Mr. Bloodbath and Kang Min-chan (2)
Kwon Byung-do, the chairman? The sudden mention of such a massive name at such an unexpected moment left me momentarily stunned. I quickly gathered my thoughts. When I had brought up Kang Min-chan with Han Seung-woo, I had expected one of two responses. Most likely, like everyone else who knew Kang Min-chan, he would claim to have no idea who the man was. Still, a small part of me had hoped that since Han Seung-woo had worked directly above Kang Min-chan for years in the same office, he might retain even the faintest trace of memory. If Han Seung-woo remembered even the smallest detail about Kang Min-chan, perhaps the face I carried inside would feel a little less alone.
Han Seung-woo seemed to think he had misspoken. He stared quietly at the bottle of liquor as if trying to shift the blame elsewhere. Regardless, he had answered my question, and now it was my turn to continue the conversation. The possibility of it being someone with the same name was extremely high, but if it wasn't—if Kwon Byung-do and Kang Min-chan were connected in any way—that alone would be an incredibly intriguing subject for me.
"So the chairman asked you to find someone named Kang Min-chan?"
"Ah, yes. It was a very long time ago."
Both his answer and his expression suggested he wanted to steer the conversation elsewhere, but the exchange so far had been far too interesting for me to back down now.
"And did you find him?"
"Yes. I did find him. There were quite a few people named Kang Min-chan across the country. I compiled a list and delivered it to the chairman, but I have no idea what he did with it afterward. He ordered me to keep it confidential, and I was so startled when you suddenly mentioned the name that the old memory just slipped out."
The fact that he had directly referenced the chairman's order of silence was a clear signal that he no longer wished to discuss the matter. Understood. I couldn't force someone who had only just become my ally to betray the master he had served loyally for so long. Everyone knew that Kwon Byung-do didn't have much time left. When that day came, Han Seung-woo would pledge his loyalty to me instead. And then, I would be able to ask about this story in far greater depth. What had started as a simple attempt to find some comfort had unexpectedly yielded something meaningful: the possibility that Kwon Byung-do knew something I didn't.
After that, Han Seung-woo and I returned to lighter company gossip.
At the same moment, Kwon Byung-do—the man whose name had just been mentioned by both Ho-gyun and Han Seung-woo—was sitting quietly in the study of his private residence, lost in thought. His mind lingered on an old nickname: Gusa, the Nine Snakes. The fact that he had earned such a moniker for being utterly inscrutable suggested he had done an excellent job of concealing his inner face, just as he intended.
The hands clasped over his stomach slowly loosened. His closed eyes opened and blinked several times. Once his vision adjusted to the light, he rose from his chair and walked toward the safe in the corner of the study. It was protected by triple locks—password, fingerprint, and iris recognition—that only he could open.
With a metallic groan and a series of clicks, the final lock disengaged after Kwon Byung-do blinked at the iris scanner. The interior of the safe was revealed. Anyone curious about what a top-tier Korean conglomerate chairman might keep in his safe would be sorely disappointed. Instead of bundles of cash or gold bars, the safe contained dozens of notebooks whose pages had yellowed with age like old books, and a single wallet.
The wallet was no luxury item. It looked like the cheap synthetic leather kind you might find at a street stall for ten thousand won—overpriced even at that. The leather was so old that it was cracked in several places; even if offered for free, most people would hesitate for at least ten seconds before taking it.
Without hesitation, Kwon Byung-do retrieved the wallet and pulled out a single card from inside. Though its appearance differed greatly from the present, the card was an old resident registration card. On it were written both the inner face Kwon Byung-do had never shown anyone and a resident registration number that could never be traced through any database.
Kwon Byung-do stared at the card for a long time, recalling the incident that had happened to him so many years ago. Assuming his current prediction was correct, the time to finally set everything down and rest was drawing near.
With Han Seung-woo now secured, I began to think it was time to adjust my position on the path to the QS Group throne. The moment had come to step out from being a complete outsider with no connection to the next chairman's seat and become a serious contender in the succession race.
The law firm I had built from the ground up, Seungbaek, was thriving. I had brought QS Telecom—one of the group's three main pillars—under my influence. I even possessed hidden cards that my older brothers could only dream of: shares in Jangbaek Corporation, the holding company of the JB Group, and Han Seung-woo of the Chairman's Secretariat. On top of that, I had landed solid, painful blows on both Seong-gyun and Je-gyun. Now, both my brothers and the public were beginning to view me as a candidate for the next successor.
So what should my next target be, now that I had officially entered the succession race? Ideally, I wanted QS Electronics from Seong-gyun or QS Food from Je-gyun, but that wasn't feasible yet. Even after taking my counterpunches, their grip on their respective companies remained absolute. They held large stakes and had filled executive positions with loyalists while serving on the audit team.
QS Electronics and QS Food would be mine someday. But for now, there was a different point I needed to target. The QS Group's structure placed QS Corporation at the very top, with QS Life Insurance directly beneath it. Below that sat the three core subsidiaries—Electronics, Telecom, and Food—along with dozens of smaller affiliates.
Looking at the big picture, what I wanted just as much as QS Electronics or QS Food was enough shares to secure management rights over QS Corporation itself. But the person holding those shares tightly was neither Seong-gyun nor Je-gyun. It was Kwon Byung-do. He wasn't someone I needed to defeat in battle. He was someone I needed to make naturally pass his position to me.
Among the four companies at the top of the QS Group's hierarchy, three were out of reach for now. That left one.
— QS Life Insurance.
As the name suggested, it was an insurance company whose main product was life insurance. In terms of scale alone, it was much smaller than QS Electronics or QS Food. However, due to the group's ownership structure, QS Life Insurance held significant shares in both QS Electronics and QS Telecom. Extending my influence to QS Life Insurance meant seizing the throat of the group, right beneath the head that was QS Corporation. If I succeeded, I would gain the authority as a shareholder to intervene in the decision-making of both Electronics and Food.
While I was pondering how to bring the crucial QS Life Insurance under my wing, a rather amusing incident occurred—headache-inducing, yet highly entertaining. Just as the power struggle between Kwon Byung-do and his two older brothers Kwon Gap-do and Kwon Eul-do had been called the "Brothers' Rebellion," this incident could aptly be named the "Nephew's Rebellion."
The instigator was Kwon Il-gyun, the eldest son of the late Kwon Gap-do, the older brother of Kwon So-hee (whom I had thoroughly humiliated before), and my cousin. If we extended the history of the QS family back to the founder Kwon Seong-uk, Kwon Il-gyun could be considered the eldest grandson of the QS clan.
And how did he stage his rebellion? He claimed that the QS Life Insurance shares Kwon Byung-do had inherited from Kwon Seong-uk actually belonged to him. What should have remained nothing more than drunken grumbling turned into a full-blown incident when Kwon Il-gyun hired lawyers and filed for a retrial, arguing that the past ruling which had granted Kwon Byung-do the shares was erroneous.
Retrials were rarely granted, as they essentially required the court to admit its own mistake. In the vast majority of cases, even if a retrial was requested, the court would refuse to reopen the case. The kind of dramatic reversal seen in movies—where a retrial is granted and the original verdict overturned—was an event that almost never happened in reality.
Yet the court accepted Kwon Il-gyun's request. A retrial with Kwon Byung-do as the defendant was now underway.
The matter sent shockwaves not only through society but also within the QS family. It naturally came up during the memorial service for the late Kwon Seong-uk a few days earlier. Since the Brothers' Rebellion, Kwon Byung-do had been holding joint ancestral rites with the families of his brothers Gap-do and Eul-do. This created an atmosphere where people could speak without worrying about Kwon Il-gyun's reaction. The one who opened the discussion was Kwon Seong-gyun.
After being kicked out of the father-son dinner following the QS Electronics dealership scandal, he had been looking for an excuse to speak with Kwon Byung-do. This seemed to be it.
"Father, I heard Il-gyun filed a lawsuit?"
Kwon Byung-do, whose feelings toward Seong-gyun had not yet fully thawed, cleared his throat before giving a curt reply.
"So they say."
"He's demanding the QS Life Insurance shares? The court already issued a final ruling. Why is he dragging this out again?"
"Because he wants them, I suppose."
Seong-gyun was at a loss for how to respond to the chairman's meaningless answers when Kwon Seung-hye, Seong-gyun's daughter who was sitting with us, blurted out an innocent remark that accelerated the conversation.
"Grandfather, shouldn't we respond more aggressively then? We can't just leave it to the legal team. Someone from the family should step in."
This was the same girl who had been innocently asking me about law school earlier. She seemed to think that the "family member" who would have to get involved would be herself. When Kwon Seong-gyun heard this, he quickly turned his head toward Kwon Byung-do in a direction invisible to the others.
I caught the sight of his face crumpling helplessly. It was understandable. If a family member needed to be involved in this matter, that person would naturally be not Kwon Seong-gyun's daughter, Kwon Seung-hye, but me. That poor girl was probably in for quite a scolding when she got home.