Golden Print [EN]: Chapter 59

Woojin slept in for the first time in a while.

He had been working hard for a month, so he made sure to have no work today.

He had no work plans, but he still had things to do.

He felt a little sad. Even his day off was with the same people from work.

[Woojin! Are you ready yet?]

“Yeah, just brushing my teeth and I’ll be out.”

[What, we’re already here! Why are you so lazy, Woojin!]

“Jayden, I’ll say it again, there are still 20 minutes left until the agreed time.”

[That doesn’t matter. What matters is that Jayden is already here…]

Woojin quickly hung up on Jayden and brushed his teeth carefully.

Then, after slowly getting dressed, he walked down to the front of his house.

Jayden’s car was already waiting there.

Opening the back door and getting into the car, Woojin shook his head.

“Seokhyun, why is Jayden here?”

“He offered us a ride, there’s no reason not to bring him, right?”

“That’s right, Woojin. Today is a day when we definitely need Jayden.”

Woojin sighed. Seokhyun and Jayden were already working together against him.

The two were having so much fun that they didn’t even pay attention to Woojin. They started heading somewhere, talking loudly and excitedly.

Jayden wasn’t great with directions and got a little lost leaving Gaepo-dong before finding Yeongdong-daero.

They drove to Samsung-dong and Cheongdam-dong.

Woojin watched them quietly, looking confused.

“Hey, you guys. Shouldn’t you at least ask where we’re going before we leave?”

“Destination? We already know that.”

Seeing Seokhyun answer as if it were obvious, Woojin asked quickly.

“What?”

Jayden answered instead of him.

“First, Audi,” Jayden said. “Then BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar. We’ll get a Porsche in the end, but we should look at the others first, right?”

“Right, Seokhyun?”

“Of course, Jayden. It seems like a perfect plan.”

“Haa……”

Woojin had asked Seokhyun to come car shopping today. WJ Studio was getting bigger, and they needed a company car. Public transport was becoming too slow. Woojin didn’t care much about cars, but Seokhyun loved them. Woojin needed Seokhyun’s help to find a ‘good enough’ car. Jayden being here was a surprise.

“Seokhyun.”

“Yeah?”

“I clearly said that I’m going to buy a moderately decent car, okay?”

Seokhyun nodded and replied.

“Right. If it’s a German car like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, it’s definitely a moderately decent car. You can trust me.”

Woojin felt like he was sighing a lot today.

“Of course, it would be decent. The problem is that it’s not moderate. I don’t have enough funds to buy such an expensive foreign car.”

Jayden chimed in.

“What? Woojin! I heard you make tens of millions of won a month!”

“Who?”

“Seokhyun said so. He said WJ Studio’s sales are no joke.”

“That’s sales, not net profit, Jayden.”

“Still! A CEO should drive at least a Porsche!”

“Not even a Mercedes-Benz, but a Porsche?”

“Let’s skip the Mercedes-Benz dealership, Seokhyun. Now that I think about it, Mercedes-Benz was the car my dad abandoned in Korea.”

“Can’t you guys just go home? I’ll just buy a car myself. I think I can just search for a cheap and practical Korean car and buy it.”

“We can’t do that.”

“That’s right. Seokhyun even skipped class today to come.”

Woojin stared at Seokhyun with a confused expression.

“You lied! You said you had no class!”

“I did! But then I skipped it to come with you.”

“Seriously? You guys are like a lie.”

Woojin tried hard to convince them that he had no intention of buying a foreign car anyway, but that didn’t work on the two who were already excited.

So, in the end, Woojin had no choice but to be dragged around the foreign car dealerships by Seokhyun, who wanted to at least look around.

Because Jayden arrived in a Mercedes, the salespeople at the dealership paid them a lot of attention.

“So, the new convertible that came out this time has quite good performance for the price.”

“What’s a convertible, Seokhyun?”

“The one with the roof that opens.”

“A convertible car?”

“That’s right.”

“Then two doors?”

“Yes, usually.”

“I’m not buying it.”

“Ah, why! At least look around!”

Woojin kept saying no, but Seokhyun and Jayden were still having fun.

“Then, how about this one? It’s a sporty 4-door car, and it’s on sale right now.”

The dealer asked Woojin, but Seokhyun answered.

“Wow, how much of a discount is there?”

“If you include the dealer discount, it’s about thirteen million.”

Woojin was briefly tempted by the fact that he could get a discount of 13 million, but the moment he heard that the discounted price was 70 million, he immediately lost interest.

‘Why spend 70 million won to buy a car? I’d rather buy a house with that money.’

For Woojin now, a car was just a way to get around.

“Hmm. So, what’s the fuel efficiency?”

“Since it’s a turbo engine, the fuel efficiency isn’t very good……”

“Hey, why are you even asking about fuel efficiency when buying a car like this!”

“So, what’s the fuel efficiency?”

“The fuel efficiency is……?”

And in the end, Seokhyun and Jayden got really annoyed at the way Woojin was acting.

“Bloody Hell!”

“You crazy fuel efficiency freak!”

“What’s a fuel efficiency freak, Seokhyun?”

“It means a bug that only cares about fuel efficiency.”

“That’s completely Woojin himself.”

“Hoo…….”

“If someone should study Woojin like an insect!”

“Agreed.”

Of course, Woojin didn’t even care what they said.

“Quiet. That’s why I said let’s go see domestic cars from the beginning.”

Woo-jin walked into a domestic car showroom at the end of Yeongdong-daero.

There, he signed a contract for a mid-size car without hesitating.

“Are you sure about this car, Woo-jin?” Jayden asked, looking sad.

Seok-hyun nodded. “Yeah, we thought you’d get something cooler.”

Woo-jin grinned at his friends’ gloomy faces. “A car just needs to get you where you need to go, right?”

Seok-hyun sighed loudly. “I can’t believe you care more about saving money than getting a good car!”

Jayden shook his head. “It’s like you don’t even care about how powerful the engine is.”

Seok-hyun and Jayden grumbled as Woo-jin happily finished the car contract, humming as he left the showroom, thinking, ‘Hehe, finally free from being a pedestrian!’

The truth was, Woo-jin didn’t dislike foreign cars. Honestly, some of the beautifully designed models were quite appealing.

He did like some foreign cars, with their fancy designs. But now wasn’t the time. He needed to save money. He still dreamed of buying a better house for his mother. A fancy foreign car would have to wait.

On the way back, Woo-jin glanced at the two grumbling in the car and said with a smile, “Hey, but why are you two so worked up about me buying a car?”

At Woo-jin’s words, Seok-hyun protested, “Hey! Remember, this is the company car! It’s being bought with company money!”

Jayden chimed in. “Yeah, don’t go thinking it’s all yours, Woo-jin.”

Woo-jin raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Were you two planning on borrowing *my* company car?”

“……!”

“W-Well, that’s!”

Seeing the two looking flustered after being caught red-handed, Woo-jin smiled and spoke again, “Just wait a year, Seok-hyun.”

“A… year?”

“If sales increase tenfold in a year, then I’ll lease a really nice car for the company.”

Seok-hyun was briefly excited by Woo-jin’s words, but then sighed deeply at the mention of tenfold sales from the current revenue.

Seok-hyun sighed. He thought Woo-jin was just making up a crazy goal to avoid buying a nice car. *Ten times more sales? Impossible!* But Woo-jin wasn’t joking. In fact, he thought ten times more sales was actually a small goal for the next year.

Just as Woo-jin was thinking that, his phone suddenly started ringing.

Whirr!

After checking the caller’s number, Woo-jin answered the phone with a slightly puzzled expression.

Woo-jin was exhausted. All he wanted was to go home and sleep. But on the way, his phone rang. It was an urgent call from Jeong-hoon, the employee at the workshop. Woo-jin sighed and told Jayden to turn the car around. He had to go to WJ Studio.

Arriving at the workshop, Woo-jin asked the waiting employee, “Jeong-hoon, please tell me in detail. Who came by?”

Lim Jeong-hoon was an employee Seok-hyun had brought in, who had started working at WJ Studio’s workshop last month.

“Well, they definitely said they were from Myungseong Construction.”

“Myungseong Construction?”

“That’s right,” Jeong-hoon said. “They said they wanted to ask us for some work.”

“Work?” Woo-jin repeated.

“Yes. I told them they needed to talk to you first, but they just came right in.”

“Is that so?”

“They asked to see the workshop, saying they might commission a fairly large project.”

Listening to Jeong-hoon’s words, Woo-jin began to think. Myungseong Construction coming directly to the workshop wasn’t an entirely impossible scenario.

‘We don’t have a separate website, and we haven’t publicly established any clients… If someone wants to place an order from outside, they have to come here.’

WJ Studio was doing well. They usually got work from companies they already knew. They were so busy, they didn’t need to look for new clients. Most of their work came from Cheonwoong Construction. Mr. Park Kyung-wan from Cheonwoong had even asked them not to work for Cheonwoong’s rivals if possible.

But even so, WJ Studio’s models were slowly becoming famous in the industry.

So Woo-jin knew that other construction companies were starting to look for WJ Studio as well.

‘Myungseong… Myungseong… Did they really come to request work? Why do I keep feeling uneasy?’

Woo-jin started asking Jeong-hoon about this and that again. He had no intention of taking on Myungseong Construction’s work right away anyway, but he felt unsettled.

“Jeong-hoon, what did those people do after they came in?”

Jeong-hoon replied casually, “They just looked around the workshop, as they said.”

“Did they just look around for a bit and leave?”

“Um… not really. I think they were there for almost 20 minutes.”

“……?”

Woo-jin looked puzzled again.

They might come in briefly to see the workshop equipment or facilities of a model company, but seeing those things would only take about 5 minutes. And staying in a working office for that long was also impolite.

‘What are these guys up to? There’s definitely something going on…….’

Just as Woo-jin was pondering that, Jeong-hoon suddenly seemed to remember something and spoke to Woo-jin again.

“Ah, and CEO.”

“Yes?”

“One of the people who came went into the room where you work and took some pictures.”

“Pictures?”

“Yes. I didn’t think anything of it earlier, but now that I think about it, it’s a bit strange.”

“……!”

Hearing Jeong-hoon’s words, Woo-jin had a look of realization and immediately went into his workshop.

And the next moment.

A low laugh escaped from Woo-jin’s lips.

“Haha.”

Suddenly, Woo-jin understood. The uneasy feeling vanished, replaced by a cold anger. He rushed into his workshop. His eyes scanned the room, landing on the half-finished model for the SPDC competition, still sitting on his desk. *Pictures.* They took pictures of *that*. A low growl escaped his throat. “Kim Ki-tae,” he muttered. “I know it’s you.” His face hardened. “I need to find out what he’s planning.”