LWD 5

Chapter 5 The Legitimate Bloodline

“Both of you may leave now.”

Jae-ha gave the order as he pulled out a paper napkin from the side of the dining table.

Butler Kim respectfully lowered his head and took the hand of Mrs. Cheongju, who was watching Young-seon’s reaction nervously.

“Thank you, Young Master. Good night.”

Young-seon glared at the two employees leaving the dining room with narrowed eyes, but she did not object to her son’s decision.

Only after they were gone did her dissatisfaction burst out.

“Son!”

“Yes.”

“After what your mother went through because of those two, you’re just letting them leave?”

Jae-ha casually wiped Young-seon’s irritated, wrinkled forehead with the napkin.

“Were you planning to stay up all night looking at their faces?”

“Well, no, but what are you doing?”

“I’m wiping it off. It’s funny.”

“What did I get on my face?”

When Jae-ha unfolded the napkin and showed it to her, Young-seon’s face immediately turned pale.

“Ah, earlier, I… I was getting a massage and didn’t wipe the cream off properly.”

The excuse she struggled to make up was unbelievably weak.

“Ah, massage cream.”

Jae-ha smiled faintly and turned away.

He threw the napkin into the trash and left the dining room, but Young-seon followed closely beside him.

Her embarrassment from a moment ago had already turned into irritated anger.

“What is wrong with having some cream stuck to my face? Is that a crime?”

Of course it was not.

There was nothing wrong with having semen on her face and then talking about ordering medicine to improve her old husband’s stamina.

It was simply funny.

And since it was funny, laughing was not a crime either.

But her embarrassment seemed to have added fuel to Young-seon’s anger.

“The more I think about those people laughing at me, the angrier I get. I’m really, really angry.”

“I can see that.”

“You saw it too, didn’t you? Mrs. Cheongju was at least pretending to reflect on what she did, but Butler Kim was actually trying to lecture me. How dare he? He is unbelievably arrogant. I can’t stand watching it.”

“Yes.”

“They’re the kind of people who don’t even know how to be grateful for being fed and paid. It’s a complete waste. I would rather donate the money to some remote place in Africa.”

“Yes.”

“We can’t just leave them alone, can we? We should fire them, right? Son, are you even listening to me?”

Young-seon followed her son all the way to his door as he gave her one half-hearted answer after another.

Jae-ha stopped, intending to finally get rid of her.

“Mrs. Chae.”

He gently placed a hand on her shoulder and called her politely.

The frown in Young-seon’s eyes immediately relaxed.

At fifty-three years old, Young-seon could look like a woman in her thirties depending on how she applied her makeup. Her entire social career had consisted of spending two years as an actress when she was young, while the rest of her life had been spent taking care of her skin and body and shopping for luxury goods.

So it was not surprising.

To someone who did not know them, they might look like siblings with a large age difference.

But Young-seon was indeed Jae-ha’s biological mother—the woman who had given birth to and raised him.

Although, to be more accurate, it was money rather than motherly love that had raised him.

“What do you want?”

“Get rid of those two.”

Young-seon had no authority to make decisions about household matters.

On the other hand, Jae-ha’s orders carried almost as much weight among the employees as Chairman Kang’s.

That was why she was clinging to her son to get what she wanted.

“I really can’t stand looking at them. If I leave them alone, I think the stress will make me age.”

“Butler Kim is not possible.”

Only Chairman Kang had the authority to dismiss Butler Kim.

Young-seon understood that much and immediately accepted it before offering another suggestion.

“Then fire Mrs. Cheongju at least. Make an example of her for Butler Kim to see.”

Removing one employee out of many was nothing difficult.

Even in complicated large corporations, Jae-ha had considerable experience in removing people and reorganizing departments.

It was less troublesome than listening to Young-seon’s complaints, so he did not need to think about it for long.

“I’ll make sure she receives a generous severance payment so there won’t be any complaints.”

“Thank you, son.”

Jae-ha lightly patted Young-seon’s shoulder as she smiled brightly.

That was enough of his role as a son.

Then he turned her around and sent her away.

After entering his room, Jae-ha walked toward the living room window.

The glass window reflected the black night and showed his entire body like a mirror.

His height, build, and even his facial features were like an upgraded version of Chairman Kang Dae-beom.

However, unlike Dae-beom, who gave the impression of a bird of prey, Jae-ha looked more like a sharp and elegant young gentleman.

His face resembled his mother’s softer features.

Jae-ha opened the window and took a deep breath of the night air.

The garden, filled with the scent of pine trees and the sound of cicadas, was colored in a dark reddish shade.

A cool breeze blowing from Mount Inwang mixed with the elegant night scenery.

Rustle.

The wind shook the leaves, and Jae-ha’s eyes followed their movement.

His thoughts slowly drifted into the tunnel of his memories.

Kang Jae-ha.

Chairman Kang Dae-beom had personally given him that name.

His beginning had been an affair.

He was the child of a married businessman and Young-seon, who had been a twenty-one-year-old rookie actress.

Young-seon had described it as a “love destined by fate.”

But in reality, Dae-beom had been a sponsor connected to her agency, and she became pregnant after providing him sexual services.

Fortunately, Dae-beom did not turn his back on his own blood.

He made Young-seon retire from the entertainment industry and provided her with a luxury apartment and generous living expenses.

He also visited regularly and brought expensive gifts.

Thanks to that, Jae-ha grew up without ever experiencing financial hardship.

Young-seon was neither a particularly good mother nor a particularly bad one.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she was a mother who constantly complained and whined to her unusually mature son.

Jae-ha’s personality meant that he did not feel much emotional emptiness either.

Perhaps he had inherited Dae-beom’s naturally bold personality.

He never desperately wanted his parents’ love.

He could even be cold toward anything that did not interest him.

He had not grown up in a happy and loving family.

But instead, he had the deep pride of being the third generation of a chaebol family.

From childhood, Jae-ha’s interest had always been Daesan Group.

As a naive child, he believed that his father’s company was naturally his company too.

He also believed that since he would eventually have to manage Daesan Group as an adult, he needed to prepare himself.

At the age of ten, he pushed his fairy tale books aside and filled his bookshelf with books about economics and business.

Over several years, including books written in English, he read more than two hundred books.

From his second year of middle school, he began investing in stocks.

The ten million won he received from Dae-beom as a birthday gift every year became his starting capital.

At the bold age of fifteen, he was managing as much as one hundred million won.

But he did not invest recklessly.

He carefully analyzed companies, their current situations, their growth potential, and even the outlook of the global economy.

As a result, within two years, he made five times his original investment.

Jae-ha showed his stock account to Dae-beom when he was in his first year of high school.

Even now, remembering that moment made his heart race.

Dae-beom had always kept a strict distance from his illegitimate son.

But that day was different.

There was admiration in his eyes.

There was satisfaction in his smile.

For the first time, Jae-ha saw a father who was proud of his son.

At that time, Chairman Kang Dae-beom already had two sons.

Both of them were older than Chae Young-seon, the woman from his affair.

Of the two, the eldest son was publicly recognized as the heir.

But tragedy struck when he had already passed through several important positions within Daesan Group and had been promoted to vice chairman.

He suddenly died from a heart attack.

The death threw the entire Daesan family into deep grief.

One year later, Dae-beom made a decision.

He officially registered Jae-ha as his son.

It was not simply because he wanted his hidden son to fill the emptiness left by losing his eldest son.

Dae-beom had remained unmarried for five years after the death of his first wife.

But he even married Young-seon.

They did not hold a wedding ceremony, but they officially registered their marriage and gave Young-seon a separate house beside the walls of the Cheongun-dong residence.

Jae-ha had been given the legitimate bloodline of the Daesan family.

“My son, I will watch you.”

Those short but heavy words from Dae-beom thrilled Jae-ha more than any beautiful or impressive speech ever could.

He entered Seoul National University and earned grades filled with A+ marks.

After completing his full military service in the Air Force, he graduated from university six months early.

After that, he entered the MBA program at Yale University in the United States and helped lead the growth of Daesan Electronics’ American branch.

His days had been filled with proving his value through excellent grades and outstanding achievements.

But…

But then…

Jae-ha sat down in the wing chair beside the window.

A memory he had once desperately tried to erase came back to him, making his head feel heavy.

His index and middle fingers moved slightly on their own.

It was because the memory made him crave the cigarettes he had quit years ago.

There had once been a time when Kang Jae-ha, who had run toward the throne of Daesan Group without looking away even once, had willingly left his own path.

After that night when he became trapped by unfamiliar impulses and intense desire.

Seven years ago, one day before leaving for the United States.

Jae-ha got out of his car in front of a luxury hotel while talking to a friend on the phone.

He had promised to have one final dinner in Korea with his friend at the hotel’s signature restaurant.

However, his friend had gotten into a minor car accident on the way and was calling to ask for some time to deal with it.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

[Stop talking nonsense and wait for me. I have to make the son of a chaebol family buy me an expensive hotel meal.]

His friend came from an ordinary family and was Jae-ha’s closest friend at the time.

After agreeing to wait, Jae-ha did not go directly to the restaurant.

Instead, he went to the smoking area.

There was one man who appeared to be in his thirties inside the smoking area, which was surrounded by flowerbeds.

“I’m meeting my fiancée, you bastard.”

The man’s voice was so loud and rude while he talked on the phone that Jae-ha could not help looking at him.

The man had an ordinary face and average height.

The clothes he wore and the luxury pouch bag tucked under his arm were all from expensive brands.

The black hair sitting crookedly on his forehead was obviously a wig.

With his phone pressed to his ear, the man held a cigarette between his fingers and continued talking excitedly.

“Yeah. She’s twenty-two. …Ah, damn it. What do you mean I’m a thief? I’m telling you, I’m like a servant serving my young lady. …Yeah. You have no idea how well I treat her.”

Standing a short distance behind him with a cigarette between his lips, Jae-ha could hear every strange thing the man said.

“Is she only young? She’s beautiful enough to put Miss Korea contestants to shame. Damn beautiful. Just looking at her face turns me on. You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to get hard just from brushing your hand against hers.”

The man shook the ash from his cigarette, took another deep drag, and continued talking.

“I know. I’ve waited this long, so now it’s time to have her. Why else do you think I’m meeting her at a hotel?”

The man’s vulgar laughter echoed through the area.

“Today is D-Day.”

Jae-ha’s mind automatically put together everything he had learned about the man.

So that wealthy, bald man in his thirties, wearing a wig, was planning to sleep with his young and beautiful fiancée at the hotel for the first time that day.

Of course, it was none of his business.

The man with the wig suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to buy mouthwash and left the hotel area while talking on the phone.

After finishing his cigarette and putting it out, Jae-ha headed toward the hotel restaurant where he was supposed to meet his friend.

Because it was a weekday, many of the tables were empty.

As Jae-ha looked around for a suitable seat, his eyes suddenly stopped on a familiar face.

Shin Ye-won.

She was sitting alone at a table by the window.