What's the Right Price for the Elixir?
Chairman Jang had never once dreamed that Chairman Choi would come out swinging this aggressively.
After all, he hadn't even paid for his elixir yet.
All he'd done, when he ran into Young-hoon at the drama pre-production announcement event last Friday, was promise to get him an officetel of roughly thirty pyeong in Gangnam as payment for the elixir.
But the moment yesterday's full medical checkup confirmed that his body had rapidly rejuvenated to the age of a man in his early fifties, he'd upgraded the gift to a luxury villa of a hundred pyeong.
And even that was a paltry seven billion won or so — which was why he'd decided to throw in a house for Executive Director Lee as well.
Yet Young-hoon still had no idea that his payment had gone from an officetel to a hundred-pyeong luxury villa.
Even with the Executive Director's house thrown in, it came to less than fifteen billion — while Chairman Choi was offering a cool hundred billion per bottle. Left unchecked, this was shaping up to be a major disaster.
It was time to start doing some damage control.
"Choi, my friend — that hundred billion figure was just me joking around with you. The truth is, I haven't paid Young-hoon for the elixir yet either. At first, I wasn't even planning to give him money for it. I was simply going to lease him an officetel, maybe thirty pyeong or so."
Chairman Jang paused for a moment, stealing a cautious glance around, before continuing.
"Then I got my full checkup yesterday, and the results were so good I felt like I was flying. Officetel rent just seemed far too meager a payment for the elixir. Besides, I figured I owed Executive Director Lee a finder's fee as well... So I've decided to buy luxury villas in Sinsa-dong, Gangnam — one for Young-hoon, one for Executive Director Lee. And even so, that's just the cost of two homes. Including registration and all the taxes, the whole thing won't come to even fifteen billion."
Young-hoon and Ki-jin both jolted at Chairman Jang's words, crying out at the same time.
"What?!"
Young-hoon couldn't believe it and asked Chairman Jang again.
"At last week's pre-production announcement, you told me you'd get me a thirty-pyeong officetel... I was already grateful beyond words. Isn't a luxury villa far too expensive?"
"I suppose I haven't said a word to you since then, have I? Well, like I mentioned earlier, at first I was going to get you just the one officetel. But that elixir of yours turned out to be far too good. I've been enjoying heaven every single night, and a mere officetel felt insultingly small, so I upgraded to a luxury villa in Gangnam. About a hundred pyeong, fully furnished, so just bring your personal things and move in this weekend. And I've arranged the same villa for Executive Director Lee. Lee gets the third floor. Young-hoon, you get the fourth."
"Even so, that's far too extravagant a gift for me."
"When an elder gives you a gift, all you say is 'thank you' and take it. Same goes for you, Executive Director — no arguments. Choi, my friend, I've spent fifteen billion, so you just match that. Let's wrap it up at that level. That settles it, doesn't it?"
Chairman Choi, for whom Chairman Jang had long been a sworn enemy, found himself suddenly and deeply grateful to the man.
The trouble was, the problem lay elsewhere.
All the money he had on him right now was a hundred-billion-won check. He wanted his elixir immediately, but he still had his pride — he couldn't very well ask to pay on credit, nor could he ask for the difference back.
He'd already made up his mind to pay a hundred billion per bottle, after all...
In the end, Chairman Choi shrugged inwardly — ah, to hell with it — and decided to spend big.
"That works fine by me, except all I've got on me is a hundred-billion-won check. Well, no helping it. Let's call it a hundred billion for three bottles, lump sum. In exchange, next time I buy, just charge me the same fifteen billion you charged that old goat Jang there."
Young-hoon felt that the polite thing would obviously be to refuse the hundred-billion-won check, but the mood of the room made refusing impossible, so he reluctantly accepted a single check.
And, of course, he handed over three bottles of the elixir to Chairman Choi.
Chairman Choi hesitated, as if there were something more he had to say to Young-hoon, then finally opened his mouth.
"And, you see... I made a rather big mistake yesterday. So, Young-hoon, I have an apology to make."
At the words big mistake, Young-hoon was suddenly gripped by unease.
Because a "mistake" made by a man in a position like Chairman Choi's was surely not on the same scale as what an ordinary person like himself would imagine.
Still, he collected himself and asked again.
"What sort of big mistake, if I may ask? Please tell me."
"I had my full checkup yesterday at Chunghyo General Hospital, and it showed my body had gotten years younger — a physical age of fifty-two. But Director Park kept pressing me about the reason, so I told him it was because of the elixir. And now he says his mother's health has taken a turn for the worse, and he's asking me to get him an elixir, and he doesn't know what to do."
Chairman Jang looked toward Chairman Choi as if appealing for help, then went on.
"You know Director Park too, Chairman Choi — his family is not one you can just brush off. When I joked that I'd bought mine for three hundred billion, he said he was short on funds and asked me to haggle it down to a hundred billion or so... Tsk. I promised him an answer by tomorrow."
"I'm sorry — he's asking you to get him an elixir too?"
"In a word... yes, that's about the size of it."
Chairman Choi, who had been listening to the two of them, cut in.
"Hey, you old goat Jang. Why would you go saying things like that and putting Young-hoon in a bind?"
"That's my fault, I admit it. The checkup results were so good it just flew out of my mouth before I knew it. Anyway, my apologies."
Young-hoon was utterly bewildered.
When he'd first decided to make and sell the Magic Additive, he'd figured a fair price would be around five hundred thousand won.
Now the official price had somehow been fixed at fifteen billion won.
His cost was roughly fifty-five thousand won — and even granting that labor was free, this had gotten far too expensive.
With the two Cash Kings intervening, the price had inflated to two hundred seventy thousand times the production cost.
This was a bigger con than Bong-i Kim Seon-dal, the legendary trickster who'd supposedly sold the waters of the Taedong River, he thought.
But he'd already climbed onto the tiger's back — there was no getting off now.
Young-hoon gathered his thoughts once more and began to speak.
"As I mentioned before, there's a limit to how much elixir I can obtain from the Taebaek Mountain Taoist Master. Aside from the three bottles I brought today, I only have about five bottles left. I never know when I'll be able to see him again, so I'd rather not have things expand any further. That's why I'm saying this: let's keep it to Director Park and no one else. I hear the Taebaek Mountain Taoist Master is researching ways to obtain the elixir in larger quantities, so until then, I'd ask you both to restrain yourselves."
Chairman Jang felt grateful that Young-hoon had so readily granted his request.
But the moment he heard there were five bottles left, greed suddenly began to stir.
Fifteen billion won was, against his fortune, a trifling sum — like scooping a single bowl out of the Han River.
"So if we sell one bottle to Director Park, that leaves four? Then the two of us will buy two bottles each, shall we?"
Chairman Choi eagerly echoed Chairman Jang's words.
"Yes, that's a fine idea."
"Chairmen, please — just finish what I've already given you first. When I go down to my hometown for the Lunar New Year, I'll try to get more elixir from the Taebaek Mountain Taoist Master. Wouldn't that work?"
In an instant, color bloomed across both chairmen's faces.
If Young-hoon was telling the truth, they could look forward to enjoying it without a hitch for at least another ten years.
As they traded toasts and well-wishes back and forth and the drinking party ripened, Chairman Jang suddenly spoke up.
"Young-hoon, there's one thing among the effects you mentioned about the elixir that seems to be wrong."
"I'm sorry? Is there a side effect?"
Young-hoon asked in a fluster.
"No, no. You said that if you drank an amount equal to about two shots of soju, the effect lasted around twenty-four hours. Well, that doesn't seem to be it. Twenty-four hours is the peak, and it seems to taper off little by little after that. So it feels like a single dose keeps working for at least three or four days. Last night I enjoyed a match lasting about two hours, and there was no problem at all. Choi, my friend — how was it for you?"
"Jang, you too, huh? I drank mine on Saturday, and yesterday I enjoyed a match for three hours or so with no trouble whatsoever. I figured the elixir's effect lasted at least three days, but you're saying it's at least four or five?"
No way. Do these old men do nothing but play the tango(?) every single day? And a baseline of two or three hours — just how much stamina do they have? Well, then I'm young, so I could go even longer, couldn't I? Hehehe.
Listening to the two chairmen's exchange, Young-hoon quietly rejoiced inside.
This time, Chairman Choi turned to Ki-jin and asked.
"Executive Director Lee, what about you? You're younger than me, so you must be able to enjoy the match far longer?"
"I have to go to work the next day, so I can't go on for too long. On weekends I can manage five or six hours, but my wife ends up passing out, so... Hahaha. And it seems the elixir is good for the ladies, too. According to my wife, lately she's been, ah, thoroughly undone. Says the sensation has gotten far better, she does."
"So your wife has been sharing this wine with you as well?"
"Of course. She drinks it with me and my brother-in-law."
"So it's good for the women too, is it... Ah, whatever — I'm drinking mine alone regardless. Jang, what do you think?"
"What kind of nonsense is that, you fool! Each glass is worth over two billion won — how could I share it? And another thing — one of this drink's effects is anti-aging, remember? Which means aging slows down. But honestly, this elixir seems to reverse age entirely. The fact that my body has gotten this young is proof of that, isn't it? Of course, once the effect wears off, it'll go back — but this effect seems to last a long, long time. Ever since I started taking the elixir, I've been positively bursting with vitality."
"Same for you, Choi?"
"Naturally. Say it twice and I'm out of breath — of course. The way I see it, this effect will last a month or more. We'd know for certain if we ran an experiment, but we can't. We'll be drinking too often."
"True enough. We're unqualified, so let's run an experiment sometime. Who should the test subject be? We can't just experiment on anyone — it ought to be someone who can keep their mouth shut, no?"
"Choi, my friend, your Butler Kang should do nicely. My household is just me and my good-for-nothing son, so I've got no one to test it on."
"Understood. I'll test it on Butler Kang and report the results to you."
Young-hoon was truly grateful to the two chairmen — they not only spelled out the effects of the Magic Additive wine (the elixir) on his behalf, but were even volunteering to run the clinical trials themselves.
Things were proceeding entirely on their own, without him having to lift a finger.
Now only one question remained.
"Chairmen — if this elixir were sold at fifteen billion won a bottle, roughly how many people in this country could afford to buy it?"
At those words, Chairman Choi's eyes gleamed sharply.