Chapter 213
Chapter 213
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 213
Chapter Title: Those Leaving, Those Remaining, Chaos (1)
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Gangnam, Ammunition Medical Center's Cancer Center.
The elderly professor in his white coat pushed up his slipping glasses with a finger and opened his trembling lips with a voice heavy with sorrow.
“Then, I’ll give you the report, Director.”
Seo Taehu’s gaze fixed silently on her attending physician.
Though she had stepped back from all real power, her commanding presence remained as formidable as ever.
The attending physician pressed on with difficulty, his voice quivering.
“There’s… an unidentified tumor in the pancreas.”
“……!”
“We’d need a biopsy to confirm if it’s benign or malignant, but given the size, it’s probably.”
The attending physician hesitated.
Seo Taehu spoke as if it were nothing at all.
“It’s fine. Speak.”
“It… might be a difficult road ahead. I’m sorry, Director.”
An awkward silence crept in like a thief.
The only sound in the room was the ticking of the wall clock. Seo Taehu’s expression unchanged, she spoke nonchalantly.
“What do you have to be sorry for? When it’s an old person’s time to go, they go.”
“N-no, that’s not it. We haven’t gotten the detailed test results yet, and even in the worst case, with chemotherapy…!”
“Enough.”
Seo Taehu cut him off with nothing more than her piercing gaze, not a muscle twitching.
With an arm slightly thinner and frailer than usual, she pointed at the large screen displaying her pancreas scan and declared firmly.
“I know the obvious. I don’t have much time left—not a lot of it. I have things to do, so no time to argue with you.”
* * * *
The situation was graver than she’d imagined.
Her pancreas had been silently holding out, without even the usual nagging ache. But that silence had merely masked the ticking of a time bomb.
And the attending physician’s follow-up explanation confirmed that the explosion wasn’t far off.
“Whew….”
In the car. Seo Myung-hee, the Director, gazed out the window and let out a long sigh.
Through the fogged glass reflecting her blurred image, rows of street trees whipped by outside. Just like the fleeting time she had left.
“No need to watch me. It’s nothing.”
She lightly addressed the driver, sensing his glances through the rearview mirror.
He seemed to have already caught on… but this couldn’t leak out yet. Not until she’d finished what she needed to do for those who remained.
“Ah… yes, Director.”
“And Han Seo-jun? Still in Jerusalem?”
“It’s such a big deal that even Nobel Peace Prize talk is floating around… He said a few more days.”
“That kid takes after someone when it comes to stirring things up.”
Seo Taehu let out a soft chuckle.
Her grandson—proud didn’t even begin to cover it—was already striding boldly down the path ahead, her successor in every sense.
Picturing her grandson roaming the world with such vigor, Seo Taehu suddenly overlaid the face of her late eldest son onto his.
“Yeah, just like my eldest boy. That Seo-jun kid.”
Her firstborn, gone too soon. The grandson carrying on his legacy. Their solid legitimacy was now untouchable by anyone.
That’s why… she lifted her head cautiously, a mix of pity and complex emotions stirring.
-Screech
The car halted at a signal.
Last night’s wind must have been fierce. Branches littered the road haphazardly.
Seeing those side branches that could never become the main trunk of a great tree, a single teardrop welled in Seo Taehu’s eyes, as if reminded of someone.
“Heh, has my time really come? Even the ones we mustn’t tread on are catching my eye now.”
“Director…?”
“Don’t head straight home. Take a nice drive. I want to see the scenery.”
“Yes. Which way?”
The wipers swung rhythmically side to side like a pendulum.
Cold winter rain poured down. Time to decide wasn’t plentiful.
Just before the light turned from red to green, Seo Taehu finally steeled her resolve.
“South—circle around Anyang Prison and head back.”
“…Understood.”
Anyang Prison.
Where the so-called big-time white-collar crooks were housed. And… where her second son, Han Hwa-gi, was locked up.
The car circled the towering prison walls relentlessly, several laps without pause.
After staring intently into the barbed wire for a long while, Seo Taehu finally nodded, as if having made up her mind.
“The eldest grandson. And the youngest son… I can’t do this alone. Need that bastard top too.”
The car stopped at the fork by the prison’s main gate.
From inside with the blinker on, Seo Taehu gave the driver instructions.
“Tell Kim Won-cheol to come back to Korea right away.”
“What should I say the reason is, Director?”
“Reason, reason… right.”
The headlights illuminated the prison’s main gate.
There, a phrase was inscribed, as if speaking for any onlooker’s heart.
-Until the day we warmly embrace our family returning home.
“If the one leaving says it’s giving her a headache for those remaining, he’ll get it.”
* * * *
Kim Won-cheol, upon receiving the call, was frantic.
He rushed back to Korea as fast as he could, leaving his young lord in a distant land.
“The old hag… no, the Director?”
The driver had called him, voice half-choked, saying something was wrong with Seo Taehu’s health.
En route to the Pyeongchang-dong estate, shrouded in fog-like anxiety, Kim Won-cheol muttered nonstop.
“This lady better not… if it’s real, we’re in deep shit.”
Instinct.
That gut feeling pierced straight through his mind, raising the fine hairs on his forearms—dangerous, lethal.
“We haven’t even escaped the circular investment structure yet, and holding company conversion is impossible for a while.”
The colossal Ammunition Group castle, finally set on solid ground.
But peel back one layer of the veil, and it was no different from a sandcastle.
Business scales exploding by tens of trillions with every move, stock prices leaping wildly in tandem, yet… Han Seo-jun’s personal stake in the group remained unchanged, no major shifts.
It had held so far. Or so they’d buried the worry, assuming it would.
If a massive storm hit from outside… it could shake the roots. They’d postponed facing that to tomorrow, to someday, to the sands of time.
“Haa… please, we’ve gotta keep Han Hwa-gi locked up, at the very least.”
And right now, the biggest worry. The potential spark of chaos escaping outward.
The Iron Lady Seo Taehu. Even she was human, a mother… Her final maternal instinct could unleash a storm.
His mind tangled with these thoughts, Kim Won-cheol wiped sweat from his brow and arrived at the Pyeongchang-dong estate. There, Seo Taehu’s daughter-in-law, Kim Seong-hye, was waiting for him.
“Won-cheol-ssi…!”
“Ah, sister-in-law. Where’s the Director?”
Kim Seong-hye pointed upward, head bowed.
Her shadowed expression told Kim Won-cheol everything instantly.
“Haa… it’s as bad as I thought.”
“What should we do… Mother’s condition seems really poor.”
“I’ll go up first. Oh, and.”
A single index finger rose to his dry lips. The tense finger carried a gravity far from his usual lightness.
“Only the driver, you, and Cheongju-ssi know? Just three?”
Kim Seong-hye nodded silently.
Ascending the stairs, Kim Won-cheol turned back with a plea.
“Keep it zipped. I’m begging you. You know what I mean?”
“No worries.”
The hallway, familiar yet strangely off today in Kim Won-cheol’s eyes.
“Please, our Ice Queen Seo Taehu better not go all sentimental at the end.”
As if forewarning the Ammunition Group empress he was about to face.
Knock, knock. The dull rap on the door amplified the awkwardness.
“It’s me. Coming in!”
* * * *
“Haa, what the hell is this?”
“No need for hysterics. Bodies break down when you age, and if they can’t be fixed, you die. That’s how it goes.”
“The breakdown’s bad enough, but no fix in sight—that’s the problem.”
Was she deliberately keeping her dignity intact?
Outwardly, Seo Taehu looked no different from usual. Just a bit paler.
Of course… the three-month terminal prognosis contradicted that healthy facade entirely.
“I’ll go soon. When it’s time, it’s time—that’s the way of things.”
“Ah, come on!”
“Quiet! My throat’s shot… but my ears are fine, so no need to shout!”
“Is this the time for sweet nothings? We need a solution, fast!”
Decades of bickering had built their bond. Kim Won-cheol couldn’t hold back his surging emotions.
Seo Taehu was the same. Closer than her own son, she spoke her heart more freely to him than blood.
“Life and death are heaven’s call—no fighting it. Then those left behind live on peacefully.”
Thud. A thick stack of documents tossed onto the table.
Kim Won-cheol scratched the paper’s edge with his nail and slowly raised his head.
“This is…?”
“Did you think I’d call you without a plan? I’ve thought it through—review it.”
Even the first page revealed contingency plans for her demise. Starting with holding company conversion, the defenses for control were solidly laid out.
Kim Won-cheol exhaled in relief.
“I agree on the holding company switch. It only worked with Bin Salman’s funds and presidential backing—this circular structure’s too risky now.”
“Calculate the funds needed and look into it. And next.”
Then… the problematic next page.
Kim Won-cheol’s hand trembled holding the documents, saliva sliding down his throat.
“Haa, this… do we have to? Right now?”
“If not now, never.”
“After the holding company conversion?”
The clear divide—releasing Han Hwa-gi.
Tension thickened the study. Seo Taehu’s soft yet sharp words eased it.
“I know Seo-jun wants to, but you don’t.”
“…….”
“That’s enough. His wings are clipped—what more can he do?”
Han Hwa-gi.
The greatest rival to the young lord Kim Won-cheol served.
And now. With death at her doorstep, his mother sought to release him back into the world, like a dying wish.
“I’ll handle it. I’m asking you.”
Seo Taehu gripped Kim Won-cheol’s hand tightly with her bony, wrinkled ones.
Even as he stepped out of the study, Kim Won-cheol couldn’t bring himself to answer her unprecedented request.
“Gonna lose my mind. For real.”
Snow had piled up outside unnoticed.
Gazing at the flakes blanketing the hills white, Kim Won-cheol sighed and muttered.
“This… Han Hwa-gi better behave himself, for god’s sake.”