Entrusting Ilhyeon's Vault
Lee Tak-hyeon sat alone on the living room sofa and asked Hwang Do-beom, who had just returned after seeing off Kim Pan-seok and his wife along with Lee Gyeong-eun,
“Everyone gone?”
Hwang Do-beom took a step closer to Lee Tak-hyeon and answered,
“Yes. I just confirmed that Gyeong-eun’s car has left and came back in.”
“I see.”
Lee Tak-hyeon gave a short acknowledgment and gazed blankly at the garden visible through the living room window.
Hwang Do-beom gave him a moment to think.
After some time had passed, Lee Tak-hyeon’s gaze, which had been fixed on the garden, turned to Hwang Do-beom.
“Curious?”
“Yes.”
Without needing to specify what, both the asker and the answerer shared the same thought.
Lee Tak-hyeon smiled at Hwang Do-beom’s curious expression and said,
“Yes, of course you’re curious. Why I invited only Director Kim’s parents to Pyeongchang-dong when I’ve never invited any other in-laws before.”
“It wasn’t just an invitation—you went out to greet them yourself… and even watched the press conference together with them… I simply don’t understand it.”
“You don’t need to understand.”
“Sir?”
“Only Director Kim needs to understand.”
“Only Director Kim needs to understand?”
Lee Tak-hyeon looked at Hwang Do-beom’s widened eyes and nodded.
“That’s right. As long as my intention is properly conveyed to Director Kim, that’s enough.”
“What intention is that…?”
Unable to grasp the intent at all, Hwang Do-beom carefully asked while looking at Lee Tak-hyeon.
Lee Tak-hyeon lifted the corner of his mouth at the question and answered,
“I’m thinking of entrusting the Slush Fund Vault of Ilhyeon to Director Kim, so prepare for it.”
“You’ve made your decision?”
“I have. I’ve seen Director Kim’s ability and his sense of responsibility, so I think it’s about time I handed over the key. That’s why I called my in-laws to Pyeongchang-dong. To let Director Kim know that I consider his parents family.”
Not long ago, Lee Tak-hyeon had asked how it would look if he entrusted the Slush Fund Vault of Ilhyeon to Kim Seong-ho.
“Chairman. Are you truly… thinking of entrusting the vault to Director Kim?”
“I can’t hand over everything at once.”
Lee Tak-hyeon crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knees, and spoke while staring into empty space.
“It’s still too early to entrust everything from the start… He’s not ready yet.”
The Slush Fund Vault of Ilhyeon did not simply contain money.
From the so-called slush funds—money never recorded on the books—to documents on political and government figures entangled with Ilhyeon, and even the secrets of rival conglomerates that had competed with Ilhyeon, everything was gathered inside that vault.
That was why Hwang Do-beom had been so startled when Lee Tak-hyeon spoke of entrusting the vault to Kim Seong-ho.
Even family could not be trusted lightly with it.
That was the Slush Fund Vault of Ilhyeon.
Lee Tak-hyeon slowly nodded and continued,
“So I called my in-laws as a way of giving Director Kim a hint first. To show that I acknowledge him and intend to put him to valuable use. And also that if he works even harder, I will entrust him with even more.”
Lee Tak-hyeon paused for a moment, then unclasped the hands he had rested on his knees.
He placed a hand on the armrest and began tapping it with his fingers.
“He seems to have a good nose for money, so first entrust him with the investment-related assets inside the vault. After that, we’ll watch how he handles them and decide how much more to give him.”
Hwang Do-beom answered that he understood the Chairman’s instructions.
“Chairman…”
Then, in a careful voice, he bowed slightly and asked Lee Tak-hyeon,
“Do you think Director Kim understood your intention?”
The question carried the unspoken meaning of whether he himself would need to explain it if the message had not gotten through.
Lee Tak-hyeon looked up at Hwang Do-beom and let out a short laugh.
“If he couldn’t understand that much, he wouldn’t be qualified to take the vault.”
Having finished speaking, Lee Tak-hyeon turned his gaze away from Hwang Do-beom toward the garden overflowing with lush green vitality and muttered to himself,
“Judging by everything that boy has shown so far, he would have understood more than enough.”
Lee Tak-hyeon paid no mind to Hwang Do-beom’s worries from the start.
His only real concern was deciding what, and how much of it, to entrust.
Just as Lee Tak-hyeon had expected, Kim Seong-ho grasped his father-in-law’s intention at once.
“Why do you think Father invited your parents?”
Lee Gyeong-eun, seated in front of the dressing table in the master bedroom and applying cream to her face, asked Kim Seong-ho through the mirror as he sat in a chair.
Kim Seong-ho flipped through his leather diary and answered,
“I believe the Chairman intends to put me to use on more important work.”
“More important work?”
Lee Gyeong-eun did not stop applying the cream as she turned her body to face him.
“What kind of more important work?”
“I don’t know either. But I do get the sense that he plans to value me a little more highly.”
“Really?”
A bright smile bloomed on Lee Gyeong-eun’s face as she patted the cream into her skin.
Kim Seong-ho’s status had changed so completely from the days of their dating and early marriage that Lee Gyeong-eun felt happier than if she herself had been the one recognized.
She wanted to throw a celebration if she could, and she beamed widely at Kim Seong-ho.
Kim Seong-ho smiled back at her and thought,
He’s probably planning to entrust me with the Slush Fund Vault of Ilhyeon.
He had told Lee Gyeong-eun he didn’t know the reason, but in truth Kim Seong-ho saw not only the reason but exactly what tasks would follow with perfect clarity.
Having spent no small amount of time at Lee Tak-hyeon’s side both in the past life and the present, he could read what the man was thinking.
Kim Seong-ho briefly considered how he should handle the vault if it was entrusted to him, then quickly erased the thought.
That’s not what matters right now.
Being entrusted with the vault posed no problem at all.
Kim Seong-ho had handled far greater responsibilities for nearly twenty years, so simply managing money was something he was confident he could do with ease.
What he needed to deal with now was the matter right in front of him.
Gyeong-eun had an accident. When I first got the call, I thought it was just a simple traffic accident. When I heard she’d rear-ended the car in front on her way to work and been taken to the hospital, I was worried she’d been badly hurt. But when I arrived at the hospital…
Kim Seong-ho looked down at the leather diary.
June 30.
The entry from the day Lee Gyeong-eun had suffered the cerebral hemorrhage was written there.
Kim Seong-ho looked at the calendar hanging on the wall.
About ten days left.
That event was now only ten days away.
“But won’t your parents be uncomfortable?”
Lee Gyeong-eun, who had been applying cream again at the dressing table, gave her face a final pat and stood up.
“I just can’t sit still. I’m going to go check on them in their room.”
Saying she would look in on Kim Pan-seok and Jang Myeong-ja, Lee Gyeong-eun opened the door and went out.
After leaving Pyeongchang-dong, Kim Pan-seok and Jang Myeong-ja had come to see the new house Kim Seong-ho and Lee Gyeong-eun had acquired, toured it, and then eaten the dinner Lee Gyeong-eun prepared.
Afterward they had tried to leave, saying they would sleep elsewhere.
It was because of Jang Myeong-ja’s insistence that, even if they were parents-in-law who had come up from the countryside, staying at their newlywed son’s home felt awkward.
Kim Seong-ho had been ready to let them do so and book them a hotel room.
But Lee Gyeong-eun had leaped from her seat and absolutely refused to allow it, stopping all three of them.
She could not commit the unfilial act of making her parents-in-law, who had come up from the countryside, go out and sleep elsewhere, she declared, and she held onto the two of them.
The tussle between the three of them and Lee Gyeong-eun continued for some time.
In the end, the three of them could not overcome Lee Gyeong-eun’s insistence that she would not become the most unfilial daughter-in-law under heaven, and they decided to spend the night at the Apgujeong house.
Watching Lee Gyeong-eun’s retreating figure as she went to make sure her parents-in-law were comfortable in their room, Kim Seong-ho bit his lower lip.
“I can’t lose Gyeong-eun again.”
Kim Seong-ho looked down at the leather diary.
Ten days left.
The moment that had overturned Kim Seong-ho’s life in the previous timeline was drawing near.
Thinking that he could not go through the same thing this time, Kim Seong-ho stared silently down at the leather diary.
After Jang Eun-ah’s press conference, the voices directed at Ilhyeon had softened considerably.
Of course, there were still people who looked at Ilhyeon with eyes full of disbelief.
But most people now regarded Ilhyeon with a sense of apology, saying they had misunderstood.
In particular, some even began to feel pity for Jang Eun-ah, who had broken down in tears at the press conference, saying it was unjust that people treated the child she had given birth to as someone else’s illegitimate son.
“They’re saying that showing the child at the very end of the press conference was the key move,” Jo Byeong-jin said with a broad grin as he spoke to Kim Seong-ho. He had directed the press conference on site.
“The atmosphere has completely flipped. Now the reporters and media outlets that attacked us are the ones getting hammered. A few media companies even came in person to the press conference venue to apologize, and some others posted apology statements.”
“Any of them still digging in their heels?”
“You think there wouldn’t be? Sidae Newspaper, which is already in sharp conflict with us over the labor union issue, keeps tearing us down. They’re writing article after article saying we staged the press conference just to cover up the illegitimate-child problem and that no one should believe it.”
“Sidae Newspaper…”
Kim Seong-ho folded his arms for a moment and sank into thought.
Then he stopped thinking, looked at Jo Byeong-jin, and opened his mouth.
“Issue a statement that we will sue any outlet that continues to spread rumors, and pull every single advertisement our companies place in Sidae Newspaper.”
“Every single one?”
“Yes. Tell every company that carries the Ilhyeon name not to place a single ad until the president of Sidae Newspaper comes in person to apologize.”
“Are you sure that’s all right?”
Jo Byeong-jin asked with a worried expression.
“Making an enemy of the media is never a good thing… Of course Sidae Newspaper isn’t one of the four major dailies with real power. But still… among the left-leaning papers, it has a decent level of recognition.”
“Until now our stance has been not to fight the media. Whenever there was a clash, we tried to take as conciliatory a posture as possible, and when actual conflicts broke out we were often the ones who bowed first. But not this time.”
Kim Seong-ho slowly shook his head and said,
“We need to make an example of them at least once. We have to show that things are different now from when Chief of Staff Hwang was running the show, so that later, when we work, things will go more smoothly.”
Understanding Kim Seong-ho’s intent, Jo Byeong-jin nodded and said,
“True—if the people have changed, the approach should change too. Just because the secretariat under Chief of Staff Hwang took a soft line doesn’t mean we have to do the same.”
“And Sidae Newspaper is exactly the right size for making our position clear, so let’s hit them properly.”
“Issue the statement and pull the ads, and they’ll fold on their own. Do reporters dig for food or something? They need ad money to pay salaries and keep the presses running.”
Kim Seong-ho lifted the corner of his mouth at Jo Byeong-jin’s words and said,
“If we’re going to hit them, let’s hit them hard.”
“How hard?”
“Tell the companies connected to us as well. No ads in Sidae Newspaper.”
“Th-that… are you sure that’s okay?”
“This is the perfect moment to train the media.”
Kim Seong-ho looked down at the newspapers lying on his desk.
The papers still carried stories about the press conference a few days earlier, along with reports on the continuing difficult economic situation.
Large headlines declared that corporations and individuals alike were tightening their belts the way they had during the Saemaul Movement of the 1970s.
“This is the time when everyone trembles over a single advertisement. If we don’t make a proper example of them now, when will we?”
Kim Seong-ho pressed his palm down on the newspaper and rose from his seat.
“Let’s show them clearly what happens when they stand against us.”
Jo Byeong-jin looked at the Sidae Newspaper among the various papers on Kim Seong-ho’s desk.
An entire page of Sidae Newspaper was filled with articles refusing to believe Jang Eun-ah’s press conference.
Should’ve known when to stop.
Jo Byeong-jin thought that by failing to properly understand what kind of man Kim Seong-ho was and continuing to throw obstacles the way they had when Hwang Do-beom was in charge, they had now brought real trouble upon themselves.
Imagining the Sidae Newspaper that would soon be reeling, Jo Byeong-jin shook his head.
Kim Seong-ho took a jacket from the wardrobe on one side of the office and put it on as he said,
“Everything’s settled for now, so don’t look for me for the next three days.”
Jo Byeong-jin, who had been looking at the newspaper, raised his head to look at Kim Seong-ho.
“Oh right. Is something going on? Why clear your schedule for three whole days all of a sudden? You’ve been running nonstop without a single day off.”
Having put on his jacket, Kim Seong-ho placed a hand on Jo Byeong-jin’s shoulder.
“After running like that without rest, it feels like my body’s starting to break down a little. I’m going to get a health checkup and rest a bit, so don’t look for me—just handle things yourself.”
“A health checkup? Where are you going for it?”
Jo Byeong-jin asked as he followed Kim Seong-ho out of the office.
“Where else would I go? Of course Ilhyeon Hospital.”
“You going to be all right alone? Want me to come along for the checkup?”
Kim Seong-ho stopped walking, turned his head, and looked at Jo Byeong-jin as he said,
“I’m a properly married man, so of course I’ll be going with my wife.”
“Yes, yes, I forgot for a second that you’re a married man.”
Jo Byeong-jin gave a short laugh and was about to remark that Lee Gyeong-eun, who was running both Ilhyeon Hotel and Ilhyeon Department Store at the same time, must be busy, but then he shook his head as he watched Kim Seong-ho’s already distant back.
The real reason Kim Seong-ho was getting a health checkup, however, had nothing to do with himself.
It was the method Kim Seong-ho had devised to prevent what would happen to Lee Gyeong-eun on June 30.
Thinking of that day, now only two days away, Kim Seong-ho headed home.