The Greatest Conglomerate Ever With the American Lottery

31. Let’s keep it quiet.

That evening, I got a call from Jeffrey in the US.

– Alex?

“Hey! It’s Dongchul! Poohhhhh!”

– …

Jeffrey’s panic was transmitted to me over the phone line, and I couldn’t have been more amused.

It was the always confident Jeffrey Chang panicking.

– Alex

“Yap!”

– Call me that name one more time and you’ll know you’re done with me.

Did I really hate Korean names this much?

I had to make fun of him once.

You can’t lose someone as talented as Jeffrey over something like this.

“Oh, you can’t take a joke?”

– No!

“Yeah—. What’s up with that?”

– What the hell do you think you’re doing?

“What do you mean?”

– Didn’t you know? You’re on American television? You’re on YouTube?

What are you talking about? This?

“I-I’m on TV? What do you mean?”

– You were on a plane to Korea, and you put down a rowdy passenger.

“How did you do that? No. And why is that little thing on American television?”

– Dude, that guy you were with was Richard Marx. If a pop star of his stature was involved, it would be a big deal in the U.S., right?

“Is he that famous? Isn’t he a faded pop star?”

– Is this crazy? He’s a faded pop star? The guy who topped the Billboard singles chart three times, had 14 top 20 hits, and had seven singles in the top five in a row? In America, if you’re at that level, you’re a legend, a legend!

“…”

Oh, screw it.

I thought it was just a Korean pop star.

“Mosaic? Mosaic must have come out of it, right?”

– There’s no such thing in America, and it’s not like you’re coming out as the bad guy.

“Where’s your right of publicity?”

– America doesn’t really recognize the right of publicity, especially if it’s not commercialized!

Ah, I hate America.

“Does it show a lot of my face?”

– At least the angle is shaky, so unless you’re up close you won’t notice, so stop whining and tell me what’s going on.

“Oh, because you’re such an asshole.”

I explained to Jeffrey, telling it like it is.

– Whew, he really saw the swearing.

“I know.”

– You are so lucky. Didn’t you know you’re not supposed to use your fists in Korea?

“I know, I know, but you’re pissed off, and I was thinking about it. I was only doing it because the director asked me to.”

– By the way, that lawyer is crazy, how dare she punch a high-ranking government official in Korea?

“Is that really a death sentence, even if it’s a bad one?”

– In case you didn’t know, the Korean legal profession is all in cahoots. Isn’t the placenta Seoul National University anyway? The higher up you go, the worse it gets?

“Glitch.”

– Nowadays, it’s a little less because there’s a law school, and the bar exam generation is also picking 1,000 people at the last minute, but still, the higher up you go, whether it’s prosecutors or courts, it’s all SNU, SNU. But you know what one of the things they hate the most?

“What is it?”

– Especially those who have gone up to the Supreme Court, like Dang Sook, or the deputy chief justice of the High Court, like Park Hong-ryul, are insulted? They think they’re being insulted, that one day they’ll have to take off their clothes and go out and open a practice, so they identify with them.

“Ah—.”

Come to think of it.

– Anyway, the biggest victim of this is going to be her lawyer. Rumors will spread like wildfire on that narrow floor, and who’s going to like that? In the Korean legal world, where the middle and upper ranks are still held by bar exam graduates, you’ve just insulted the president of the country, who’s like the sky, with the subject of a law school graduate…tsk!

“Huh—.”

Listening to Jeffrey’s words, I felt a little sorry for the lawyer, but she deserved it anyway.

As Professor Zhang said, she’s basically lost her mind.

– Let’s keep quiet for a while. What happened to you, what happens when you enter Korea?

“…”

I was speechless.

The next day, Korean broadcasters finally started showing the news with the video.

The good news is that they covered my face, which was a relief, but the bad news is that my family found out.

“Huh? Isn’t that a spelling mistake?”

“Oh, yeah?”

I could f*ck a mosaic and they wouldn’t recognize me.

“What happened to you?”

“Oh, no big deal, I’m coming from the States and there was a crazy guy in the back who was drinking and going crazy, so I had to help him out.”

“He’s not going to hurt you, is he?”

“No, don’t worry about it.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that, but be careful, kid, how old are you, swinging your fists around?”

“Kid, it’s because the boss asked me to?”

I’m tired.

Professor Zhang called to tell me that during the day, Sejeong’s lawyer apologized and left.

The female lawyer was fired immediately.

It was cool, but it didn’t end well, as I felt like I had gotten a glimpse into the closed nature of the Korean legal system.

Once a Supreme Court justice, always a Supreme Court justice.

It’s not like he’s a Marine.

“Dad!”

“What?”

“Why don’t we go out and have a drink?”

“Just the two of us?”

“Yep!”

“Hmph, wouldn’t that be nice?”

Now I feel like we need to talk about work, so I ask my dad to have a drink with me, and he’s really excited.

If I had known he liked it so much, I would have asked him to drink it more often.

“Kya!”

“Great, it’s even better with you, hehehehe!”

We walked down to the market and ordered seasoned pork ribs from an old restaurant, which didn’t taste the same, but the symbolism of eating with my dad made up for it.

“Dad.”

“Tell me. I know you wanted to eat because you have something to tell me.”

“Oh, I don’t need to talk to you to eat. I’ll bring you some when I’m in Korea.”

“Then you don’t have anything to say?”

“No, not really.”

“Phew!”

“Hmph, not the other way around, didn’t I say I’d find out what Dad was doing?”

“How did you know?”

Dad’s eyes are already changing.

He must be getting a little frustrated.

“Well, I didn’t find it, I made it.”

“What do you mean, you made a place for me?”

“I made it. It wasn’t there before, was it?”

“Hey, you must have asked someone to make a seat for you, but I’ll pass. At my age, I don’t want to be looked down upon. I’ll see if I can find you a guard position.”

“Ai, listen to me, son, I’m going to start a social welfare organization.”

“A social welfare corporation? To help people in need?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it okay to create a social welfare corporation just like that? How much will it cost? It won’t cost a penny or two, will it?”

“I’m going to put in 20 billion this time.”

“Cuckoo!”

Dad chuckled suddenly, as if he’d heard Sare.

“Water here.”

“Yeah.”

He drank the water, shook his head a few times as if trying to regain his composure, and then turned to me with a bewildered expression.

“What, did you just say 20 billion?”

“Yes, I said 20 billion. 20 billion with 200 hundred million!”

“Do you really have that kind of money?”

“I say it because I have it, right?”

“I don’t know how much you make, but is it okay to put that much money into a social welfare corporation? You’re always telling me that you’re giving it to other people and making your family suffer, but you’re not doing it.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not doing that. It’s less than a tenth of my fortune.”

Technically, it’s less than a hundredth, but you don’t have to say that straight out.

No, he’d faint if I said that.

“Chul-sik, Chul-sik, one-tenth of a percent? You mean your fortune is now over 200 billion?”

“Hah—. That’s right.”

Anyway, when you meet Professor Zhang, you’ll find out that he’ll give you another 50 billion next year, and more every year after that.

It seemed right to open up to Dad now, even if it was a bit of a shock.

“Actually, it’s a lot more than that, because our investments in the U.S. have done well over the past year.”

“Huh, a lot? How much is a lot?”

“A little over a trillion.”

“A trillion! A trillion! What do you mean a trillion? Ten times 100 billion, that trillion?”

“Yeah, that’s right, a trillion.”

“…”

Dad seemed to have given up trying to think anymore.

He just stared at me with his mouth open.

In times like this, alcohol is the medicine.

“Dad, drink!”

“That’s right! Drink! Drink to sober up!”

But what else is drinking supposed to do?

It was like he was just saying anything.

“First, a drink!”

“Uh-huh!”

“Have another drink!”

“Uh-huh!”

Mmm! Mmm!

Only after four or five drinks in a row did he put the glass down and slap his face with both hands.

As if trying to come to his senses.

“Huh!”

“Are you sober now?”

“Uh, I think I’m going to live. What the hell, you’re my kid, but you’re rich, I mean, how do you make so much money?”

“It’s just the way it is in America, you can make dozens of times your money in a few months if you invest well, and I was surprisingly good at it, that’s all.”

“Huh! Seriously, if I tell this anywhere, I’ll be called a lunatic.”

“You know you’re not supposed to tell anyone, not even your relatives, right?”

“Okay, kid, that’s what I’m saying, you don’t want me to go around talking about it, but what about your mom?”

“Yeah, I’m just not going to tell my mom for a while. I’m happy enough as it is, I don’t need to tell her that I’m worth a fortune, not that it’s going to make her any different.”

“Yeah, we’re just fine the way we are. It’s what you earned.”

Indeed, my family was just fine.

We have a big apartment, a two-car garage, we eat what we want, we do what we want.

I don’t want my trillion-dollar fortune to ruin that.

I am who I am, and family is family.

Though, of course, they are more precious than all my wealth.

“So what?”

“There’s an orphanage that I sponsor, by chance.”

“You did? That’s great, that’s great, that’s great, but?”

“Well, since I’ve been sponsoring it, I’ve seen a lot of really poor kids, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been blind to that reality, but I can’t just walk past it when it’s right in front of me, can I?”

“Hmph!”

“Ah! Why are you laughing?”

“I laughed because I thought that you are my baby. How come you look so much like your father?”

“Aah! Really! I hated it so much, but strangely enough, the older I get, the more I look like my dad?”

“That’s why I say you can’t poison your own seed. Fuhahahaha!”

“Hmph!”

As much as I hated my dad’s scooping skills, there have been many times when I’ve gotten older and suddenly realized how much I look like him.

Okay, now I’m going to do it.

Because according to the purification monk, the beads came to me because of the merits of my father, or maybe even my grandfather.

“And so?”

“So—.”

I explained how we came to sponsor the orphanage, how we decided to do something about the children who had been taken out of care, and how Professor Jang Young-dong agreed to be the head of the welfare corporation.

And that Dad would have to be the one to actually run things.

“Chul-sik!”

“Huh?”

“I’ll do it! No, I want to!

“That’s your dad, right?”

“Yes! hahahahaha!”

“hahahahaha!”

Drinking moderately, getting up and walking home.

“Cheol-sik.”

“Why?”

“Jangha, I’m so proud of you. I’m not proud of you for being a reject, but I’m so proud of you for being a rich man who can look around and give like that.”

“Aww, do you say that out loud to embarrass me?”

“hahahahaha!”

“hahahahaha!”

It was a good night indeed.