Lee Jinmyeong Draws His Sword (1)
Spring had arrived.
Hui-yeom turned twenty-two, and Sama Yun twenty-one.
Which meant Dang Su-jeong had turned forty-two.
Forty-two.
Even if her formidable martial arts still preserved the lush beauty of a woman in her late twenties—
She was forty-two. Forty-two.
Even in the modern twenty-first century, forty-two was considered rather late for a first marriage, for men and women alike. (Of course, many who married at that age were highly educated people who had pursued social success and simply missed their window, so it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.)
But here in the Central Plains, where fifteen-year-olds were treated as adults and bearing children was the norm, forty-two was the age when people typically had grandchildren.
Except for martial artists whose aging was delayed, it was the age of grandmas and grandpas.
Naturally, most people of that age had long since given up on marriage.
And yet she was supposed to wait another three years?
With a desperation akin to that of a certain eternal bachelor of a teacher who had set as his class motto "No more delays: my marriage, your college applications," Dang Su-jeong went to Hui-yeom and played the pitiful card.
"Yeom-ah~! Can't you take pity on your aunt just this once? At this rate I'll really end up meeting my kid after I hit fifty."
Looking at Dang Su-jeong's eyes, watering like a cat in rain boots, Hui-yeom was about to speak when Dang Un-sang, cradling U-ju, cut in with a sneer.
"Your problem isn't your age—it's that temper of yours, you little—GACK!!"
"...Father, why do you keep poking Aunt when she's just sitting there quietly?"
Why did his father—the strongest martial artist in the Dang Family and its charismatic Family Head—turn into a brat the moment his little sister was involved?
Hui-yeom stared at him with a thoroughly unimpressed expression. Dang Un-sang, clutching the side Su-jeong had pinched and trembling, let out a soft chuckle.
"You don't have siblings... so you wouldn't understand."
"Gyaa~!!"
U-ju found his grandfather's teary face hilarious and yanked on his beard, giggling gya-gya.
Dang Su-jeong quickly snatched U-ju away from Dang Un-sang and grumbled.
"Ew, ew, ew~. You'll catch the misogyny."
"My epithet is Mandokgunja, you brat—the Gentleman of Ten Thousand Poisons. Catching my character would be a good thing."
"Does a gentleman get his side pinched for teasing his little sister and then cackle about it?"
Watching his aunt and father regress to elementary-school mental ages in real time, Hui-yeom managed a bitter smile.
"...Even if I don't have siblings, I do have cousins. They're all good kids."
At Hui-yeom's words, Dang Un-sang and Dang Su-jeong both made identical expressions of pure disbelief.
Seriously? He could call those kids "good"?
Dang Su-jeong and Dang Un-sang thought of their other nephews and nieces.
-Budget! Budgettttt! Why isn't it matchingggg!!
-Kieeeeeeeee!!
-The Young Master... whispered through the balance sheet... If this quarter's performance is trash... everything will become dust of the void....
-ia! ia! With burning thirst... O cash flow... glory...!
-Tekeli-! Tekeli-li!!-
-Science is explosionnnnn!!! Aroo-roo-roo!!!
-This bastard caught it from Director Dang Un-hwa?!
"..."
"...Good?"
The further down the list you went, the more unhinged their cousins became. They either flung themselves at paperwork like blood-crazed demons of the Blood Cult, shrieking as they flipped desks along with their project proposals, or got caught hunting rival departments' plans to snatch budget allocations...
These were people as distant from the expression "good kids" as the Central Plains were from Tibet's Great Brain Temple.
Of course, they had their excuses.
Once upon a time they had been promising talents with the cleverness and brilliance expected of the Dang Family's direct line.
But then...
-Look to your cousin, the Young Master! He started a business by creating products at age eight!
-By ten you should be able to sweet-talk a provincial governor with sheer eloquence!
-Startup capital? Yeom just made his own capital and even presented it as tribute—what exactly is that you're holding?
-If your martial arts were outstanding it'd be different, but that kid already produces five hundred material forms with the Green Dragon Divine Art. What can YOU even do?!
Constantly compared to the Family Head's son Hui-yeom—the ultimate "son of a successful parent"—and whipped with those words, the Dang Family's direct descendants never dared challenge him or threaten his position. Instead, the mere sight of Hui-yeom made them flop onto the floor and lick the ground like deranged hamsters, screaming:
'I-I hate work!'
'Work, research, report, evaluate, work, research, report, evaluate.'
'Gyaaaaaaak gyaaaaaak!'
They had become such "good" kids.
Even the merciless King of the Fifth Court of Freezing Hell—who judged the karma of men's unjust deeds—would hesitate to pass sentence upon witnessing their fall, muttering, "Ah... this one might deserve some mitigation..."
Their relationship with Dang Hui-yeom was, in the words of a certain naval admiral, nothing less than fire and magma! A complete superior-subordinate relationship.
Unlike Dang Su-jeong and Dang Un-sang, who needled and cooperated like frenemies and natural enemies, they had become like cosmic dust fallen light-years away from a shining black hole and its event horizon, beyond an uncrossable wall of the void.
Dang Un-sang clicked his tongue.
Tsk. No matter how brilliant Yeom is, for men to have so little backbone... A true man of the Tang Clan needs the spirit to say, "I'll beat Hui-yeom yet!"
Of course, he himself had dumped every scrap of work onto Hui-yeom and fled with a reverse succession ceremony—"Ah, Father, what is this?" "I'm transferring the Family Head position to you, my son!"—and had cleanly banished that memory to the far side of his mind. Even Satan would slap his forehead in admiration at such a lack of conscience.
Only someone that shameless could hold a collapsing family together for ten years while being scraped raw by debt collectors and the subtle power plays of the branch families.
Then again, no matter how talented the Dang Family's young talents were, they were still only fresh MIT engineering grads or newly minted MBAs. Suddenly demanding Steve Jobs–, Bill Gates–, or Warren Buffett–level results was a bit much.
"...We've wandered a bit off-topic. To get back to it—Aunt, what you're really saying is that waiting for Secretary Lee to produce meaningful results is taking too long, right?"
"That's right... My age is my age, after all... And in the meantime, if young pretty things start flocking around Secretary Lee, what am I supposed to do..."
"Ah, well, for someone of Secretary Lee's caliber the only real flaw is that he's a bit old, so as the top groom candid—YAAARGH!!"
Dang Un-sang, whose armpit had been pinched, leapt like a man struck by lightning and swore.
"Damn it! I was complimenting your boyfriend—why the pinch?!"
"You were just insulting Secretary Lee for being old and taking a dig at me!!"
"Your persecution complex is out of control! Why would I dig at you behind your back when I can dig to your face! You old hag!!"
"Gyaaaaak!!!"
"Gyaaaaa~."
"..."
Crack!
Something shattered in the hands of Eun Seol-ran, who had been watching their antics with a smiling face.
When eyes turned involuntarily, the fruit knife was crumbling like eggshell.
Eun Seol-ran spoke with that picture-perfect smile still in place.
"Are you going to keep making fools of yourselves in front of your granddaughter?"
"...No, dear."
"...Sorry, Sister-in-law."
When the person who always smiles gets angry, it is terrifying.
Hui-yeom offered a wry smile.
"Well, I fully understand Aunt's feelings, but this is a matter of Secretary Lee's pride—as a man, and as someone who handles money.
If we just hand it to him, that will wound his heart as well.
To put it in martial-world terms: imagine steeling your resolve to grow stronger and entering closed-door training, only for your master to drag you out of the training cave saying, 'You're getting on in years and you need to get married, so half-assed training will do.'"
"Mmm..."
Dang Su-jeong could only hang her head, deflated.
Hui-yeom smiled as if to encourage her.
"Don't worry. I said three years, but it might not even take three years."
"Really?"
"Of course."
Hui-yeom knew Lee Jinmyeong better than anyone.
Perhaps better than Lee Jinmyeong himself.
Lee Jinmyeong was an extreme realist. One of the things he had learned while being chewed out by Hui-yeom every day, every moment, was: "Never speak of the impossible."
Hui-yeom loathed nothing more than reports based on uncertain speculation that later had to be walked back.
Lee Jinmyeong had internalized the habit of saying "I don't know" when he didn't know, then investigating properly later and reporting on solid background data.
When he had spoken the words "three years," it was because he had judged it possible.
And that would certainly be the most conservative estimate.
That was the method Hui-yeom had drilled into him.
"Just wait and see. When Secretary Lee says he'll do something, he does it.
Doesn't every man want to look cool in front of his woman?"
At that very moment.
'I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed I'm screwed!!!!!'
Lee Jinmyeong was alone in his office, tearing at his hair.
'How am I supposed to raise a company that meets the Young Master's standards in three years?!'
He had been brimming with confidence when he made the declaration in front of Hui-yeom and Dang Su-jeong.
But unlike when he merely assisted in Hui-yeom's projects or gathered and organized data, actually trying to do it himself felt impossibly bleak and difficult. Just looking at the numbers in the rising reports was enough to choke him.
'I could run a middling merchant company right this second. The problem is I have to build something at the affiliate-company level.
Just a company that turns a fat net profit isn't enough.
It has to be an enterprise that leads the regional economy and, beyond that, drives the changes of the era.'
If Hui-yeom had heard that, he would have replied with something like, "Huh? I never asked for that much. First-time entrepreneur and you're talking about founding Apple?" But Lee Jinmyeong's conviction was unshakable.
That was right.
As a businessman, he had practically grown up looking only at Hui-yeom.
His standards were sky-high.
So after boldly declaring it, the cleanup was giving him a splitting headache.
And yet...
Whenever he recalled Dang Su-jeong's moist eyes looking at him, a flame roared up in his chest.
A beauty of that caliber,
a woman of that nobility,
was waiting only for him and shedding tears of worry?
'Don't die lying down, Lee Jinmyeong—die of overwork standing up!'
For the woman he loved enough to give his life, the man Lee Jinmyeong.
He began drafting his business plan with the resolve to die.
And in the shadows, two people were watching him.
"...That, guy, that, guy's, death, face."
"...Why are you being so unlucky?"
"No, really. Mantises, when, they mate, the male, gets eaten, by the female, right? Literally life-or-death, mating."
"..."
"Right now, that guy's, face, has the smell, of a male, approaching, the female's back, steeling himself, for death..."
"...Let's just go do our work."
"Where, to?"
"We can't just let a girl we've watched for nearly half a century become a young widow, can we? We have to help."
And so Lee Jinmyeong's struggle began.