Golden Print [EN]: Chapter 277

At first, he didn’t notice.

He was too focused on his sketch, and the golden aura was so faint.

“Hey, Woojin, want me to get you a coffee or something?”

“Is there a café around here?” Woojin asked.

“There’s one about a five-minute drive away.”

“You don’t have to bother…” Woojin replied.

“I don’t have anything to do right now anyway,” Seokhyun said.

“Well, go if you want to,” Woojin said.

“Okay.”

However, the more Woojin sketched, the more the faint golden aura, almost impossible to detect, intensified.

As time passed and Seokhyun left to buy coffee, Woojin, who had been moving his pen tirelessly, stopped.

‘Huh…? What is this…?’ he wondered.

He had discovered a subtle, golden aura rising near his pen.

“……!”

Woojin blinked and held the notebook slightly further away to get a clearer look at the golden aura.

Then, the golden aura, which had been faintly diffused and difficult to see properly, was clearly captured in Woojin’s eyes.

‘Golden Print…!’

After a long time, the Golden Print had appeared before Woojin’s eyes once more.

Upon discovering it, a flurry of complex thoughts raced through Woojin’s mind.

The first emotion that came to mind was, of course, joy. But beneath it, a ripple of worry stirred. He still didn’t fully understand this Golden Print.

‘Why has it suddenly reappeared?’

It wasn’t that he wanted to know how this unscientific phenomenon occurred.

Trying to prove something only he could see with science felt pointless.

What Woojin wanted to know was when this Golden Print appeared and how long it would stay by his side.

He wondered if it was okay to keep using this Golden Print like this. These were the questions he had.

‘I thought I wouldn’t see it again after the company building….’

So, Woojin thought about it carefully.

The Golden Print hadn’t appeared once during the various other projects he had undertaken so far. Why had it suddenly appeared in this project?

‘What’s different about this project compared to the others?’

And as a result of his contemplation…

Woojin came up with two ideas.

First, the Golden Print appears when Woojin undertakes a new project he has never experienced before.

‘If that’s the case, the frequency of the Golden Print appearing will definitely decrease over time because, as time passes, the range of project types I haven’t encountered will diminish.’

Second, the Golden Print appears when Woojin’s skills are lacking.

‘Now that I think about it, it seems like the Golden Print appeared when I was filled with a desire to learn something….’

Both ideas were believable in their own way, but they were also unclear.

Meaning, neither idea felt definitively true.

‘It feels like something’s missing.’

Maybe because he felt more relaxed than before, Woojin thought about the Golden Print, which he had encountered after a long time, for quite a while.

But then…

Scritch scritch—

The Golden Print shimmering on the notebook began to fade little by little, like morning mist in the rising sun.

“Ah, wait a moment…!”

Woojin was momentarily flustered by the disappearing Golden Print.

Woojin reflexively grabbed his pen and continued drawing what he had been drawing, and the scattering Golden Print became clear again on the notebook.

A sigh of relief escaped Woojin’s lips as he confirmed it.

“Hoo.”

Of course, he still had no idea what these golden lines meant.

But one thing he could know was…

‘First, I need to figure out what this Golden Print means… Then I can think about other things.’

The most important thing for Woojin right now was the fact that he needed to ‘think about how he could utilize this Golden Print.’

In general, private equity funds do not have a good reputation among the public. Most private equity funds prefer leveraged buyout (LBO) investments, which involve using debt to buy a company, increase its value in the short term, and then resell it. This type of investment can lead to problems if done poorly.

Since the goal is to buy and sell companies for profit, they do not operate the acquired companies from a long-term perspective.

However, not all private equity funds have such a negative image.

LTK Group, a private equity fund based in the United States, was famous in Korea for doing many large M&A deals. They were the company that acquired and revived several large Korean companies during the international financial crisis in the early 2000s. It was a company with a prime example of saving a failing company by utilizing the biggest advantage of private equity funds: having money available.

Therefore, LTK Group was able to acquire the business rights for the Magok MICE complex, even though it was a foreign private equity fund.

Of course, the biggest reason was that there were no private operators in Korea that could handle the Magok MICE complex, which cost ₩1 trillion in land alone.

Knock- knock-

The LTK Group’s Korean branch employees had been running around very busily lately. Since the headquarters had invested a very large sum of money in Korea for the first time in a while, it was a very good chance for the employees of the Korean branch to show good results.

In particular, the MICE industry, which is about big business events like meetings and conferences, is a business that can make much more money than regular tourism if you have enough capital.

For financial professionals whose salaries are determined by their abilities and performance, it was a golden opportunity to increase their value.

“Director, I brought the report here,” said Team Leader Lee.

“Good. Thank you for your hard work. Is the hotel side pretty much finished now?” Song Mina asked.

“Yes, Director. The selection of the construction company is all done, so I think the outline of the business plan will be out by the end of next month,” Team Leader Lee replied.

“Then, all that’s left is……” Song Mina said.

“The convention center,” Team Leader Lee answered.

“The most important thing is left,” Song Mina said.

MICE is a service industry that includes meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions. Therefore, MICE industrial complexes must always have these functions. The following facilities had to be built to proceed with the Magok MICE project: a four-star or higher hotel that can service more than 500 rooms, cultural assembly facilities of more than 20,000 square meters, a one-stop business center of more than 5,000 square meters, and the convention center with a floor area of more than 40,000 square meters, for which Woojin had entered the design competition.

The proportion of each field varied from industrial complex to industrial complex, but the convention center was planned to be the largest in the Magok MICE complex. Therefore, LTK Group was putting the most effort into the convention center project. This could be seen from the fact that half of the planning department staff at LTK Korea were assigned to the convention center project.

“By the way, Director,” Team Leader Lee said.

“Yes?” Song Mina responded.

“Why didn’t the headquarters hold a design competition for this design as an integrated design?” Team Leader Lee asked.

“Are you saying that it would have been better to tie the entire complex into one design?” Song Mina asked.

“Yes. I thought it would have looked better that way,” Team Leader Lee said.

In response to Team Leader Lee’s question, Song Mina smiled and answered. It was something she had also wondered about, so she had asked the headquarters about it at the beginning of the project.

“It’s not like I can know all the intentions of the headquarters… But I know that a design guide has already been presented for that reason,” Song Mina explained.

“Design… guide?” Team Leader Lee asked, tilting his head.

Song Mina continued her explanation. “You know the design company that the headquarters contacted first?”

“Yes. It was a place called ‘ALuna’…?” Team Leader Lee said.

“That’s right. It’s a world-renowned architectural design studio,” Song Mina said.

“I think I’ve heard of it,” Team Leader Lee replied.

“Actually, they were originally going to entrust the entire design to ALuna,” Song Mina said.

“Oh, really?” Team Leader Lee asked.

Song Mina nodded. “But they failed to coordinate the schedule. The design scale was large, but the schedule was tight. So, ALuna decided to only present the design guide.”

LTK is a financial group. Therefore, even if it is a mammoth company, it is difficult to have professional manpower in the field of design. Direct design was, of course, impossible, and it was not easy to judge the capabilities or design quality of the design company on its own. So, what LTK chose was to get help from ALuna, which had a global reputation in the field of architectural design. In short, they outsourced the directing of the architectural design.

After ALuna roughly set the concept and design of the entire architecture, they presented guidelines directly in the competition itself to unify the design direction.

Team Leader Lee nodded, seemingly understanding the explanation.

“So, that’s why the competition guide was so complicated?” Team Leader Lee asked.

“That’s right,” Song Mina replied.

“Then, ALuna will directly present the guide for the convention center design competition that will be opened next week?” Team Leader Lee asked.

“That’s right,” Song Mina said.

However, Team Leader Lee still had not completely resolved his doubts. He didn’t know much about design, but he had a feeling that something was wrong.

“Um, this is just my personal opinion, but……” Team Leader Lee hesitated.

“Please speak,” Song Mina encouraged.

“Will a unified design come out if you present the guide in that way?” Team Leader Lee asked.

Song Mina smiled once again at Team Leader Lee’s question. This was also one of the questions she had.

Song Mina continued her explanation. “So, after all the design plans for each sector are out, ALuna has agreed to review the design changes and design coordination one more time.”

“Ah-ha,” Team Leader Lee responded.

“It seems like they are trying to match the unity again in the end,” Song Mina said.

Team Leader Lee nodded, seemingly understanding everything now.

“Then, have a good day, Director,” Team Leader Lee said.

“Thank you for your hard work, Team Leader,” Song Mina replied.

After Team Leader Lee finished his report and left, Song Mina, who had organized the documents scattered on her desk, turned on the monitor that had been turned off. She had already checked his report documents, but there was one more thing she wanted to check.

“Shall we open it up?”

What she was trying to check was the conceptual design and bird’s-eye view of the hotel building, which had been sent to her via company email.

Of course, work related to design was not her responsibility, but as one of the main people in charge of the project, she had a pure curiosity.

So, when she opened the compressed PDF file and checked the rendering cut…

“Oh,” she exclaimed briefly.

She was ignorant of architecture, but even she thought the exterior was beautiful.

‘The office building also came out pretty. I wonder how the convention center will turn out,’ she thought.

She knew that the design of the hotel building and the design of the office building were carried out by overseas design firms. It was a private competition, but domestic design firms also participated, but all overseas studios were selected.

So, she was secretly hoping that a domestic studio would be selected for the convention center competition.

LTK Financial Group was an international company, but the business site of this MICE industrial complex was in Seoul.

‘Let’s see… The deadline for the convention center competition was in July, right?’

After checking the bird’s-eye view of the beautiful hotel building, Song Mina was even more looking forward to the exterior of the last remaining convention center.