Chapter 51
Chapter 51
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 51
Chapter Title: The Day of the Shareholders' Meeting (2)
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Kim Seong-hye watched her son’s figure. Up on the podium, standing tall as he bore the unfiltered rage of the crowd all by himself—her one and only flesh and blood.
Her eyes brimmed with tears, like droplets trembling precariously on the petals of a red chrysanthemum soaked by rain.
An angry pack of wolves that looked ready to pounce on her son at any moment.
Kim Seong-hye couldn’t hide her despair. All she could do, choking back sobs without making a sound, was clutch the scarf in her palm with all her might.
Even though their fury was directed at her son, the root cause itself lay with her.
“I told you not to come, knowing this would happen.”
“…….”
“There’s no one to blame. It’s your own choice, Seo-jun’s mother. It was twenty-five years ago, and it’s the same now.”
Seo Taehu’s expression seemed as if she had let something go. She looked at Kim Seong-hye, who held a position akin to a daughter-in-law.
Not with her usual icy, sharp gaze of contempt and disdain, but with the eyes of a mother who had borne a child.
“…He’s our only son, and here I am, his mother, not helping but dragging him down instead.”
Kim Seong-hye spoke in a hollow tone, gazing at her son’s rigid expression on the podium.
Standing beside her, Han Hwa-gi glared at his nephew as if he wanted to devour him whole.
The bastard child of a concubine—a blood-forged chain rusted red. It wrapped tightly around her son’s neck, squeezing until he could barely breathe.
It was cruel. Devoid of even the slightest mercy. Not even allowing a final gasp.
“It can’t be helped. It’s too late to change your background now. However….”
Seo Taehu hesitated to speak.
Was it because she was witnessing the extreme clash between her two bloodlines?
It was only after some time had passed that Seo Myung-hee, the Director, continued her words.
“My second son may be one thing, but… it seems my grandson is sharper.”
“Mother?”
“Take a good look at him. Etch that sight into your eyes, and don’t forget it in your mind.”
Seo Taehu’s wrinkled fingertip pointed toward the podium. Her grandson, who until moments ago had endured the scorn and hatred of the furious Munjung-hoe members with his entire body.
However…
“Seo-jun?”
Heaven’s punishment. The original sin of being born a bastard.
She had thought the rust on those red-hot chains—too vivid to even look at straight—must have dug deep between his neck and skin.
But now, he smiled as if such chains had never existed from the start.
Not a forced smile, but one born of infinite confidence in himself. It seemed to declare:
His status as a bastard. Such trivialities were irrelevant to his path forward.
“You can’t capture a moment like that in photos or videos. Even if he is my grandson… he’s still a wild one.”
* * * *
It was ridiculous.
And utterly absurd.
To think they’d try to shake the board with this level of black propaganda, this degree of humiliation.
The Munjung-hoe members below the podium, fuming with rage, horns practically sprouting from their foreheads. Their support had never even factored into my calculations.
That calm composure of mine cracked only after I slowly turned my head.
“…Mom’s here?”
The vulgar insult of “concubine’s bastard.”
I could picture her having to sit there and take it, enduring those words in silence.
A distasteful painting drawn by my uncle with the Munjung-hoe as his brush.
I fixed my gaze on him wordlessly, eyes wide.
“…….”
“…….”
A taut tension on the verge of snapping. Like a trigger ready to fire the instant someone’s finger twitched.
That moment didn’t last long.
The signal flare to shred my uncle’s vile sketch into pieces exploded from far away, right at the main entrance of the shareholders’ meeting hall.
“Okay! Okay!”
Kim Won-cheol, pursing and unpursing his lips in exaggerated fashion, like a goldfish gaping in a tank.
That was the prearranged signal from this morning: the acquisition of shares in the affiliate companies tied to the invisible ring was complete.
‘Young master chairman-to-be! Lehman Brothers just went bankrupt! After all costs, the derivatives profits came in just right!’
The two trillion won in profits finally reaped.
Enough to buy up shares in the invisible ring of Ammunition Group affiliates.
I’d wanted to throw a celebration party in my joy, but Uncle Kim Won-cheol’s follow-up words kept the tension high to the end.
‘But our settlement timing overlaps with the shareholders’ meeting? It’s gonna be tight.’
‘Notify me the moment the share settlement is finalized. We’ll move from there.’
With that, he raised both arms above his head, forming a circle—an absurd gesture. Amid the mix of urgency and elation, I responded with a smile.
A smile brighter than anything in the world.
“This is Han Seo-jun, chairman candidate. Some misunderstandings have mixed with facts, so I’d like a moment to correct them.”
The instant the mic screeched, hundreds, thousands of eyes locked onto me fiercely.
Rage, curiosity, anticipation, and concern poured down like bullets riddling a shooting range target.
“First, regarding my birth. All that nonsense about being a bastard—it’s all true. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You bastard Han Seo-jun! Who gave you the right!”
Shouts erupted from various spots in the audience, no one leading the charge.
Ignoring the old Munjung-hoe fogeys’ bellows, I pressed on.
“I acknowledge the lack of legitimacy. The concerns about being born out of wedlock. But who dares to change the heir in the middle of a war!”
“No! Even so, that, that, that guy…!”
The Munjung-hoe’s fury hurtled toward its peak. I signaled the moderator to play the prepared materials.
The crisis currently facing Ammunition Group. And right away, on screen, the achievements I had piled up through overcoming it.
“I’ve proven my capabilities thus far. And I will continue to do so. The first button of that proof!”
The Munjung-hoe’s rage refused to subside. It felt like standing alone before a spreading wildfire.
I took a long, deep breath and bit my lower lip hard.
The metallic taste of blood.
The sensation on my tongue seemed to warn that the path ahead wouldn’t be easy.
But… it’s fine. No matter. I just have to push straight through.
The capability I’d prove from now on was this: that I could lead Ammunition Group without the Munjung-hoe’s support.
My hand trembled as it gripped the mic.
Finally, words tantamount to a declaration of war spilled from my lips.
“I will ascend to the chairman position without borrowing the strength of the Munjung-hoe elders.”
* * * *
“I’ve won.”
Han Hwa-gi’s eyes narrowed as the words slipped unconsciously from his mouth.
“He doesn’t realize it’s over the moment he turns the Munjung-hoe into enemies.”
His nephew, who seemed to have chosen the path to self-destruction.
Han Hwa-gi licked his lips like a snake eyeing prey from stillness.
“Foolish idiot. Time to make him pay for miscalculating the shares.”
He clenched his fist so hard that his nails dug into his palm. His eyes turned toward the nephew who had plunged him to the gates of ruin.
He vowed.
Once this battle ended, and he claimed the Ammunition Group chairmanship, he would unleash a merciless purge the likes of which had never been seen.
“We’ve incurred needless costs too. Thanks to that concubine’s bastard, we have to hand over stuff to [Shanghai Capital] as well.”
The transfer of defense tech and the cheap sale of overseas resource development rights.
His temples throbbed again at the conditions [Shanghai Capital] had imposed. Han Hwa-gi massaged them with his fingers.
The cruel judgment born of that unpleasant headache. He resolved to pin every last bit of responsibility for [Shanghai Capital] on his nephew.
“This ends it. You, Han Seo-jun, will never step outside prison bars for the rest of your life.”
His vow concluded just as his nephew’s speech wrapped up.
The hall heated by that bold cry of needing nothing from the Munjung-hoe.
The moderator, handling proceedings, looked quite flustered by the reaction.
“Uh… so, yes. We’ve heard from Chairman—no, Chairman-designate Han Seo-jun.”
Han Hwa-gi stepped forward one pace toward center stage on the podium.
Without a word, he extended his right arm toward the moderator.
The mic handed over with a pleased expression. A faint mechanical hum followed, and Han Hwa-gi’s heavy bass resounded through the shareholders’ meeting hall.
“Pure, unblemished bloodline. The essential condition for one who would stand at Ammunition Group’s pinnacle. Will you leave that unqualified wretch be?”
A single phrase.
At Han Hwa-gi’s words, the Munjung-hoe side erupted like bees swarming from an opened hive.
“Rightly said! How dare a bastard scheme for the chairman seat!”
“Exactly! Spot on! Han Seo-jun has no qualifications!”
The mood crescendoed.
Han Hwa-gi felt ecstasy seep into his eyes as the Munjung-hoe’s opinion focused entirely on him.
His final remark, spat out immediately. A fierce blood wind blew in with the tremor in his veined neck.
“Decide it here today with your hands! Judge once and for all the limits of that half-breed bastard!”
* * * *
It was a shout loud enough to make eardrums ring.
Han Hwa-gi’s blood-curdling final plea. Yet behind the heated shareholders’ meeting hall, beyond the black curtain where Han Seo-ho sat, that cry apparently didn’t reach his ears.
“Wait, hold on. What did you just say? America… what about America?”
“Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy an hour ago. Young Master Seo-ho. I just got the report from the New York branch staff….”
Bad news delivered by an Ammunition Securities employee who had rushed to the shareholders’ meeting hall.
The colossal fortress of America… was crumbling.
Skyscrapers built of gold atop the bedrock of Manhattan’s Wall Street.
Like dominoes, the citadel of capitalism was toppling one by one.
And at the end of those dominoes sat the derivatives issued by Ammunition Securities to fund the Iraq seawater desalination plant.
“Th-then the derivatives! What’s the loss on the derivatives we issued?!”
“Tens of trillions—no, it’ll exceed a trillion. Exact figures need calculation, but roughly… around two trillion won in losses….”
Han Seo-ho stared vacantly, utterly dazed.
The funding plan he had led had returned as a fatal poison.
His face flushed purple, as if laden with venom. A chill crept spine-tingling down his back.
His second brother, Han Seo-hu. Banished for life to Nigeria in Africa.
This incident might swap their positions.
The mere thought made his legs buckle; his body shook wildly like an aspen.
“That can’t happen… never.”
The situation was beyond salvage now.
In that moment, amid the tinnitus filling Han Seo-ho’s ears, the moderator’s voice rang out.
“Uh… now, we’ll proceed with the shareholder vote on appointing Han Seo-jun as chairman.”
At some point, Han Seo-ho had bitten his thumbnail.
Shaking his legs up and down while seated in his chair, he muttered like a prayer to an unknown god.
“I have to… I have to win at the shareholders’ meeting no matter what! Absolutely!”