Mining And Construction Tycoon [EN]: Chapter 2

Mining Tycoon and Construction Conglomerate – Episode 2 (2/230)

2. The Meaning of 100,000 Won (1)

I was dazed for a long time after leaving the shaman’s house.

My head was a mess.

‘Where am I? Why do I feel like this? What was that shaman’s house all about?’

I couldn’t tell if it was a dream or reality.

‘The afterlife is just as realistic as this world.’

Maybe it’s because it’s my first time dying.

It was fascinating.

Someone put their arm around my shoulder.

“Tae-soo, you look terrible. Is it because of what the shaman said?”

“Slimy.”

He was so skinny that we called him Slimy.

A childhood friend who had seen it all with me.

He loved alcohol, loved people, and had a generous heart.

I was glad to see him smiling his usual goofy smile.

‘Has it been 20 years, or 30? He died, and I was so empty that I just threw myself into work.’

Seeing him again made my heart ache.

Han Il-kwon’s voice, saying that Tae-soo was the reason for his death, seemed to echo again.

“I’m sorry, Slimy.”

“Why are you being so sappy all of a sudden?”

“I took it for granted that you were always by my side.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your absence was too great. After you left, I quit drinking. Every time I saw alcohol, I thought of you and couldn’t drink it.”

Thwack!

Slimy smacked Tae-soo on the head hard.

It was rare for the good-natured Slimy to look so angry.

It was because there were words mixed in that were hard for Slimy, who loved alcohol so much, to accept.

“What? You quit drinking? Oh my god, this guy is really crazy.”

“Still, thank you. For coming to the afterlife to find me as a friend…”

“The afterlife, my ass.”

Thwack.

Slimy hit Tae-soo on the head again.

His eyes were full of bewilderment, embarrassment, and disbelief.

Slimy leaned in and sniffed, smelling him.

Then he grabbed his nose and recoiled.

“Ugh- the smell! Ugh, it’s awful.”

“Smell?”

Tae-soo also sniffed his nose in confusion.

There was a smell.

A terribly foul smell.

This smell, the opposite of money, was definitely,

“The smell of a pauper…”

He looked at the clothes he was wearing.

Old and shabby.

With worn-out socks and rubber shoes.

The only money left in his pocket was 400 won [Korean currency, roughly equivalent to a few cents today].

“No wonder the smell of poverty is so strong.”

Thwack.

His head throbbed again.

“What nonsense are you talking about? Your breath stinks because of all the booze you drank all night.”

“Booze? I drank yesterday?”

Slimy clicked his tongue with a look of pity.

“Oh my, spouting nonsense after drinking expensive liquor. I’m so ashamed, I can’t live. A disgrace to all drinkers!”

Tae-soo was dumbfounded.

He was in the VIP room of Cheongil Hospital before he died, what booze?

Could it be.

“Did someone sprinkle alcohol on my grave? Is that how they drink in the afterlife…”

Thwack!

“You keep saying afterlife, afterlife, it’s bad luck! Do you really want to go to the afterlife by my hand?”

“Slimy.”

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s making my stomach churn.”

“You’re still the same, even after death.”

“Let’s just do it with getting beaten to death. That’ll be the fastest way.”

Thwack.

“Yeah, hit me. I deserve to be hit. I’m really sorry, Slimy.”

“…”

Slimy lowered his fist, which he had playfully raised.

His eyes were filled with concern for Tae-soo.

“I don’t think this is good. Let’s rest in the shade over there. Tae-soo, you’re really strange today.”

Slimy dragged Tae-soo and forced him to sit in the shade.

Then he went into a local corner store and bought a bottle of milk.

“Drink this. Let’s sober up.”

“It’s been a while, milk in a bottle.”

“Then would they sell milk in a bottle, or in a kettle?”

Tae-soo looked around.

It was different from the bustling streets of Seoul in 2020.

Dirt roads, scattered rice paddies and thatched houses, and the occasional old-fashioned cars and buses.

The clothes people were wearing were outdated, and the rows of one-story shops were crude.

It was just like the poor days in his memory.

“It’s still the same here.”

Looking at it like this, he slowly started to remember.

When he was young, he and Slimy drank all night and went to see a famous shaman nearby.

Because life was so frustrating.

He had heard the same thing from the shaman back then. To do a business that involves touching dirt.

“That was probably… around July? It was really hot.”

As Tae-soo muttered, Slimy, who was drinking milk next to him, said.

“Today? It’s July 17th.”

“Huh? Maybe… 1972?”

“Then it’s 1972, what else would it be. Why is he really like this.”

At those words, Tae-soo felt like he had been hit in the head with a hammer.

It was a day he didn’t even remember properly.

Even if it’s the afterlife, is there a reason to show me this day?

It’s not a particularly special day.

Could this be…

Did I really go back to the past?

There’s no way that could happen.

“I’m going crazy.”

Tae-soo had to flounder in a state of mental breakdown for a long time.

* * *

It’s definitely not the afterlife.

“It’s too vivid to be a dream, and too unbelievable to be reality.”

It felt like he was possessed by a ghost.

“Monday, July 17, 1972.”

Tae-soo couldn’t believe it.

But no matter how many times he asked people, the result was the same.

Eventually, Tae-soo admitted it.

“I’ve gone back to the past…”

How could this happen?

“Is there really a god, giving me another chance?”

A chance to get revenge on Han Il-kwon’s family!

There’s no other explanation.

As he walked, he saw a familiar shanty house.

“It’s my house.”

It was the shanty house in the slum where he lived with his family before it was torn down.

It was just like he remembered, and he felt a lump in his throat.

‘When was it that this place was torn down and apartments were built? That’s why we ended up on the streets.’

He remembered that’s when the misfortune started.

Was it around this time?

‘We moved from one rented room to another, and loan sharks harassed us. Thanks to that, we ran away in the middle of the night like it was a daily routine.’

No matter how much he earned, the debt from loan sharks snowballed.

He paid it off and paid it off again, but it never ended, and eventually his father was dragged away by loan sharks.

After that, his father was found dead in a mountain.

‘I have to stop it! This time, I won’t let my father die so miserably.’

Then the front door burst open.

It was his mother.

Tae-soo met his mother for the first time in 40 years.

“Tae-soo, why are you here at this hour?”

“Mother…!”

Tae-soo ran and hugged his mother tightly.

He smelled the familiar scent from his mother.

A cozy scent that always warmed Tae-soo’s heart.

“Why is he being so sudden?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so useless that I only made my mother suffer… I couldn’t even give you a proper comfortable life.”

Pat, pat.

His mother had a look of bewilderment on her face.

But soon, as if she felt something, she quietly patted Tae-soo on the back.

Tae-soo barely swallowed the tears that were welling up.

‘I’ll protect you this time. I’ll give you a comfortable life.’

Tae-soo clenched his fists tightly.

As Tae-soo calmed down and stepped back, his mother said urgently.

“Tae-soo, this is not the time for this. What are we going to do about this? Our family is going to end up on the streets.”

“It’s already being torn down? I thought there was some time left before our house was demolished.”

“We have to leave within two weeks. But you lent all the compensation money to your father’s friend.”

He remembered.

The reason why his father got involved with loan sharks.

It was because he was tied to a friend who used loan sharks as a joint guarantor.

That friend ran away in the middle of the night, and his father took the blame for the debt.

‘Oh Chun-sik.’

He couldn’t forget that name.

The ungrateful bastard who pushed us into the mouths of loan sharks and made his own family live in luxury.

‘The one who should be dragged away by loan sharks is you.’

There is a promissory note written between his father and Oh Chun-sik.

That problematic promissory note that the loan sharks used to bind us.

‘Yes, that promissory note is where the misfortune started.’

A promissory note with his father’s thumbprint and the words ‘joint guarantee responsibility’ clearly stamped on it.

In his past life, he didn’t even get to see it properly and it was taken away by the loan sharks.

First, he had to find that document.

“Mother, do you know where my father’s promissory note is?”

“Promissory note?”

“There must be something that was given and received when you borrowed money.”

“Ah! That.”

His mother took something out of her arms.

Tae-soo snatched the promissory note from his mother’s hand and began to read it.

“You lent all the compensation money for our house demolition to your friend.”

The amount written on the promissory note was,

“100,000 won.”

Even if the price of goods in the 1970s was about 1/30th of what it is in 2020, 100,000 won is the equivalent of a company employee’s salary for one or two months.

It was an absurdly low compensation compared to the demolition of the house.

But considering it was an illegal shanty house, even this was a blessing.

“He’s been friends with your father for 40 years. He said he was buying a mine and had taken out bank loans, *kye* money [a Korean rotating credit association], and even loan shark money.”

“I see. …Hmm?”

Then Tae-soo, who was reading the promissory note, narrowed his eyes.

“What the hell is this?”

He read it again and again.

No matter how much he rubbed his eyes, it was the same.

A ridiculous fraudulent contract in which he takes on joint guarantee responsibility even after lending money.

‘So that’s why the loan sharks didn’t show me the promissory note properly.’

The loan sharks always showed him only things like his father’s and friend’s thumbprints and the joint guarantee responsibility clause.

Tae-soo crumpled the promissory note in his hand.

“Oh Chun-sik, you son of a bitch!”

As the atmosphere turned gloomy, worry crept onto his mother’s face.

“What’s wrong? The number 100,000 won is definitely right, and your father said he saw him put his thumbprint on it himself.”

Even after seeing this, you don’t know what’s wrong?

“I’m illiterate. So is your father.”

‘Ah, that’s right.’

His parents didn’t know how to read.

It was because they didn’t get a proper education due to the Japanese colonial era and the Korean War.

“Then who wrote this?”

“Of course, your father’s friend wrote it.”

This promissory note was covered in Chinese characters.

He probably did it on purpose to make it difficult to understand.

His father probably just believed it because the numbers were roughly right and his friend put his thumbprint on it himself.

“He said he would give a lot of interest? Your father was smiling happily, saying that a 40-year friend is different after all.”

40-year friend, my ass!

‘He’s scamming his friend by taking advantage of the fact that he’s illiterate? Even a friend who lent him money when he was in trouble?’

Han Il-kwon’s face, reciting how he killed Tae-soo’s family while mentioning the word friend, came to his mind.

He couldn’t stand it.

“Where is it?”

“Where? What are you talking about?”

“Oh Chun-sik’s house.”

He had to solve it before the debt was passed on to his father.

Suddenly, his mother grabbed Tae-soo’s arm with an anxious look on her face.

“No, don’t go, Tae-soo. I don’t want you to go to jail for making him half a cripple, even if I die.”

“I won’t make him half a cripple.”

“You have a look in your eyes like you’re going to kill someone right now!”

“I promise. I really do.”

But his mother had a look on her face like she was about to cry.

Tae-soo, who had composed himself, tried to smile to reassure his mother.

“I have something to give to Mother.”

“Huh?”

Tae-soo rummaged through the storage room and took out a small box that he had hidden.

“I won’t let my family end up on the streets, I promise.”

“Tae-soo?”

He took out the emergency funds he had collected.

He emptied out all the coins and put them in his mother’s skirt.

“It’s about 100,000 won.”

“What money do you have…”

“I saved it little by little.”

The money that Tae-soo had saved little by little.

This was the seed money for his marriage.

“You’ll be able to get a monthly rental house with that.”

The weight of the money wrapped around her skirt was heavy.

His mother wrapped her skirt tightly without saying a word.

“Thank you, Tae-soo.”

“There’s no need to thank me. Just watch. From now on, I’ll give you a hundred times, a thousand times more money every day.”

Tae-soo vowed to himself.

‘Instead of growing someone else’s company, I’ll grow my own company, and instead of making someone else’s family live in luxury, I’ll make my own family live in luxury.’

When he was young, Tae-soo lived comfortably like a rascal.

After quitting school early due to his family situation, he was always busy hanging out with his friends.

He used his special ability to smell money only for trivial things such as gambling, bars, and betting.

‘Because I thought my parents would live with me for ten thousand years [a Korean expression for eternity].’

If he had known that they would pass away in just a few years, he wouldn’t have lived like that.

He never gave them a proper comfortable life.

This life will be different.

“When I make money, I’ll build you a nice house. There will be no more ending up on the streets, crying because you’re sad about living in someone else’s house, or running away in the middle of the night.”

“Tae-soo.”

“I’ll build you a sturdy apartment that’s several times bigger than this shanty house and can withstand wind and rain.”

Gangnam.

A land that is now undeveloped and abandoned.

He will build an apartment there.

That golden land that will make Cheongil Group a *chaebol* [a large South Korean business conglomerate controlled by a family] in the near future.

He will plant his flag there first.

“Apartment?”

“Yes, the strongest and tallest apartment in Korea. A rich apartment with an elevator.”

He held his mother’s hand tightly.

Torn, blistered, and rough.

It was because she was doing odd jobs at the soup restaurant in front.

His mother stared silently at his hand.

She was ashamed of her hand, which looked particularly rough today.

Bang.

Tae-soo’s younger brother, Kang Han-soo, opened the door.

‘You haven’t changed, you rascal.’

Tae-soo was really happy to see his younger brother for the first time in decades.

So much so that he wanted to go and hug him right away.

But there was something more urgent to do now.

Tae-soo quickly put on his shoes.

“You came at the right time. Lead the way.”

“What?”

“You know where Father is, don’t you?”

Tae-soo grabbed Han-soo’s arm and dragged him.

He whispered softly so that his mother couldn’t hear.

“Let’s go get that son of a bitch, Oh Chun-sik.”

It’s because I don’t know where that bastard’s house is.