Jisan Cement
The moment Kim Seong-ho finished speaking with Director Lee Gyeong-deuk and stepped out of the office, Yun Gi-seok, Team Leader of Team 2 in the Strategic Planning Office, hurriedly summoned his team.
With every member of Team 2 gathered, he began to relay what Kim Seong-ho had heard in the Deputy Head’s office.
“You all know that acquisition talks for Jisan Cement of the Jisan Group are already underway with our Ilhyeon Group. Our Team 2 has been put in charge of them. From this point on, everything else gets pushed aside. We’re concentrating solely on the Jisan Cement acquisition, so I want every one of you focused on those negotiations.”
“We’re handling the Jisan Cement acquisition…?”
Work of this scale normally fell to Team 1. Team 2 was usually left with leftover companies or sent out only when a subsidiary needed help thinning its staff. Yet starting with the Hi.com deal and now the Jisan Cement acquisition, the heavy work had landed on Team 2 two times in a row.
Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward Kim Seong-ho. They all understood why the Jisan Cement file had suddenly dropped into their laps. None of this would have happened if the chairman’s son-in-law had never joined the team.
Team Leader Yun clapped his hands once, yanking their gazes back to him.
“It’s a one-hundred-fifty-billion-won deal. Stay sharp and don’t make mistakes. Understood?”
The team answered in unison and the meeting broke up.
Diary in hand, Kim Seong-ho headed back to his desk and called after the man walking ahead of him.
“Section Chief Jeong.”
Jeong Byeong-ju turned. Seong-ho fell into step beside him and asked in a low voice,
“Did you make it to the hospital?”
“Ah…”
Jeong hesitated a moment, then spoke even more quietly.
“My wife… she told me to thank you.”
“Did they operate?”
“Scheduled for next week. The doctor said if we’d waited any longer there might not have been anything left to save. Really—thank you. But how did you know my kid had a congenital heart condition, Assistant Manager Kim?”
Jeong looked at him with open curiosity. Seong-ho gave him a light push between the shoulder blades, keeping them both moving toward their desks.
“You asked around quite a bit, didn’t you, Section Chief? Word eventually reached me. The symptoms sounded familiar, so I suggested you get the child checked.”
“It actually reached you?”
Jeong studied him for a second, then nodded.
“I guess it could have. I asked just about everyone I knew.”
There had been moments when the child’s breathing looked labored or the nail beds took on a purplish tint, yet the signs never stayed long enough for Jeong to think a hospital visit was urgent. Being a first-time father, he had simply assumed it was some ordinary part of growing up that he didn’t understand yet. When no one around him recognized the symptoms either, a quiet anxiety had settled in—but then the transfer to Team 2 of the Strategic Planning Office came through and the idea of taking the child to a doctor slipped away entirely. Only after Seong-ho wrecked the Hi.com acquisition did Jeong finally have breathing room, and only after Seong-ho insisted he go did he finally take the child in for tests.
The hospital confirmed a congenital heart defect and said surgery to widen the vessels could not wait. Just imagining what would have happened if he had kept telling himself everything was fine sent a chill down Jeong’s spine.
“Anyway, thank you. Because of you I actually got him there.”
“I’m glad everything turned out all right.”
Seong-ho gave the section chief a light, brief hug and smiled.
“Then shall we throw ourselves into the Jisan Cement acquisition?”
“We should.”
“I’ll be looking forward to your performance, Section Chief.”
Seong-ho raised a fist toward him, then went and sat at his own desk. Jeong blinked at him for a moment, looking slightly dazed—as if he had momentarily forgotten who was the section chief and who was the assistant manager—then snorted a quiet laugh and walked to his seat.
While Jeong was still wearing that half-broken expression, Seong-ho opened the diary and reread the pages that concerned him.
In the original timeline, after the child died he fell apart and left the company.
Seong-ho glanced across at Jeong settling into his chair. Back then the man had been known for getting things done; people had spoken of his departure with real regret, saying the team would have achieved far more if he had stayed. Seong-ho looked at those entries and made a quiet decision.
For now I need Section Chief Jeong on my side first. Everything else gets easier once he is.
What Seong-ho intended to do would not be finished in a day or two. To bring down a fortress built this solid, people came first. Jeong Byeong-ju was the first ally he had chosen, and he meant to bring the man over.
If I tie it to the Jisan Cement deal, it looks doable.
He checked the diary again and began laying out the plan.
On the road to Danyang, where Jisan Cement was located, Kim Seong-ho rode with Jeong Byeong-ju.
“The surgery went well?”
“Yeah. Thankfully it did. When things settle down my wife wants to invite you over for a meal. She keeps saying how grateful she is.”
“I’d be honored if you invited me. Just pick a date and let me know. I’ll bring my wife as well.”
Jeong’s eyes went wide at the immediate, unhesitating answer. He jerked his gaze back to the road ahead, hands tight on the wheel.
“You’re serious, Assistant Manager Kim? Even the young lady would come? To our place?”
“Yes. Is that so strange?”
“No—it’s just… she’s the chairman’s daughter.”
“And I’m the chairman’s son-in-law.”
Jeong gave him an incredulous look. Seong-ho kept his eyes on the road ahead.
“Don’t worry. My wife isn’t the type who cares much about appearances. If she were, would she have married me?”
“Well… that’s true.”
Jeong nodded, yet still seemed unable to wrap his head around it. He tilted his head and muttered,
“Still… of all people, the young lady coming to our house…?”
“Section Chief. For today, put everything else out of your mind and focus only on Jisan Cement.”
Jeong nodded again.
“Right. Even if we invite you, it’ll only be after the kid recovers anyway.”
He shook off the strangeness and the worry and fixed his mind on the meeting with the Jisan Group that afternoon. Seong-ho watched the man’s newly determined face and smiled without speaking. The Jeong Byeong-ju sitting beside him now was nothing like the man he had first met. The hostility was gone; in its place was something that almost felt like camaraderie. Seong-ho thought that winning him over might not be as hard as he had expected, and used the remaining drive to Danyang to put his thoughts in order.
Three hours after leaving Seoul, the car rolled into the grounds of Jisan Cement in Danyang. The first thing that greeted them was an enormous banner.
“What the hell is that…?”
Section Chief Jeong eased the car forward, reading the banner with a look of pure disbelief.
Ilhyeon Group’s Section Chief Jeong Byeong-ju and Assistant Manager Kim Seong-ho — We warmly welcome your visit
“Why is that even hanging there?”
“Looks like they’re genuinely happy to see us.”
Jeong turned an incredulous face toward Seong-ho. Seong-ho simply lifted a finger and pointed ahead.
“It seems the banner isn’t the only thing welcoming us.”
Jeong followed the direction of the finger. A cluster of people holding flower bouquets stood waiting, eyes fixed on their car.
“Uh…”
While Jeong sat frozen in confusion, Seong-ho spoke first.
“Section Chief, why don’t we park up ahead. We’ll know soon enough whether the welcome is real once we meet them.”
“R-right. Let’s park first.”
Jeong collected himself and brought the car to a stop. The moment the two of them stepped out, applause and cheers rose around them.
“Welcome to Jisan Cement!”
Clap-clap-clap-clap.
A young female employee thrust a bouquet into Jeong’s hands; he took it on pure reflex, still looking completely lost.
“What on earth is all this…?”
As Jeong stammered, Seong-ho stepped forward.
“Thank you. You really didn’t need to go this far. I hope we haven’t put you to unnecessary trouble. We’re only stopping by briefly before the formal negotiations begin.”
“Hahaha, that doesn’t matter at all. We’re just grateful you came, so we prepared this.”
A man in a spotless set of work clothes beamed at them.
“Oh, I haven’t even introduced myself. Pleasure to meet you. I’m Bang Su-cheol, President of Jisan Cement. And these are…”
After introducing himself, Bang went down the line of Jisan Cement employees standing behind him. Bouquet still in hand, Jeong exchanged greetings with every last one of them, looking thoroughly awkward. Seong-ho did the same—yet while Jeong scanned faces, Seong-ho’s eyes were taking in something else entirely.
The work clothes are clean.
It wasn’t only the president and the managers. Even the employees lined up like a backdrop wore freshly laundered uniforms. Seong-ho doubted they had all changed into brand-new clothes simply for the welcome. He quietly recalled the diary entries, then turned his gaze toward the massive cement plant itself.
So even at this point the factory has already been idle for quite a while.
The spotless work clothes and the cement dust settled thick around the plant confirmed what the diary had written: production here had stopped long ago. Having seen the true condition of the facility with his own eyes, Seong-ho decided the plan he had drawn up before coming—to deliberately slow the Jisan Cement acquisition—could proceed exactly as intended.