The Ones Burning with Anger
After finishing their tour of the department store and the discount mart, Young-hoon and his party made the rounds of LA's famous tourist spots.
Young-hoon found every last bit of it fascinating and fun, but the others—long accustomed to shuttling back and forth to America—reacted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
Chairman Steven, ever quick to read the room, suggested they head back to the hotel, rest up individually, and reconvene for dinner.
At that, everyone's eyes—everyone's except Young-hoon's—lit up like lamps.
It looked as though the "Oriental painting appreciation" session would be running a good two or three hours today.
Back at the hotel, gathered in a single room, the party threw themselves into the serious business of appreciating Oriental art.
Young-hoon had long heard that the Chinese loved their gambling, but Chairman Wang was something else entirely.
Today, too, it was Chairman Wang who swept the table clean.
At last, everyone—including Chairman Choi—began to lose their tempers.
No one feels good after losing money, and Young-hoon's party proved no exception to that old saying.
At this rate, I wonder if we're going to develop high blood pressure.
Reunited with their partners at the dinner banquet, the party ate their fill, returned to the hotel, and played out the second match of the day.
Daisy, apparently well rested from the afternoon, chased after Young-hoon with unflagging enthusiasm.
He barely managed to stagger through the first half, but by the middle of the second half, his stamina crashed and his whole body gave out beneath him.
After a short break, the match resumed, but it seemed the second half was simply his limit.
With the schedule calling for them to fly on to New York today, Young-hoon decided to end his match there as well.
With everything packed and ready, he came down to the lobby on the first floor and waited a little while before the heroes of the previous night's fierce battles began to appear one by one.
Every last one of them wore a thoroughly satisfied face.
Before long, Chairman Michael and Chairman Steven arrived, looking utterly vigorous and brimming with life.
"My brothers, did you two sleep well?"
Young-hoon's eyes went wide when he heard Chairman Michael and Chairman Steven address Chairman Jang and Chairman Choi as hyung.
It was now beyond doubt that the two chairmen had indeed made hogu younger brothers of them.
Young-hoon was about to hand Daisy a tip for her two days of companionship, but Chairman Michael got there first, producing envelopes and passing them around to the partners.
When the partners checked the contents, their mouths fell open wide enough to fit a rice bowl.
The amount exceeded their expectations, and every one of them beamed.
The truth was that the partners had not exactly been thrilled at the prospect of entertaining elderly gentlemen from the East.
Sure, they looked remarkably robust for their age, but they were old men all the same, weren't they?
But that had been a colossal miscalculation.
Once night fell, they had been nothing short of ravenous beasts.
At times the partners doubted whether these men really were elderly at all.
On the contrary, they had tasted pleasures they had never known before, been carried to heaven and back more times than they could count—and worried, faintly, that they really might just be carried off to heaven for good.
They had spent hours of genuine satisfaction, indulged themselves to their hearts' content, and then received compensation beyond all imagination—so their mood soared to twice its former heights.
Truthfully, money aside, they were already at the point of wanting to visit Korea someday just to see these men again, and there was real reluctance in their steps as they said their goodbyes.
After bidding farewell to the partners, Young-hoon's party boarded Chairman Wang's private jet bound for New York, seen off by Chairman Michael and Chairman Steven.
But their connection with these men was not yet over.
On the return trip, they would stop in LA once more, so that Chairman Wang and Chairman Michael could sign the contract for the purchase of Michael's PBS shares.
When Young-hoon asked a flight attendant how long the flight from LA to New York would take, she said more than five hours.
In Korea, nowhere in the country took more than an hour at most to reach… America really was a vast land.
The moment the plane leveled off at cruising altitude, the fifth match began.
Evidently the Dog Theory could not be ignored even here—the game once again looked to end in a victory for Chairman Wang.
The one saving grace was that it was not a perfect, clean win for him, but a narrow one.
Still, those starved for victory steeled themselves with the resolve to pay him back without fail next time.
When they touched down at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Chairman Jang's daughter and son-in-law were there to meet them.
Chairman Jang's only daughter, Jang Young-ju, was stunned the moment she saw her father stepping out of the gate.
His confident stride looked more vigorous than that of any man in his fifties.
She had already heard over the phone that a man named Kim Young-hoon had given her father the elixir and turned his body young again, but seeing it with her own eyes, the story seemed to be true.
When she saw the bright smile her father wore as he turned toward her, tears of joy fell before she could stop them.
The truth was that no matter how far modern medicine advanced or how long life expectancy grew, one's seventies remained an age of worry.
But seeing him so bursting with vitality, it seemed certain he would hold strong right up until he met his great-grandchildren.
And to think it was all thanks to a man called Kim Young-hoon—she felt as though she ought to fall to her knees and bow to the ground.
Jang Young-ju approached Chairman Jang with a joyful heart and greeted him.
"Father, how would you like to spend a night at our home today?"
"Of course I would. I want to see how much my granddaughters have grown, and introduce everyone here. You know Chairman Choi, don't you? Hehe. We used to butt heads every time we met, but a while back I claimed the older-brother spot. That man over there is Director Park of Chunghyo General Hospital, my personal physician; this younger brother here is Chairman Wang Chenchen of Shanghai Media Group in China; and this young man is CEO Kim Young-hoon. I told you about him on the phone, remember?"
After exchanging greetings with each member of the party in turn, Young-ju came up to Young-hoon to offer her thanks.
"You're CEO Kim Young-hoon, aren't you? Our father has spoken of you to me several times. I can't tell you how long it's been since I've seen him so happy. He was always lonely after our mother passed away, but looking at him now, it's as if he's returned to his younger days—it fills my heart with joy."
"Not at all. If anything, I'm the one deeply grateful for all the help Chairman Jang has given me. He's spoken often and proudly of his daughter who lives in America, so meeting you like this is a real pleasure."
"Yes. Since you've come all this way to America, tonight we'll host you with a Korean dinner at our home."
"Now that's a welcome I'm glad to hear. They do say Koreans live on the strength of their rice. Haha!"
"Hohoho, I do hope you'll forgive me if my cooking isn't up to par?"
"Of course. Plain white rice and kimchi is all a man needs."
Young-hoon had been in America for only four days, but he yearned for a proper bowl of rice.
There was nothing lacking in the meals Chairman Michael had provided, and yet without rice, something had always felt hollow.
So when Chairman Jang's daughter said she would prepare a Korean dinner, his mouth began to water before he could help it.
But there was no telling how Chairman Wang, a Chinese national, might feel about it.
Fortunately, Chairman Wang said he had been craving Korean food after so long, and gladly accepted Young-ju's invitation.
With time to spare before dinner, the party checked into the hotel Chairman Wang had reserved, rested briefly, and agreed to meet in the lobby at six in the evening.
The rooms were suites, just as Chairman Wang had promised, with a more old-world elegance than the hotels in LA.
Young-hoon himself, wrung out from last night's physical labor and the mental labor (go-stop) aboard the plane, felt as heavy as a thousand-pound bell.
As a result, he was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
When the alarm roused him, it was already past five thirty.
It felt as though he had shut his eyes for only a moment, yet he had slept more than four hours straight.
He rushed through a shower and headed down to the first floor, where he spotted the whole party coming down—everyone except Chairman Jang, who would be resting at his daughter's place.
In the hotel lobby, Lawyer Smith was already waiting for them.
Smith's home sat in a suburb somewhat removed from the heart of New York.
He was not as wealthy as Chairman Michael, but he appeared to live a comfortably prosperous life all the same.
The meal Young-ju prepared was closer to fusion cuisine than authentic Korean food.
Still, eating Korean food after only four days away lifted his spirits.
In the end, nothing beat a bowl of white rice for a Korean.
With their stomachs more or less filled, they were enjoying coffee and easy conversation when Director Park threw down the gauntlet.
At once, the eyes of every player present began to sparkle.
Flopping down onto the floor of the sitting room, they launched into the sixth round of Oriental painting appreciation.
Keeping tomorrow's schedule in mind, they agreed to play only until midnight.
But then something truly strange happened—the Dog Theory held true yet again.
Out of nowhere, it was Lawyer Smith who took command of the table.
Young-ju sat beside her husband, coaching him—throw that card, no, this one.
Unable to watch any longer, Chairman Jang fired off a remark.
"Young-ju, shouldn't you be off tending to your girls?"
He phrased it as delicately as he could, but the meaning was plain: quit coaching and go watch your children.
Yet whether from sheer obliviousness or not, Young-ju answered with perfect composure.
"Father, the girls are all grown up—they're fine. My husband's doing great. Hohohoho."
Finally, Chairman Jang exploded.
"You! Blow on that game one more time during a match and you're a dead woman! Where do you get off coaching at the sacred table!"
Truly, at the gambling table, even one's own children ceased to exist.
Chastened, Young-ju flinched, but still shot glances of instruction at her husband every time he played a hand.
And Smith, for his part, spared neither father-in-law nor courtesy when victory was on the line.
In the end, Lawyer Smith walked away with roughly three hundred dollars, and—ironically—it was Chairman Jang who lost the most.
Young-hoon, meanwhile, for the first time during the whole run of the sixth match, won about fifty dollars.
Chairman Jang pushed hard to extend the game another hour, but his son-in-law Smith flatly refused.
True to the self-assertive American character, once he had decided it was over, he saw it through to the end without budging.
So the party left Chairman Jang to stew in his frustration and returned to the hotel to bed—everyone except Chairman Jang himself, who was too busy swallowing his anger to sleep peacefully.
Chairman Jang was fuming so hard that sleep simply would not come.
Since leaving Korea, he had played six matches.
And had not won a single one.
Worse, he had been reduced to the biggest losing hogu of them all.
He could sit on a fortune worth tens of trillions of won, but even so, going 0-for-6 in the pitiless world of high stakes was something he simply could not accept.
And today especially, that ungrateful daughter of his had coached her husband's hands, which was why he'd lost even more than usual.
They had just reunited after so long—of course she should have been cheering for her own father, and instead she fussed over her husband and no one else.
That was what stung most of all.
So that's why the old saying goes, there's no use raising a daughter.
And what was with that son-in-law of his, being so devilishly good at go-stop? He probably did no work at all and did nothing but practice, the wretch.
The relentless barrage of the triple combo—Shirigo, Gwang-bak, and Pi-bak penalties—had left him with no wits left to gather.
After grumbling and seething for a long while, Chairman Jang finally went to bed, burning with the vow that he would win for certain next time.
Chairman Choi, back at the hotel, could not sleep properly either.
Six matches, six losses.
He supposed he had lost a little less than that Jang fellow, but that was no consolation at all.
Did he not know who he was?
He had over forty years of go-stop under his belt—and he had lost to that Wang-family hogu, who had only learned the game four days ago. That was the fatal blow.
And on top of that, Jang's son-in-law turned out to be so devastatingly good at go-stop that every time he declared, it was five points or better as a matter of course.
Taking Shirigo, Gwang-bak, and Pi-bak penalties off Jang's son-in-law had been the killer.
Two hundred dollars, shoveled into the man's mouth in a single hand.
If not for that, he might actually have come out ahead in the end.
And that daughter of Jang's! Unlike her father, Choi had always looked after her, doted on her—and it had all come to nothing.
He simply could not get over the sight of her hovering at her husband's side, coaching his every move.
Director Park, too, looked as though he had been burned to a white ash, hollow-eyed and dazed.
The confidence of a man who had fancied himself a first-rate card shark had come crashing down around him.
His losses to date were pushing eight hundred dollars.
Among the Korean players, he was fairly sure he had lost the most.
Money was money, but never winning a single game in the world of high stakes left him burning with shame and resentment.
At this rate, he'd be digging into the money meant for a gift for his young sweetheart.
Only two or three matches remained, at most.
To so much as break even by then, he would have to win three hundred dollars or more every single time he sat down—and that did not look easy.
He hated himself, cornered at the edge of the cliff.
Today was the day they were scheduled to meet with executives of the distribution company covering the eastern United States.
After a quick shower, Young-hoon came down to the lobby to find the Wang brothers, Chairmen Wang Chenchen and Wang Qianshu, appearing together.
When he asked what was going on, they explained that they had flown in from China the night before in order to introduce their American business partners.
A short while later, Chairman Jang arrived at the hotel as well, with his son-in-law Smith in tow.
Chairman Wang Qianshu greeted Chairman Jang warmly the moment he saw him.
"Hello, big brother. How do you do?"
"Ah, there you are. Little brother, you made the trip all the way from China—good work."
Young-hoon was curious when exactly Chairman Jang had claimed Chairman Wang Qianshu as a little brother, but by now he simply let it slide.
He was already playing older brother to Chairman Wang Chenchen, after all, so it was hardly a surprising development.
Besides, Jang and Choi were simply peerless in that particular arena, so Young-hoon could only assume the two had already made hogu little brothers of them back when they visited China.