There's Nothing Impossible in This World
"Is this real?"
Lee Jeong-eun set the newspaper down in front of Lee Tak-hyeon as she spoke. Spread across the open pages was a projected map of the Big Deal among the five major groups.
"You're really handing over Ilhyeon Power?"
She turned to look at her brothers seated around the table.
"Oppa. Say something. Am I the only one who thinks this is insane?"
"I get it, so sit down first. Let's talk sitting down."
Lee Mun-jong tried to calm her. But Jeong-eun showed no sign of settling; she kept jabbing a finger at the paper she had laid before their father.
"They're saying Ilhyeon Power is going over to the Mirae Group… Is it true? Just tell me whether it's true or not. Then I'll sit, stand on my head, whatever you want."
"Is it yours?"
"What? What do you mean…?"
"I'm asking if Ilhyeon Power is yours."
Lee Tak-hyeon looked up at her with cold eyes.
"It isn't. Ilhyeon Power is mine. The Ilhyeon Card where you sit as president is mine. Every place these boys earn money is mine. So why are you making a fuss about Ilhyeon Power?"
"Father. I know. I know that."
Jeong-eun clutched his arm and glanced toward Kim Seong-ho, who sat at the farthest end of the table. Then she leaned slightly toward Lee Tak-hyeon and spoke in a lower voice.
"Of course everything is Father's. We all know that. The only reason I'm doing this is because there might have been a bad call, so we should put our heads together and think it through. Ilhyeon Power is… an important company, after all."
Having said that, she turned to Mun-jong, her eyes clearly demanding he back her up. Mun-jong understood the look and opened his mouth.
"Father. I don't think Jeong-eun is wrong. Better not to do a Big Deal at all than to hand over Ilhyeon Power. That, I believe, is not the way."
"Father. You know better than any of us what kind of company Ilhyeon Power is. How much effort Grandfather put in, how hard everyone worked to secure that technology—and now we're just going to…"
Jeong-eun glared at Kim Seong-ho as she finished.
"Kim Seobang has no idea about any of that history, so of course he offered up Ilhyeon Power. We have to stop this. Right, Oppa?"
"Right. And Ilhyeon Power's technology is… monopolistic. Giving that up is something that simply must not happen."
Mun-jong glanced sideways at Kim Seong-ho and tilted his head. Even if Seong-ho didn't know the full history, there was no way he didn't understand the value of the technology.
Is there some other reason?
The question rose in Mun-jong's mind. But the moment he had already declared, in front of Lee Tak-hyeon, that he shared Jeong-eun's view, there was no taking it back. He chose to push forward.
"Father. Nothing is finalized yet, is it? To make it final, you have to move yourself. When you go to the Blue House to sign, reverse it. Protect Ilhyeon Power."
"Yes, Dad. Reverse it. We have to protect Ilhyeon Power no matter what. Who in the world throws away a monopoly?"
Jeong-eun chimed in right after Mun-jong. Lee Tak-hyeon looked from one to the other as they insisted on saving Ilhyeon Power, then clicked his tongue.
"Tsk. This is all you amount to… How am I supposed to entrust anything big to the likes of you? Drop that talk and give me company reports. Ilhyeon Card. Ten million cardholders. Can you hit it?"
On any ordinary day Jeong-eun would have been flustered and snapped at the sudden change of subject. Today was different.
"Ten million? That's nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Father. Do you know what our actual target is?"
She lifted her shoulders and squared her chest.
"We're going to clear ten million this year and lock in twelve million cardholders next year. That's our goal."
"Ten million this year, twelve next year?"
"Surprised?"
She turned a confident look on Cha Yeong-su, who sat fidgeting, then faced her father again.
"What did I tell you? I said I'd come up with a brilliant method."
"And that brilliant method is exploding the number of cardholders?"
"Yes. So don't worry about Ilhyeon Card."
"You're not just playing games with the numbers, are you?"
"Do I look like an idiot?"
Lee Tak-hyeon leaned back as if he could not quite believe it and fixed her with a suspicious stare. Jeong-eun frowned at the distrust in his eyes.
"I am absolutely not playing with numbers. We are securing real cardholders, and I'll place the results in front of you early next year."
"Is that so? Really?"
He regarded her with something like curiosity. The uncharacteristic confidence in her made him look at her with fresh eyes.
"So, Father, about Ilhyeon Power…"
"Even if you brought me a hundred million cardholders, I have no intention of changing my mind."
At the blunt refusal Jeong-eun looked to Mun-jong. Mun-jong, realizing their father's will would not bend, simply shook his head. She turned next to Lee Sang-jong, hoping for help from him if Mun-jong would not give it. But Sang-jong had worn a vacant expression ever since he first sat down.
"Second son, prepare properly for your appearance at the prosecutors' office tomorrow. The rest of you can leave. Even between parents and children, seeing each other too often isn't healthy."
As if he had already had enough of the gathering, Lee Tak-hyeon rose first once again. He gestured toward Kim Seong-ho.
"Director Kim, come talk with me in the study."
At the summons Seong-ho stood, offered a polite greeting to his in-laws, and followed Lee Tak-hyeon out. Jeong-eun watched him go with open dislike.
"Mom, seriously."
Jeong-eun walked into the master bedroom where Chu Suk-ja was and recounted everything that had happened in the living room.
"Why on earth does Dad keep Kim Seobang so close? Don't tell me he's coming by every single day, unlike the rest of us?"
"Not every day."
"Wow… 'Not every day' means he still shows up once or twice a week."
Learning that Kim Seong-ho visited Pyeongchang-dong once or twice a week, Jeong-eun scowled.
"And meanwhile Dad only lets us come on Sundays? Has Dad eaten something wrong? Or is he getting old and going senile?"
At those words Chu Suk-ja struck her daughter's thigh in shock.
Slap!
"How dare you talk about your father that way!"
"But it's true."
Jeong-eun watched her mother, who kept glancing nervously toward the door in case Lee Tak-hyeon might walk in.
"Kim Seobang is a son-in-law. A son-in-law. Yet he only calls for the son-in-law and pushes his own children aside—does that make any sense? Do you think that makes sense, Mom?"
"…No. It doesn't."
Chu Suk-ja turned from the door and faced her daughter. Her expression looked even angrier than Jeong-eun's.
"Something really does seem wrong with your father's head."
"Right? Even you think it's strange?"
"No matter how much of a son-in-law he is, he's still an outsider one step removed. Yet he keeps that man close while letting his own son walk into the prosecutors' office—how can that be right? And why send a son-in-law into the Blue House when the vice chairman is sitting right there with his eyes wide open?"
"Is Second Oppa going to the prosecutors because of Dad's will?"
"If it weren't your father's will, who would dare summon the president of Ilhyeon Construction to the prosecutors' office?"
Chu Suk-ja's eyes sharpened as she looked back toward the door.
"I'm certain Kim Seobang told your father to throw the second son to the wolves. What kind of man has your father always been? He may speak harshly to you children, but he built the fence high and protected you all. If he handed the second son over, someone must have been whispering in his ear. Absolutely."
Jeong-eun had wanted to say it was not necessarily so, but she stayed quiet and simply listened. There was no need to rain on her mother's parade when Chu Suk-ja was already speaking in the same direction as herself.
"At this rate you and your brothers could all end up swallowed by Director Kim."
"Swallowed? What do you mean by that?"
Unable to hold back any longer, Jeong-eun asked. Chu Suk-ja's eyes grew even sharper.
"I'm saying the Ilhyeon that your grandfather founded and your father built may pass into Kim Seobang's hands."
"Mom!"
Jeong-eun's face filled with shock.
"That's… that's too much of a stretch, isn't it?"
She had thought Lee Tak-hyeon doted on Kim Seong-ho excessively. Even she had never imagined Ilhyeon itself falling into Seong-ho's possession. That was something that would not happen even if the sky split in two.
"A stretch? Do you truly think it's a stretch?"
Chu Suk-ja seized her daughter's words, pulled her closer, and fixed her with a piercing stare. Jeong-eun lowered her gaze under that cutting look.
"Your grandfather had three sons. Your father was the middle one. Not the eldest grandson, not the youngest son your grandfather loved most. Have you ever thought about how your father managed to take hold of the Ilhyeon your grandfather built?"
Jeong-eun shook her head instead of answering. Chu Suk-ja held her gaze for a long moment, then turned back toward the door.
"Don't forget. In this world, there is nothing that doesn't make sense. Especially here…"
She left the sentence unfinished and ground her molars. Jeong-eun, seeing a side of her mother she had never witnessed before, could only blink without even managing to get angry.
Once the Ilhyeon Group threw itself fully into restructuring, the other conglomerates began falling into line with the government's demands one after another. The economic restructuring under government direction gathered sudden, powerful momentum.
The first to be finalized was the Ilhyeon Group. Ilhyeon took over the semiconductor divisions of the electronics companies belonging to the Mirae Group and the KF Group. Mirae Heavy Industries was also confirmed to pass into Ilhyeon's hands. In exchange, Ilhyeon handed Ilhyeon Power to the Mirae Group and Ilhyeon Railway to the KF Group, completing the three-way industry realignment.
People were stunned by Ilhyeon's decision. Although it received semiconductors and heavy industry from Mirae, what it surrendered—Ilhyeon Power—was judged far more valuable. Ilhyeon Power held a domestic monopoly. Moreover, nuclear technology was rare even on a global scale, a field limited to a handful of companies and a source of stable profits. Against that, semiconductors and heavy industry alone simply did not balance the books, the assessments said.
People muttered that if Ilhyeon had at least taken the whole of Mirae Electronics the story might have been different. But all it received was a single semiconductor division among many electronics units. On top of that, the acquired semiconductor unit was notorious as a money-eating hippo, highly sensitive to the business cycle, with clear periods of profit and clear periods of loss. From that angle, what Ilhyeon had gained was not necessarily a good thing.
Most concluded that Ilhyeon had deliberately chosen a losing deal in order to throw its weight behind the government, and that thanks to that sacrifice the government-led restructuring would now pick up real speed.
As people expected, the Big Deal began to accelerate. Plans were announced to consolidate petrochemicals under the Mirae Group and refining under the KF Group. Seonu, for its part, took the electronics business stripped of semiconductors from Mirae and in return handed over tire and air-conditioning companies and other auto-related affiliates, deciding to exit the automotive industry entirely. Spin-offs and mergers in aviation, the separation of ship engines and aircraft engines from their parent companies into newly established firms—government-led restructuring continued without pause for a full month.
And when the sweltering summer had passed and the air carried the full, crisp feel of autumn, Deputy Prime Minister Hwang Jang-chul appeared on television and announced the results of the restructuring to the public.