The Crown Prince's Visit (7)
Han Miru had gone to school in Korea, served in the military, and landed a job at a company.
He had no real connection to Saudi Arabia, let alone to the Arab world. If anything, he’d never even traveled to the Middle East.
And yet he knew more about Saudi Arabia’s problems than anyone else I’d ever met—and he’d even brought a solution with him.
How was that even possible?
Saudi Arabia was, in many ways, a deeply contradictory country.
One of the few absolute monarchies on earth, it had been founded on Islamic fundamentalism and served as guardian of the faith’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina.
At the same time, it was the most pro-American nation in the Middle East, faithfully following Washington’s foreign policy line.
It was the ideological bedrock of Islamic terror groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and yet it had also stood at the forefront of the campaign to crush them alongside the United States.
Because of that, plenty of people harbored resentment toward it.
Until now, those contradictions and grievances had been held down by money. But even that had reached its limit. If Saudi Arabia wanted to survive, change was unavoidable.
Rashid had spoken more than once about the need for reform, but no one paid him any mind.
They watched the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran collapse and still somehow believed the current system would last forever.
Both the king and the crown prince were fundamentalists from the Wahhabi camp, so change was unlikely to come from above. That was why Rashid had decided he would have to seize power himself.
His plan was to stage a palace coup, oust Crown Prince Khalid, take control, and then secure his father’s approval after the fact.
Along the way, he would purge the incompetent, corrupt royals and overhaul the entire system.
Of course, that would trigger fierce resistance. A coup was the kind of thing that won you everything if you succeeded and got your head cut off if you failed.
So he was quietly and carefully consolidating power in Saudi Arabia, making sure not to arouse suspicion from anyone around him.
The nominal heads of the ministries were all close to the king and crown prince, but the actual functionaries had one by one sworn loyalty to him.
Even so, none of them could have imagined that Rashid would go so far as to launch a coup. Only a handful of confidants, Asher among them, knew the truth.
And yet, from this far-off land, there was another man who knew it too.
Asher spoke cautiously.
“There were a few suggestions he made that are worth taking seriously.”
“You mean the part about arresting the royals and stripping them of their wealth?”
“Yes. I was shocked at first, but the more I think about it, the more feasible it seems. If we take their money after taking their power, all that will be left to them is the empty title of ‘royal.’ And the justification is strong enough.”
Who could oppose eliminating corruption and reclaiming illegally amassed wealth? Not only the public, but even neighboring countries would find it hard not to support the move.
The prince let out an amused laugh.
“I never thought I’d meet a stranger on Korean soil and end up hearing advice like this.”
Strangely enough, listening to Han Miru made the vague plans he had been carrying around in his head begin to take shape.
“How exactly do you think he became acquainted with Chairman Yoo Jae-ho?”
“Who knows.”
One was an ordinary office worker. The other was the chairman of the largest conglomerate in South Korea.
It was hard to see what connection they could possibly have.
Chairman Yoo had showered gifts on his family and close aides. The total value had easily surpassed a million dollars.
There was probably an intention to build goodwill, but also to arrange the meeting.
Businessmen never did anything that didn’t make money.
Which meant maintaining a relationship with Han Miru must also be beneficial for Chairman Yoo.
Rashid thought it over carefully.
Come to think of it, Yuseong Electronics’ business direction changed recently.
The larger a company was, the more it tended to stick to long-term plans instead of changing course easily. And yet Yuseong Electronics had moved so aggressively into mergers and acquisitions that people were talking about a change in strategy.
There was always a reason for change.
Could Han Miru have advised Chairman Yoo on acquisitions?
It was only a guess. Still, Rashid had the feeling his intuition was right.
Maybe…
Maybe he was the one who had brought down Thomas Motors. Maybe he was also the one who had exposed the lies of Rolf Buchi, the man once hailed as a genius of Silicon Valley?
Before he knew it, Rashid was chuckling to himself.
He’d always prided himself on having a good eye for people, but this Korean man was impossible to read. The more he met him and talked to him, the less clear things became—and the more tangled they seemed.
From the way he spoke and the expression on his face, he seemed absolutely certain that Rashid would become king.
Could he really have predicted all of this just from analysis?
Asher pointed at the painting and asked, “Is this really an authentic Leonardo da Vinci?”
Whether he was a smooth-talking con artist or the real thing…
“We’ll know once it’s authenticated.”
Rashid turned his attention to the painting.
Though it had been badly damaged over the centuries, the man in the portrait still radiated a kind and mysterious aura.
For a moment, he even wondered if the painting might be fatefully connected to him.
Rashid murmured, almost to himself, “Could meeting him also be the will of God?”
I sat in the living room with a cup of coffee and watched the snow falling outside.
Cars crossing the bridge crawled along at a snail’s pace beneath the heavy, relentless snowfall.
Seonwu came out, stretching his arms above his head.
“You didn’t go to the office?”
“It’s Sunday.”
“You go to the office on Sundays too.”
“All the events and updates I’d prepared got pushed back.”
It sounded like the game was such a mess there wasn’t much for him to do.
“Sleep okay?”
Seonwu nodded.
“Slept like a log. I guess sleeping in a good house really does help.”
Come to think of it, I had no idea how we’d managed to live in that cramped little place for so long. We moved a few times after that, but they’d all still been tiny two-room apartments.
He didn’t know this, but I’d gone on living at his place for another ten years after that. Not that I could keep him with me for ten years, of course.
When he got married, I’d just buy him a decent apartment in Gangnam and send him off.
Seonwu drifted into the scenery outside for a moment.
“Wow. Never thought I’d be seeing a sight like this from inside my house.”
There was nothing particularly novel about seeing the Han River in the snow. But sitting here in a warm home of my own did make it feel different.
Was that why everyone chased Han River views?
“By the way, this place is way too empty. We should probably buy some furniture.”
“I’ll give you the card. Order whatever you want.”
“Where do you even buy furniture?”
“Just get something from IKEA. Even rich people use IKEA these days.”
“And who’s assembling it?”
“They’ll assemble it if you pay.”
“Hm. I really should make time to go sometime. What about food?”
“I just ordered pizza.”
“Why not chicken? You like chicken.”
“I quit chicken.”
Seonwu nearly jumped at that.
“What? Why would you quit chicken? Come on, let’s order some now. I saw that place near here we always order from.”
...
If he had to stand in front of a fryer in the middle of summer, drenched in sweat while making a hundred pieces at a time, he wouldn’t be talking about chicken like that.
In the end, we ordered a chicken as well.
“It feels like the new year just started, and it’s already the end of the year.”
“Yeah.”
Before I knew it, more than half of December had already passed.
Seonwu let out a long sigh.
“Why does time go by so fast? This feels like the shortest year of my life.”
“Really? I feel the opposite.”
It had been the longest year of my life.
It had taken more than ten years to get from January to December. Thanks to that, everything about year’s end had changed completely.
If this were my first life, I’d still be living in that apartment and going to work at DA Securities. But now I was the co-CEO of Continue Capital. Other people didn’t know that, of course.
After finishing my meal at a perfunctory pace, I called David Lockhart in the United States.
“How are things in Korea?”
“Fine. I moved houses and bought a car. When you come visit Korea later, I’ll take you out for a ride.”
“I look forward to it.”
“How are things on your end?”
Not launching new investments didn’t mean there was nothing to do. He still had to manage the companies we’d already invested in.
“Snow Crash is recovering quickly.”
Because of Rolf Buchi’s lies, the founder’s ouster, the sale of shares, the CEO replacement, mass layoffs, and everything else, Snow Crash had been plunged into chaos for a while.
There had even been predictions that the company might collapse entirely.
And yet, contrary to expectations that the customer base would flee en masse, the attrition rate had surprisingly stayed below 3 percent.
Even that was mostly from customers who only used the bare minimum of services, so the hit to revenue had been negligible.
Which meant customer satisfaction must have been high.
“You worked hard.”
He’d played a major part in getting Snow Crash back on its feet.
David Lockhart and Edward Benson had thrown themselves into sorting out Snow Crash’s finances and training the new CFO and staff.
Maybe that was why his voice sounded so tired.
“How is the fundraising coming along?”
“Give me a few more days.”
In our earlier call, I’d boldly told him I’d bring in the investment capital. When he’d asked how, I’d said I’d explain later.
“Fortunately, we’ve been receiving inquiries from a number of places. They say even a blind fund would be acceptable.”
A blind fund was one where investors raised money before deciding exactly what it would be invested in.
Since it meant handing over all investment authority to the fund manager, it was hard to raise unless you had serious credibility.
But with enough reputation, you could pull in money from anywhere. That was why reputation mattered so much in finance.
“Then I’ll contact you again later.”
The call ended.
“Hm. Still no word from the prince in the oil kingdom.”
It felt like it was about time he reached out. Was he unusually busy these days?
I thought back to what had happened a few days earlier.
Meeting a prince from an absolute monarchy in the twenty-first century and negotiating with him—if I’d heard that from someone else, I would’ve assumed they were making it up.
If I told anyone, would they even believe me?
Whether he’d agree to what I wanted was still up in the air. Selling him the painting was something that hadn’t happened in my first life.
Still, people usually moved in the direction that benefited them. All I could do was present the benefit.
Even if you knew the future, stepping into it and profiting from it was a completely different matter.
“If I’d known I was going to regress, I should’ve memorized the lottery numbers or something.”
But didn’t first prize in the lottery barely crack three billion won these days?
After hammering out a $300 million deal with a Saudi prince, 3 billion won suddenly felt like nothing at all. Besides, I could make that much easily just by selling a few Rank C paintings.
I couldn’t just sit around sucking my thumb until the prince called, so I’d better find an office first.
That way, once the money came in, I could start work immediately.