Cutting Me Down Is the Path to Making Me Shine
Lee Gyeong-eun came over to where Kim Seong-ho was watching television.
She frowned at the canister of almonds in his hand.
"I told you not to eat too many almonds at night."
She snatched the canister away and examined it.
"How many did you even eat? I specifically said no more than ten, didn't I? This looks emptier than ten almonds would account for. How many was it? Well?"
"Who counts almonds while they eat them? You just grab a handful."
"I told you that's not allowed."
Lee Gyeong-eun snapped the lid shut and set the canister on the table.
Then she turned on him and launched into a lecture.
"Dr. Kang said no more than ten a day."
"Wasn't that advice for the Chairman?"
"Father, yes—but you need to start taking care of yourself now too, Seong-ho. What's the point of looking after your health only once you're already old?"
"Understood. More importantly—have you been going to the hospital for your checkups regularly?"
Kim Seong-ho looked at her with more concern for her than for himself.
Lee Gyeong-eun avoided his eyes.
She had been so busy lately that she had skipped a couple of appointments, and the guilt of it sat heavy on her.
The moment the conversation threatened to turn on her, she mumbled and tried to change the subject.
"Me? Well… Anyway, the television is being surprisingly kind about the restructuring. Did you plant that professor?"
Kim Seong-ho simply watched her refuse to answer his question.
…There's still time.
He recalled that in the previous life Lee Gyeong-eun's collapse had come roughly a year later than this moment, and set the worry aside for now.
Besides, the doctors keep saying there's nothing to find yet.
It had been a sudden cerebral hemorrhage; even if they checked now, nothing would show.
Deciding to let her dodge the subject, he answered her question.
"The network did the booking, not me."
Seeing him play along with her change of topic, Lee Gyeong-eun relaxed and pressed on.
"But they're being this positive about it?"
She looked at him as though she could not quite believe it, and a faint smile touched the corner of Kim Seong-ho's mouth.
"The invitation came from the broadcaster. All I did was retain that professor—and a few others who looked likely to be invited."
Hearing the admission, Lee Gyeong-eun gave his arm a light thump, as if she had known all along.
"I knew it. See? You did arrange it. Fine, call it whatever you like—'not really arranging'—but in the end you made sure they said nice things."
"Well… you could put it that way."
Listening to his half-hearted concession, Lee Gyeong-eun turned back to the screen.
On the television the economics professor was still spraying saliva as he heaped praise on the Ilhyeon Group's restructuring.
Unable to tear her eyes from the man on the screen, she said,
"Having people like him back you up should make the work easier going forward, right?"
"No. It won't."
"What? It won't?"
Startled by the unexpected answer, she turned to look at him.
Kim Seong-ho kept his eyes on the television as he spoke.
"When they praise us like that, the opposition is bound to surface. And those people will be desperate to tear down everything we try to do."
"Then aren't you just stirring up trouble for nothing? If you'd stayed quiet, that professor would never have been on television foaming at the mouth about restructuring, and no one would have gotten their feelings hurt enough to start tearing it down either."
"No. People coming out to tear us down is exactly what I wanted. Everything is moving in the direction I intended."
"You wanted people to tear you down? Why?"
She stared at him, utterly baffled. Kim Seong-ho gave her a bright, open smile.
"Because that is what will make the work I do stand out even more."
"What?"
The answer was so unexpected that Lee Gyeong-eun could only sit there with a startled expression, speechless.
Amused by her reaction, Kim Seong-ho turned his head back to the television.
On the screen the professor was still passionately extolling the Ilhyeon Group's restructuring, insisting that only restructuring like Ilhyeon's could lift the country into the ranks of advanced nations, saliva flying with every word.
As time passed, the Ilhyeon Group's restructuring became a hotter and hotter topic among ordinary people.
"Is it even right to lay off this many people?"
"At least they're paying proper severance and consolation money to the ones who leave."
"Money isn't everything. Are people just spare parts? Throw them out the second they're no longer useful?"
"It's not like they're just firing people. The companies are being liquidated, so the employees have no choice but to leave. And if they really don't want to go, they're being offered transfers to other affiliates. What's the problem?"
"No. No."
The man voicing the negative opinion shook his head and hands vigorously as he spoke.
"Shutting down perfectly healthy companies is nonsense to begin with. And if I'm working at a construction company and they suddenly tell me to go to a trading company, am I supposed to just go? That's the same as telling me to quit."
"They say the economy's about to get rough, so they have to cut the fat if they want to survive. What can you do? A company's not a charity. If the company dies, the employees die with it."
"What do you mean the economy's going to get bad?"
The critic stamped his foot on the ground, no longer bothering to hide his anger.
"We just joined the OECD, prices are stable, the exchange rate is… not bad. People's pockets are full—everyone's going on overseas trips, people are starting to think about leisure. Interest rates are low enough that owning a home isn't as hard as it used to be. So what's supposed to be bad?"
"Uh… is that right?"
"It's not 'is that right'—it is right. Ilhyeon is overreacting. How is the country in trouble? If the collapse of Dubo or Bumi was enough to put the whole country in danger, Korea would have gone under long ago. Companies bigger than Dubo have gone under before—more than once. Am I wrong?"
"Well… I guess a conglomerate can't stay a conglomerate forever. They fail, they get pushed out… Saying the whole country is in danger just because one big company collapsed is a stretch."
Satisfied that his friend had absorbed his view, the critic went on,
"The Ilhyeon Group just wants an excuse to fire people, so they're lying. They're the top company in the country and they're pulling this kind of trick—I can't stand it. The Ilhyeon Group is a pack of villains that needs to disappear from Korea. We should boycott their products."
"Right. What if other places start copying them? Then what?"
"Exactly my point. Using some crazy claim that the country is in danger to blind people and force restructuring—we can't let this keep happening. The government has to step in and stop the Ilhyeon Group."
"Right, right."
By the end of the conversation they had somehow concluded that the Ilhyeon Group had committed a grave wrong.
And this kind of talk was not limited to ordinary people on the street.
"This is simply unconscionable."
On the same program that had recently featured the economics professor praising the Ilhyeon Group, the director of an economic research institute appeared today and spoke with rising heat.
"South Korea is in crisis? I have no idea what basis the Ilhyeon Group has for saying such a thing."
"The basis they put forward is that corporate debt ratios are so high there will be no buffer when a financial crisis hits… Director, you don't agree with that assessment?"
The host glanced down at his notes and summarized the Ilhyeon Group's position.
The research director gave a snort of contempt before answering.
"Debt ratios are high? Then what, exactly, is the proper debt ratio supposed to be? Is Ilhyeon trying to say companies shouldn't have any debt at all? When a company expands its business, debt naturally increases. And that expansion creates new jobs—a virtuous cycle. Yet Ilhyeon is rejecting that entire ecosystem. I cannot understand what they're thinking. Frankly, Ilhyeon itself grew under that very system."
He shook his head and looked straight into the camera.
"Even now, the Ilhyeon Group must stop the restructuring it has underway. In fact, this restructuring is pushing South Korea into even greater difficulty. The Ilhyeon Group needs to understand that they themselves are the ones endangering the Republic of Korea."
The attacks on the Ilhyeon Group did not stop at television.
Newspapers, too, poured out articles claiming that the Ilhyeon Group's talk of national crisis was premature and overblown.
With every passing day the concentrated barrage against the Ilhyeon Group only grew heavier.
People began to look at the group with genuine suspicion, wondering whether South Korea was in fact perfectly healthy and whether the Ilhyeon Group was the one deliberately fomenting a sense of crisis.
"Chairman, what should we do?"
Chief of Staff Hwang Do-beom asked with a troubled expression.
Chairman Lee Tak-hyeon, still reading the newspapers, gave a contemptuous snort.
"Have these people lost their minds? The same rags that couldn't even keep their presses running without our advertising money—and now they're talking like this?"
He flung the paper away after scanning the articles condemning the Ilhyeon Group.
"The Ilhyeon Group is driving the Republic of Korea into crisis? These bastards…"
Even lying crumpled on the floor, the newspaper still showed only more articles attacking the group.
Hwang Do-beom hurriedly scooped the paper up and hid it behind his back before speaking again.
"Chairman, shall I pay a visit to the newspaper presidents?"
"And say what?"
"I was thinking we could offer them advertising on the condition that they stop writing negative pieces."
Lee Tak-hyeon snorted again.
"Those dogs should be crawling here begging us for ads. And you want us to go to them offering advertising if they'll please stop writing articles? Forget it."
He shook his head.
"No need for us to go begging. Just have the Jeongjung Daily—which we own—run a special series on how South Korea is already sliding into crisis."
"Understood."
Hwang Do-beom acknowledged the order, then carefully asked another question.
"Chairman, will you be attending the Federation of Korean Industries gathering this time? They'll almost certainly bring up the restructuring…"
He had been about to suggest skipping the meeting.
Lee Tak-hyeon's thinking was entirely different.
"Of course I'm going."
He looked ready to cancel every other appointment if necessary just to attend this one.
"I want to hear what they say there too."
"Chairman, you really don't have to—"
"Tell Seong-ho he has to go as well."
"Seong-ho too?"
Hwang Do-beom's face registered pure shock.
A Federation of Korean Industries gathering was a meeting of group chairmen.
The idea that the Chairman would bring Kim Seong-ho along left the chief of staff stunned.
Lee Tak-hyeon folded his arms and looked down at the other newspapers still spread across his desk.
Every one of them carried articles about the Ilhyeon Group's restructuring—all of them negative.
His expression hardened as he spoke.
"I'm taking Kim as my attendant for this meeting, so tell him to prepare accordingly. I'm very curious what those old men will say to him. And even more curious how he'll react when he hears it…"
He never took his eyes off the papers.
Standing beside him, Hwang Do-beom quietly exhaled a long sigh.
He understood perfectly well that the Chairman was not bringing Kim Seong-ho along in order to introduce him to the other chairmen.
Hwang Do-beom carefully stepped back, shaking his head.
Wondering how he was going to explain this, he headed for the Restructuring Headquarters where Kim Seong-ho worked.
"Chief Hwang, welcome. I was just about to come see you myself—perfect timing."
Kim Seong-ho greeted the chief of staff warmly as he entered the office, then picked up a sheaf of documents from his desk and walked over.
He held the approval documents out to Hwang Do-beom as the older man sat on the sofa, then took the seat opposite him.
"I happen to have something that needs your signature."
"Approval? What for?"
Hwang Do-beom opened the folder and looked at the papers inside.
"Ilhyeon Electronics Restructuring Plan?"
He lifted his head and stared at Kim Seong-ho with wide eyes.
The fact that Seong-ho had extended the blade of restructuring all the way to the group's flagship affiliate, Ilhyeon Electronics, drained the color from Hwang Do-beom's face.