The Greatest Conglomerate Ever With the American Lottery

37. why is it in the past tense?

It was two o’clock in the afternoon on Monday.

There was a new building next to Yang Hye-won in Parkdal-dong.

“One, two, three!”

The emcee cut the tape, and thunderous applause erupted.

Bam, bam, bam!

Ladder Youth Support Center.

This is the name of the first center, which was completed today, where young people who have left childcare can dream of their future in peace.

The center was named by Professor Jang Young-dong, who said that he originally wanted to call it Stepping Stone, but there were too many similar names, so he renamed it.

It means to step on the ladder and climb to a higher place.

I guess if you’re a Supreme Court judge, you have to be good at naming things.

I liked it very much.

The land for the center was larger than I thought, 2,200 square meters, but it was because Professor Jang Young-dong took an active role and the Ministry of National Defense provided us with a generous amount of land for purchase.

No matter how much development is restricted on the site, it is a place where your nose touches the Seoul clock when it falls down, so it is like buying 2,200 square meters of land for 10 billion won.

The building was bigger than I thought, with two basements and five floors above ground, with a total floor area of 2,000 square meters, excluding the basement.

The principle is one room per person, so even though the rooms were only 5 square meters, they all had a toilet with a shower inside.

With 250 such rooms, they were able to accommodate 250 children who had been kicked out of childcare.

There was also a gym, laundry, reading room, large dining room, and a lot of land left over, so there was a pretty garden and a multi-sided basketball and tennis court.

In the end, we went over budget and I added another 10 billion in February, but it was worth it when I saw the finished center.

At the completion ceremony, many guests were invited because of the scale of the building and its good intentions.

The mayor of Anyang and the local congressman were not invited, but they insisted that they should attend for months before the completion, but regardless of whether I like or dislike politicians, I have no complaints because in reality, I didn’t have to pretend with these politicians.

The banquet was a catered buffet at the restaurant inside the completed center, and it was quite delicious, so I was picking up things and eating them.

“Ugh!”

While I was eating frantically, I heard a coughing sound next to me and looked over to see who it was.

Isn’t it Mr. Park Sang-hwan, the chairman of Daeyang Construction?

“Huh? Uncle, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, really, please call me chairman from now on! What’s the matter with you? You’re here because our company built this building, right?”

“Oh, right, you said your company built this too, right?”

“Weren’t you at the tape cutting earlier, right next to you?”

“Did you? I didn’t know that, did I?”

“Oh——. Blood pressure up.”

“Fuhahahaha, just kidding, just kidding. I did hear you did a great job building the building on the cheap again, thank you, Mr. Chairman.”

It’s true.

I volunteered to build it cheaply again, and according to Ki-dong’s older brother, he was so concerned about it that he stopped by the site once a week to complain.

Really, what’s wrong with this uncle?

“Ha ha, why do I get so upset when I see you?”

You know what?

“Didn’t you lose any money?”

“Well, I don’t think I lost any money. I’m sure I did.”

“No, you’re a businessman, what’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”

“What?”

“Can I be honest with you?”

“Who are you to judge?”

“Oh, come on, are you saying I’m some kind of socially sensitive person?”

“What’s socially sensitive? Don’t say that in front of me. I’m a middle school graduate.”

Holy sh*t, did the high school graduate wrinkle up in front of the middle school graduate?

“Anyway, let’s be honest, you’re a former thug, right?”

“Well, I won’t deny it. But what’s a thug, a thug?”

“A thug is a thug, then what are you, a thug, a gangster, a lifeguard?”

“hahahaha, call me whatever you want.”

“Anyway, the question is, why did you suddenly change from being a thug to being a good guy? You know, you’re running a business and you don’t have a very good reputation, right?”

“Grrr—.”

Chairman Park rubbed the back of his neck, slightly annoyed.

“I know there are a lot of things said about me, but most of them aren’t true, like I’m a thug——. Aww, you’re the reason I’m called a thug too!”

“Hmph! You’re admitting that you’re a thug too.”

“Anyway, since I come from a working class background, I know there’s a lot of this and that, but most of it has nothing to do with me, although I can’t say I’ve completely closed myself off from that world.”

If most of it doesn’t matter, some of it does.

“And, while I may not have been 100% honest in my business, I didn’t wipe the tears from the eyes of those who weren’t. Didn’t you hear, Mr. Kim, that my way of doing business is to take places where development is restricted and make it happen with a little resourcefulness? At least no one was harmed.”

Well, he said, he bribed them, but he didn’t step on people’s toes.

In the case of Yang Hye-won, the initial offer of 2 billion was actually more than the market price.

“Why have people changed? I haven’t changed. It’s just that I’m a big enough business now that I don’t have to be as cutthroat as I used to be, and I’ve always supported other orphanages besides this one.”

“Ho-ho? Really?”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I come from an institution myself. I’m sick to death of seeing children suffer. When I was in an institution, we didn’t have the kind of state support we have now. We were cold and hungry.”

“…”

This man, in a way, could have been a very capable and successful businessman if he had come from a good family.

He may have used illegal means, but the fact that he went from being a thug to building his business to this point shows that he’s capable.

“Okay? I know I’m an asshole, but I want you to know that I’m not as big of an asshole as you think I am.”

“So, a moderately bad guy?”

“Let’s just call it—.”

“hahahahaha, just kidding, just kidding. In any case, I hope to see you again in the future.”

“In the future? You’re going to build another facility like this?”

“This year alone, I’m going to put another 50 billion into the foundation, and more next year, and I won’t be able to take care of all the kids who have nowhere else to go, but if I keep going like this, the government will react, and there won’t be any kids who have nowhere else to go and are forced to fall into the underworld like you.”

“Heh, what the hell are you—.”

“Sooner or later, you’ll be asked to build again, so get used to it. And now, don’t lose money, make a decent profit. We’re going to be doing a lot of work, and you’re not going to be able to keep this company afloat if you do that. I thought it was a national rule that flooring contractors have a five percent minimum margin?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That’s for you to keep. Build it properly instead, and if you’re going to work with me, cut yourself off from the rest of the world. Like you said, you can be competitive without resorting to unsavory means, right?”

“…”

“The way you’re bribing politicians and government officials, it’s bound to catch up with you someday, so let’s do it right, let’s do it right, so you don’t have to suffer in your later years.”

“If we do that?”

“Good things will happen. I’m a big businessman in America. If you partner with me, nothing bad will happen.”

“How big? I know you’re a big shot, but—.”

“What? Why am I a tycoon?”

“So you hang out with people like Mr. Kim and Supreme Court justices, and you throw tens of billions of dollars a year into welfare foundations?”

Listening to this guy, I thought, huh?

Before I knew it, I was a tycoon.

The guy who was a small business young man just a few years ago.

“How much did your company make last year?”

“Us? We did about 400 billion last year?”

“Oh, you did a lot?”

“Oh, it’s not much, I’m still a kid.”

He said it in a condescending tone, but his face was full of pride.

After all, a thug had built a company with $400 billion in revenue, so he had reason to be proud.

“I run an investment firm in the U.S. that manages purely my own money, and my investments are probably worth dozens of times your company’s revenue last year.”

“What, dozens of times? Not even a few times?”

“Yeah, so you see, I’m giving you a choice: cut your ties to the underworld completely and build a real business that will bring you fame and fortune, or do what you’ve always done and stay a dodgy businessman with one foot in the underworld. The choice is yours.”

“If you’re telling the truth, I’m cutting ties with you.”

“What do you think I have to gain by telling you a lie like that? Believe me, and if you don’t, don’t.”

“No, it’s not that—.”

“You don’t have to give me an answer right now. I’ll be back in the country in the fall, and you’ll have to show me with your actions, and we’ll talk about it then.”

“Okay.”

“Well, bye, then. Have a good night.”

I turned around and went the other way, but Mr. Park called after me.

“By the way, you!”

“Why?”

“Why do you keep calling me uncle after calling me chairman once in the middle?”

“Oh, don’t you have a sense of humor, do you want me to call you Chairman again?”

“Oh, no, thanks.”

Then I thought of something to ask.

“Oh, by the way, Uncle!”

“Huh? Why?”

“Do you know about Hemp Construction?”

“Hemp Construction? Of course I know. Why are those assholes, they’re worse than me?”

“Huh—.”

If they’re worse than Chairman Park, how bad are they?

“Don’t even think about doing business with them. They’re evil.”

“No, how bad are they?”

“I don’t know how many clean guys there are on the construction floor, but they’re really bad. Their company is about three times the size of ours, and they don’t even let us subcontract, and they’re in the housing business, and they use sh*tty materials and build sh*tty houses. Bribes? I’m gnashing my teeth thinking about what he did to me. He’s got bribes that I don’t even have, and he’s got connections to the national ambulance service.”

“Heh!”

“Then why do you ask about the weed?”

“Nothing, I just had a run-in that almost turned out badly.”

“If you don’t believe me, ask Mr. Kim. He and Dae-ma are enemies, and he’s raised his hand more than once under pressure from the powers that be.”

I’ll tell Somi to stay away from that asshole.

I’ll get him a bodyguard or something, that’s for sure.

“Okay, mister.”

Monk, why is this world so rotten?

I suddenly felt a tightness in my chest.

“Hey, Mr.—.”

I was about to go out for a cigarette to relieve my frustration when a cute little girl about Somi’s age called out to me.

She was probably one of the first 50 people to enter the program.

“Huh? Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I’m not you.”

“What?”

“Why do you call me mister, leaving out the nice word brother?”

“Pooh-pooh! Ho-ho-ho! That makes you more like a mister, doesn’t it?”

“…”

What, was this another uncle joke?

“Ah! I don’t know! If you don’t call me big brother, I won’t answer.”

“Ho-ho! Okay, big brother.”

“Well, why?”

“Well, I just wanted to say thank you, because Kidong said that you—. I mean, he said you built this place for him?”

“Huh? Uh—.”

“Thank you so much, you’re the reason I’m alive.”

“No, what—.”

“Me and my sister, we really had nowhere to go and were desperate, but we kept getting calls from the older sisters we used to be with at the nursery school—.”

“What kind of calls?”

“They said that if you don’t have anywhere else to go, you should go to a strange business—.”

“Haaah—.”

My heart sank.

This girl, looking like this, would definitely have a high chance of falling into a brothel.

And her older sister must have followed the same steps as her.

Boys will probably go down the same path that Park Sang-hwan went down.

There’s no hill to climb.

There’s a long way to go, a long way to go.

“What’s your name?”

“So-hyun, Gong So-hyun.”

“Sohyun, what do you want to be in the future?”

“My dream is to change jobs and become an elementary school teacher.”

“What’s a dream? Why is it in the past tense?”

“hehehe, that doesn’t really make sense for us, does it?”

Damn it!

“So-hyun, I need to make a promise to you.”

“What?”

“Do whatever you want! As long as you put in the effort, no matter how much money it takes, this brother will pay for it all!”

“What?”

“Doctors? Professors? Musicians? Whatever you want to do, do it, but only if you work just as hard toward your dreams, do you know what I mean?”

“Me, really?”

“Yeah? If you don’t believe me, ask Mr. Kidonga. He’ll tell you how much money I have, and how I’m a man of my word.”

“Go, thank you, big brother, we’ll do our best!”

So-hyun, who had tears in her big eyes from emotion, stroked her hair.

hahahaha, I’ll really have to work hard to earn money.