TOIGC 44

Chapter 44 …

Pruning the Branch (3)

“What on earth are you talking about…? I’m not going to leave that brat a single penny, so how on earth is he supposed to stir up trouble…?”

Choi Kihyun wore an expression of utter disbelief—a look he had quite literally never shown Yoongi before.

“People don’t talk about it much yet, but there’s a legal mechanism called the ‘forced share’ system currently in place. Even if someone gets cut out of a will entirely, if they file a formal application with the court, they’re legally entitled to claim half of the inheritance share they would have originally received.”

“What in the world… Why on earth would a ridiculous law like that even exist?!”

Kihyun roared in absolute fury, though the legislation itself was entirely a product of its time. Well into the early 2000s, eldest sons monopolizing family fortunes remained common practice, leaving countless younger sons and daughters who were unaware of forced-share laws to live out their lives in utter destitution. At this moment, however, the existence of the forced-share system was more than enough to drive Kihyun up the wall.

“Grandfather has eight children in total, so if you divide it up evenly, that’s 12.5 percent. Meaning he’d be legally entitled to walk away with 6.25 percent down the road.”

“Outrageous! I won’t allow it!”

“The law allows it, though. Well, if we wanted to leverage military influence, we could probably make it go away without a hitch, but…”

Lowering his voice slightly, Yoongi continued.

“If the military junta ever collapses, those connections would become completely worthless overnight, so I can’t guarantee anything.”

“I have zero intention of leaving that punk a single damn cent! Absolutely none! After all the time and effort I spent trying to reason with him, that ungrateful bastard deliberately spat in my face!”

The son he had tried to protect and guide until the very end had betrayed his father’s wishes right down to the final wire. The sheer sense of betrayal Kihyun felt toward Cheol-min was beyond words—a permanent fracture that no amount of atonement could ever heal.

“That’s precisely why the law is there to protect those loopholes. Honestly, the law itself isn’t entirely terrible; the problem is just that particular individual, while everyone else is doing pretty well, right? It just means that out of the entire bonsai tree named ‘Grandfather,’ there happened to be only one rotten, crooked branch.”

Hearing his most cherished grandson validate his feelings, Kihyun’s boiling agitation subsided a fraction.

“Hmph…”

“Well, I completely agree that he shouldn’t get a single penny. And as it happens, I actually know a way to make that happen.”

“You have a way?”

Color rushed back into Kihyun’s voice, driving away the deep despair that had gripped him moments before. Realizing that his grandfather had genuinely and irrevocably cut ties with his uncle, Yoongi smiled inwardly.

“Even from Grandfather’s perspective, you know he’s definitely going to try and claim his forced share later on, don’t you?”

A grinding sound echoed across the living room.

[I really must take after Grandfather. I’m definitely a chip off the old block.]

Smiling to himself as he waited for a response, Yoongi watched as Kihyun gave a slow, grim nod.

“Yeah. Knowing that bastard, he’d pull something like that without a second thought. I’ve already stripped him of his title at Samwoo Trading, cut off his monthly living allowance, and ordered him thrown out of his current house, but the moment he smells an opening in the future, he’ll try to cash in.”

Having cast away all remaining paternal affection, Kihyun’s judgment was razor-sharp. Seizing the opening, Yoongi comfortably rested a briefcase filled with documents across his knees and spoke.

“Grandfather, does the name ‘Samwoo’ itself matter most to you, or is what matters most that your children live comfortably and prosper under enterprises built upon Samwoo’s foundation?”

“Naturally, my children’s well-being comes first. Still, if the name Samwoo were to vanish entirely from the earth, I suppose it would leave a bitter taste in my mouth.”

“What if the name Samwoo managed to survive and stay planted right where it is?”

“In that case, I suppose I could live with it as a compromise. But are we talking about a scenario where the group’s scale has grown vastly larger than it is now?”

Having accurately gauged his grandfather’s true bottom line, Yoongi cut straight to the core of his proposal.

“In that case, the solution becomes crystal clear. If the corporate entity I’m building absorbs Samwoo, he won’t have a single legal opening left to interfere with.”

“Your corporate entity… is going to absorb Samwoo?”

Yoongi nodded firmly.

“Yes. Right now, trying to take over the existing Samwoo from the bottom up carries virtually zero strategic advantage for me. It takes too long, and the methods are too restrictive. However, once the corporation I’ve established grows massive enough to swallow Samwoo whole, Samwoo effectively becomes mine. That means I inherit Samwoo in its entirety. Afterward, I’ll allocate a fair share of assets matching Grandfather’s wishes to my aunt, uncles, and mother. And of course, exactly as Grandfather wishes, keeping the name ‘Samwoo Trading’ intact will ensure Samwoo’s roots live on forever.”

Stunned by a blueprint he hadn’t even remotely anticipated, Kihyun blinked rapidly, sinking deep into thought.

[Absorb Samwoo? This massive Samwoo? This boy’s company is still barely a drop in the bucket…]

Currently, Yoongi operated a collection of corporations funded entirely by his own capital: the department store where Ryu Geun-tae would serve as president, the construction office run by Kim Jeong-sun, and the American agricultural lands with Park Yeon-ji registered as representative. On top of that, he was already in the process of spinning off yet another separate stock corporation. Furthermore, the internal articles of incorporation for all these companies were tightly rigged to ensure Yoongi would ultimately ascend as group chairman. Right now, calling Yoongi the head of a ‘micro-group’ was hardly an exaggeration.

[From what I’ve heard, JSD is practically guaranteed to become the crown prince of the new military junta before long. JD favors JSD immensely. On top of that, Yoongi has already secured a direct pipeline to Guster. Combine Yoongi’s uncanny capabilities, his current network of heavyweights, and the full backing of myself, his father, and his mother…]

Kihyun’s train of positive reasoning abruptly ground to a halt. No matter how he ran the numbers, guaranteeing the full absorption of Samwoo was a massive gamble. After all, Samwoo currently ranked well within South Korea’s top one hundred corporate giants.

[Frankly, ignoring forced shares and legal nuisances to just crown Yoongi chairman outright would probably be a cleaner path to the top…]

Yet, stopping at mere absorption of Samwoo was not enough for Yoongi. He had to claw his way up to a position that truly matched his extraordinary caliber. Whether that meant becoming the number one conglomerate in South Korea or the top ten, Kihyun was utterly certain that settling for Samwoo alone would never satisfy him.

“If you’re worried about capital, take a look at these.”

Yoongi slid a pair of charts across the table—one tracking the soaring land values of the properties he had recently acquired, and the other charting Microsoft’s staggering stock trajectory.

“The real estate will hit absolute gold thirty years from now, and this stock will explode in six years. Especially this particular stock… in six years, Grandfather, you’ll have the richest man in South Korea for a grandson, and Father and Mother will have the proudest son in the nation.”

Faced with such an absurdly grandiose claim, Kihyun let out a soft huff of laughter and picked up the charts. Though his grandson was bold to a fault, he naturally assumed it was just youthful bravado meant to project supreme confidence.

The moment his eyes scanned the data, however, Kihyun fell into a stunned silence.

“What on earth is this growth curve…?”

Microsoft’s revenue was scaling at a literally exponential rate.

“If they keep expanding at this pace for a few more years and eventually go public, what do you suppose the valuation of my stake will be? Right now, I own just under ninety percent of this company.”

Kihyun swallowed hard.

“Are you genuinely planning to swallow Samwoo whole?”

Yoongi nodded, his expression unwavering.

“Yes. My goal isn’t just to turn Samwoo into a top-tier enterprise; as Grandfather’s grandson, Father’s son, and Mother’s son, I am going to become the greatest corporate executive on the face of the planet. To achieve that, I cannot afford to be shackled to Samwoo alone. Money is nothing more than a tool, never the final destination. The entire world is going to know Grandfather’s name, as well as Father’s and Mother’s. Because I am going to make it happen.”

It was a promise that defied all earthly reality, yet for some reason, Kihyun, Cheol-ho, and Park Yeon-ji found every word carrying an eerie, undeniable weight. After all, this was the very same boy who had multiplied his personal capital a thousandfold in the span of just three years.

“Grandfather, invest your personal fortune into me. Not piecemeal like before—take everything and back me completely.”

Yoongi turned his head to look at his parents.

“Father, Mother. Invest all your assets in me. Just like a single seed potato yields a vast, sprawling harvest, I’ll succeed to such a degree that neither Jeong-a nor I will ever have to squabble over money in the future.”

Choi Cheol-ho looked toward his father first, then turned his gaze to Park Yeon-ji—not with his usual rustic simplicity, but with the steadfast expression of a husband—before finally looking back at Yoongi with the eyes of a proud father.

“Just in case life throws an unexpected curveball, I’m keeping 5 percent back for Jeong-a’s sake.”

“Deal.”

Yoongi shifted his gaze to his grandfather.

Meeting his gaze, Kihyun wore a proud, tender smile at the sight of a son making his own resolute decisions for the very first time, before turning his eyes fully toward Yoongi and breaking into an even brighter grin.

“I’m investing everything. Because an old man like me has no use for money anyway.”

Standing up from his seat, Yoongi bowed deeply toward his grandfather and his parents.

“Thank you. I’ll make sure that down the road, you can proudly tell everyone, ‘I couldn’t have asked for a better grandson,’ and ‘I couldn’t have asked for a better son.'”

Amused by his grandson’s boundless self-assurance, the heavy tension finally draining out of his posture, Kihyun offered a playful, teasing remark.

“You rascal, so the only reason you stubbornly pushed ahead with the department store construction despite your obvious cash crunch was because you knew you could squeeze the capital out of us in the end?”

“I had a primary plan and a fallback plan, but this happened to be the optimal route.”

“Ho, and pray tell, what was your fallback plan?”

“Selling my preemptive purchase rights for Microsoft’s new shares to a third party. If even that fell through, I was planning to take out a massive bank loan. Wielding the backing of Samwoo Group’s eldest grandson alongside Colonel JSD’s personal leverage, securing a high-limit loan on favorable terms wouldn’t have been difficult at all.”

As Yoongi’s presentation drew to a close, Choi Cheol-min and Park Gyeong-ja had just arrived back at their abandoned residence, enveloped in an aura of complete despair.

The front gates were firmly blocked by his father’s bodyguards and secretaries.

Just outside the entrance sat a single, haphazardly packed cardboard box alongside a couple of cheap suitcases.

“What do you think you’re doing!”

Battered and covered in fresh scrapes from head to toe, Cheol-min lunged furiously at the guards blocking the gate.

Instead of yielding, however, the guards effortlessly neutralized his lunging grip, shoving him unceremoniously toward the pile of boxes.

“Ghk!”

Though the cardboard box cushioned his fall enough to prevent serious injury, a humiliated tear slipped involuntarily from Cheol-min’s eye.

“Why—why are you doing this?! This is my house!”

The senior-most bodyguard shook his head coldly.

“This morning, the Chairman issued a direct order. You are no longer an assistant manager at Samwoo Trading, nor are you the Chairman’s son. Consequently, starting today, all financial support is terminated, and we have been instructed to recover every single asset previously provided to you.”

“Insane! This is a lie! It’s all a lie!”

Screaming at the top of his lungs, Cheol-min hammered his fists against the bodyguard’s chest, even as the cold, terrifying realization settled deep in his gut that every word was absolute truth.

“Hk-hkugh… hics…”

Pathetic, unmanly tears streamed down his face.

Cheol-min had never once imagined he would actually get caught up in such a fate. When the military agents had dragged him away earlier, he had literally pissed his pants. If the interrogator hadn’t casually remarked offhand, ‘Hey, boss said not to permanently break him,’ he would have soaked his entire trousers in yellow fluid rather than just his underwear.

[To think it was a department store dedicated to the U.S. military…]

Cheol-min desperately regretted his past actions, but because his remorse was entirely self-serving and superficial, it failed to elicit even an ounce of mercy from either Yoongi or his father.

“Move! Get out of my way! Please!”

“If you continue to resist, we will have no choice but to call in the military personnel.”

Not the police—actual military thugs.

Cheol-min’s body froze stiff in an instant.

“Let’s go… We’re… completely ruined…”

At his wife Park Gyeong-ja’s defeated murmur, Cheol-min collapsed limply onto the ground.

Glancing down at her pathetic husband, Gyeong-ja let out a long, shuddering sigh and pried open the cardboard box. Inside lay no high-end designer garments, only the threadbare, cheap clothes of their past.

Flipping open one of the suitcases next, she found a single, meager savings passbook containing less than two weeks’ worth of Cheol-min’s old salary—the only thing of nominal value among a sea of worthless junk.

Drip, drip.

Tears leaked uncontrollably from Gyeong-ja’s eyes.

[I should have just kept singing… What kind of delusions of grandeur was I chasing…]

As even Gyeong-ja slumped desolately onto the pavement, their young son Choi Jeong-gi stomped his foot hard against his mother’s shin.

“Mom! I told you I’m starving!”

Shabby clothes, a passbook of pocket change, and an insolent, ill-raised son.

Roughly sixty years after history had seen her successfully swap her brother-in-law’s baby with a stranger’s, Park Gyeong-ja was finally reaping the full harvest of her sins.

The only problem was that Yoongi’s appetite for retribution was still far from satisfied.