The Sole-Source Contract
"Why... are you... wearing your hood up?"
Shocked, Yun-hyeok stammered, while Ji Hye-min held onto her hood tightly as if to prevent anyone from pulling it down.
"You already know what I look like. You saw me at Doma Elementary School too, didn't you?"
"But that was at night."
Ji Hye-min spoke from inside the hood.
It really takes me back. To think she could be this shy. Was she always this shy back when she was single?
Yun-hyeok suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to spill the secrets of heaven regarding their second and third lives.
You love blue hydrangeas and Earl Grey chiffon cake. And your family home has a huge dog. I know everything! Your stomach has been weak since you were a child, so you often got sick. That's why you suffered so much from morning sickness when you were pregnant. How do I know? Because those were my babies! We get married and have three children.
He wanted so badly to blurt it all out, but...
If I say something like that, she'll just think I'm a total lunatic.
Yun-hyeok swallowed the words down.
Instead, he said,
"Hye-min, you made the video about Baekrok-san this time too, right? I watched it. Thank you, as always."
"I-I had to rush it because of midterms... so it might not be very good."
"I thought it was wonderful."
Ji Hye-min had done an excellent job editing the video, seamlessly weaving together Yun-hyeok's livestream of the Baekrok-san investigation, maps of the local greenbelt zones, and the news coverage of his occupation of the mayor's office.
She had even included the story of how he cleared out his sixth-floor office to turn it into a daycare center.
"The comments were filled with nothing but praise."
"That's only because... you did such a good job, Mayor..."
"Let's grab a meal together sometime soon. I'll contact you."
"Oh... uh..."
"We're a bit busy today, so we'll be on our way."
Yun-hyeok said goodbye to Ji Hye-min, who looked like a faceless ghost in her hood, and walked ahead.
Behind him, he could hear her friends teasing her with loud cheers. They were congratulating her on getting the job and wishing her luck with him.
They were actually familiar faces to him. After all, they were the very friends who had tossed flower petals at their wedding.
Jo Hyeon-seo was acting strange.
"What are you doing?"
In the brief pockets of free time between the tasks Yun-hyeok assigned him, he sat at his desk, groaning as he pored over some documents.
It was none other than...
Dr. Hwang In-hye's research paper.
"The upcoming project proposal is going to be a major hurdle, right? So I figured I should do some studying in advance."
Hyeon-seo, you really are admirable.
Even in the National Assembly, it was rare to find aides with this level of passion.
It seemed there was a good reason why the department heads and directors had pushed so hard to recommend this young man.
"If there's anything you don't understand while studying, feel free to ask."
"I'm studying by asking ChatGPT, sir."
"Keep it up."
"And, Mayor."
Jo Hyeon-seo's eyes turned remarkably solemn.
"I think I've figured out how you're going to defend against the city council's attacks...!"
Oh?
Political intuition too!
He was genuinely looking forward to this.
"And how exactly am I going to defend myself?"
"By rushing the first round of the project proposal to get it approved quickly. Once that's done, what can the council even say?"
"Oh...! You think you've got it?"
"So, until then, should we keep the application process as quiet as possible so the council doesn't catch wind of it?"
"That's where you're wrong!"
Jo Hyeon-seo's score on this political exam was about a C-minus.
"I'm going to attend the next plenary session of the city council and report it directly. I'll tell them myself that I've signed a sole-source contract."
"Gasp!"
Terror flooded Jo Hyeon-seo's eyes.
It was understandable.
After all, the current city council was extremely hostile toward Yun-hyeok.
Yun-hyeok had completely dismantled the Hanmin Party's council chairman and the local government head over embezzlement charges, and had essentially forced the remaining council members to declare their support for him.
On top of that, he had thoroughly crushed Hong Gi-beom, the Jayu Party candidate. The independent sensation Yun-hyeok had stirred up had even influenced the city council by-elections.
As a result, Yun-hyeok was a massive thorn in the side of both major parties represented in the council.
"But you're going there in person...? And you're going to talk about a sole-source contract?"
Hyeon-seo was certain that if the Director of the Planning and Coordination Department had been here, the man would have fainted on the spot.
To leap straight into the blazing fires of enemy territory while carrying a bundle of dry firewood!
Mayor! That is far too dangerous a move!
He would have surely tried to stop him.
"But we shouldn't hide things like this. We must be transparent."
While it wasn't always the case, a direct, honest approach was almost always the most effective strategy.
"All I have to do is go to the council and defeat them with pure logic."
"That's easier said than done. How are you going to win that argument...?"
The justification was tricky.
Strictly speaking, the leasing of public property by a local government was supposed to be done through open public bidding.
A sole-source contract was procedurally opaque, and since Yun-hyeok himself was an alumnus of Hankuk University's College of Engineering, it would easily spark allegations of favoritism. There was also the risk of an official audit.
Furthermore, if they were aiming for a national project proposal, an open bid was by far the safer route.
Why? Because this wasn't just about spending local municipal funds; they were escalating the issue all the way to the central government.
And to make matters worse, the city council was currently hostile to him.
Once they got their hands on such a perfect target, they would bite down and never let go.
So how on earth was he planning to defend against that?
"It's fine, it's fine."
Yun-hyeok patted the anxious Jo Hyeon-seo on the shoulder.
"It's not like this is the National Assembly."
The National Assembly had three hundred members, but the city council had fifteen at most.
Moreover, they didn't have proper legislative aides, and their operating budgets were meager. Half of the city councilors were just local figures who held sway in their own neighborhoods but lacked any real professional expertise as politicians.
Against an opponent like that, fifteen to one was practically a walk in the park.
"I have decided to lease three city-owned factories to three prospective entrepreneurs."
The following day, when Yun-hyeok announced this during the plenary session, the city council erupted into chaos.
"What on earth do you mean by that?!"
"Are you saying you've already signed the contracts, Mayor?"
"The legal team is currently reviewing the contracts. They will be signed shortly. That is why I am asking the council to approve them before that happens."
The councilors looked ready to foam at the mouth. A barrage of furious questions rained down from all sides.
Yun-hyeok deflected them with ease.
"Why are you leasing city assets at your own whim, Mayor?!"
"It is within the legitimate administrative authority of the head of the local government."
"If you were going to pull off something this major, you should have gotten the council's approval first!"
"Legally, the leasing of public property owned by the city does not require city council approval."
"And why is the rent so ridiculously low?!"
"There is an ordinance enacted by the Mir City Council that allows up to a fifty percent reduction in rent to support youth startups. All of these entrepreneurs qualify as youth startups."
"That's supposed to be for the youth of Mir City!"
"No, it isn't. Shall I read the ordinance to you? It simply says 'youth.'"
"The city budget is severely depleted right now! You should have sold those properties to secure more funds!"
"Those factories have been abandoned for nearly a year and a half. If you care so deeply about securing the budget, why did you leave them rotting all this time?"
Unable to admit that they hadn't cared either, a brief, awkward silence fell over the council chamber.
"At the very least, you should have held an open bid."
The focus of the argument shifted.
This was the real crux of the matter.
An attack like this could be fatal to a politician like Lee Yun-hyeok.
"Aren't you a politician who constantly preaches transparency? Why did you bypass the open bidding process and go with a sole-source contract?!"
"And isn't Hankuk University's College of Engineering your alma mater, Mayor? Isn't this blatant favoritism?!"
They thought they had landed a decisive blow, but Yun-hyeok's response was entirely unexpected.
"An open bid was absolutely out of the question."
On this point, there was no room for compromise.
"Because if we had gone that route, I would never have been able to recruit the three individuals I just mentioned."
Dr. Mun Gi-hyeon was a man who had received a recruitment offer from a Russian defense firm with an annual salary of six hundred million won.
Dr. Hwang In-hye had her paper on microplastic-reducing coating technology featured on the cover of the European Journal of Chemistry, after which she was offered a research professorship at a laboratory under Germany's BASF.
Dr. Kim Myeong-un had been offered a staggering five billion won in investment by a startup center in Shandong, China, on the condition that he relocate there.
The only reason they hadn't left the country yet was due to deeply personal reasons—such as family opposition or language barriers.
"The fact that these individuals were still in Korea was a stroke of pure luck. When I've managed to bring talent coveted by the international community to Mir City using nothing but a few abandoned factories, shouldn't I be praised instead?"
Yun-hyeok asked.
"This is not Seoul, nor is it Pangyo, nor is it a major metropolitan municipality. How could we expect people of their caliber to search through public bidding notices, find abandoned factories in the empty lots of Durim-myeon, and apply for them one by one?"
"..."
"If you know of any bidders with superior qualifications, please, recommend them to me. Since we have not yet signed the contracts, I will gladly ask for their understanding and replace them."
Another brief silence.
Then, a new line of attack.
"How can we trust those people?!"
It was a city councilor from the Jayu Party.
"They don't even live in Mir City! You said they're affiliated with Hankuk University! What if they just take our support and run their business in Seoul?!"
"We didn't give them money; we leased them factories."
"Mayor! Article 29 of the Enforcement Decree of the Public Property and Commodity Management Act states that permission to use and benefit from general property must be granted through open bidding! You are violating the law!"
"Article 30 of the same decree states that, as an exception, a sole-source contract may be concluded with individuals possessing specific technologies or patents."
"..."
Silence fell over the room once more.
"Councilors."
Yun-hyeok knew exactly what these people actually wanted to say.
It was time to sweep aside all the trivial bickering over sole-source contracts and get straight to the heart of the matter.
Because this was the long-standing, fundamental issue that truly needed to be addressed.
"You believe we should be supporting the residents of Mir City instead, don't you?"
Why do regional economic policies fail?
It was an old and vital question.
Why is it that multi-trillion-won conglomerates never grow in the provinces?
Why, despite the central government pouring astronomical sums of money into them for decades, did nothing change?
There were many reasons, but one core factor was that startup support was strictly limited to "local residents."
Often, this restriction was explicitly written into the application guidelines. Even when the process was technically open to outsiders, internal evaluations almost always favored local residents.
This was a flaw consistently pointed out by institutions like the Korea Research Institute for Local Administration (KRILA).
Almost every regional city suffered from this. In a way, it was only natural. Local governments instinctively prioritized their own residents. The moment they poured resources into outside talent, local backlash would follow, and politics would inevitably bend to the logic of securing votes.
But looking at it from the opposite perspective, it meant that regional cities were throwing away the entire national talent pool except for their own small population. And among those discarded talents were the elites concentrated in Seoul and the metropolitan area.
To put it bluntly, didn't almost all the top-tier students in the country go to university in Seoul? And after graduation, didn't the vast majority of them find jobs at major corporations in Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area?
Seoul could afford to rely on open bidding because talent naturally flocked there without any effort.
But regional cities did not have that luxury!
"If Mir City were a corporation, how large of a company do you think we would be?"
Let's say Seoul is a massive conglomerate like Sambyeol Electronics, the top company in the country by market capitalization.
Metropolitan cities like Incheon or Busan, which possessed airports and seaports, would be major players in the aviation or shipbuilding industries.
A place like Sejong City, though small in scale, would be an influential public enterprise.
Then what about Mir City?
"What do you think Mir City is?"
"..."
"We are a small-to-medium enterprise. We don't have any spectacular products, and we survive by taking on subcontracted work from Pangyo. Imagine you are the shareholders of such a company. If the CEO is preparing a new project and needs to hire employees, how would you want them to do it?"
Yun-hyeok held up one finger.
"The first method is to post a job opening on a recruitment site like Saramin, interview whoever applies, and hire the best of the bunch. If we do that, we will likely get someone whose caliber matches the size of a small-to-medium enterprise."
He held up a second finger.
"The second method is for the CEO to personally go out and scout proven elites—former executives from major conglomerates or PhDs from top universities—who can actually guarantee the success of the project, and negotiate to bring them on board."
"..."
"As the major shareholders of this small-to-medium enterprise called Mir City, please tell me now. How should your CEO hire people to launch this project?"
The council chamber fell dead silent.
"Open bidding is transparent. I like transparency too. That is why I have come here to ask for your approval, to keep this process transparent."
Yun-hyeok said.
"But an administration that is merely transparent without being efficient is utterly meaningless. When the citizens of Mir City are struggling to make a living right now, how can we afford to indulge in such idealistic talk? In a place like Mir City, a local government leader who simply leaves everything to open bidding and steps back is guilty of negligence."
A true politician had to work on the ground.
Because politics was a field job.
"Whether the founder is a resident of Mir City or Seoul is not what matters. What matters is their capability, and how many jobs the company they build can create for the citizens of Mir City."
Yun-hyeok said.
"Therefore, if necessary, I intend to continue going to Seoul myself to headhunt talent, and I will report to you and seek your approval before signing any contracts. If you do not want me bringing people in on my own, then feel free to go out and headhunt them yourselves."
This time, the silence stretched on.
In the thoroughly devastated council chamber, not a single soul could utter a word.