Chapter 5
I’m translating the chapter now and keeping the HTML structure aligned with the source: normal narration in `
` tags, with any in-universe readout or special content styled only if it actually appears.CHAPTER_TITLE: A Way Out (1)
He had a suspicion.
Asking to resign was, of course, something an employee could do when the company felt unstable. But if he looked at the matter honestly, there were not that many factories in this industry that felt stable.
The Korean textile industry was struggling across the board.
So if someone had asked to leave, there had to be somewhere else they were going. Which meant that before his father died, they had already finished discussing a move with another factory, hadn’t they?
Where to?
In this frozen textile market, the only places that could take you without worrying about salary and still recognize every bit of your experience were the subsidiaries of major conglomerates.
Then the first names that came to mind were a few big companies, and among them, Taesung Apparel...
So he had tested the waters.
“Well... everything’s mixed together, so I’d need to check the records again, but it’s true that a lot of the fabric that caused trouble recently came off that line.”
Manager Park Han-soo nodded, then his face stiffened as he realized what the young president was really asking.
Among the garment fabrics that had been judged defective by Taesung Apparel, it was odd enough that a particularly severe level of defects had shown up repeatedly on one line that it could hardly be dismissed as coincidence.
He admitted that lower-grade yarn had been coming in more often lately, but if they were producing fabric below average quality using only good yarn, could that really be called good craftsmanship?
Park Han-soo’s expression twisted sharply.
“Could it just be bad luck? Or is there another reason?”
As Seung-hyun murmured low, Park Han-soo furrowed his brow and let out a sigh.
“Team Leader Jo has been here a long time, and he’s always been someone who cared about the company in his own way. But with conditions being so bad lately... even I can’t tell what he’s thinking anymore.”
A short silence drifted through the warehouse.
Seung-hyun soon shook his head and opened the warehouse door.
“Let’s get the records straight first. Please check that line’s equipment again as well. We’ve already sent samples over to Daeryung Sangsa, so we should be hearing back soon.”
“Yes, sir. If we can just solve Daeryung Sangsa, then the wages for now too... whew, I’ll look for a way.”
Park Han-soo still looked thoroughly dissatisfied.
Well, the company had been unstable for months, so the workers were losing faith, and now even experienced senior staff at the team-leader level were announcing resignations.
And now there was a suspicious situation involving that veteran team leader too, something he had never even considered strange until now. There was no way he could feel good about any of it.
Late in the afternoon, Seung-hyun was still in the storage warehouse, tearing his hair out over how to sort the remaining stock, when the phone rang.
“Yes, this is Jung Seung-hyun of Haesol Textile.”
[Hello. This is Haesol Textile, right? The high-density silk sample you sent was much better than we expected. But the price is a problem... how much are you thinking?]
Seung-hyun remembered searching the premium furniture market the day before.
Italian fabric used for imported furniture was 450,000 won per yard, and Chinese fabric ranged from 150,000 to 250,000 won.
Then wouldn’t 300,000 won at minimum be reasonable?
“We’re thinking 300,000 won per yard.”
The other side’s voice immediately sounded disappointed.
[Ah... then...]
The negative response frustrated him, but at the same time Seung-hyun couldn’t quite understand it.
The fabric they had sent as a sample to Daeryung Sangsa was not only priced reasonably compared with imported goods, but the quality was also quite good.
“Is there a domestic product you can supply more cheaply than this?”
[To be honest, yes.]
“How much...?”
[We were offered 250,000 won per yard.]
Was that for real?
Or was it just a ploy to get it for 50,000 won less than their asking price?
Fifty thousand won times 2,000 yards came to a staggering amount: 100 million won.
It wasn’t the sort of thing you could shrug off with a cheerful, “I’ll knock off 50,000 won for you!”
“Could we have some time to think about it?”
[Yes, we need to make a decision tomorrow, so please contact us before then.]
“Understood.”
Seung-hyun sprang to his feet.
At that moment, Park Han-soo came in.
“President, where are you going?”
“Daeryung Sangsa says they got an offer for the same thing from somewhere else at 250,000 won per yard.”
“Then what if we offer it to them for 240,000 won? It’s all just sitting in storage anyway. If we move 2,000 yards at 240,000 won right now, we can at least get through this month!”
Park Han-soo’s face lit up at Seung-hyun’s words, hope flooding his expression.
But Seung-hyun couldn’t do that.
“Once we supply it at 240,000 won, we can’t ask for more than that price later.”
“Then are you perhaps... planning to go see Daeryung Sangsa directly?”
“I need to see the other side’s sample. I don’t know what kind of company they are, but I need to know whether the quality is really comparable to our sample before I can price it properly, don’t I?”
“Well, yes, but...”
He couldn’t understand this situation.
Here was a chance to unload stock that had been buried in the factory for a whopping 240,000 won per yard, and yet he was holding back because he wanted 60,000 won more.
Sign the contract, move the inventory, and they could settle wages and even the yarn payments immediately. And yet...
Seung-hyun thought differently.
“I don’t see this deal as a one-off. If it goes well, it could become a long-term supply contract, not just with Taesung Apparel. I can’t let it go cheaply without checking properly. Sixty thousand won is over 100 million won. Manager Park, please take a careful look at the machine Team Leader Jo Han-gyeol used. Without Team Leader Jo noticing.”
“...Yes. I’ll check quietly.”
“Thank you.”
Seung-hyun said that and left wearing a Haesol Textile windbreaker with the company logo embroidered on it.
He took the company car and headed for Incheon, where Daeryung Sangsa was located, and by the time he arrived, it was nearly quitting time.
After parking by the roadside nearby, Seung-hyun marched into Daeryung Sangsa.
“Good afternoon!”
He opened the office door and shouted with bright energy, only to have every employee inside turn and stare at him in surprise.
Seung-hyun felt himself beginning to shrink under the weight of all those eyes, but he forced a smile to his lips and said, “I’m Jung Seung-hyun from Haesol Textile. We showed you our high-density silk blend sample, but I think I may not have explained it well enough, so I came in person. Could I take a moment to go over it with you?”
Every gaze in the office turned toward the woman seated at the very back.
Unexpectedly, the person at the very top of Daeryung Sangsa appeared to be a woman in her early thirties.
She made an incredulous face, then smiled and said, “Would you come inside?”
“Thank you.”
Inside, she guided him to a small conference room.
But after a quick look around, he noticed that the person sitting beside her like a guest was holding an information pamphlet and a fabric sample.
Once they sat down in the conference room, an employee brought over something to drink, and after a short wait she came in.
“You’re the one I spoke with on the phone, right? Nice to meet you. I should have come to see you myself. I’m Choi Jin-a, the section head at Daeryung Sangsa.”
“Good to meet you. I’m Jung Seung-hyun, president of Haesol Textile.”
“Oh, you’re the president? You’re very young...”
“I inherited the factory from my father.”
“I see...”
At the mention that a young man had inherited the factory, the doubt in her eyes deepened.
It was the look of someone wondering whether he knew anything about fabric at all.
Seung-hyun didn’t mind in the least.
“I sent you a sample earlier, but I think the explanation may have been lacking. Before I get into specifics, I’d like to explain where our fabric can be used and how.”
He pulled out a small piece of cloth. It was a high-density silk with a faint silver sheen and a substantial drape.
“This fabric is made at Haesol Textile through a separate process under the name ‘high-density silk.’ It’s much thicker than ordinary silk for clothing, and it’s also more durable. That’s why its quality is especially strong when used for furniture or interior materials.”
“I know. The sheen was excellent, and it was softer than I expected, so I liked it a lot. But... I hear a lot of other companies are doing similar things these days. Hartex, in fact, also proposed a similar ‘high-density’ product.”
“I expected as much. Other companies are promoting their own ‘high-density silk’ too. But the process itself is different from Haesol Textile’s. The fiber tension here is managed with much finer precision, so even though the same word ‘high-density’ is used, the actual utility will be very different. And more than anything...”
Seung-hyun deliberately paused, drew a breath, and went on.
“The feel will be different. That feeling isn’t something you get from touching a small sample like this. You’ll notice it clearly when you lean back against a comfortable sofa.”
Watching Seung-hyun speak with such certainty, Choi Jin-a felt a flicker of admiration.
She had wondered what a young man could possibly know, but the confidence with which he described his factory’s product was deeply impressive.
“Hmm... I understand, but other companies say similar things too.”
“Then would it be possible to compare samples?”
“That might be a little... It wouldn’t be very polite to the other company.”
“Forget the others. How about deciding based only on Daeryung Sangsa’s product?”
Moved by Seung-hyun’s confident attitude, she hesitated for a moment before apparently deciding and stepping out.
But when she came back in, she wasn’t alone.
She had brought in a sales representative from the competing company as well.
“Sorry. Once you mentioned the sample, I thought it would be fairer to explain things with everyone here. I trust you’ll understand this much.”
“I don’t mind.”
Seung-hyun nodded as if that suited him better, and the other man accepted with a thin, oily smile.
He seemed to believe he already had the upper hand.
Seung-hyun examined the fabric sample Choi Jin-a handed over.
At a glance, it looked similar to Haesol Textile’s high-density silk blend...
Silk content: below 60%
Material: polyester blend
Durability: B-Grade
Just by touch, he could gauge the rough numbers. Even if it looked similar on the outside, if the internal density was lacking, the sheen would fade easily in actual use. Seung-hyun drew in a short breath and set the cloth down.
“It is softer than I expected. But...”
He looked the other man straight in the eye and added quietly, “Wouldn’t it be a bit risky for long-term use?”
The competing company’s salesperson immediately showed his displeasure.
“What do you mean by that? Can you take responsibility for that statement?”
Seung-hyun set the sample down and said with a blank face, “It’s not even 70% silk content, is it? Probably 60%?”
In an instant, the other salesperson’s face hardened.
Seung-hyun skimmed the pamphlet the man had brought, picked out the company name, and said, “Hartex? If I send this sample for analysis back at the factory, I’ll have results in a day. Want to test that?”
At such an unwavering statement, the Hartex salesperson turned bright red and said nothing at all.