Return To The Building Owner [EN]: Chapter 499

Yeongdong Expressway.

It was just past Singal.

-If I were the sky, I would want to be dyed on your face~~~ Like the red sunset glow, I want to be dyed on your cheeks~~~-

The radio played Ahn Chi-hwan’s song ‘If I Were’. It was the most popular song at the time.

Hyeonseong, who was humming along without realizing it, suddenly looked at his watch. The time was just past 11:30.

Swish.

As he lowered the window, a cool breeze brushed his face. The passing breeze made him realize that spring was already near.

Today is April 1st, and in just ten more days, the cherry blossoms will start to bloom in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province. When that happens, customers will flock back again.

In any case, the restaurant will be able to maintain itself without him. After all, the entire system is perfectly set up.

And if anything happens, he will be contacted immediately and can go down to resolve it.

In the end, there’s not much to worry about regarding the rural restaurant.

From now on, he should forget about the rural restaurant for a while and focus on his life in Incheon.

After all, he is making a fresh start with a new goal.

First of all, the most important thing today is to sign the video rental store contract. That’s the only way he can meet his wife, Yoon Ji-soo.

He is starting the video rental store for a completely different reason than in his past life.

The reason he started the video rental store in his past life was to study more.

He graduated from college and studied for three more years, but ultimately failed the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam that he was aiming for.

So, after much deliberation, the business he chose was the video rental store. He thought he could study more while running the business.

That’s how easily he looked at the video rental store.

But the reality was different.

The video rental store was not as easy as it looked from the outside.

He only realized later that it was all his delusion, but by then it was already too late.

In the end, he had no choice but to give up studying.

The video rental store that he started that way ended up becoming a lifelong job.

Of course, the rental items later changed from videos to books due to changes in the times, and eventually the business was changed to a manga cafe, but the initial start was a video rental store.

In any case, the important fact is that he met his wife, Yoon Ji-soo, while running the video rental store in his past life.

As owner and customer.

So, Hyeonseong is now going to sign the contract for that video rental store from his past life again.

Vroom!

Hyeonseong stepped hard on the accelerator towards Incheon.

Until now, he had been running for his family and village. As a result, he achieved everything to a satisfactory level.

At the same time, he also gained economic wealth.

From now on, he will run towards his next goal.

The first is to meet his wife, and the next is to build a decent building.

HS Building.

He will build a building with his initials.

The day he achieves that dream he had from the beginning, that’s when he will become a proper landlord.

“Let’s go!”

Hyeonseong put strength into both hands holding the steering wheel.

***

How much time had passed?

Hyeonseong arrived in front of a shopping district in Bupyeong, Incheon.

[Video World]

This is the video rental store he first visited after seeing an advertisement in his past life.

It was the very store he signed a contract for, fooled by the words that the business was doing well but they were selling it cheaply due to personal circumstances. Of course, he didn’t know it was a lie back then. Because he had no social experience, he believed the other person’s words as they were.

He only found out later that it was a trick to pass on the store.

Back then, not many places used computer programs. Except for large stores, most of them wrote rental records in notebooks.

But he inflated the rental records themselves. He created a fake ledger to deceive about the sales and passed on the store.

In the end, he committed fraud.

He only found out later that the sales were fake. But by then, a lot of time had already passed.

In the end, the damage was Hyeonseong’s, who had no experience in the world.

“Hehe!”

A smile spread across Hyeonseong’s face.

He was taken advantage of back then because he didn’t know anything, but now he couldn’t help but smile at the thought that it wouldn’t happen again.

“Welcome.”

As Hyeonseong opened the store door and entered, the owner who was sitting down immediately greeted him.

Lee Seong-soo.

It was a very distant memory, but the moment he saw his face, his name came to mind right away. That’s how deep the pain of being scammed back then was.

Hyeonseong got straight to the point.

“I came after seeing the advertisement.”

“The advertisement?”

“Yes, that you’re putting the store up for sale…….”

“Ah, yes.”

Only then did Lee Seong-soo’s eyes change as he looked at Hyeonseong as if he understood. Perhaps at first, he thought he was just a customer coming to rent a video.

Perhaps that’s why Lee Seong-soo’s voice tone went up.

“First of all, please sit this way!”

As Hyeonseong sat down on the chair, Lee Seong-soo turned on the coffee pot and continued to speak.

“You seem quite young, what made you think of running a video rental store?”

“That’s…….”

Chuckling.

Hyeonseong was about to answer but just laughed lightly.

He had asked the same question before. Back then, he told everything honestly as it was. He said he wanted to run a video rental store to study more.

Then his answer was also a sight to behold. He said there was no better business to study than this. He said it was perfect for studying during times when there were no customers.

He believed those words back then.

In a way, he was so naive that he couldn’t help but laugh when he thought about it.

Hyeonseong opened his mouth again.

“Just because.”

He didn’t want to say anything else. He knew very well that the current conversation was meaningless anyway.

No matter what he said, the other person would sugarcoat it.

Just like in his past life.

Lee Seong-soo tilted his head and asked immediately.

“Just because? What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yes? No, what…….”

Lee Seong-soo’s expression seemed to be distorted as if he was annoyed this time.

Hyeonseong smiled as he looked at him. Of course, inwardly so that it wouldn’t show on the outside. He wanted to take revenge for what happened in his past life, even if only in that way.

On the other hand, Lee Seong-soo, who had no way of knowing that Hyeonseong was doing it on purpose, was simply dumbfounded.

When he first heard that he came after seeing the advertisement, he simply thought that he had just moved in.

But that wasn’t the case, and he immediately changed his tone when he said he came after seeing the advertisement. He had to pass on the store no matter what.

But the problem was his tone.

He asked a question, and all he said was ‘just because’.

He doesn’t even look thirty, but his attitude is…….

But what does it matter? All he has to do is pass on this store.

Lee Seong-soo, who had sorted out his thoughts, continued to speak.

“Haha, yes, good. Then let’s get straight to the point. Well, before that, would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, I’m sorry, but I haven’t had lunch yet…….”

“Ah, is that so?”

At this point, it’s basic to at least order *jajangmyeon* [Korean-Chinese noodle dish with black bean sauce]. But Lee Seong-soo had no intention of doing so, and after pouring water from the coffee pot into his coffee cup, he continued to speak.

“Then let’s get straight to the point. You know the amount from the advertisement…….”

“Wait a minute.”

Hyeonseong first interrupted Lee Seong-soo. Then he immediately continued to speak.

“Are you perhaps trying to get that full amount?”

The amount Lee Seong-soo put out in the advertisement was 25 million won. He only found out later that 10 million won was inflated in that amount. Of course, he had already been creating fake ledgers for three months to do so.

“Are you saying that amount is too much?”

“It’s not that the amount is too much, but that I need to check if the amount is appropriate.”

“Check…….”

Hyeonseong didn’t miss the slight movement of one corner of Lee Seong-soo’s mouth. That meant he was already prepared.

There are several conditions for determining the sale price. Among them, the most important are two things. The amount of videos held and sales.

The amount of videos held is not simply that the more there are, the higher the price. The important thing is assortment. How evenly it is equipped by genre. But in his past life, he naturally had no way of knowing that standard.

As a result, he just thought that because there were many videos, they were all worth money. But about a year later, he realized that half of them were trash.

The same goes for sales. He naturally thought that the sales in the ledger were the actual sales. He never even thought that he would deceive about that.

But he had already been filling the number of videos and increasing sales to create a ledger for three months before putting the store up for sale.

Slurp.

Lee Seong-soo, who took a sip of coffee, looked at Hyeonseong with a relaxed expression and said.

“Of course, you have to check. This store may not be big, but it’s a triple-decker, so it holds over ten thousand videos. And as you can see here, the sales are…….”

Lee Seong-soo’s prepared comments began to flow smoothly.

It wasn’t new to him because he had heard it all in his past life.

When his explanation was over, Hyeonseong got up from his seat and began to check the videos. No, he’s not actually checking, but pretending to do so.

After all, he already knew the number and assortment status from his past life.

After a while.

Hyeonseong, who walked up to Lee Seong-soo, immediately opened his mouth.

“It’s a little less than twelve thousand?””Huh? Have you already counted them all?”

Lee Seong-soo couldn’t help but be surprised. That’s because the time Hyeonseong spent counting the number of videos was less than 5 minutes. No matter how skilled he is, it takes at least 10 minutes to count this amount of videos.

But how……?

Lee Seong-soo looked at Hyeonseong and asked again.

“Have you ever run a rental store before?”

“No, this is my first time with videos.”

“No, but how so quickly…….”

“There are too many videos to throw away?”

Hyeonseong continued to speak again before Lee Seong-soo could finish speaking.

That was the assortment status of the videos.

Actually, he wanted to say ‘trash’. But he couldn’t bring himself to say that, so he replaced it with the expression ‘throw away’.

But from Lee Seong-soo’s point of view, he couldn’t help but be surprised whether that word was trash or throw away.

In fact, he had been going around to the stores of acquaintances around him for three months and buying unnecessary videos at very low prices. Then he displayed them on the innermost side of the triple-decker.

After all, the most important thing to pass on the store is to have a lot of videos.

But the problem is how this young man knows that.

The time he spent counting the number of videos a little while ago was at most less than 5 minutes. That means that in those 5 minutes, he had grasped not only the number of videos but also the assortment.

He clearly said that this was his first time with videos.

But how on earth……?

“…….”

Because he had a guilty conscience, Lee Seong-soo couldn’t easily speak.

Then Hyeonseong continued to speak again.

“I’ve checked the number of videos…… Now, can I see the ledger?”

“Yes? Ah, yes. Here you go.”

Lee Seong-soo quickly handed the ledger to Hyeonseong.

‘What is this guy?’

Lee Seong-soo was still dumbfounded. When he first heard that he came after seeing the advertisement, he felt like cheering.

That was because of his age. At first glance, he didn’t even look thirty. The fact that he was young meant that he had no social experience, and that made him think that it would be easier to pass on the store as planned.

But things started to go wrong when he started counting the number of videos. He thought he had given up counting because he finished in less than 5 minutes.

But that wasn’t the case, he had already finished calculating. On top of that, he had grasped the videos to be discarded in that short amount of time.

He clearly said that this was his first time with videos…….

Lee Seong-soo could only watch Hyeonseong, who was checking the ledger with an uneasy heart.

After a while.

Hyeonseong, who had checked the ledger, opened his mouth again.

“Business is surprisingly good?”

“Haha, as I wrote in the advertisement, I’m not passing it on because business is bad, but because of personal circumstances.”

“Ah, is that so? But you know, this ledger. How can I trust this?”

“Yes?”

“I think you might have tampered with the ledger. Of course, I’m not saying that the boss is definitely doing that. So please don’t misunderstand. I just want to trust this ledger, but is the world like that?”

Hyeonseong looked at Lee Seong-soo’s face once and then continued to speak.

“So, I was wondering, could I see the ledger from a year ago? If you don’t have one from a year ago, one from 6 months ago is fine.”

“Yes? That’s…….”

“Why? Is there perhaps something wrong with that?”

Lee Seong-soo, who hesitated for a moment, slowly opened his mouth again.

“That’s…….”