Return To The Building Owner [EN]: Chapter 149

That evening.

Hyun-sung sat alone.

“Hoo!”

A low sigh escaped his lips, a testament to the challenging situation he had just faced.

The problem was how to cook ramen.

Shin Myung-soon had been cooking ramen for over ten years and had his own method. Hyun-sung was aware of this, so he had to be careful when expressing his opinions.

He couldn’t just force his way.

The only method Hyun-sung chose to persuade Shin Myung-soon was to cook it repeatedly. He knew that sometimes a persistent approach could work.

For Hyun-sung, the key to cooking ramen was precise timing. The 2 minutes and 30 seconds he had discovered the day before.

So, using a timer was essential.

The reason Hyun-sung focused so much on the cooking time was that he believed the soul of ramen lay in the chewiness of the noodles.

That’s why he spent so much time with Kim Il-soo the day before.

When Hyun-sung started using a timer to cook ramen, Shin Myung-soon’s first reaction was bewilderment. His eyes seemed to say, ‘Do you really need to use a timer to cook ramen?’

But Hyun-sung cooked the ramen again in the same way. Of course, Shin Myung-soon had the duty to taste it each time.

Evaluating the noodles afterward was a given.

“Hmm, the chewiness is…”

It was after he had done it more than ten times.

“Stop it. I understand what you mean. So, you’re saying that taste is important, but it’s also important to have the same taste every time? That’s why you need a timer?”

It was the moment Shin Myung-soon truly understood Hyun-sung’s thoughts.

That’s what Hyun-sung wanted to convey.

Whether he cooked it ten, a hundred, or a thousand times, the taste should not change. To do that, everything from the water used to cook the ramen to the cooking time had to be quantified, Hyun-sung argued.

Only after cooking it ten times did Shin Myung-soon accept Hyun-sung’s idea. In the end, he abandoned his ten-year-old stubbornness and accepted Hyun-sung’s method.

Hyun-sung finished with a thank you.

That’s why Hyun-sung had such a hard time today.

Looking at the clock, it was just past 7 o’clock.

Clang.

The door opened, and someone came in.

It was Park Hee-chul.

“What brings you here at this hour?”

“What brings me? I came to see you. Isn’t tomorrow the grand opening? I have somewhere to go tomorrow, so I came in advance today.”

“You’re not going to some strange business presentation again, are you?”

“Haha, this guy…”

Park Hee-chul just laughed. He remembered being scolded by Hyun-sung last time when he said he was going to a hot spring business presentation.

Then Hyun-sung looked at Park Hee-chul and asked,

“By the way, did you try the Ssin Ramen [a fictional brand of ramen]?”

“That ramen that was released today? Of course not yet…”

“Wait a moment.”

With those words, Hyun-sung headed straight to the kitchen.

He put water in an aluminum pot and placed it on the brazier. It started boiling in less than a minute. That’s how strong the heat was.

He added the ramen soup powder and the noodles, and pressed the timer at the same time.

Park Hee-chul, who had gotten up from the hall and approached the kitchen, watching Hyun-sung cook the ramen, gestured and asked,

“What’s that?”

“Oh, this? It’s a timer.”

“A timer?”

“Yes, it’s usually used to measure cooking time when making food. I’m using it for that.”

Park Hee-chul tilted his head. Ramen was something you could roughly cook until the noodles were done, so he wondered if you really needed a timer to cook it.

Then Hyun-sung came out with the ramen.

“Here you go, it’s done.”

“Already?”

“Our brazier has good heat. So, the cooking time for ramen is shorter than in a regular household.”

Park Hee-chul said he understood and took a seat.

Sniff, sniff.

Park Hee-chul wiggled his nose over the aluminum pot.

“Hmm, it smells very good.”

“Try it. Oh, and it’s much easier to eat if you use the pot lid as a plate.”

“That’s right, ramen tastes best with the pot lid. Are you going to serve regular customers in these aluminum pots too?”

“Ramen tastes best when eaten with the pot lid. So, that’s what we decided to do.”

That was the concept of the ramen shop that Hyun-sung had come up with.

In his past life, he remembered that when he cooked ramen, it was best when he ate it on the pot lid. Of course, he had also surveyed his friends, and many of them thought it was a good idea, so he did it that way.

Slurp.

Park Hee-chul started by tasting the soup with a spoon.

After tasting the soup, Park Hee-chul suddenly looked at Hyun-sung.

“The soup tastes…”

“Why? Is something wrong?”

Park Hee-chul slowly shook his head from side to side and then opened his mouth again.

“No, it’s not that something is wrong, but it’s so different from the ramen soup I’ve had until now.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s too good. Now I know why you insisted on this Ssin Ramen so much.”

Park Hee-chul nodded and began to eat the noodles. He nodded repeatedly as if he was satisfied.

Clunk.

Park Hee-chul put the aluminum pot on the table only after drinking all the last bit of soup. His face was full of a satisfied smile.

Hyun-sung, confirming that look, asked,

“Will this be good enough to do business?”

“It looks like I’ll have to hurry up and recover my cash.”

“Is it that good?”

“This is the first time in my life that I’ve had such a spicy and delicious ramen. It looks like I’ll be coming here often.”

Just by looking at his eyes, it was as if Park Hee-chul would be coming to work every day. It seemed that the spicy taste suited people’s tastes.

Then Hyun-sung asked again.

“By the way, speaking of which, how is the cash recovery going?”

“I think about 70% has been recovered, but it seems difficult to recover 100%. But I can’t force those who are having a hard time to give it up.”

Hyun-sung smiled at Park Hee-chul, who was saying that. In his past life, Park Hee-chul had even forcibly taken away other people’s calves [a Korean idiom referring to exploiting someone’s assets].

Now that he was talking about other people’s circumstances, Hyun-sung couldn’t help but laugh.

Then Park Hee-chul continued.

“I have something I want to ask too…”

“To me?”

“Yes, do you have any places to invest?”

Park Hee-chul asked that, but he felt awkward in this situation. The very idea of betting his entire fortune on a child was something he couldn’t understand in his head.

But when you think about it, what isn’t incomprehensible?

First of all, the very fact that he was in this place didn’t make sense. If he hadn’t gotten off the bus at that moment and had gone on the tour, he would no longer be alive.

In fact, it didn’t make sense to doubt Hyun-sung now.

This wasn’t a matter of understanding.

No more…

Park Hee-chul shook his head from side to side for a moment.

Then Hyun-sung answered.

“You’re curious about the investment destination now, right?”

“Honestly, even if I trust you, I’m still curious.”

That would be the case.

He didn’t know how much money it would be, but he said he would bet his entire fortune. In that situation, curiosity about the investment destination was natural.

Moreover, wasn’t the other party a young student?

Hyun-sung looked at Park Hee-chul and opened his mouth.

“I’ll tell you the details later when the cash is fully secured, but for now, I’ll just tell you in advance that it’s land.”

The place Hyun-sung is thinking of now is Ilsan, one of the first-generation new cities [planned residential areas built to alleviate housing shortages in major cities].

In the mid-1980s, many people flocked to the housing market due to the triple low phenomenon of low oil prices, low exchange rates, and low interest rates, as well as the economic boom caused by the anticipation of the ’86 Seoul Asian Games’ and the ’88 Seoul Olympics’.

Even companies were no exception.

As a result, real estate prices began to skyrocket not only in Seoul but also in the metropolitan area.

As professional speculative forces, known as ‘Bokbuin [wealthy women known for real estate speculation],’ joined the soaring real estate prices, the government had no choice but to step in.

The government began to prepare countermeasures and eventually announced the construction of new cities.

One of them is Ilsan.

So why Ilsan specifically?

It’s because of Hyun-sung’s military life.

In March 1991, Hyun-sung’s rank was a sergeant.

Hyun-sung served in Paju Beopwon-ri. It was the 6233 Tank Unit belonging to the 2nd Armored Brigade. When he first saw the tanks he had only seen in movies, he was amazed.

There, Hyun-sung was a driver.

The military is a place that can’t stand to see people doing nothing. They even create work that doesn’t exist. So much so that they create something from nothing.

It was the last day of February.

An urgent message from the brigade was sent to each battalion.

[Combat – Spring Fortification Construction]

The word ‘combat’ was attached to the front. The force felt different just by looking at it.

The content was not a repair at the level of what they did every year, but a complete rebuilding of the fortifications. With used tires. The reason was that it would cause the least damage in case of emergency.

This was all because of Saddam Hussein.

At 0:50 a.m. on January 17, 1991. On a dark night with no moon, F15E bombers that took off from the US Air Force base in Saudi Arabia rushed to Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.

The operation was called ‘Desert Storm,’ the beginning of the Gulf War.

During the four hours after the outbreak of the war, a whopping 18,000 tons of bombs were poured into Baghdad.

After that, the multinational forces, which had seized air supremacy, carried out an average of 2,000 massive carpet bombings a day on Iraq and Kuwait.

But the problem was the scale of the damage.

The figures announced by the multinational forces and the scale of the damage released by the Iraqi side were different. The reason was in an unexpected place.

It was because of the model tanks and the sturdy fortifications made of used tires.

Hussein had created and installed numerous model tanks inside the fortifications.

As a result, the number of tanks actually damaged was significantly different from the number announced by the multinational forces.

But what good would that do?

It was a drop in the bucket. It was a war that couldn’t be won from the start.

The Gulf War ended in a unilateral victory for the multinational forces 43 days after the outbreak of the war. It was a multinational force in name only, but it was ultimately a victory for the United States.

With this war, the United States showed off its power as the world’s only superpower and firmly established its position in the Middle East.

Perhaps the United States had a different purpose.

The Gulf War was a signal flare announcing the opening of the ‘digital war.’ The latest weapons that demonstrated their power during the Gulf War more than proved that it was possible to wage war as if playing an ‘electronic game.’

This was evident even when comparing the number of deaths on both sides.

The number of US military deaths was 141, but the number of Iraqi deaths was estimated to be over 150,000.

As a result, the share of the world’s arms export market occupied by the United States rose vertically from 42% in 1990 to 53% in 1991 and 60% in 1992.

In other words, the Gulf War became a ‘goose that lays golden eggs’ for the US military industry, which is a key industry.

Anyway, what is realistically important was the analysis of the Korean military. Hussein lost the war, of course, but there were strategic lessons to be learned.

That was the construction of fortifications using model tanks and used tires.

It was called ‘Catching Up with Hussein.’

Thinking about it now, it just makes me laugh.

But at that time, it was like a war.

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