The Free Pharm Contract
Hong Myung-min's eyes went round at Oh Seongjin's words.
"I'm sorry? Zero? You mean you're giving it away for free?"
"Yes. The profit we make from selling AlgoPharm units is zero won. Instead—"
Oh Seongjin handed over the sales projection he had printed out.
"Our monetization model isn't built on turning a profit from the machines themselves. We make our money selling the pills that go into the AlgoPharm cartridges—nutritional supplements. Think of it as a subscription."
"Ha. So now you're selling pills on a subscription. That's where we are."
The sheer incredulity on the other man's face lit a stubborn fire in Oh Seongjin. He had read the marketing plan over and over on the way here, and the arguments came pouring out without a hitch.
"There's no product on earth better suited to a subscription model than nutritional supplements. Think about it. Adults over fifty take five or six different vitamins a day, don't they? That's fifty thousand won a month right there, at minimum."
"Once a customer rents a single AlgoPharm unit, fifty thousand won lands in our account every month, and we ship them a cartridge of pills. There are fifteen refillable cartridge slots. Even at ten thousand won apiece, that's a hundred and fifty thousand won a month in potential revenue per customer."
It didn't sound entirely impossible. Director Hong Myung-min's brow furrowed. He flipped through the marketing plan, landed on the projected annual revenue for 2025, and let out a short, incredulous laugh.
"Two hundred billion won in rental revenue? You actually believe that's achievable?"
He had come this far. All or nothing. Oh Seongjin answered with a confidence born of sheer abandon.
"We set that figure because we judged it entirely achievable."
Hong Myung-min had rather liked the improved dispenser's design and performance. The name AlgoPharm rolled off the tongue, too. He had been firm that a product aimed at customers fifty and older needed to be simple—and this, he thought, was striking enough to catch eyes even if they launched it tomorrow. It might even hold its own against Healthy, the unit Iljin Group was supposedly releasing early next year.
But the moment he heard they planned to rent AlgoPharm out for free, a sour, stalled-engine feeling settled in his chest. He couldn't begin to calculate how many pills they would have to sell just to recoup the cost of the dispenser. Then he checked the revenue figures, and the number staring back at him was staggering.
Do these people think two hundred billion is the name of somebody's dog?
He concluded they were simply too new to the business to have any real feel for what revenue looked like. The man was frustrating, but it wasn't as if Hong could detain him for a lecture. He sent Oh Seongjin on his way and went straight to CEO Joo Tae-seok. The CEO's interest had been keen enough that a report was obligatory.
"Well, the product itself performed well enough. It wouldn't hurt for us to point them in the right direction."
And yet.
Hong Myung-min had fully expected CEO Joo Tae-seok to sneer at PharmCare's marketing plan. Instead, the CEO's reaction was favorable.
"Hmm. I like it. Proceed with negotiations as they stand."
"I'm sorry?"
Director Hong Myung-min stared at his CEO, bewildered, no longer certain he had heard correctly.
"Sir, I—I don't think we should put too much faith in the marketing plan that company submitted."
"And why is that?"
"Well, the subscription model itself is a payment structure older customers aren't familiar with. And even if they give the machine away for free, their brand recognition is still far too low—"
"Then all we need to do is explain the subscription properly and raise brand awareness."
"I'm sorry? Even so, two hundred billion in annual revenue within a single year—"
"You said the product was good, didn't you? Every concern we had has been addressed."
"No matter how good the product is, two hundred billion still feels like a stretch. And asking us to go twenty percent below the pharmacy wholesale price is nothing short of highway robbery—"
Hong Myung-min trailed off. CEO Joo Tae-seok's expression had turned lethal.
"Director Hong. How long have you been in marketing?"
"...A little over twenty years now."
"I see age has blunted your instincts considerably."
"I'm sorry?"
As Director Hong's face went slack with shock, Joo Tae-seok laid it out for him, point by patient point.
"The entire domestic supplement market is one trillion won. Two hundred billion is a mere twenty percent of that. We wouldn't even be signing an exclusive contract. Partner with three or four well-known Korean pharmaceutical companies and the number looks perfectly reachable."
"That may be so, but whether it's possible in a single year—"
"Let me ask you something, Director. If someone quietly restocked the supplements you were already running low on, delivered them to your door every month without you lifting a finger, and did it cheaper than buying them at the pharmacy—would you really refuse to subscribe?"
"Well..."
He wanted to say that buying them at the pharmacy would still feel more trustworthy. Hong Myung-min kept his mouth shut. He had no desire to be told he was an obstinate old man who couldn't be reasoned with.
This is why young CEOs are exhausting. If the Chairman were still here, he'd have barked at him to stop this nonsense on the spot.
He was sitting there in a silence that felt like a protest when CEO Joo Tae-seok added one more thing.
"You didn't actually read the marketing plan carefully, did you."
"I did."
"Then you saw this as well?"
Joo Tae-seok turned the page and tapped a particular section with his index finger.
"The primary users are fifty and older—but the people who actually sign up for the subscription will mostly be in their thirties and forties. And if the user is sixty or older and selects a plan of a hundred thousand won or more, a staff member visits in person to install the cartridges. You're looking at this and you still don't see it?"
"..."
See what, exactly?
"Hah. You really are dense. It means we provide a care service in place of children who can't visit their aging parents every month. This product is a filial filial piety item with medicine as the medium. It lets sons and daughters convert their guilt into money."
"Ah..."
"These things are hard to establish the first time. Once convenience is burned into people's minds, they can't quit. And a three-year contract? Why do you think people who sign up for internet service or a water-purifier rental never cancel even when they're unhappy—they just grind it out until the term ends? If we don't plant our flag here, this company is finished."
Only then did Hong Myung-min grasp the gravity of the situation. A subscription. That was a terrifying thing. Once you signed, you couldn't cancel—the penalty cost more than staying. That was why they inflated the device's list price to begin with.
"Cooperate. Unconditionally."
"Yes, sir! Understood."
After Director Hong left, CEO Joo Tae-seok let out a dry laugh.
"Selling supplements on a subscription. Thanks to whatever madman thought of this, even this sleepy market—where competition used to mean nothing—is about to get vicious."
And who, exactly, was that madman?
Intensely curious, Joo Tae-seok summoned his secretary at once and ordered an investigation into PharmCare's corporate structure. A few days later, he heard something very strange.
"The majority shareholder of PharmCare is who?"
"The shares are registered to Jeong Ji-hyun of Law Firm Lim & Jung."
"Jeong Ji-hyun? Managing Partner Jeong's granddaughter, Jeong Ji-hyun?"
"Yes. That's correct."
"Ha. Well, I'll be damned..."
Jeong Ji-hyun owning PharmCare made no sense. She was almost certainly holding the company as a proxy, acting on someone else's instructions.
Who is it, then? Someone with the real power at Lim & Jung at their back...
This was getting more and more interesting.
A bead of sweat gathered on a sculpted thigh and rolled, slow and gleaming, to the floor.
A tapered waist. Abs carved into clean, chocolate-bar ridges. Chest muscle jumping with every shift of his arms. The taut, elegant cords of his neck. Last of all, the camera found Cha Eun-yu's devastatingly handsome face—then zoomed out, revealing him in full.
A moment later, finished with his workout, Cha Eun-yu wiped the sweat beading on his forehead and walked into a sleek, sophisticated kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and came to a stop in front of the Healthy pill dispenser. He pressed the button. Pills cascaded out.
If any other actor had delivered that line, viewers would have groaned and changed the channel. Because it was Cha Eun-yu, they let it slide.
Design your beautiful body with Healthy.
The instant the commercial dropped on YouTube, comments began exploding underneath it. The funny part? The jealous, seething comments—clearly from men—outnumbered the ones from the women who actually followed him.
The reaction was nuclear, and Han Se-ah's mouth would not come down from that smile. Neither would Lee Jungwan's.
"The ad response has been nothing short of explosive."
"I know, right? I didn't think it'd be this big. Makes the money we spent feel worth it. When did you say the demo video goes up?"
"The twenty-fourth."
"The twenty-fourth. Christmas Eve?"
"Yes. It's going in as a special episode of I Live Alone. That show's popular with young people these days."
"Good work. We needed a hit on network TV too."
Lee Jungwan lowered his voice.
"About that... meeting you mentioned, Department Head."
The meeting Team Leader Lee Jungwan was referring to was a dinner appointment with Cha Eun-yu. She had offered to treat him to a proper meal to celebrate the ad's smash success.
"Oh, right. I forgot. What'd he say?"
"He asked you to pick a time and place and let him know."
"Heehee. We can watch I Live Alone together, then. Tell Deputy General Manager Song on your way out."
"Understood."
Two weeks until launch. At last, it was time to show her family what she could do.
I've spent this whole time shrinking myself, watching their faces, living small.
The cold stares of a family that had dismissed her the moment she appeared in the chaebol household. If it hadn't been for the Chairman doting on her, they would have treated her like she was invisible. That much was obvious.
Thanks to Cha Eun-yu, Iljin Group's stock has climbed quite a bit too.
Iljin Group's share price, which had been drifting sideways for days, had rippled at the news of Cha Eun-yu's casting—then jumped more than five percent the instant the Healthy launch commercial dropped. That alone was an enormous achievement. And if Healthy's sales exploded, the family would no longer be able to look down on her. She would have done right by the grandfather who had believed in her and backed her without reservation. And if he praised her and offered a gift...
"What should I ask for first? Jinju Department Store? Or Jinju Hotel?"
Han Se-ah hummed under her breath, willing the twenty-fourth to arrive.
A hushed study sheathed in dark brown wood. True to its austere owner's nature, the only light in the room fell across the desk.
A knock.
Director Do Jin-sung, Chairman Han Chung-won's secretary, stepped inside. The Chairman looked up from his book, reading glasses perched on his nose. A rusted, wheezing voice scraped out of his thin lips.
"The stock went up, you say?"
"Yes. It closed today up 12.3 percent over the week."
"And the reason?"
"The supplement dispenser advertisement Department Head Han Se-ah has been pushing was a hit."
"You're certain?"
"Yes."
"Heh. An advertisement."
The Chairman gave a weak laugh and looked at Director Do.
"What's your take? Will this venture succeed?"
"I can't say for certain, as the product hasn't launched yet."
"But?"
"The odds of failure appear high."
The Chairman snorted.
"Failure..."
From a body hunched like a balloon with the air let out of it, a dry voice leaked into the room, thin as a draft.
"Children grow by making mistakes. Leave her be."
"But from what her executive secretary tells me, she doesn't appear to know the first thing about management."
"Who's born knowing how to work? If she's my blood, she'll find a way soon enough."
Director Do's expression soured, but he held his tongue. This was the Chairman. Not long ago the old man had collapsed without warning, and the household had erupted into chaos. The last thing anyone needed was to give him something else to worry about.
"That'll be all."
"Yes, sir."
At the Chairman's dismissal, Do Jin-sung bowed and left the study.
The moment he was gone, the haze on Chairman Han Chung-won's face sharpened into something venomous. He was certain Do Jin-sung was hiding something.
Tsk. If only there were someone I could actually trust.
He had never put his faith in another human being—black-haired beasts, every last one of them. But the suspicion had bloated into a disease the day he realized his own children were desperate to steal his seat. Ten years. He had clung to his position, white-knuckled, and held on. Then, after the cerebral hemorrhage dropped him, they had started pressing him to hand over the Iljin Group shares as if he were already dying. If he collapsed and didn't get up, they said, management rights could shake.
They want to strip me of everything I own and kill me. Did they think I wouldn't see it?
And then God had given him one last chance. Blood he had believed dead and gone. His eldest son's daughter—Han Se-ah.
Judging that he could finally end the taut tug-of-war, Han Chung-won cast Han Se-ah onto the still water as a sacrifice.