Chapter 76

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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My younger sister was lying on the sofa blankly staring at her phone.

Since it was a weekend holiday, she was lounging around like average office workers.

“Aren’t you going out?”

“Yeah. I don’t have anyone to meet.”

“..Oppa is a loner, and now my sister is a loner too.”

“It’s not like that! Plus what loner is oppa? Those Kangsung Group people faint from joy just hearing oppa’s name. Chairman Kang Seong-ho and oppa meet that often? I also overheard our CEO talking. They said it’s like the two meet every day.”

“Really..? No. Wait. But they still don’t know over there that you’re my sister?”

“They haven’t said anything? Looking at how they scold me like usual, it seems they really don’t know?”

I naturally thought Kangsung would know my sister works at the hotel. But seeing there’s no particular mention, they either really don’t know or are pretending not to.

“No. They really don’t seem to know. I thought they’d obviously do background checks, but I guess not.”

“Well, doing background checks on me would be funny anyway.”

I was pouring water into a cup and about to enter my room when my sister stopped me.

“But oppa, aren’t you going out either?”

“Yeah. I have to play games. I’ve been too busy with work to play, so there’s a lot to do.”

“On weekdays you earn real money, on weekends you earn game money.”

“Rather than earning game money, there’s a new raid that came out, so I have to do it with guild members.”

There was a new raid, but I couldn’t do it because I was busy with work.

Since yesterday I’ve been intensely pushing through it.

“Make a girlfriend now too. But you have to eat, right?”

“I’ll just order room service.”

“Ugh. Room service here is really too expensive. How can one boiled egg cost 15,000 won?”

“Just don’t save money on things like that and eat if you want.”

“No way. No matter how much money oppa earns, my conscience can’t accept a 15,000 won egg! I’m ordering tteokbokki today!”

“..You just wanted to eat tteokbokki anyway.”

My sister was smiling broadly while searching for tteokbokki places.

“It’s nice here that staff brings delivery up. But it’s annoying that we can’t order delivery after 10 PM.”

“At least you won’t gain weight.”

“But sometimes I crave chicken.”

Before 10 PM at night, staff members receive incoming deliveries on the first floor and deliver them to our home. But after that, everyone leaves work, so we have to go down to the first floor ourselves to receive them.

The home we’re staying in is over 100 floors.

Going down and coming back up just to receive that.. Isn’t easy.

“Where are mom and dad?”

“They went to play golf.”

Our parents seem completely absorbed in golf.

Since retiring, they go play golf every day.

I also felt good seeing them enjoy their retired life.

“Do you want some too, oppa?”

“I’ll eat if you order.”

“Wow. But these days the world has really improved. In the past, to order delivery you had to flip through booklets. Now you can easily search like this with an app?”

Just a few years ago, we ordered delivery through booklets or flyers.

I too ordered food by phone until just last year.

But now at our company too, employees’ use of delivery apps increased, and my sister also doesn’t use booklets at all anymore.

“Oppa. I just thought of this, doesn’t the company invest in things like this? I don’t know when this app was made, but lately it seems people increasingly only use this.”

The app called Yashik’s Nation was currently holding first place among many delivery apps.

Actually I also looked at a report about Yashik’s Nation last year.

But no particular intuition came then, so I passed on it.

“Oppa, look too if there’s something you want to eat.”

So the moment I pressed the app on my phone without thinking much.

“..!”

Electric current flowing from my fingertips felt like it struck and passed through my brain.

***

“So, did you find out?”

“Yes. From what we found out, it seems there’s no one he’s dating.”

“Really? I thought women would be swarming him.”

How many people in our country in that age group succeeded as much as Jeong Jin-ho?

“Actually some media outlet was digging around President Jeong Jin-ho’s background this time. His name is gradually spreading in business circles, so they must have been curious.”

“And?”

“Even thoroughly investigating, there’s nothing to grab onto.”

But Jeong Jin-ho’s private life was extremely clean.

“That’s strange. If he’s earning that much money, he’d be dying to spend it.”

“Yes. On weekends he either goes to work or doesn’t come out of his home.”

Kang Mi-ra knows from seeing many times what behavior patterns people who suddenly become nouveau riche or succeed greatly at a young age usually show.

Living luxuriously is basic, and women problems occur so often they’re busy throwing money to silence people.

“He just stays home then goes to work, occasionally meets Chairman Kang Seong-ho or Gwangwoon Group Chairman Hwang, or otherwise has company dinners with company people. That’s all. Or he briefly travels with family.”

“So he’s a completely wholesome filial son?”

“Yes. So wholesome I double-checked several times.”

Finding out about Jeong Jin-ho was actually because of Kang Seong-ho.

At first she thought it was just a joke, but she realized Kang Seong-ho really wants to make Jeong Jin-ho family.

So if he’ll really become family, shouldn’t she know what kind of person he is?

But to think he was such an upright man.

Occasionally hearing what her brother says about Jeong Jin-ho, he wasn’t someone to easily regard.

How to say it. Just listening to what he says, it’s like someone who sees through the distant future entirely.

But when actually examined, his life was more ordinary than expected.

“But CEO, while investigating President Jeong Jin-ho, an unexpected name popped up.”

“An unexpected name?”

“It’s Manager Jeong Yoon-ah in the strategy team.”

“Manager Jeong Yoon-ah?”

She was talent who rose straight to the strategy team at a young age due to good ability.

“Why Manager Jeong?”

“She’s President Jeong Jin-ho’s younger sister.”

“..!?”

Kang Mi-ra froze in place momentarily.

Manager Jeong was President Jeong Jin-ho’s younger sister!?

Then until now, from the closest place, President Jeong Jin-ho has been watching Baekje Hotel through his sister?

“Why, why are we only finding this out now?”

“That’s because we only focused on Chairman Hwang until now. But as we learned that President Jeong Jin-ho is the main body of Gwangwoon Group, information naturally came out.”

“…”

Her brother’s words were right, that Jeong Jin-ho sees the distant future and prepares thoroughly.

Just when did he plant his sister at Baekje Hotel?

Plus his sister had somehow entered this company’s core department.

“Then could it be that we did a background check too..”

“If that friend really entered this company according to President Jeong Jin-ho’s will, she’s somehow receiving internal company information from here and there. Probably.. Didn’t she notice?”

Kang Mi-ra squeezed her eyes shut.

Her brother had earnestly pleaded never to make enemies with Jeong Jin-ho.

“What should we do? Should we rather call her and talk..”

“That won’t work. It’ll obviously just cause stranger misunderstandings. We should rather choose another method.”

“Another method..”

“If the other side also knows we did a background check, shouldn’t we show an apologetic attitude accordingly? That we’re definitely allies. Bring Manager Jeong’s performance evaluation.”

If she fires Manager Jeong here or demotes her to another department, that’s no different from openly saying let’s split.

Doesn’t this Gwangwoon Tower, where Baekje Hotel makes maximum sales, already belong in Jeong Jin-ho’s palm?

“Whew. My heart is racing.”

The thought flashed that maybe it’s not just Jeong Jin-ho’s sister.

Maybe Jeong Jin-ho’s people are already spread everywhere beyond reach.

Today in particular, her late father’s words seem to ring in her ears.

If someone mustn’t be made an enemy, definitely make them an ally.

***

“So this.. Was co-developed with Byte Dance?”

“Yes. Normally this app should have launched long ago. But as it collapsed due to global server problems, this app was also essentially abandoned.”

With the name TokTok, Byte Dance tried to newly release the app worldwide while acquiring Musical.ly.

Because due to Chinese law, they can’t operate the same SNS operating in China in foreign countries too.

So they joined hands with Musical.ly and even newly developed an app, waiting only for the launch date. But due to the worldwide semiconductor crisis and server expansion problems, they eventually withdrew.

“We investigated all markets and developed the first AI recommendation system so people can most comfortably watch without getting tired. Also we touched the UI convenience very much. So once people enter our app, they can blankly watch for hours.”

This app’s strength was exactly the AI recommendation system.

Short video-based, so-called short-form content can easily be found on other SNS apps too. But this introduced an AI system that automatically recommends videos according to user tendencies to watch.

So once someone grabs their phone, they’re held to endlessly only watch videos coming from here.

“What does everyone think?”

“To be honest.. I’m not sure. Do people these days really watch this? Such short videos?”

“Above all there’s too little content. There aren’t many videos so I’m not sure either. Of course, the AI system looks good though.”

Our department people were generally negative.

“What about you, President?”

“I..”

I actually already made up my mind.

Because my intuition has been hitting my crown since they started introducing the app.

“I think I need to hear the price to know.”

However, I couldn’t readily say it’s good.

They say positions make the person?

I too became someone who haggles.

“As I know, Byte Dance was preparing $1 billion to acquire Musical.ly. Is that right?”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

The value Byte Dance set for Musical.ly was $1 billion.

At that time there was a certain growth trend, plus the developers have technical skills, so they seemed to price it accordingly.

“How much are you thinking now?”

Musical.ly’s CEO Broll immediately answered.

“$800 million.”

I waited briefly.

No feeling comes.

In other words, it’s ridiculous talk.

“$800 million?”

Then Manager Seo next to me raised his voice.

“Isn’t that a too conscienceless price? Everyone knows if Musical.ly isn’t acquired now, it’ll close soon. Yet you’re trying to take $800 million here!?”

“Then, $700 million..”

I didn’t answer anything.

“$600 million?”

“…”

“$300, $300 million! This is the limit. At $300 million we’re only recovering development costs already spent.”

There intuition stuck, and my closed eyes opened.

“Let’s do $300 million.”

Then the Musical.ly people also breathed sighs of relief.

Because if we too turned our backs on them, Musical.ly really had to close.

“Please continue working well with us. Though the controlling structure changed to our Gwangwoon, I hope you all continue keeping your positions. And let’s expand servers as quickly as possible so we can release the app worldwide.”

Thus all of Musical.ly’s shares came to us, and the technical skills and app they have also became our Gwangwoon’s.

“Yes. But you’ll have to change the app name.”

“Ah. The name..”

“We brought some candidate names. Would you like to see?”

I scanned through the naming list they brought.

They say even in games, naming characters is hardest?

But this time there was no need for that.

“First this is the first page, and on the next page..”

“Let’s do this one.”

I picked the name stuck right in the middle among numerous naming lists.

It was the only name shining by itself.

[PicPic]

“Oh. The name is nice. In our country it might be used meaning flip through, and in foreign countries it seems like it’ll look like choosing.”

Employees also liked it.

But even after deciding the name, I honestly still had the same thought as Manager Seo.

Will an era really come where people blankly keep watching short videos sitting in place?

***

“Why did Mi-ra do such useless things?”

“But I think knowing isn’t bad. If you really want to legally tie President Jeong Jin-ho with Kangsung according to Chairman’s will.”

“Tsk. But that’s not easy. Even if I try to arrange meetings, that side doesn’t like it.”

“Probably President Jeong pursues natural meetings.”

“Right. I think I need to set the stage for such natural meetings, but that’s also not easy.”

Chairman Kang Seong-ho’s project to make Jeong Jin-ho Kangsung’s person was still ongoing.

But Jeong Jin-ho, this man.

Not easy.

It’s fortunate his private life isn’t promiscuous though.

Even if this side tries to make some occasion, he firmly refuses.. Yet trying to force it might needlessly hurt feelings, so he’s stuck unable to do this or that.

“But I have separate thoughts about that, so let’s move on. What was Gwangwoon’s request this time?”

“Ah, yes. This time Gwangwoon plans to release an SNS app.”

“Hm? SNS? Suddenly?”

“It was an app originally intended for global launch from China, but as it fell through due to server expansion problems, President Jeong Jin-ho seems to have snatched it. So this time they need a large server, asking to prioritize volume supply.”

“Well, that’s not difficult. Accommodate Gwangwoon’s side as much as possible.”

Trent is currently happily swinging his blade.

Though countries swept up in Trent’s blade dance are entering retaliatory tariffs one after another, isn’t it no less than America?

There’s no place that can be fine against America.

So Chairman Kang Seong-ho is even more grateful to Jeong Jin-ho.

If Jeong Jin-ho hadn’t connected the bridge with NK in advance, Kangsung would’ve been hit by that blade dance.

“Wait a moment. But about this server problem. What are other SNS doing now?”

“First at US government level they’re supplying first to those facilities due to the most urgent security problems. So though pushed to later priority, it’ll be resolved soon.”

“Really? Is it very urgent?”

“Now traffic is somewhat managed. But they all also have to replace servers, so if it gets more delayed, operation will be difficult then.”

“..Is that so?”

Kang Seong-ho suddenly had a good idea there.

They say if you receive a favor, returning the favor received is human courtesy?

“Find out around when the SNS app Gwangwoon is releasing will launch.”

“..Delay volume going to other SNS competitors a bit?”

At the secretary’s words, Kang Seong-ho grinned.

“As expected, I like that you catch on quickly.”