Chapter 131

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“What are you suddenly talking about? Natural gas?”

“We also just received the instructions. But President Jeong Jin-ho says to gather as quickly as possible the natural gas that Russia and other countries overseas are trying to sell.”

There are two ways to transport natural gas.

One is pipelines.

The other is shipping it in liquefied natural gas form, also known as LNG.

“However, to ship in LNG form, specially manufactured LNG carriers are needed.”

LNG carriers are specially manufactured vessels that transport natural gas super-cooled to minus 162 degrees Celsius.

“Haven’t we used such vessels to transport natural gas many times?”

“Yes. Many times. So there’s no problem preparing the vessels, but I’m not sure why he’s suddenly telling us to gather natural gas.”

The Robinhood incident dealt a critical blow to the real estate market, and Evergrande Group collapsed in an instant.

Because of that, Chinese construction and real estate collapsed together, leading to a situation where China’s ambitiously prepared natural gas pipeline construction and terminal projects were completely halted.

Due to China’s sudden contract cancellation of natural gas, countries that had been preparing lots of natural gas to distribute to China were left like dogs chasing chickens.

“But out of nowhere, President Jeong says to gather all that up?”

“Yes. Of course, right now we can get natural gas at almost dumping-level prices. Since they can’t sell to China, it’s also difficult for each country to keep storing it.”

“We can sweep it up at cheap prices?”

“Yes. The problem is what we’re going to do with it once we have it.”

That was the problem.

Why gather natural gas when there’s nowhere to use it?

“Did he say where to move it?”

“Yes. Canada.”

“Hm? Canada?”

“Recently, under President Jeong Jin-ho’s instructions, didn’t Gwangwoon Group acquire a large grain company in Canada? Alberta is a major wheat production area.”

“Right. I heard that too.”

Lately Jeong Jin-ho’s movements were unusual.

He was suddenly gathering up Canadian companies that mainly produce wheat.

“But do you know what’s in Alberta?”

“What’s there?”

“There are large-scale natural gas storage facilities. Even globally, there aren’t many places that can match Alberta’s natural gas storage facilities in size.”

“What?”

They recently acquired Canadian companies in Alberta, and that location happened to have large-scale natural gas storage warehouses.

“But the timing is quite suspicious. President Jeong started acquiring the Alberta region before the Robinhood incident. In other words, he purchased that area before Evergrande Group collapsed.”

“W-wait, then what does that mean? Don’t tell me President Jeong foresaw this incident?”

“Yes. Right before that incident, he expanded into the Alberta region, and afterward, as if waiting, he bought up all the natural gas at bargain prices. At this level, he definitely knew in advance and prepared.”

On the surface, the Robinhood incident seemed like KW Exchange pushing out a competitor.

But if that was just process and the real purpose was something else?

“So you’re thinking President Jeong’s target from the start wasn’t Robinhood but something else?”

“Yes. The real goal was to damage the real estate market and through that aftermath, impact China and Canada. He knew that if Robinhood had a digital bank run, it would deal a direct blow to real estate.”

“Then naturally he could negatively impact Evergrande and collapse Chinese real estate.”

“Right. He could monopolize the natural gas that should have flowed to China, and he easily took over the Alberta region in Canada too, right? All of this started from just Robinhood.”

But going further up, the starting point of all this was GameStop.

“Is GameStop connected to our Gwangwoon?”

Due to GameStop, hearings had already been held in America.

From the GameStop company CEO to the community member who had persistently instigated killing GameStop short-sellers.

“But the decisive reason that post became famous was the power of Mylon Tusk and SNS. Our Gwangwoon’s SNS, PikPik, can also be seen as having a very big influence.”

Mylon Tusk and Jeong Jin-ho’s relationship is so obvious it hurts to even mention.

It’s also clear that GameStop became world-famous through SNS.

In the end, all of this was an elaborate design that started from GameStop.

“But the destination is grain and natural gas?”

That was also a question for President Kang Du-young.

Starting from GameStop, striking Robinhood, Evergrande, and numerous other real estate companies—and the only results from that are those two?

“What reason is there for those two to suddenly skyrocket?”

“I wonder. There’s nothing that obviously connects those two.”

“If I had to find something, maybe war? But if a big war breaks out in this day and age, it could become nuclear war, and then you shouldn’t buy those two but a bunker instead, right? Haha.”

That was right.

War.

Honestly, it lacked realism.

They say skirmishes happen occasionally in the Middle East, but they don’t actually wage war.

Plus, even if war breaks out in the Middle East, it has nothing to do with wheat prices and natural gas.

That means war would break out in the Russia region, which is highly connected to natural gas and wheat—.

“Surely not, right?”

“Yes. The moment they start it, everyone dies together, so would that really happen?”

Kang Du-young also laughed it off like the executives. But there was one problem.

“But what if President Jeong thinks differently from us?”

“…”

The point was that the one designing and executing this strategy was Jeong Jin-ho.

————————————————————————————————————————

“President. We’ve decided to move all the natural gas to Canada.”

“Did you secure the large-scale natural gas storage facilities there?”

“Yes. At first we were going to do it as a lease, but with the global real estate market wobbling, the company owning those facilities seems to be struggling too. They wanted to sell outright rather than lease. So under the Chairman’s instructions, we just bought it.”

Our hyung, when you’re going to splurge, might as well splurge big.

Should I say we got lucky this time.

The place where we mass-acquired grain companies was the Alberta region.

And there were facilities that store natural gas on a large scale in addition to large grain warehouses.

As the companies holding those warehouses happened to want to sell, we luckily purchased warehouses at cheap prices.

“Gwangwoon Shipping has started moving vessels in large quantities to secure natural gas. I hear they chartered additional vessels because there weren’t enough.”

“The facilities in Canada can accommodate everything for now, right?”

“Yes. Everything we’ve successfully purchased so far can be stored. Enough that you could make additional purchases. That’s how large the facility scale is, but if you’re purchasing the same amount again, you’ll need additional storage warehouses.”

Honestly, even the amount of natural gas we swept up at bargain prices was already an enormous scale.

“Canada produces the 6th most natural gas in the world and uses about 20% in total energy. But if we assume 100% natural gas usage, the amount we currently have could last about 10 days.”

In other words, we’re stockpiling an incredibly large amount.

At this level, I honestly thought it should be enough.

“…”

But my intuition sent a tingling signal. That this much wasn’t enough.

“For now, please prioritize purchasing if there’s anywhere selling natural gas cheaply. Also look into storage warehouses.”

“Y-you’re purchasing more from here?”

“Yes. Let me know as soon as the list comes out. And the wheat report I requested last time?”

“Ah, yes. Here it is.”

I lightly looked through the report.

Looking at the wheat production, I could clearly see that Canada had suffered tremendous damage from last year’s great famine.

“Other countries besides Canada were relatively okay. With Canada struggling with wheat production, wheat prices did rise a bit, but Ukraine and Russia covered for it, stabilizing things.”

“If only this year’s harvest had been okay, the grain companies wouldn’t have sold to us. But with the great famine plus real estate collapse, they couldn’t endure.”

Thanks to that great famine, we could acquire companies at cheap prices.

“The good news is this year’s harvest is expected to be good.”

That was fortunate.

If this year’s harvest was also bad, we would have taken all that damage.

“But to fill the warehouses you keep purchasing, our own harvest alone seems insufficient. Are you planning to additionally purchase wheat besides the production?”

I waited briefly.

Sure enough.

I felt intuition grazing the back of my head.

“Please buy as much as we can gather at reasonable prices.”

“Yes, understood.”

“Any other matters?”

“These are the donation lists organized by Gwangwoon Foundation. They said they’ll deliver the donation to wherever you direct, President.”

Gwangwoon Foundation delivers scholarships domestically, and overseas they mainly give donations to places that have experienced major national incidents.

“Both France last time and Lebanon this time had very good responses. Since the amounts were large and there were many relief workers, there are reports that the image among citizens is very good.”

“Is Lebanon’s damage recovery going well?”

“Yes. People who were evacuating have returned, and the economy is gradually revitalizing. Since they prioritized restoring the port, it’s now functioning well as a harbor. Of course, they plan not to receive chemical substances at Beirut port going forward.”

Originally, storing chemical substances at ports wasn’t that unusual.

It’s just that this incident was so big that all ports are now going through strict screening procedures for chemical substances.

“I think it’s an inevitable phenomenon. To prevent a second Beirut incident. All ports probably breathed a sigh of relief when that incident happened.”

I too hope such a terrible accident never happens again.

So the ports we have business rights to are also thoroughly screening chemical substances.

“Africa—we’re steadily delivering donations there, right?”

“Yes. We’re providing regular support there.”

Then these regions are covered.

What the foundation actually wants is to invest large money like with Lebanon.

“The foundation staff’s passion is amazing. Especially the employees you personally selected, President. No one is paying them extra, but they don’t hesitate to rush to dangerous places like Africa to offer helping hands.”

70% of the employees at our Gwangwoon Foundation were picked by my own hand.

Actually, I don’t know their backgrounds or past.

I just looked at profiles and picked only people my intuition pointed to.

Then when I met them later, I could see how kind-hearted they were.

People absolutely necessary for running a foundation.

Now they were just waiting to see where they should go help next.

“…”

I quietly looked through the materials sent by the foundation. But there was one place that particularly caught my eye.

“Indonesia has had a lot of incidents and accidents?”

“Yes. Earthquakes, major floods, cyclones, plus aircraft crashes, submarine accidents, and police headquarters terrorism. There’s probably no place with as many continuous accidents as Indonesia right now. It’s also a place severely affected by corona.”

From last year until now, natural disasters or man-made disasters had occurred in various regions of Indonesia.

On top of that, with consecutive suicide bombing attacks, public sentiment was currently volatile.

“Would it be somewhat dangerous for our staff to go?”

“There have been several terrorist attacks recently. They restricted foreign entry for a few months too. But thanks to vaccinations, entry restrictions have been somewhat lifted now. Also, our country has only adjusted it to ‘travel caution.’ Most importantly, the foundation staff are mostly people who don’t shy away from rough terrain…”

What mattered most was that my intuition was intensely illuminating Indonesia.

“Then let’s make this concentrated donation region Indonesia. Please deliver this as is.”

“Yes.”

Seeing our foundation staff, I feel the world is still warm.

And I also feel good because it seems like I’m using the money the company and I earned meaningfully.

Don’t they say happiness multiplies when shared?

————————————————————————————————————————

The world’s largest island nation, consisting of over 17,000 islands—Indonesia.

It’s also a diverse nation where various ethnicities, languages, and cultures coexist.

But that wasn’t always a good thing.

Even among one ethnicity, ideologies clash, so how different must thoughts be in Indonesia, which has the world’s most diverse ethnicities?

The officially recognized number of ethnicities alone is 1,300.

Because of this, even trying to bind them together under the religion of Islam, control wasn’t easy.

“They say they suppressed new terrorism suspects this time. It seems like they were trying to attack specific religious facilities like last time.”

“Again? They really won’t let us rest even one day.”

“Yes. But there was no damage since they suppressed them in advance.”

Hadn’t there already been a major bomb attack at Makassar Cathedral last time?

After that, there was even an attack directly shooting at the police headquarters.

The nation’s dignity had truly fallen to the ground.

“No more terrorism. Tourists have already completely stopped coming because of corona. And now terrorism is rampant on top of that? It can’t be.”

Indonesia’s average tourist count is 16 million per year.

But after corona, tourist numbers dropped to a historic low of only 1,800.

Now they plan to lift border closures and resume tourism once everyone becomes immune through vaccines.

But if security is this unstable, no one will want to come.

“Vice President, donations have come in this time.”

“Donations?”

“Yes. They say they’ll support people suffering from hunger, including damage recovery from terrorism, earthquakes, and cyclone damage.”

The Vice President narrowed his brow.

“But why are you reporting that to me?”

“It’s just… the amount is quite large.”

“How much?”

“300 million dollars.”

300 million dollars?

That was quite a large amount to call a donation.

“What? From where?”

“It was sent from Gwangwoon Foundation.”

There, Indonesian Vice President Baruf Yaman froze.

“Where…?”

“Gwangwoon.”

This time, his heart seemed to drop.

“Gwangwoon sent 300 million dollars?”

“Yes.”

And his mind was turning completely blank.

“What’s troubling you…?”

“Don’t you know what kind of place Gwangwoon is?”

“Pardon?”

After the Yellow Vest incident in France, what Gwangwoon did immediately was donate.

Large donations and dispatched staff to create a favorable image with French citizens.

And where was next?

“It was Lebanon, where the Beirut incident happened. Right now, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say there is Gwangwoon’s field. They poured hundreds of millions of dollars to give the citizens there new homes and jobs. Plus, their staff went in person for volunteer activities—how could they not love it? Not even knowing that Gwangwoon was the one who put Beirut in that state.”

The Vice President had ears that work.

He was well aware of all the conspiracy theories surrounding Gwangwoon.

“And Gwangwoon suddenly sends us such a large donation—”

On top of that, reports came in that staff would also be dispatched for volunteer activities.

What could that mean?

“What on earth are they scheming here…!”

No. Perhaps they’re already causing something.

While the Indonesian government hadn’t even noticed.