5
### Chapter 5 — The Protagonist Hides His Wife’s Designer Goods
The friend I went to meet was Minsu.
“Anyone else, I wouldn’t count on having much, but that guy should have some money.”
Why? Because I was going to borrow money!
‘I’m not in a position to be picky about where it comes from right now.’
I needed at least 100 million won every week.
If I wanted to stay alive!
That meant investing itself was important, but securing seed money might be even more important.
‘Some experts even say you shouldn’t invest before you have 100 million won in seed capital.’
Seed money.
The importance of seed capital could never be overstated.
What was a SEED?
A seed.
It was the same principle as saying that no matter how well you tended a plant, it would be difficult for it to grow large if the seed itself was poor.
Even if there was someone who was unbelievably good at investing and could double their money, or even multiply it tenfold?
‘If the principal is only 100,000 won, that still only becomes 1 million won.’
That was how important seed capital was.
That was why I had first taken out a 30-million-won bank loan.
‘I can’t even imagine Ji Ye-eun having saved any money.’
Even if I tried to take control of her bank account, it probably wouldn’t do me any good.
She might have a little pocket change, at best.
That was the kind of woman she was.
‘If this were before my regression, she probably would have asked me for money because she was short on cash.’
I hadn’t known what kind of woman she was.
The person I came to know as Ji Ye-eun throughout my life was, quite literally, a bottomless pit.
No matter how much money I brought home,
it disappeared in a way that was almost unbelievable.
Even if someone told me to spend money like that, I wouldn’t be able to.
‘Well, she was that greedy, after all... Ugh.’
Suddenly, something rose up from my stomach.
Right.
After Ji Ye-eun found out that I had made a fortune through investing,
she told me to start a company and become a full-time investor.
That part was fine.
But when I really started making even more money,
“She turned me into a man who supposedly cheated on her and abused her...”
I never knew a divorce ruling could turn out that way.
The money she took from me under the pretext of property division and various other things amounted to roughly 70 percent of my assets.
And the real problem was...
‘My mental state completely collapsed.’
With my ability, I could have multiplied even the remaining 30 percent of my money and started over.
If I used it properly.
But I didn’t have the mental strength to do that. I became a wreck in an instant, and eventually died!
According to what my ancestor had said, even that was because of my ill-fated relationship.
In the end, I really had died because of my wife.
‘I need to get a divorce.’
The sooner, the better.
But how?
While I was thinking about it,
I arrived at the café where we had agreed to meet.
At this point, my friends barely had any money.
Some were preparing for employment, and some were outright unemployed.
But this guy was different.
“Minsu. Lend me some money.”
“What?”
A stream of coffee dribbled down Minsu’s lips as he had been drinking.
Ugh, gross.
“I said lend me some money. How much can you lend me?”
“You crazy bastard!”
This guy definitely had money.
He had gotten a job slightly earlier than me,
and more importantly, if this was Kim Minsu, who remained single until he was forty...
“I’ll pay you back in two months with 20 percent interest. You have about five million won, right?”
“You’re giving me 20 percent interest?”
It was certainly tempting!
Even so, the stingy Kim Minsu hesitated.
“What? You want more? Fine. I’ll give you 30 percent. How about that?”
Thirty percent interest in two months!
It was an offer Kim Minsu couldn’t possibly ignore.
I had actually come here intending to offer him 30 percent from the beginning.
But Minsu frowned and said,
“Everything sounds good, but you think I don’t know you’re doing this because of Ye-eun? How much does she need this time?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Get a grip, you bastard. Don’t tell me you’re borrowing money from your friend again to buy your wife another designer bag.”
What the hell?
“I’m seriously disappointed in you, Gam Da-san!”
“Hey!!!”
We ended up arguing loudly.
Was this bastard crazy?
Who did he think I was?
At first, I got furious,
but as my anger gradually cooled, a chill ran down my spine.
“Did I really look that much like a sucker to you?”
“Idiot. It’s not that you looked like one. You actually were one! The Sucker Theory has officially been proven by Gam Da-san.”
As he said that, Kim Minsu held both palms out toward me.
“Gam Da-san, recipient of the Sucker of the Year Award.”
“Stop it.”
“You even give your entire salary to your wife. You’re basically a 3-million-won-a-year sucker.”
“Haa...”
What annoyed me was that I couldn’t even deny it.
The ‘actual annual salary’ joke was based on this.
My actual annual salary was over 30 million won,
but I handed all of it over to my wife,
and received an allowance of 300,000 won.
So how much money could I actually spend in a year?
Roughly 3.6 million won.
“I’m taking control of the finances from now on.”
“Bullshit. Pfft! Hahahaha!”
“I’m serious. If Ji Ye-eun makes money too, I’m going to tell her to hand it over to me.”
“You’re hilarious. You?”
Kim Minsu kept snickering and mocking me.
Exhausted, I sank back onto the sofa and rested my wrist against my forehead before adding one more thing.
“Yeah. I’m getting divorced, Minsu.”
Clink, clink...
The hand that had been busily poking around the ice in his iced coffee with a straw suddenly stopped.
“Really? Is that why you need the money?”
“...Something like that.”
It wasn’t exactly wrong.
And so,
Kim Minsu’s attitude changed.
The same Minsu who had hesitated even when I offered him 30 percent interest...
“You should’ve told me sooner, you crazy bastard. Give me your account number.”
“Huh?”
“What’s money when my friend says he’s finally going to escape being a sucker? Five million? Forget it. I’ll lend you ten million won.”
“Minsu?”
“No interest. Gam Da-san, you bastard. You finally came to your senses!”
“......”
Heh heh heh.
Kim Minsu really handed over his entire fortune of ten million won right away.
The same guy who had been reluctant to part with even five million won despite the tempting offer of 30 percent interest.
All because I said I was getting divorced!
‘Was it really that bad?’
Ten million won might not have been money that determined whether someone lived or died, but for Kim Minsu, a young office worker just starting out in society, it must have been practically everything.
“Did I make the right choice of friend, or the wrong one?”
What kind of guy got this excited because his friend was getting divorced?
The next place I headed was home.
I had gotten another idea from my conversation with Minsu.
Come to think of it, there was money piled up inside the house.
Fortunately, Ji Ye-eun wasn’t there. She must have gone somewhere.
“Where does she go and what does she even do...?”
Why had I never questioned even this before?
Anyway, it was convenient now.
Clunk!
I could freely look inside the built-in closet where her ‘babies’ were kept.
Of course, her ‘babies’ weren’t actual babies.
“All of this is designer stuff.”
Designer handbags and shoes.
They were lined up everywhere.
I loaded them all up and sold them to a secondhand dealer.
“I really am doing things now that I never could have imagined doing before.”
Was this the dignity of living a second life?
Or was it because...
‘I now know that she was the woman who would betray me and push me all the way to death.’
Was it frightening because the blinders had finally fallen from my eyes?
I didn’t know.
“I guess she even ground her sense for picking designer goods into the asphalt.”
I brought the dealer a mountain of shoes and bags,
and only got 15 million won.
According to what I found online, their original retail value was around 38 million won.
But every item Ji Ye-eun touched had suffered a huge drop in resale value.
Other people apparently even used designer goods as investments,
but she was a champion among champions when it came to making money disappear.
She could have represented the country in it and no one would have complained.
“A woman who can’t even waste money properly.”
If she was going to buy things, she should have at least bought something that would appreciate in value later.
Seriously, what was wrong with this woman that she managed to make everything she touched lose value?
As for why I only received 15 million won for goods worth 38 million...
Part of it was because I was selling them urgently, but even at their proper market value, they had already fallen to around 20 million won.
“They said it would take two months to get the proper price.”
For me, though, all of it was money.
I had sold everything to the dealer at once for 15 million won instead of waiting two months to receive 20 million.
The dealer would make five million won.
Whatever.
I stopped by home briefly before going to the broadcasting station, and in the meantime, I ended up running into Ji Ye-eun.
Beep beep beep.
Clunk.
“Hm? I’m back.”
I said it habitually as I walked in,
but the atmosphere inside the house was ice-cold.
I looked over there.
‘She saw it?’
Ji Ye-eun was standing in front of the wide-open closet,
staring into it.
Even from behind,
I could feel her trembling.
“Where did all my babies go?!”
Whoosh!
Ji Ye-eun immediately started having a fit, so heated that I could almost feel the temperature rising.
In the past, if I had seen her like this,
I would have been terrified, dropped to my knees, and caused a huge commotion.
No, I probably would have crawled between her legs, begging her to forgive me.
That’s not an exaggeration.
‘I actually did that before...’
I didn’t even want to know that about myself.
I never knew there could be such a sucker in the world.
But things were different now.
Since I thought I wouldn’t be seeing this woman anymore anyway,
no,
since I actually wanted her to get out of my life,
I was calm.
“I sold them. Why?”
“Gam Da-san, are you crazy?!”
Ji Ye-eun rushed over and grabbed me by the collar.
I hadn’t expected that.
Even though this was my second life.
“You’re joking, right? Where are my bags? Tell me right now and I’ll forgive you!”
“I told you. I sold them.”
“......”
Her mouth opened and closed.
Then,
“Aaaaaaaargh! Is this bastard crazy?! What did you do?! What did you do with the money?!”
“Whatever I did with it, wasn’t it my money anyway?”
“Why is it your money?!”
“I bought those bags with my money, so they’re mine. Isn’t that right?”
Ji Ye-eun gave a little laugh.
Her next words seemed to slip out before she even realized what she was saying.
“How ridiculous. Our chairman...”
“......”
Gulp.
Ji Ye-eun’s eyes widened slightly as she swallowed hard and continued.
“...That was my money, okay? What money do you even have to make such a fuss? How many of those things were actually bought with your money? You’re useless! My friends’ older brothers all work at major corporations and buy them clothes all the time! I dated you because you were a broadcasting station PD, but you don’t have any ability at all!”
“......”
Ji Ye-eun caused a huge scene.
She hit me in the chest and grabbed me by the collar.
She screamed at me to get on my knees and apologize.
Now that I looked back, it was such an obvious tactic.
Whenever she was the one who had something to hide, she would get angry and attack me even more aggressively.
Then I would think I had really done something wrong and end up apologizing to her.
I clenched my molars and said only one thing.
“Did that chairman of yours buy you designer bags too? Do you meet him and go shopping together as well?”
When I spoke firmly,
Ji Ye-eun suddenly became quiet, as if she had been intimidated.
That made sense.
The old me would never have imagined confronting her like this.
I had always been too busy trying to convince myself otherwise.
Even when I saw something suspicious,
I would simply think, ‘Surely that can’t be true,’ and let it slide.
All of that was because...
‘Maybe it was actually for my own sake.’
Because I couldn’t bear to accept it.
The reality unfolding right in front of me.
So I had escaped into the world of being a sucker inside my own head.
That was probably part of it too.
“No, oppa, that’s not it... Why are you acting like this? You know it’s not like that, right? You misunderstood again, didn’t you? It’s not like that. You know me, oppa. It’s just that my fans like me...”
Her speech, which had suddenly become rude and casual, turned polite again, but I firmly shook off her hand and walked out.
There was something even more infuriating.
If this had been the old me,
“I would have tried to believe those words.”
That was what irritated me.
---
When I arrived at the broadcasting station, Writer Kang Ye-rin saw me and greeted me.
“PD, about that...”
She was trying to warn me about something.
But before she could say anything,
“Hey, Gam PD~ Your editing was absolutely amazing.”
PD Ki Shin-woo cut in.
PD Ki greeted me while looking at me strangely.
He was the type who chuckled mockingly.
One of the most irritating people around.
No,
at this point in time, he was the most irritating one!
I was someone who hadn’t gotten into any of the so-called factions at the company.
Ridiculously enough, it had started simply because I had attended a different school.
And people like PD Ki Shin-woo, who took advantage of that atmosphere to look down on me, were absolute bastards.
Our team had three PDs.
The main PD, PD Oh.
And beneath him were me and PD Ki as the two sub-PDs.
Maybe because of that, Ki Shin-woo seemed to regard me as a rival.
“I saw your edit. What did PD Oh say?”
PD Ki Shin-woo asked smugly.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t seen it yet.”
“But you saw it, didn’t you?”
“I did. Should I really show it to PD Oh? Are you sure? Personally, I think it’ll be pretty funny~”
His tone was dripping with sarcasm.
Well,
I never expected PD Ki to recognize the value of my editing.
“Show him. He’ll like it.”
“Heh heh heh heh. Yeah. I’m suuuure he’ll really like it~.”
How much of an idiot did he think I was to mock me this openly to my face?
I had deliberately made the editing fairly aggressive.
Aggressive enough that someone without an eye for editing like PD Ki wouldn’t recognize its value.
Perhaps even PD Oh, the main PD, might be the same.
Then?
‘I can just do the bare minimum and transfer to another team.’
There was no point working with someone who couldn’t recognize quality for too long.
But,
Main PD Oh...
‘He may not have the ability to create things himself, but he has an excellent eye for them.’
The gap between those two things was quite significant.
Still, his judgment could be trusted, so he would recognize it.
“PD Ki. Want to make a bet? I’ll bet one million won that PD Oh approves my edit.”
“Oh, really? Sounds great. Thanks! I’ll bet one million won that PD Oh cuts it. Hahahaha!”
PD Ki Shin-woo happily laughed and walked away.
Nice.
I had just earned myself an extra million won in spending money.