Not Letting Someone Else's Past Hold You Back (1)
QS Telecom's hiring corruption scandal had barely been resolved when another urgent matter demanded my immediate attention. As promised, Shin Ho-jung arranged a meal with Seong-gyun and reported back on his schemes. They were remarkably petty.
Seong-gyun apparently couldn't find any leverage against my current capabilities or recent moves, so he had turned to digging up my past. More precisely, he intended to expose the scandals caused by the original troublemaker Kwon Ho-gyun—before I had taken over this body—to the press.
That Kwon Ho-gyun had caused plenty of incidents. From what I remembered, drunk rampages were the least of it; there had even been an attempted arson. The Central Management Headquarters PR team had poured everything into suppressing the stories, which was fortunate. Without their efforts, I would have ended up a complete failure even after possessing Kwon Ho-gyun's body.
Seong-gyun planned to leak these incidents and frame me as unfit to serve as head of the Audit Team, the department responsible for maintaining order within the company. I could already guess the kind of lines that would appear in the articles: "Given the QS Group's social influence, a criminal has no place leading the Audit Team." Something along those lines.
I couldn't help feeling a bit wronged. These weren't accidents I—Kang Min-chan—had caused, yet I was the one who would have to take responsibility. Still, I had no intention of enjoying the life of a chaebol heir in Kwon Ho-gyun's body while conveniently ignoring the troublemaker's past that came with it. If I had chosen to take the coin, I had to take the whole thing. Demanding only the heads or only the tails was nothing more than a child's tantrum. And I had graduated elementary school a long time ago.
People like Im Yu-jin, who still threw tantrums even as adults, were truly unsightly. Since I had graduated from both university and graduate school, I would find the most effective countermeasure instead of complaining. I couldn't allow someone else's past to trip me up.
The first method that came to mind was a direct, head-on confrontation. Shin Ho-jung had even given me the name of the newspaper Seong-gyun had chosen to leak the story to: Hanbit Ilbo. The paper had a particularly strong anti-chaebol stance and would pounce on any gossip involving the QS Group.
Apply pressure to Hanbit Ilbo to prevent any articles about me from being published? Well, that would come down to whose influence was stronger—mine or Seong-gyun's. But I couldn't yet claim my external influence surpassed his. The battlefield Seong-gyun had chosen, Hanbit Ilbo, was also heavily tilted against me.
For a moment, I considered mobilizing the PR team now that I was in the Central Management Headquarters. They would naturally have the most media connections. But I quickly shook my head. The PR team genuinely disliked me. It was hard to accept, but understandable—the team had suffered the most trying to cover up the original Kwon Ho-gyun's scandals. They had only helped me during the M Mart incident with Jang Mi-ye because it had been a QS Group versus JB Group conflict. In an internal succession battle like this, the PR team would never side with me.
Moreover, the current head of PR was a well-known member of Seong-gyun's faction. Even if I eventually took full control of the Central Management Headquarters, I still had no clear idea how to bring the PR team under my influence.
From every angle, a hardline approach through the media looked unwinnable. Then what about legal action, given that I was a lawyer? Seong-gyun would never publicly admit to being the source, so the only viable legal target would be Hanbit Ilbo itself. If I sued the reporter planning to publish my past for defamation and filed a civil damages claim against the newspaper?
Hmm. That route didn't look promising either. There was an unspoken rule among legal professionals not to touch the media. When the press was attacked legally, they simply endured the hits and kept publishing until the very end, making the target's life miserable. Once legal action began, every other media outlet would swarm in and pile on. I had far too much to lose to play a game of chicken against an opponent that was perfectly prepared to band together and fight to the death.
Even my ability to preview verdicts was giving me unfavorable information.
The defendant is found not guilty.
If I sued the Hanbit Ilbo reporter, he would be acquitted. Legally, this made sense. When someone damaged another's reputation by stating facts, and the purpose served the public interest, the act was not illegal. (In legal terms, the illegality was negated.)
Right now, neither the power I had secured nor my ability to preview verdicts offered a solution. This was the moment I needed a strategy clever enough to slap both Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong across the face in succession.
After racking my brain for a long time without finding an answer, I was staring blankly at the ceiling when something suddenly sparked in my mind. A scene from long ago—back when I was a prosecutor—flashed before me.
A senior prosecutor had insisted that prosecutors should know at least one martial art, so I had visited a judo dojo in a rural town. As a low-ranking prosecutor, I had been far too busy to learn properly and only attended a few times before quitting. Still, I remembered the lesson: the true essence of judo was not resisting an opponent's force with your own strength, but receiving that force and redirecting it back at them. I had also seen a demonstration of the technique. Whoa. The opponent who had been pushing forward with raw power was suddenly slammed to the floor using his own momentum.
Pa-ba-bat—. Another mysterious electrical reaction fired in my brain, igniting a brilliant spark.
That's it. If I couldn't overpower the media or the law with force, then I would use their own force against them.
Once the direction of my thoughts settled, concrete scenes of what I needed to do and what would happen next began unfolding in my mind. When I pieced those scenes together, the conclusion that naturally emerged was quite satisfying.
Stopping my staring contest with the ceiling, the first thing I did was arrange a meeting with Chairman Kwon Byung-do. Of course, I had no intention of running to my father like an elementary school student whining that my brother was bullying me. The chairman would only learn about the past scandal exposure after the articles were published. What I needed right now was his approval for the actions I was about to take.
That night, in the QS Group chairman's office after Ho-gyun had left, Chairman Kwon Byung-do sat on the sofa, gazing at the ceiling with a weary smile. Though few people used it now, his old nickname in the business world had been Gusa—Nine Snakes. It referred to the nine cunning serpents coiled inside him, symbolizing how deeply he hid his true intentions. Because of this, Kwon Byung-do rarely revealed his inner thoughts to others. As a side effect, loneliness gradually filled his heart. No matter how many people flattered him, he could never share his true feelings with anyone, so he inevitably felt alone.
Yet just moments ago, his third son Ho-gyun had seen straight through his heart without even receiving a hint. These days, Kwon Byung-do often thought that if he died, he would suffocate from loneliness. Thanks to Ho-gyun, that loneliness had drained away as if someone had pulled the stopper from a drain.
In truth, when Kwon Byung-do had appointed Ho-gyun as head of the Audit Team in the Central Management Headquarters, it hadn't only been because of the QS Telecom hiring scandal. There had been another task in mind. During the Kwon So-hee lawsuit against Kwon Seong-gyun, Ho-gyun had cleanly resolved the matter while also pointing out that his older brother Seong-gyun was accumulating internal funds through illegal means. To Kwon Byung-do, this had felt like his son was stabbing a voodoo doll and urging his father to die quickly. Some form of action had to be taken. But an eighty-year-old father could not openly strike down his prime-aged eldest son.
Then the thought occurred to him: the doctor who had made the diagnosis seemed competent enough to perform the surgery himself. Since Ho-gyun had been the one to first point out Seong-gyun's violation of the Fair Trade Act or whatever it was, it would be good to eventually entrust him with handling the matter directly. To do that, he needed to give Ho-gyun some authority—such as the vacant position of Audit Team Leader in the Central Management Headquarters.
Having laid all his groundwork, Kwon Byung-do had been pondering when to subtly give Ho-gyun the signal. Yet today, Ho-gyun had come to him first and brought up the very topic.
"Father, after reviewing the fund movements at QS Electronics as Audit Team Leader, I noticed something unusual and came to discuss it with you."
"What seems unusual?"
"For the past several years, QS Electronics has been cutting investments across the board—from new hiring to R&D—and focusing solely on accumulating cash reserves."
"What, are they planning to build a large factory or something?"
At Kwon Byung-do's question, Ho-gyun shook his head.
"If it were a reasonable business decision like that, I don't think they would have gone so far as to commit the illegal acts I mentioned during the Kwon So-hee lawsuit just to secure cash. And if QS Electronics were pursuing a new project requiring over ten trillion won without reporting it to you, that would be even more suspicious."
This time, Kwon Byung-do nodded.
"That makes sense. So what do you intend to do?"
"As Audit Team Leader, I want to correct the exploitative franchise fees QS Electronics has been extracting from dealership owners. If this abscess bursts due to external pressure, the infection could spread throughout the entire group. I believe preventing that is exactly what the Audit Team I'm leading is for."
"So you want to lance the abscess before it bursts?"
"If you permit it, I will proceed."
Kwon Byung-do barely suppressed the pleased smile threatening to spread across his face and answered.
"Very well. If you're going to perform surgery, do it thoroughly."
"Yes. Thank you, Father."
After replaying the conversation with Ho-gyun in his mind, Kwon Byung-do slowly closed his eyes, which had been fixed on the ceiling. His belief that physical strength would eventually follow mental strength was gradually weakening these days. No matter how motivated he felt, his body simply refused to keep up.
Having obtained the chairman's approval for the "surgery," I was watching a live stream of Minister candidate Im Su-chan's confirmation hearing on YouTube. As expected, the opposition party raised the issue of Im Yu-jin's hiring at QS Telecom. Im Su-chan submitted the audit report I had provided as evidence and added that he had personally requested the audit from the QS Group Audit Team because of the opposition's allegations.
Pfft. Even though it wasn't true, he had asked for my permission in advance, so I could overlook it in exchange for the future benefits I planned to extract from him.
After the hearing, the confirmation report for Minister candidate Im Su-chan was adopted. This meant only the formal step of the presidential appointment remained. Just as I was about to close YouTube and return to work, my phone rang. It was Shin Ho-jung from QS Telecom.