The Chance for Revenge Arrives
“Huh.”
Kim Seong-ho bolted upright in bed, cold sweat streaming down his face.
“What kind of nonsense are you mumbling in your sleep? Are you all right?”
It was a voice he should never have been able to hear again.
And yet it was the very voice he had longed to hear for so long.
Slowly, Seong-ho turned his head toward the sound.
There she was—the woman whose face had once been so familiar, yet had gradually faded with time—looking straight at him.
“Look at all that sweat. What on earth did you dream about? There’s water right here. Drink some and go wash up already. At this rate you’ll be late for breakfast.”
“Gyeong-eun…? Is that you, Gyeong-eun?”
“Of course it’s me, Lee Gyeong-eun. Who else would it be? What, did you have a dream where I wasn’t even in it?”
Lee Gyeong-eun smiled brightly and held out a glass of water.
Seong-ho took it without thinking, still wearing a thoroughly dazed expression.
“Is this… a dream?”
“Excuse me? Are you still half-asleep? Just drink the water and go wash up. That’ll clear your head. Come on, hurry.”
Gyeong-eun gave a short laugh at his question and turned away from him.
Only then did Seong-ho take in the space around him.
It was a room every bit as familiar as her face—and every bit as faded by the years.
This is the Pyeongchang-dong house…
The very room where he and Gyeong-eun had set up their newlywed household after moving into her family’s home now lay before his eyes.
Why am I seeing the Pyeongchang-dong days? And Gyeong-eun, who died… Is this really a dream?
But Gyeong-eun stood there smiling at him, far too vivid to be a dream.
He was certain he had died in that hospital room at the hands of Park Tae-hun, the man Lee Mun-jong had sent.
So how was it that he had opened his eyes twenty years in the past? Seong-ho could not begin to understand it.
“If we’re late, Father will get angry, so I’ll head down first. Get ready quickly and come down. Oh, and there’s a present for you on the table—check it later. It’s nothing fancy, so don’t get your hopes up too high.”
Gyeong-eun lowered her head with a faintly shy look and left the room.
Seong-ho could only stare blankly at the door she had closed behind her, the shock of his dead wife standing before him and the fact that he had returned twenty years into the past still frozen on his face.
“Why are you coming down so late? A young man this sluggish—what good are you for?”
Seong-ho sat at the table and quietly regarded the man scolding him.
So it really isn’t a dream.
Lee Mun-jong—who in the years to come would become chairman of the Ilhyeon Group—sat there with a face far younger than the one Seong-ho remembered. At this point in time he was still only the group’s Vice Chairman.
And it was not only Mun-jong.
Gyeong-eun’s second older brother and President of Ilhyeon Construction, Lee Sang-jong; the eldest daughter and third child, Lee Jeong-eun, Executive Director of Ilhyeon Fashion; and finally the fourth, Lee Chang-jong, Vice President of Ilhyeon Distribution—each of them sat with their spouses, every one of them restored to the younger faces of twenty years past.
“If you’ve become an Ilhyeon man, then follow Ilhyeon’s rules. Be late again and I will no longer consider you one of us.”
And there, at the head of the table, sat Seong-ho’s father-in-law—Lee Tak-hyeon, Chairman of the Ilhyeon Group, the man who had once held the entire Korean economy in his grip—staring at the newly arrived Seong-ho and rebuking him in a vigorous voice.
Even the former chairman, who’s been dead more than ten years… he’s exactly as he was back then.
After Gyeong-eun had gone downstairs first, Seong-ho had remained alone in the room, trying to make sense of the situation.
He had pinched his arm. He had slapped his own cheek. Nothing changed.
In the end he had turned on the television in the room and checked the newspaper, and only then had the conviction settled in.
He had truly returned to the past—twenty years into the past.
Of course he still had no idea why he had been brought here.
But that question did not last long.
Whether this was a dream or some afterlife, the fact remained that a chance for revenge had presented itself—and before he knew it, Seong-ho’s mind was already fixed entirely on that opportunity.
He looked silently around the table at the people of the Ilhyeon Group, every one of them looking exactly as they had more than twenty years ago.
Gyeong-eun assumed his silence came from sheer panic.
She rose from her seat, came to his side, and raised her voice toward the others.
“Why are all of you acting like this? It’s his first time here—of course he might be late while he gets used to things. And it’s not even seven yet! He’s not late!”
She fired back against the scolding aimed at Seong-ho, then took his hand.
“It’s all right. Don’t let them get to you.”
Still holding his hand, she led him to his place, told him to sit, and then spoke once more to everyone at the table.
“If any of you say anything more to Seong-ho, I won’t let it slide. So don’t even think about scolding him.”
At her words, Bang Hyeon-ju—Lee Mun-jong’s wife and the eldest daughter-in-law of the Ilhyeon Group—smiled and answered.
“Oh my. Young lady. Who said anyone was scolding your husband?”
Even so, Gyeong-eun refused to back down and turned to Lee Tak-hyeon.
“Father, you told us to live here even after we got married, so we followed that for now. But please don’t look down on Seong-ho. If you do, I don’t care what Father said—I’ll walk out of this house with him right this minute.”
“You little—! How dare you speak to Father like that!”
Lee Chang-jong, the brother immediately above Gyeong-eun, glanced at Lee Tak-hyeon’s expression as he snapped at her.
Gyeong-eun ignored him completely and drove her point home once more.
“Get this through your heads. Seong-ho is the man I chose. So don’t you dare look down on him.”
“All right, enough. Sit down. You’re making a racket.”
Lee Tak-hyeon’s indifferent reply made Gyeong-eun’s lips part for a moment.
There was plenty more she wanted to say, but she did not dare let the words leave her mouth. She let out a quiet sigh and sat.
Watching the exchange, Oh Min-yeong—wife of the second son, Lee Sang-jong—swept her gaze once over Lee Tak-hyeon and the others at the table, then smiled at Seong-ho.
“You must feel quite fortunate, brother-in-law. To have the young lady looking out for you like this.”
Seong-ho heard the sarcasm in Oh Min-yeong’s words and smiled inwardly.
Exactly the same.
The first family meal after their honeymoon was unfolding before him in every detail, just as it had then.
And this time he saw things he had been too tense and intimidated to notice back then.
The in-laws who openly dismissed him, Gyeong-eun fighting to shield him, and Lee Tak-hyeon watching his children’s squabbles with an air of detached amusement—everything he had missed the first time around now stood out clearly to Seong-ho.
He looked at Gyeong-eun, who still held his hand.
She seemed drained, as if she had poured every ounce of strength into protecting him from her father and brothers, and now she was watching him with a gaze that asked whether he was all right.
Unlike twenty years ago, Seong-ho offered her a light smile and squeezed the hand that held his, telling her he was fine.
Back then I was so cowed I didn’t know which way was up. But not now.
He gave Gyeong-eun’s hand a warm squeeze and let his eyes travel once around the Ilhyeon family gathered at the table.
Twenty years ago he had been so afraid of them he could barely meet their faces.
Now it was different.
The long years spent working inside Ilhyeon, the scandals he had come to know about each of them, and the weight of hard-won experience—none of it left him feeling the least bit frightened of them anymore.
“Let’s eat.”
Lee Tak-hyeon lifted his spoon and gave the signal. His children followed suit.
Seong-ho released Gyeong-eun’s hand as well, picked up his own spoon, and cast a sidelong glance at his father-in-law, the Chairman of the Ilhyeon Group.
But there is still one different person here.
He watched Lee Tak-hyeon out of the corner of his eye as the older man silently spooned soup into his mouth.
This was the man who had taken a mid-tier conglomerate ranked around twentieth and driven the Ilhyeon Group all the way to first place in the business world.
Remembering how, in the previous life, he had never managed to read the man’s true intentions and had suffered for it, Seong-ho continued to study Lee Tak-hyeon from the side as he lifted his spoon.
After the meal, while they were drinking sujeonggwa, Lee Mun-jong turned to Seong-ho.
“You’ve prepared well for today’s gathering, I hope? Handle it without any mistakes.”
“What mistakes could there be? I just have to follow the manual.”
When Seong-ho answered as if it were nothing, Lee Sang-jong cut in.
“Kim. Just proceed exactly the way we told you. We set this whole thing up to pad your track record, so all you have to do is take the credit. You understand what I’m saying, right?”
Seong-ho allowed a faint smile.
He drained his sujeonggwa in one go and answered.
“Yes. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure I live up to expectations.”
“Good. Good. Just stick to the manual. Stick to the manual…”
Sang-jong let the words trail off and exchanged a look with Mun-jong.
At that moment Lee Tak-hyeon rose from his seat.
“All of you, don’t be late.”
“Yes, Father. We’ll follow right behind you, so don’t worry.”
Sang-jong was quick to stand after Lee Tak-hyeon.
Seeing that, Bang Hyeon-ju jabbed Mun-jong in the side; he too stood and addressed his father.
“Father, why don’t you ride in my car today? I have something to discuss regarding China as well…”
As Mun-jong followed Lee Tak-hyeon out, Seong-ho also rose.
“Then I’ll head upstairs first.”
Sang-jong watched the direction in which Tak-hyeon and Mun-jong had gone for a moment, then nodded.
“Fine. Go on up.”
At Sang-jong’s reply, Seong-ho offered a polite farewell to those still seated and left the table.
A deep smile had settled on Seong-ho’s face as he returned to the room.
He remembered with perfect clarity what “situation” they claimed to have prepared for him.
Back then he had known nothing, so he had truly believed they were looking out for him—never realizing it was a trap.
But now that he had returned, he had no intention of falling for the same thing twice.
The feelings from that time still sat intact in his chest.
You think I’ll fall for it again?
Recalling the memories of the previous life, Seong-ho returned to the room.
“Seong-ho.”
Almost as soon as he entered, Gyeong-eun followed him in.
She smiled brightly at him and said,
“You’ll do fine. So don’t worry too much.”
She offered the words to shore up his courage.
Seong-ho looked at her with warm eyes.
Marrying the youngest daughter of a chaebol family had filled him with fear, yet it was precisely this side of her that had allowed him to make that difficult decision.
Gyeong-eun returned his smile, then turned her head toward the table.
“Oh? You still haven’t unwrapped my present?”
“Present?”
Only then did Seong-ho remember that she had mentioned a gift before leaving the room earlier.
“Honestly… how embarrassing. Were you waiting for me to give it to you myself?”
Gyeong-eun went to the table and unwrapped the packaged box.
She took the gift out and held it out to him.
It was an object Seong-ho knew all too well.
“I bought it on Ibiza, where we went for our honeymoon. The merchant said he’d made the case himself out of leather. It looked luxurious and sturdy, so I bought it in secret while you stepped away for a moment and brought it back. Here. I’m giving it to you so you’ll do well at the job coming up—so make sure you pull it off.”
Seong-ho looked quietly down at the diary—the first gift Gyeong-eun had ever given him after their marriage, and the one he had never let go of until the very end.