman Cha Jinpyo. Cha Wonseok would have known exactly what kind of man his son was.

"Back then—ah, Mr. Yohan's mother's name is Yoo Jiyoung. While she was working as his secretary, Chairman Cha Wonseok seems to have gotten better. And then the two of them grew close. When he learned she was pregnant, he even meant to remarry her."

"What? Remarry?"

Seonggi blinked before he could stop himself. These days a divorce and a remarriage were nothing special. But this was twenty-three years ago. If the chairman steering Gwangmyeong Group, one of the five largest in the country, had remarried pushing seventy, the world would have turned upside down the moment it was announced.

"But Chairman Cha Jinpyo opposed it furiously, from what I gathered. If the remarriage went forward, he threatened he wouldn't leave the woman or the child in her belly alone. I'm told he actually went looking for where Yoo Jiyoung was staying."

So that was why no world-upending headline had ever appeared. In the end, Cha Wonseok had failed to remarry because of his son's threat.

"They say the household was turned inside out over it."

"Of course it was. A man pushing seventy, about to have a child before he was even married. How old was that secretary?"

"Mid-thirties, I believe. She'd be in her late fifties now."

"And where is she?"

"In Germany, at present."

"Why Germany?"

"Chairman Cha Jinpyo, I imagine."

"Why? Did he actually threaten to kill her?"

Secretary Na said nothing.

"So he did."

"It seems he said that if there was a remarriage, he wouldn't sit still. So Mr. Yohan was allowed the Cha surname, but he was never entered on the family register. Chairman Cha Jinpyo, who was president of the company at the time, was promoted to vice chairman, and Yoo Jiyoung living quietly abroad appears to have been how it was settled."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"So that's what happened. I never would have imagined."

Cha Wonseok, nearly seventy, getting a secretary in her early thirties pregnant—or Chairman Cha Jinpyo, threatening his own father and locking down the succession.

"Grandfather really did live doing everything he felt like and everything he shouldn't. Impressive."

Everyone in the Cha family seemed to live at full volume. Now that he thought about it, Cha Jiyeon was no different. She had hated the idea of a political marriage so much that she had staged a fake one.

Fake or not, she's my wife, so I'll leave her out of that. She's pretty, besides.

"Forgive me, but Chairman Cha Wonseok..."

Secretary Na's voice had gone bitter.

"He was my benefactor as well, and serving him, I came to understand him. For a very long time he had nowhere to set his heart. He was lonely. He was desolate."

He didn't say it outright, but the meaning was plain enough: do not speak ill of Chairman Cha Wonseok.

"He did plenty to be grateful for. I inherited a massive fortune thanks to Grandfather myself."

Seonggi nodded at Na Dohyung's words.

"Stubborn, yes, but I think he was a warm man underneath. I'm too young to judge him lightly, but his wife died early. His only son was cold-blooded and thought of no one but himself. The grandchildren were all of them hard to grow fond of. He must have been very lonely. Anyway—so we can find Yohan's mother?"

"If it goes well, I believe we can. There's a Korean network on the German side as well. She seems to be using a German name, and that may be the sticking point."

"Keep looking! If you get through to her, tell me too."

"Yes, sir."

A woman with a bitter fate, that much was certain. She had borne the child of a man pushing seventy, never been allowed to raise him, and had to leave for Germany.

"Did she go to Germany the moment Yohan was born?"

"I don't think so. They say she lived with him until Mr. Yohan was five."

"I see."

Seonggi was quiet for a moment, then spoke again.

"How do you know details that fine, Secretary Na? Who told you?"

"Madam Oh, at Chairman Cha Jinpyo's house. She and I are close."

"Someone who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠works at my mother-in-law's?"

Cha Jinpyo in Gapyeong, his mother-in-law Jeong Sehee in Apgujeong-dong, and the family gatherings in Cheongdam-dong. There were several houses.

"She's been with the madam more than thirty years. The two of them suit each other."

"Ah... so that was it."

He thought of his legal mother-in-law, Madam Jeong Sehee, whom he had seen at the funeral hall. She was in her mid-sixties, and yet with her fine brows, her light makeup, and that elegant face she could have passed for her forties. She was director of the Traditional Culture Institute, Mook, and an adjunct professor in the humanities college at Ogam University besides. He had a feeling that was exactly what Cha Jiyeon would look like once she aged.

A man who had appeared out of nowhere and married her youngest daughter. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠She had received Seonggi with no feeling in her at all. Perhaps Jiyeon had told her in advance that the marriage was a sham. It wasn't that she had shown him any warmth, either. No feeling, literally. As if he were there and yet not there, as if he were only someone passing through. She had looked at Choi Seonggi the way one looks at a creature with no presence.

"But... I'm not sure I ought to say this. I heard something a little strange."

"What?"

"Well... it's..."

He clearly had something important on his tongue. Na Dohyung couldn't quite bring himself to open his mouth.

"Secretary Na, you know the mood goes strange if you don't say it here, right? Not saying it means you don't trust me enough to get the words out."

"It's not that. I do want to tell you, but what I heard is just too..."

"Say it. What could possibly be more shocking than my story—the guy who got married walking down the street?"

"That's... fair. Then I'll tell you. Madam Oh spoke as if Chairman Cha Jinpyo... were keeping a second household."

"What?"

He hadn't seen that coming at all. Seonggi's eyes shot up, and his mouth fell open.

"This is getting really entertaining. The Cha family is nothing if not dynamic!"

He said it, and then he started to cackle.

"Who else knows? If Madam Oh knows, that means my mother-in-law obviously knows too."

"Yes. I think so as well. It seems Madam Oh found out when she went to a law office on the madam's errand."

Given his mother-in-law's character, she would never keep a loose-tongued gossip at her side.

In that instant, Choi Seonggi's mind began to turn like a computer.

"Secretary Na!"

"Yes, sir!"

"No one else can learn this. Watch your mouth."

"Yes, sir. I will."

When Na Dohyung flicked a glance at him in the rearview mirror, Seonggi's eyes were glittering with greed.

I think I may have made a mistake...

Na Dohyung regretted it a beat too late. The water was already spilled.