Chapter 110
I’m translating this chapter into the requested HTML format and preserving the chapter’s pacing and dialogue breaks. I’m also checking which passages need styled blocks versus plain paragraphs so the output stays valid and consistent.CHAPTER_TITLE: The Truth Revealed
“This concludes the board meeting for the appointment of the new CEO. Dismissed. Everyone, begin handing over your work to the new board members. Treat the new CEO well, too. I’ll escort Chairman Choi myself.”
“Yes, sir!”
They had all come to the meeting today after hearing from Team Leader Park that James was Chairman Choi Tae-yeong’s hidden grandson. The news had spread just before the shareholders’ meeting began, and because the Strategy Office had stressed that security had to be maintained above all else, they had kept their mouths shut throughout the meeting and even while the shareholders’ meeting was getting underway.
“Especially you, Team Leader Park!”
“Yes, sir.”
When even Team Leader Park addressed him as “young master” with complete naturalness, the directors began whispering among themselves.
“He really does look too much like him.”
“He does. They look exactly alike, like a pair of fish cakes or something...”
James was just about to feel a little annoyed, but he ignored them and issued his next order.
“Make sure nothing about me being the grandson ever leaks to the outside. That’s the only way TY Telecom can get out from under the barrage of the press. Please make that clear to the directors again as well. If information leaks outside, I’ll track down the source to the very end.”
“Yes. We’ll restrict access to the information completely.”
Team Leader Park turned only his head to look at the directors and repeated the warning.
“I’m saying this again: watch your mouths in the boardroom, too.”
“And hurry up and draft the minutes. Once Grandpa signs them, bring them to me.”
Even as James handled everything, Chairman Choi Tae-yeong could only roll his eyes.
What on earth is all this supposed to mean...
Only after everyone else had left the room did James lift the spell he had placed on Chairman Choi and bow again.
“Allow me to greet you properly now, Grandfather.”
Chairman Choi held back his fury with burning eyes. He thought his earlier silence had simply been because he had been too shocked to speak.
“...I never had a grandson like you. Are you fooling the directors with a lie that’ll be exposed in no time at all?”
James looked at the chairman’s face, red as if it might burst, and gave a short answer.
“President Choi Jeong-san has had a son like me, though.”
“What?”
He sounded incredulous, but Chairman Choi’s face was still full of disbelief.
“I’m Jimin, born thirty years ago as the result of President Choi Jeong-san’s affair.”
“Jimin? Choi Ji-min?”
“He kept having affairs after that too, it seems, but apparently none of them produced any more children. Ah, and I’m excluding the two he had with his legitimate wife.”
“!!”
“What I told the directors, that I’m your grandson, wasn’t a lie. I really am Choi Jeong-san’s son.”
“You, you’re saying you’re Jeong-san’s son?”
A sliver of doubt began to grow in Chairman Choi’s mind. The womanizing streak in his son had been immense by any standard; that much he had heard and seen himself. Before marriage, it had been even worse, so having a grown grandson was not as impossible as it sounded.
“I’m the firstborn, Grandfather. If you want, you can have a DNA test.”
“Well, that’s the obvious procedure...”
“I already had one done in advance. Team Leader Park helped me.”
James took one of the documents he had brought and placed it on the table.
Parentage Verification Test Report
At the very end of the document, it stated that there was a 99.9 percent probability of a father-son relationship.
“Unbelievab...”
Only now could Chairman Choi see it clearly: James’s face was far too similar to that of his eldest son.
“He does look too much like him, doesn’t he?”
“...But I never heard a word about this!”
“Of course you didn’t.”
Knock, knock.
Just then, Team Leader Park entered after knocking, and James took the document from him.
“Two copies of the board minutes. Please sign them.”
“I’ll have Grandpa sign and hand them back. Team Leader Park, you can step outside.”
“Thank you.”
Apparently unwilling to face Chairman Choi directly, Team Leader Park quickly handed over only the board minutes and left the room in a hurry.
“...”
At first, Chairman Choi seemed to tremble all over, as if stunned, but before long his expression had gone calm, as though nothing had happened.
“You... you’re Jeong-san’s son?”
His tone, unlike the sharp one from earlier, had become surprisingly mild.
“Jeong-san had a son this grown? Since when?”
“It wasn’t President Choi Jeong-san who gave birth to me. It was my mother. She sent me to Choi Jeong-san because she wanted me to grow up in a good environment, not one born from poverty. But... I never even made it into that house. I was sent to an orphanage instead.”
“...An orphanage.”
“That’s not all. If I go any further, you might grab the back of your neck and collapse, so at least take this.”
James produced a bottle of medicinal pills from nowhere and set it down.
Click.
Chairman Choi popped the cap and swallowed them in one go, then glared at James.
“After the orphanage... what then.”
“I spent six years in a Korean orphanage without parents, then I was adopted to the United States.”
“So that’s why you became James Kane...”
“That’s not the important part.”
James dropped the information that would truly make Chairman Choi clutch the back of his neck and fall over.
“Did you think President Choi Jeong-san could relax just because he sent me to an orphanage? You know better than anyone what kind of man your own son is.”
“If it was that bastard Jeong-san...”
His son would have tried to eliminate even the final loose end so that the matter would never come back to haunt him.
If it were me, I’d have done the same.
Because he resembled himself, the next part of the story came into clear focus.
“Seems like you’ve already guessed. That’s right. President Choi Jeong-san brutally murdered my mother, Jeong Min-ju, when she came looking for me.”
“!!”
He had suspected it, but actually hearing that his son had done something like that was still a shock.
“Team Leader Park confessed all of this as well. He only came to me separately and told me the whole story after I put my name forward as a candidate for inside director and made contact. And then I came back to TY Telecom, Grandfather.”
James’s eyes gleamed like those of a hungry beast.
“So... stamp this for me.”
“...”
Stunned and hollowed out, Chairman Choi stared blankly at the board minutes. They recorded even his own resignation as chairman of the board.
“Still, it hasn’t fallen into someone else’s hands, has it?”
At James’s words, a spark returned to Chairman Choi’s eyes. Then concern rose ahead of it.
“What you have is only six percent. The rest is in foreign hands...”
“That’s all my stake.”
“!!”
“It’s all nominee ownership that’s going to end up in my pocket anyway, so don’t worry, Grandfather.”
James offered an explanation to soften Chairman Choi’s disbelief.
“I stepped in because it looked like TY Telecom was in danger.”
It was a blatant lie. James himself had been the beginning of every danger.
“So I brought in the Vatican National Wealth Fund as cannon fodder, then went back and forth between the United States and Korea to secure the foreign shares. After that, I used every domestic nominee account I could get my hands on and gathered the shares piece by piece. It was a very busy stretch.”
“Hah!”
James summarized everything that had happened so far in terms Chairman Choi could understand.
“And because I’m registered as a VIP client at Citi Bank, I was able to secure the bank’s six percent stake in advance as well. That was easier than I expected.”
“...Easier?”
“It had to be. Money made it possible. My current assets are worth more than seven billion dollars.”
“S-seven billion dollars?”
“As a result, as you saw today, I was able to put up Colt Evans, who has a relationship of trust with me, as the new CEO, and the move succeeded beautifully. The TY Telecom board already knows I’m your grandson, so they won’t dare oppose me. That means the TY Group is entirely in my hands.”
“Hah! You’ve been completely outplayed.”
James corrected Chairman Choi’s words and held out the document again.
“Wouldn’t the ones who were truly outplayed be the ordinary people of Korea and the small shareholders who don’t know anything? They’ll think the ruling family has been completely expelled from TY Telecom. But after all this circling around, it’s ended up back in the ruling family’s arms anyway. Since I’m the one who’s taken hold of the TY Group.”
“Hmph. So a dog can give birth to a tiger, after all.”
So if your own child is a dog, does that mean you’re a dog too?
But James hid what he was thinking and wrapped it in words Chairman Choi would enjoy hearing.
“Strange inheritance across generations happens, doesn’t it?”
“Ha. You’re right. You do seem more like me than anyone else.”
No chance.
James denied it in his head, but he did resemble Choi Tae-yeong and Choi Jeong-san in more ways than one, especially in their cruelty.
I just don’t make the same mistakes you do.
James was a predator who crushed his opponents more thoroughly and more perfectly than either of them ever had.
“Hurry up and sign it. If we’re registering the transfer, the paperwork has to be finished quickly.”
“My, my. So you’ve already figured out the corporate registration work as well?”
“We’ll need to register a new corporate seal, and with so many changes made today, there’ll be piles of things to disclose externally. Marketing will also have to emphasize that TY Telecom has been reborn, while soothing the feelings of consumers who turned their backs on our telecom company.”
“Our... That’s a pleasant word to hear.”
There was no doubt James was flattering Chairman Choi for the sake of securing the shares completely.
“Forget the genetic test results I brought you.”
“What?”
“You should have another one done. You can’t seriously just believe the one I brought you, can you?”
“Well...”
Chairman Choi had already been planning to order another test anyway.
“And once the results are in, dump all the TY Telecom shares you currently hold onto the market.”
“W-what?”
“I already hold forty-four percent. Is there any reason for the ruling family to hold more than seventy percent of the shares? What if it gets revealed later that I’m your grandson?”
“Ah! That would be a disaster.”
That was because there was a law requiring a new acquisition tax on corporate assets whenever those related to a major shareholder and his special affiliates acquired more than fifty percent. Considering TY Telecom’s tangible assets, which already exceeded twelve trillion won, and its assets that kept growing by the day, they would have to pay an enormous additional acquisition tax.
“The sooner you cut your ties with the TY Group, the faster TY Telecom and the TY Group will recover.”
“...That’s true.”
“Thanks to this shareholders’ meeting, there’s no need to worry about inheritance tax either. I took the throne by rightful conquest. Do you understand?”
“Heh. Calling you a dragon pup would be more fitting than a tiger cub.”
“Just sign it.”
“Fine. Fine.”
In any case, the board had already approved it, and the signature was little more than a formality. But with that seal, the board would be certain that James was Chairman Choi Tae-yeong’s grandson.
Press.
Chairman Choi’s seal marked the end of a long, long effort.
As soon as Chairman Choi had finished signing and sealing, James handed the documents to the employee waiting outside and returned.
That’s done. TY Telecom is mine now. No more worries there.
Everything needed to seize TY Telecom had been completed. But the old Chairman Choi was still here, and there was still much for the two of them to talk about.
“I hear I should be worrying about your health now, Grandfather. From here on out, focus only on staying healthy.”
It was his way of telling the old man not to meddle anymore and to stay holed up at home.
“So you even had the mind to look after my health?”
“It’s the first time I’ve met you today, but you’re still my grandfather. Blood ties don’t disappear, no matter how hard you try to erase them, Grandfather.”
“Goodness. My boy.”
“Before that... is President Choi Jeong-san really at home?”
James was worried because Choi Jeong-san hadn’t shown his face at all today. Not that he was concerned for the man’s safety, of course.
Where the hell did that bastard run off to?
James had already confirmed that he wasn’t at home. Even Team Leader Park didn’t know where Choi Jeong-san had gone.
“Just thinking about that bastard makes me...” Chairman Choi let out a groan. “Ugh!”
“Why?”
“That bastard was throwing a fit all the way to the end, insisting he’d never admit it. He thought he only lost the CEO seat because I was more impressive than he was!”
“Sounds like he was really attached to the position.”
“After blowing away all that slush fund money, what was there to brag about...”
Even though he knew everything, James asked as if he didn’t.
“Slush fund money? President Choi was in charge of the TY Group’s slush fund?”
“Sigh. He swallowed it in one bite and blew the whole thing away.”
“Wow. He really is something else, in every possible way.”
“...You seem to hold a lot of resentment?”
Ordinarily, he might have answered no out of politeness, but James answered without hesitation.
“Yes. Of course.”
“I thought so... the man who sent you to an orphanage and all...”
That wasn’t all. There was another reason James could never forgive him.
“President Choi Jeong-san knew I had entered Korea and was looking for my parents, and he kept it completely hidden from me.”
“What?”
What followed was a flood of Choi Jeong-san’s additional sins from James’s mouth.