Well-Matched Houses
Lee Sang-jong paced the room without sitting, his face ashen as he chewed his lip.
"Father. No—Chairman. It's only 1.5 billion. Bankruptcy over 1.5 billion? Does that even make sense?"
"Instead of wasting time on excuses like that, think of a solution!"
Thud!
The ashtray flew and struck Lee Sang-jong square in the face.
It left a cut, but he did not dare say it hurt.
"Is there really no way out?"
Lee Mun-jong, his expression nearly as dark, turned the question toward Hwang Do-beom.
Standing at Lee Tak-hyeon's side, Hwang Do-beom nodded and answered.
"Chairman Jeong's side has already declared they will relinquish management rights."
"What? That lunatic's giving up the company over 1.5 billion?"
Lee Sang-jong still looked uncomprehending, his voice thick with resentment.
Lee Tak-hyeon regarded him with open contempt.
"You honestly think Chairman Jeong is walking away because of 1.5 billion? That amount is only the trigger. The money tied up in Dubo already exceeds 5 trillion."
"Five... trillion?"
Lee Sang-jong whipped around to stare at Hwang Do-beom.
Hwang Do-beom nodded and added to the Chairman's words.
"What we know so far is 5 trillion. No one can say how far the liabilities will stretch. There's a great deal of interlocked capital... and the private-loan market debts are still completely unknown."
"This is insane..."
Lee Sang-jong slammed a fist into the wall.
Lee Tak-hyeon watched him with the same look of disgust.
"You truly didn't know?"
Sang-jong, who had kept his head down, lifted his eyes to meet his father's.
Suspicion filled Lee Tak-hyeon's face.
"This wasn't some scheme you cooked up with Chairman Jeong?"
"Father, I really didn't know. This is unfair!"
"Unfair? What the hell have you done that gives you the right to feel unfairly treated!"
Lee Tak-hyeon seized the water glass in front of him and hurled it.
The cup itself missed, but the water soaked Sang-jong thoroughly. He lowered his head in silence.
Anyone looking at the situation would have suspected him first.
Water still dripping from his face, Sang-jong glanced toward Lee Mun-jong.
Being under suspicion was inevitable—but being the only one under suspicion felt unbearable.
Hoping to redirect the blame, he fired a question at his brother.
"Hyung-nim. Did you truly know nothing either?"
"What the hell are you saying right now?"
Lee Mun-jong flared at once.
"Are you claiming I knew and pretended not to?"
Sang-jong wiped the water from his face with one hand.
"Honestly speaking, you were the one who proposed the capital increase, weren't you? So you should be under suspicion too! A thousand billion would have been plenty, yet you inflated it to three thousand. You and Chairman Jeong must have—"
"You little bastard!"
Mun-jong could take no more. He shot up from his seat and lunged. In an instant the two brothers were brawling inside the study.
"That's enough! How dare you carry on like this in front of the Chairman?"
Hwang Do-beom tried to pry them apart as they seized each other's collars and slammed bodies together. Kim Seong-ho stepped in right after him and helped separate the pair.
"Hyung-nim. The Chairman hasn't finished speaking. Please calm yourself."
Seong-ho held Mun-jong firmly and soothed him.
At the mention of Lee Tak-hyeon's name, Mun-jong recovered enough sense to glance at his father and bow his head.
Lee Tak-hyeon pressed his fingertips against his temple and spoke with pure scorn.
"What a goddamn circus."
He gave a hollow laugh, then slammed his fist onto the table.
Bang!
"You useless bastards can't even handle a three-hundred-thousand-won job for the company, yet you blow three hundred billion and start brawling as if you've accomplished something?"
Mun-jong and Sang-jong shrank into the chairs they had just vacated, watching their father's every move.
Lee Tak-hyeon looked at his sons with open disgust.
"I'll give you one day. By this time tomorrow, find a way to recover the three hundred billion and report back. If you don't..."
He raised a hand and pointed at each of them in turn, then roared.
"You'll make up the difference out of your own pockets."
"Chairman!"
"Shut up!"
The two brothers, stunned by the demand that they cover the loss personally, called out to him. Lee Tak-hyeon waved them off as if the very sound of their voices sickened him.
"You heard me. Get the hell out!"
At the Chairman's order, Hwang Do-beom gestured sharply for Mun-jong and Sang-jong to leave.
Sang-jong kept glancing back at his father even as he walked out, still looking wronged.
Mun-jong left as well, his face full of things left unsaid.
Lee Chang-jong, who had only recently returned from a business trip, rolled his eyes at the sudden shift in atmosphere, thoughts racing across his face.
He had never managed to get involved with Dubo Steel and had therefore stood one step outside the disaster. Now, it seemed, an opportunity might have fallen into his lap.
Lee Jeong-eun was the same.
Ordinarily she would have thrown in a few remarks and driven the mood wherever she pleased, yet today she simply watched in silence.
When told to leave, she rose without a word and walked out of the study.
Only Lee Gyeong-eun wore a worried expression as she departed.
"Son-in-law Kim, stay a moment."
Lee Tak-hyeon's voice stopped Kim Seong-ho at the door.
Once everyone else had gone and only Seong-ho remained, the Chairman rose from his seat and walked toward the low table set before the bookcase, motioning for Seong-ho to join him.
"Close the door and come here."
Seong-ho passed the sofa where they had just spoken and approached the table. A sheet of hanji caught his eye. Beside it lay rice paper, a brush, and an inkstone.
Lee Tak-hyeon stepped behind the table, took up the brush, and unrolled a sheet of rice paper.
As the pure white paper spread across the surface, he pointed at the inkstone.
"Grind some ink."
"Yes, sir."
Seong-ho picked up the ink stick resting beside the stone and began to grind it carefully.
He already knew that whenever Lee Tak-hyeon's chest felt tight or difficult matters pressed in, the Chairman steadied himself by practicing calligraphy. So he ground the ink in silence and waited.
Lee Tak-hyeon held the brush and gazed at the blank paper for a long while before speaking slowly.
"Do you know what kind of inkstone you're grinding on right now?"
The sudden question made Seong-ho set the stick carefully aside.
"I do not, sir."
Having admitted ignorance honestly, he folded his hands and listened with quiet attention, inviting the explanation.
Lee Tak-hyeon loaded the brush thickly with the well-ground ink and began to write with deliberate care.
He formed the character for "mun"—gate—then stared down at it for a long time.
Apparently satisfied, he nodded several times and spoke again.
"This is a Duan inkstone—one of China's four great inkstones."
Seong-ho looked at the stone again.
Far from elegant, it looked almost like an ordinary bowl simply set down on the table.
While grinding, he had never given a second thought to what sort of inkstone it might be.
Lee Tak-hyeon glanced at him, then dipped the brush once more.
He looked at the paper and continued.
"The Duan inkstones sold on the market are often handsome pieces. But those aren't the real thing... So I asked friends at our China branch to obtain a genuine one. For a thousand years people have believed that only by studying with a true Duan inkstone can a man pass the imperial examinations."
"I see."
Lee Tak-hyeon wrote again.
This time the character was "dang."
Seong-ho studied the two characters side by side—mun and dang—and wondered what the Chairman intended to write next.
Two characters alone made the rest hard to predict.
Lee Tak-hyeon stared at the second character for another long moment, then spoke.
"I think of you as that Duan inkstone. On the surface you may look like nothing special, yet the reputation built over a thousand years cannot be judged by appearance alone."
With that he wrote the third character. Only when Seong-ho saw the final stroke did he understand.
Ho...? Ah—mun-dang-ho-dae!
The belief that marriage should join only houses of equal social rank and economic standing.
Lee Tak-hyeon finished the last character—"dae"—and gazed at the completed phrase for a long while.
Whether he was pleased with the calligraphy itself or with the meaning of the words, he simply stared. At last he handed the brush to Seong-ho and walked back toward the reception sofa.
Seong-ho accepted the brush, laid it carefully on the inkstone, glanced once more at the four characters for mun-dang-ho-dae, then turned and followed.
Lee Tak-hyeon settled onto the sofa, picked up a cigarette from the table, and spoke.
"In old China they placed stone ornaments in front of the house gate to drive away evil spirits. Those were called mun-dang."
He lit the cigarette, drew deeply, and exhaled a long stream of smoke.
Then he continued, unhurried.
"And above the gate they built even numbers of cylindrical projections from which lanterns could hang. Those were the ho-dae."
Seong-ho lifted the ashtray and set it carefully before the Chairman.
Lee Tak-hyeon regarded the younger man who, without being asked, had already prepared the ashtray. He tapped ash into it and went on.
"Both were devices that displayed the status of the people living inside. The kind of mun-dang you erected and the number of ho-dae told the world the owner's social rank and wealth. In China they believed that only houses whose mun-dang and ho-dae matched should marry—so the couple would feel equal in station and money would never become a source of great trouble."
Seong-ho listened in silence.
He understood perfectly well that the words were aimed at him.
Lee Tak-hyeon watched him sitting with head bowed, cigarette between his lips.
"It's no different in Korea today. Only families of similar standing can live together in peace. That is why I married off four of my children that way."
The four children other than Lee Gyeong-eun had been matched according to mun-dang-ho-dae. Kim Seong-ho and Lee Gyeong-eun had not.
Seong-ho raised his head. Lee Tak-hyeon pointed at him with the hand that held the cigarette.
"Only the two of you are different. There is a gap between you."
Seong-ho felt a peculiar guilt, though he had done nothing wrong.
Lee Tak-hyeon seemed to read the thought; he smiled.
"I'm not saying it's your fault."
He fixed Seong-ho with a steady gaze.
"When you married, people around us said the same thing. How well could a pair whose mun-dang-ho-dae didn't match possibly live? Gyeong-eun's path and yours had been so different that a mismatched marriage would only bring hardship. They told me not to allow it."
"I understand. I would have said the same."
Yet Lee Tak-hyeon had set every objection aside and accepted Kim Seong-ho.
The corners of the Chairman's mouth lifted as he crushed the cigarette into the ashtray.
"I have never regretted that choice. I thought it was all right if one of the five lived the life he or she wanted. But lately, watching you, I feel a little regret."
"You mean for permitting the marriage, sir?"
"No."
Lee Tak-hyeon shook his head and met Seong-ho's eyes.
"I find myself wishing you had been born from a different woman's belly. If you had come out the way Mun-jong and the others did... it would have been better."
Seong-ho's face went blank with surprise.
Lee Tak-hyeon saw the expression and laughed.
"You've bought a building and you're working with those stock-market types, I hear?"
"Yes, sir."
Lee Tak-hyeon leaned back.
"Don't waste energy on useless thoughts. Just wait. I'll bring you back into the company."
Once again Seong-ho could only sit stunned.
He had believed he would return, yet he had never expected the Chairman himself to give him such advance notice.
Then Lee Tak-hyeon's next words made his entire body go rigid.
"And this time you overreached a little. When Mun-jong talked about three hundred billion, it would have been nice if you'd stopped him. Of course the fault lies with that fool Mun-jong for proposing the higher figure, but still... I find it a little regrettable."
For a split second Seong-ho nearly lost control of his expression.
Goosebumps rose at the realization that Lee Tak-hyeon knew he himself had goaded Mun-jong into raising the amount.
Lee Tak-hyeon simply smiled, face bright with amusement, and kept looking at him.