TOIGC 43

Chapter 43 …

Pruning the Branch (2)

Stunned into silence by the shocking bombshell, the rest of the family sat frozen while Choi Cheol-min and Park Gyeong-ja pressed their foreheads harder against the floor, crying out.

“Father, please, just forgive me this time!” “Father-in-law, I was wrong! Please temper your anger. I’m begging you…!”

Yet Choi Kihyun’s expression remained carved in stone.

Watching their furious father, Cheol-min’s siblings still hadn’t the foggiest idea what catastrophic sin their brother and sister-in-law could possibly have committed.

[Father might be cold-hearted when it comes to management rights, but he’s not someone who lacks basic affection for his own flesh and blood…]

That was the common thought running through the siblings’ heads. Their father’s usual demeanor was frostier than a winter gale, but that was strictly reserved for matters tied to corporate control, or whenever a child showed unwanted ambition for power. The only reason Kihyun treated Choi Cheol-ho with such immense warmth was simple: his eldest son had zero ambition for the management seat and faithfully executed whatever tasks were handed to him.

The reason he treated his second son, Cheol-min, with perpetual ice? The exact opposite. A good-for-nothing prodigal son devoid of competence yet overflowing with corporate greed.

“I tried to shelter you all as much as humanly possible. Not as Choi Kihyun, Chairman of Samwoo, but as Choi Kihyun your father—as Choi Kihyun your father-in-law.”

As the patriarch’s voice resumed, everyone in the room held their breath, straining their ears with white-knuckled tension.

“Some of you may not know yet, but those of you with functioning intelligence networks are already well aware. Yoongi is currently building a department store down in Cheonggyecheon.”

Everyone except a select few nodded inwardly. While they didn’t dare openly challenge the succession, they all kept at least a pair of eyes and ears planted within the group.

“Because Yoongi gave his consent, I am reluctantly filling you in on a few specific details. The department store Yoongi is building right now is intended for the U.S. military.”

Aside from Choi Cheol-kyu and Shin Mi-ra, everyone else stared at their father in utter shock.

Cheol-min and Gyeong-ja, in particular, jerked their heads up to look at Kihyun. Their pupils were shaking violently, as if they had just been shoved inside a freezing prison cell.

“And this bastard… this absolute piece of trash…”

Gnashing sound!

Accompanied by the grinding of Kihyun’s teeth, the next words dropped like an axe.

“This bastard hired thugs to sabotage the construction site. He mixed impurities into the concrete and poured corrosive agents into the foundations, all to make the department store pancake down the line.”

“Good grief!”

Kihyun’s fourth son, Choi Cheol-jun, recoiled in horror, taking an involuntary step back. Usually, his fierce, sharp eyes tended to invite all sorts of misunderstandings from people around him, but right now, that fierce expression was completely wiped away, replaced by pure, unfiltered terror.

“Cheol-jun.”

“Y-Y-Yes, Father!”

“Do you have any idea what would have happened if this bastard’s plan had gone undetected until construction wrapped up?”

Cheol-jun didn’t even need a second to think.

“If the department store had collapsed while American soldiers were inside shopping… Samwoo wouldn’t just go under. Every single one of us would get dragged down to the KCIA—the Central Intelligence Agency—and we’d never walk out of there on our own two feet…”

Back then, the KCIA, the predecessor to the modern intelligence agency, was pure, unadulterated terror to the citizenry. Even individuals with nerves of steel would often return from a stint at the KCIA with dilated pupils, drooling uncontrollably as they wandered the neighborhoods.

“Spot on. Even if we could prove we had zero direct involvement, the higher-ups would need something to offer the U.S. military to save face. And we would be the sacrificial lambs. Not just you lot, but your children as well!”

Kihyun stood up abruptly and drove his boot square into Cheol-min’s chest.

“Agh!”

Flailing backward, Cheol-min crashed to the floor, instantly scrambling back into a prostrate bow, whimpering pathetically for mercy. Yet the faces of the remaining siblings and their spouses reflected a chilling certainty: there was no coming back from this.

[Father usually cuts you some slack and maintains family ties as long as you don’t mess with management. But this? There’s simply no saving this.]

“Even if you had somehow shoved Yoongi and Cheol-ho aside to seize control of Samwoo, the moment that department store collapsed, Samwoo’s absolute ruin was guaranteed. That’s the sheer scale of the atrocity you committed! And you dare sit there begging for forgiveness?”

Just as Kihyun cocked his leg to kick Cheol-min a second time, Choi Cheol-ho quietly stepped forward, seized his younger brother by the collar, and hoisted him straight into the air.

“H-Hyung…”

Though Cheol-min wore a look of sheer panic, Cheol-ho didn’t hesitate for a split second. With both hands, he lifted Cheol-min higher and hurled him straight onto the dining table.

Crash! Splinter!

“Ghk!”

Because it was a relatively light wooden table, the impact was partially absorbed as the furniture smashed to pieces, saving Cheol-min from suffering fatal internal hemorrhaging. But Cheol-ho’s fury didn’t stop there.

“Gnnnh! Hyung, pl-please…”

Even through his agonizing groans, Cheol-min begged, but Cheol-ho’s face had twisted into that of a raging demon—one step further, and he looked fully prepared to commit murder right then and there.

“Brother-in-law!”

Park Gyeong-ja lunged forward, clinging to Cheol-ho’s arms, but Cheol-ho simply hoisted his thrashing brother back up into the air, eyeing the balcony doors with murderous intent. The balcony was packed with heavy glass windows and towering ceramic planters. Tossed out there, he would undoubtedly walk away carved up with deep lacerations all over his body.

“Hey, stop him!”

Realizing things were spinning dangerously out of control, Choi Cheol-kyu barked at his siblings and lunged forward. The remaining brothers, sisters, and spouses rushed in as well, scrambling to restrain Cheol-ho.

“Hyung-nim, calm down!” “Oppa, get a grip! If you kill him here, we’re all done for!” “Hyung, don’t do this, just punch him instead! You can’t throw him out there, it’ll be a bloodbath!”

Despite the chaotic brawl unfolding right in front of him, Kihyun merely watched with a cold, detached gaze, making no move to intervene.

“F-Father-in-law, please, make him stop!”

Gyeong-ja wept openly, grabbing onto Kihyun’s knees and pleading for help. Her desperate cries caused Cheol-ho to pause mid-swing, his head snapping back toward his father.

Instead of pouring water on the flames, however, Kihyun decided to douse them in gasoline.

“Cheol-ho.”

Though Cheol-ho was gritting his teeth, desperately struggling to reign in his boiling rage, the words that dropped from his father’s lips completely defied all common sense.

“Do you have any idea what your sister-in-law pulled back in the day?”

Completely at a loss, Cheol-ho blinked in confusion for a brief second. Beside him, Park Gyeong-ja went completely rigid, looking up at her father-in-law with an expression of sheer horror as if praying, ‘Please, no…’

“When Yoongi was born, she tried to pull something in the newborn nursery. Whether her goal was to murder him, cripple him, or swap him out with another baby, I couldn’t tell you for sure.”

Once again, the room plunged into an arctic silence.

“A-Ah, Father… Wh-What are you… H-How…”

Even Cheol-min, currently dangling in the air by his older brother’s grip, let out a strangled, disbelieving squawk.

“Y-You… Wh-What are you talking about?!” “Gyaaaah!”

Driven over the edge by the revelation, Cheol-ho hurled his younger brother straight through the balcony doors.

Clatter-shards!

Cheol-min crashed violently into a row of ceramic planters. The pots shattered upon impact, scattering jagged shards of clay and glass that instantly shredded Cheol-min’s skin, embedding themselves deep into his flesh.

“Gyaaaah!”

Cheol-min wasn’t the only one screaming in agony.

Park Yeon-ji—who had been watching her husband with nervous apprehension up until that second—snapped completely. Abandoning all composure, she flew across the room and began relentlessly pounding Gyeong-ja with her fists.

“Kyaaaah!”

Gyeong-ja shrieked, crossing her arms defensively over her head, but no one reached out to save her. The family only stepped in to block Cheol-ho from getting near her—knowing full well that if Cheol-ho got his hands on her, it would genuinely end in murder.

“Agh! Ack! Ghk-!”

Gyeong-ja’s desperate, piercing screams echoed endlessly through the halls, making the night feel agonizingly long.

Fifteen minutes after Cheol-min and Gyeong-ja were thoroughly beaten and tossed out onto the street.

“Three years ago, when I handed Yoongi the advantage regarding Jeil Spinning, I told all of you that the exact same opportunities were open to everyone.”

Sure enough, when Jeil Spinning—the exact company Yoongi had targeted for acquisition—yielded massive profits, several of the siblings had submitted strategic business proposals to Kihyun.

The result? Failure.

Aside from one sibling who had barely managed to break even, the rest had suffered staggering financial losses, forcing them to have those sums deducted from their future inheritance shares. That was how ruthlessly merit-based Kihyun’s approach to his children’s corporate participation was.

“The harm that ‘that brat’ inflicted upon Yoongi this time around is utterly beyond description. If you possess eyes and ears, you should know full well just how steep a price one has to pay to pull strings within the military.”

Kihyun’s children had witnessed firsthand how low their proud, unyielding father had been forced to bow his waist to military men back during President P’s regime. The sight of their iron-willed father forced into humiliating subservience.

“Uhm… Father. What does the military have to do with what happened…?”

At the cautious query from his fourth son, Cheol-jun, Kihyun nodded slowly.

“Yes, Yoongi utilized the influence of the military to resolve this mess. He leveraged the backing of JSD—a man virtually guaranteed to become President JD’s closest confidant. Do you understand what that implies?”

The less perceptive siblings merely assumed Yoongi wielded an absurdly dangerous amount of leverage, while the more perceptive ones instantly grasped the staggering truth: Yoongi had forged direct, high-level connections with someone as formidable as JSD.

“Furthermore, parts of the construction site now require complete reconstruction. Consequently, I intend to reallocate the entirety of the inheritance originally designated for ‘that brat’ straight to Yoongi instead. Does anyone have any objections?”

A few nervous swallows echoed through the room, but not a single idiot dared voice an objection under the current circumstances—at least, no one other than Cheol-min. Moreover, when their own father openly referred to his own flesh and blood as ‘that brat,’ who on earth would dare stick their neck out to defend him?

“Seeing as no one is answering, I will take that as unanimous consent. As for the rest of you, I suggest you avoid getting too close to ‘that brat’ from here on out. If your luck runs dry, you might just find yourselves branded as commies and hauled away.”

An icy shiver raced down everyone’s spines, causing them to shrink back instinctively.

“Very well, you are all dismissed. I am… quite tired.”

Seeing the sudden, haggard frailty etched into their father’s face, a wave of genuine concern washed over the siblings, though none dared voice it as they quietly filed out of the mansion.

Having given all the domestic staff the night off prior to the incident, the only occupants left inside the vast estate were Choi Kihyun, Yoongi’s parents, Yoongi himself, and his baby sister.

“Are you holding up alright?”

Kihyun tilted his head back against the sofa cushions, speaking into the empty air. Cheol-ho replied in a voice equally heavy with exhaustion.

“Yes… I’m sorry, Father. I never wanted you to witness something this disgraceful…”

“Father, I should apologize as well. I completely lost control earlier…”

Though his head remained tilted back against the rest, Kihyun shook it slightly. The slight movement of his jaw telegraphed his message clearly enough for Cheol-ho and Yeon-ji to read.

“No need. If you couldn’t even give vent to that kind of rage, how could you call yourselves parents? If anything, I’m the one at fault. I tried too hard to hold our family together simply out of biological obligation, and look what mess it brought upon us…”

Tears welled up at the corners of Kihyun’s eyes, but before they could fall, Yoongi slipped quietly behind his grandfather’s sofa and gently dabbed away the tears with a clean handkerchief.

“This doesn’t suit you, Grandpa.”

At Yoongi’s cheeky, lopsided grin, a stray tear finally broke free and tracked down Kihyun’s cheek.

As Yoongi patiently continued wiping his grandfather’s face while Kihyun let the tears fall, a quiet peace settled over the room. After a moment, as Kihyun regained his composure, he lifted his head back up from the cushions and settled back into his seat.

“Em-i, I am truly sorry. I should have told you about this sooner, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to burden the family with it…”

After a brief pause for thought, Park Yeon-ji shook her head, then offered a reassuring nod.

“It’s alright, Father. If I had been in your shoes, I would have hidden it too. After all, what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Honey, you’re fine with this too, right?”

At his wife’s prompt, Cheol-ho nodded readily.

“Yeah… honestly, throwing him across the room twice actually made me feel a lot better.”

Cheol-ho’s simple-minded remark coaxed a sudden, bubbling laugh out of Park Yeon-ji, and Kihyun joined in with a low chuckle of his own.

“Anyway… the inheritance shares destined for that brat will be formally transferred to Yoongi at the earliest possible date. I’m well aware that recent construction costs have run into a few hurdles.”

At Kihyun’s words, Yoongi nodded.

“I’ll gladly accept whatever you give me. However, ‘that person’ is definitely going to stir up chaos down the line to try and claw back that inheritance. That isn’t a prediction—it’s a certainty.”

In an instant, the gentle warmth vanished from Kihyun’s face as his expression froze solid