Pulling Him from the Swamp
Lee Mun-jong glanced around at the presidents seated in the room, then turned to Lee Tak-hyeon.
“Chairman, since you’ve already granted Director Kim the authority for restructuring, shouldn’t we elevate him to the same rank as the presidents here?”
“If the man holding the knife is only a director while the people who must follow his orders are presidents, things may not run smoothly. And even inside the Restructuring Headquarters itself, having a director as Head while a managing director serves as Deputy Head looks rather mismatched.”
Lee Mun-jong urged Lee Tak-hyeon to promote Kim Seong-ho to president, then gave Seong-ho a quick wink.
Seong-ho answered the gesture with a quiet bow of gratitude. Mun-jong shrugged in response and returned his attention to the Chairman.
Lee Tak-hyeon listened, then fell silent for a moment of thought before speaking slowly.
“You’re not wrong. But jumping straight from director to president is too steep a promotion. Let him climb the ranks properly, one step at a time. For now, move him to an acting managing director post. Once he shows results, I’ll make the promotion official. Understood?”
“Chairman, even so—”
“Enough.”
When Mun-jong tried to press the point again, Lee Tak-hyeon cut him off cold. The Chairman swept his gaze across the assembled presidents of the affiliates.
“Just because Head Kim is only an acting managing director doesn’t mean any of you will ignore his orders, correct? Am I right?”
The words were framed as a question, yet every president in the room understood it was an order. They answered in unison that no such thing would happen. Satisfied, Lee Tak-hyeon nodded and brought the emergency presidents’ meeting to a close.
“Head Kim. A word.”
After the meeting, while Kim Seong-ho was still speaking with Lee Mun-jong, Chief of Staff Hwang Do-beom called him over.
Mun-jong, who had just been assuring Seong-ho of his continued support, turned to Hwang.
“Chief, what’s this about?”
“Ah, I simply need to discuss a few matters regarding the Restructuring Headquarters. Nothing the Vice Chairman needs to worry himself over.”
Seeing that Hwang intended to exclude him, Mun-jong narrowed his eyes.
“Chief, is this something I’m not allowed to hear?”
“The Chairman gave me special instructions, so I hope you’ll understand, Vice Chairman.”
“Special instructions?”
Rather than settling his curiosity, the phrase only sharpened Mun-jong’s suspicion. Still, he nodded as if he accepted it.
“Well… all right. I’ll take my leave, then. Head Kim, I’ll stop by your office later so we can finish our conversation.”
“Yes, Vice Chairman.”
Seong-ho bowed. Mun-jong clapped him once on the shoulder, cast a lingering glance at Hwang, and finally walked away, leaving only Seong-ho and Hwang standing outside the conference room.
Hwang surveyed the empty corridor, then gestured for Seong-ho to follow.
“This isn’t a good place to talk. Let’s go to your office.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seong-ho tilted his head slightly. If Hwang had instructions to deliver, protocol would have taken them to the Chief of Staff’s own office. Choosing Seong-ho’s office instead felt odd.
They walked in silence until they reached Seong-ho’s office. Once inside, Hwang shut the door, drew Seong-ho deeper into the room, and spoke in a low voice.
“Seong-ho. We’ve got a problem.”
“A problem? What sort of problem?”
Seong-ho studied Hwang. The man’s demeanor was nothing like usual. Hwang pulled him past the reception sofa all the way to the window and lowered his voice even further.
“It’s about Ilhyeon Securities. Something’s happened there.”
The moment the name was mentioned, Seong-ho understood why Hwang was behaving this way.
So he found it.
Realizing that Hwang had discovered Lee Sang-jong’s irregular activities through Ilhyeon Securities, Seong-ho feigned ignorance.
“What exactly happened at Ilhyeon Securities?”
Hwang shook his head, face grim.
“Sang-jong is using Ilhyeon Securities to buy up stocks in bulk.”
“Which stocks?”
“It isn’t any one stock.”
Hwang shook his head again.
“He’s indiscriminately scooping up anything in the top fifty of the KOSPI. And not only those—old theme stocks that used to be famous as well. Sogyeong Machinery, Soyoung Packaging, Hudo Electric, that sort of thing.”
Hwang let out a heavy sigh.
Seong-ho knew perfectly well what Sang-jong was thinking. Even so, he kept a puzzled expression and pressed for more.
“Chief, buying stocks isn’t really a problem, is it? He’s left the company, so no internal regulations apply, and there’s no law saying a member of the Ilhyeon family can’t make money in the market.”
“True. If he’d done it normally, there wouldn’t be an issue.”
Hwang nodded, agreeing with the point. Yet the gloom still hanging over his face made it clear that was far from the whole story.
Seong-ho watched him carefully and asked in a cautious tone,
“How much has he bought to make you this worried? One billion? Two billion? It can’t be more than two billion, right?”
He named the largest sums an ordinary person might imagine. Hwang answered with a figure that shattered common sense.
“A hundred billion. Sang-jong dumped a hundred billion into the market.”
“How much? A hundred billion?”
Seong-ho let shock show on his face, then asked with genuine-looking confusion,
“Did my brother-in-law even have that kind of money?”
“He didn’t. That’s exactly why it’s a problem.”
Hwang exhaled a long breath.
As the second son of the Ilhyeon Group’s owner, Sang-jong’s publicly known assets easily exceeded a hundred billion. But those figures were only paper wealth—valuations of his stakes in group affiliates. They were numbers Lee Tak-hyeon had slowly parceled out over the years, numbers Sang-jong could never freely spend.
“Ten or twenty billion he could scrape together without much trouble. A hundred billion is a different story. Sang-jong must have…”
Hwang’s voice trailed off. He closed his eyes for a moment.
Seong-ho finished the sentence for him.
“He put his shares up as collateral and borrowed the money.”
Even though Hwang had left the thought unfinished, Seong-ho’s understanding made him nod.
“Yes. That’s almost certainly what he did. And because Ilhyeon Securities is one of our affiliates, they would have lent him the money without much fuss…”
“Chief, then he might have borrowed even more than a hundred billion, right? His shareholdings are worth far more than that.”
“I think so too. But a hundred billion is what’s been confirmed so far. That’s why I phrased it that way.”
Seong-ho sighed just as deeply as Hwang.
“Haa… The Chairman doesn’t know yet, does he?”
“I came straight to you the moment I confirmed it. If the Chairman finds out…”
“It won’t end with mere anger.”
“Exactly. That’s why this is serious.”
Hwang studied the thoughtful Seong-ho, then spoke in a low voice.
“I’d like to dig deeper myself, but I’m afraid the Chairman will notice if I poke around any further. So…”
“I’ll use restructuring as the pretext and look into it thoroughly.”
Without needing to hear the rest, Seong-ho had already grasped the request. Hwang seized his hand.
“If the Chairman ever learns that Sang-jong put group shares up as collateral, all hell will break loose. Dig deep and clean it up carefully.”
“The best outcome would be to liquidate the stocks, recover the money, and release the collateral.”
“Precisely.”
Hwang clapped Seong-ho on the shoulder.
“I knew you’d understand exactly what I meant.”
He left his hand resting lightly on Seong-ho’s shoulder.
“It has to be handled fast, and without the Chairman finding out. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“I understand. I’ll make Ilhyeon Securities the first target of the restructuring. I’ll summon their management under that natural pretext and handle this matter at the same time. Leave it to me.”
“Good. I’m counting on you.”
Hwang repeated the plea several times, gave Seong-ho’s hand a brief squeeze, conveyed his trust with a look, and left the office.
Seong-ho walked him all the way to the corridor, reassured him there was nothing to worry about, and saw him off.
Watching Hwang’s receding back, Seong-ho thought of the previous timeline.
Back then, this very incident had plunged the Ilhyeon Group into a deeply awkward crisis. And because of it, Lee Sang-jong had been kicked out of the succession race. Seong-ho remembered every detail.
He turned and walked back into his office, sat down, and murmured to himself,
“But this time the result will be different.”
In the last life, by the time Hwang discovered the mess it had already been too late to salvage. Sang-jong was expelled from the family and erased from the succession structure.
This time was different.
They had caught it early enough, and the cleanup had been placed in Seong-ho’s hands.
A faint smile touched his lips as he continued under his breath,
“Things will be far more entertaining if the second brother-in-law stays around. So I’ll help him.”
Seong-ho had no desire to see Sang-jong cast out. As long as the man remained inside the Ilhyeon family, the friction with the rest of them would only grow sharper and more amusing.
That was why Seong-ho intended to pull Lee Sang-jong out of the swamp.
Of course, no one but Seong-ho knew that this “help” would ultimately lead Sang-jong to an even worse end. Only Seong-ho understood that being expelled quickly would actually have been the kinder fate.
He was going to drag Sang-jong out of the swamp precisely so he could make the man suffer more.
For the first time in a long while, Jo Byeong-jin and Jeong Byeong-ju sat facing Kim Seong-ho.
They looked around the new office and clicked their tongues in amazement.
“You said you’d be back soon, so I half-believed you, but I never dreamed you’d return like this. Acting managing director? Headquarters Head?”
“What did I tell you? I said I’d come back as someone even bigger, didn’t I?”
“Man… you’re something else. You really are.”
As Byeong-jin shook his head in disbelief, Jeong Byeong-ju regarded Seong-ho with the same admiring look.
“How did this even happen? Restructuring the entire group?”
“The situation isn’t good.”
“I heard the economy is shaking after the Dubo Group collapsed and then the Bumi Group followed, but is it bad enough that we have to restructure the whole conglomerate?”
“It’s serious. That’s why the Chairman put the knife in my hand.”
The brief explanation was enough for both men to grasp how grave things had become. After exchanging a glance with Jeong Byeong-ju, Jo Byeong-jin brushed his hands together.
“All right. So what do we do now?”
At those words a smile rose to Seong-ho’s lips. The blunt, ready-for-action attitude was exactly what he had hoped for.
“The two of you…”
In a calm voice Seong-ho began laying out the work that lay ahead.
Once they had heard the full plan, the two men left the office at once and headed straight for the Ilhyeon Securities headquarters in Chungmuro.
Not long after they departed, Lee Gyeong-deuk appeared at Seong-ho’s door.
“Head Kim. The newly assigned people have arrived.”
Lee Gyeong-deuk reported that the personnel reassigned to the Restructuring Headquarters were ready.
Back when it had been the Strategic Planning Office, roughly forty staff had handled the work. Elevated to a full headquarters, the headcount had swollen to a hundred and fifty.
“Everyone’s here?”
Seong-ho rose from his desk to greet the new arrivals. Gyeong-deuk followed him out.
“I already collected resignation letters from the new ones as well.”
Seong-ho glanced back with a light laugh.
“You explained carefully so there’d be no misunderstandings, right?”
“Of course. Who do you think I am? Aren’t I your right-hand man?”
Having decided that serving as Deputy Head of the Restructuring Headquarters was better than being director of the Strategic Planning Office, Gyeong-deuk had volunteered himself as Seong-ho’s right hand.
Seong-ho smiled faintly at the claim and stepped into the large conference room where the newly assigned employees waited.
Most of them were standout accounting and general-affairs personnel pulled from the various affiliates. Summoned to the Restructuring Headquarters, they sat with tense faces, waiting for him.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’m Kim Seong-ho. From today we’ll be working together at Headquarters.”
The new staff of the Restructuring Headquarters fixed their nervous gazes on him as one.