The Blue Sunday Emerges
So there I was, settling into my first day at the media company, when the ten grams I'd distributed through Assistant Director Seon started getting reorders within three days. They wanted more product, so I told them it was time to pay. I set the official price at five hundred thousand won per gram. Of course, I also promised separate incentives. That was how I moved the first hundred grams—enough for three thousand doses.
I'd been wrong to dismiss it with a casual "How much could they possibly sell?" The orders kept climbing. Exactly one week later, Assistant Director Seon sent me an SOS.
I told him to strike while the iron was hot and create a second logistics team. Hire three new employees at the staff level. Time to push hard.
The following week, another message arrived.
That was when I realized this wasn't a joke. Three thousand doses—gone already? I'd thought the first complaint about manpower was just whining, but the second message felt deadly serious. The ridiculous name "Blue Sunday" had become a real commodity.
I felt a surge of caution and began preparing the necessary setups. First, I sent another hundred grams. Then I contacted Nakamura and requested a ton of raw materials. Since there was no need to extend credit, I paid in yen from the OEM settlement funds I'd received. It felt good to hold foreign currency.
Meanwhile, Haman Factory began running regular shifts. Why only now? Because after the last OEM run, I'd instructed them to process just thirty of the remaining two hundred eighty kilograms. How could I have known how fast it would sell? The phenethylamine content was about twenty percent lower than the Japanese version, which actually increased the yield, but the real issue was the recovery rate. It hovered around one percent. So I'd only produced as much sample as I could personally cover if something went wrong. Even that small batch had cost thirty million won in raw materials alone.
I'd also told the Minhee siblings to take a break. Those two had no sense of moderation. Even when I explained it was only sample production with some breathing room, their only operating principle was to finish every order as fast as humanly possible. When I asked why they pushed themselves so hard, their answer made me want to cry.
"If we don't work, we get beaten."
Damn. It was ingrained in them.
I instructed Assistant Director Seon to control the supply. Our organization wasn't ready yet. When hiring new staff, he was to use the Sky app whenever possible. The department head had drilled the same lesson into us from the moment we entered this line of work: expand as carefully and slowly as possible. I emphasized it again and again. He was a sharp man; he'd understand.
While overseeing the Blue Sunday operation, I clocked in at Pangyo two or three times a week. I also wrote what passed for articles—short pieces meant to leave a paper trail. Half an A4 page each, the kind of terse declarations of the times that journalists sometimes publish. "Young people, rise up. The future belongs to us." That sort of thing.
My official title was intern reporter, which meant I was still in training. They deducted about thirty percent of my salary accordingly. The forty-hour workweek didn't entirely apply; part of it counted as education. And what kind of education did reporters receive? Field reporting and outdoor activities. Which was why I was currently lounging on Cheonggyesan Mountain, eating samgyetang and hiking. It was a blessing to have such a good trail so close to Seoul.
Beep.
Someone was disturbing my peace again, just like last time.
What kind of normal person was this? What could I do? I was the one living in the jungle; I had to endure it. And I needed to give him a proper lesson in operational security. If you're going to hand out someone's ID, you should at least tell that person first.
Why not? Promoting the nation, earning foreign currency—sounded good to me.
He proceeded to recite the results of his background check on me. I decided right then to cut ties with Uirinam. Was this guy even in the business? What if he talked?
The proposal was straightforward. He was willing to take any product—weed, hashish, whatever. Price negotiations would be deal-by-deal, cash on delivery at Gimhae Airport or nearby. Clean and simple. When I asked how he planned to move the goods, he answered without hesitation.
At first I thought he was joking. What guide? But the explanation made sense. His organization ran full-package services for Korean tourists—flights, sightseeing, hotels, golf, entertainment. The people who arranged for Koreans to come to the Philippines were called guides. Because they traveled back and forth frequently, they had connections at the airport and could get things through.
It sounded like a distribution network to me. Then came the really attractive part of the offer: if I had foreign currency, they would exchange it for won at the market rate with no commission. Korean tourists paid everything in cash in the Philippines and didn't bother bringing foreign currency back. If they settled by bank transfer from Korea, the guides could convert it through their exchange partners in the Philippines. The funny thing was they wanted to be paid in won.
I was curious. "Then why not just receive the money in Korea?"
They had scale issues, he said. In the Philippines the dollar was king; the won was treated like a lower-tier currency. Hearing that gave me an odd feeling, as if the country had been taken away from us.
I asked if they could deliver the won through the guide in exchange for product and foreign currency. He said they would accept any of the three currencies. As expected, when I checked, it was dollars, yen, and yuan. I remembered the ten million yuan the Glitter guy had given me, plus the OEM settlement funds. Since I needed to spend the yen, I told him I had yuan available.
Baccara said that worked. We agreed to exchange at two hundred won per yuan and he asked for a sample of the product. I sent a premium-grade sample the next day and set up a schedule. Depending on the quantity, we could adjust the price.
True to Korean form, he contacted me again the very next day.
Arrogant. Who did he think he was dealing with? The Republic of Korea's... number... whatever.
I could talk to Cider and push this month's quota back. If the farm received an order, they could expand without even counting the trucks. Yeongcheon Farm was finished, but I'd heard Shinan was viable, so I'd already invested there.
Suddenly the arrogant Baccara went silent. Had the internet cut out? I muttered to myself about the poor infrastructure in the Philippines while spamming the refresh button on the chat window. Finally a reply came.
He sounded more polite all of a sudden. I needed a moment to check the withdrawal. Those gangster bank bastards were taking ten percent. When the amount exceeded a hundred million won they used to drop it to eight.
Small withdrawals meant higher fees. Could he hurry up and answer? We weren't even speaking Vietnamese; why was he so slow in our own language?
Huh? Cash-flow problems? Ah, he didn't trust me yet.
First transaction, so I'd give him seventy thousand. Cider had bought three kilograms at around that price—generous, really. The kids were probably in some war room right now, which explained the delay between every message. They must have a separate decision-making line.
I went for it. Clean one hundred million won. And he accepted. Thank you.
This one he answered immediately. But why was Uirinam's contact status being decided by this guy?