Part 9. The Second Task Begins (6)
“F-fuck, damn it…! Ngh, you son of a bitch…!”
Ragged breaths passed through the respirator pressed to his mouth. Veins bulged on the hand clutching the bedsheet, trembling violently. Jang Jihun, who had suffered a life-threatening surgery after breaking no fewer than three ribs—one of which had pierced his lung—was destined to be bedridden for months. He was in so much pain he could barely string words together, his side aching like it would kill him, and yet when he thought of that big, pretty bastard who had come flying at him like a rugby tackle and slammed him all the way to the front door, grinding his teeth and goosebumps crawled up his skin.
Who the hell was he? Wasn’t he just some guy fucking Choi Suho? His hyung had tried relentlessly to dig up his identity, but all they’d managed to uncover was that he was a Korean-descended guy who’d been active for a long time in Hong Kong doing something akin to gang work. Even the “Korean-descended” part had an “apparently” attached to it—he could’ve been Hong Kong Chinese, or Korean.
Still, it seemed he was called Korean-descended because the person who had taken charge of raising him was Korean.
Anyway, they’d assumed he was just some lowlife who’d played around with money in Hong Kong, then found some connection to Korea and bounced back and forth doing miscellaneous dirty jobs—but no!
Beep, beep, beep.
“They said you shouldn’t talk too much, honey.”
Jang Jihun’s dominant Omega wife said this as she looked at him with an indifferent gaze. Checking the time on the Cartier watch on her wrist, she added, “Visiting hours are about over,” then turned her back on him.
“I’m going to head out now. Take care of yourself.”
“Jiyeong! Ngh—!”
“Shut up. The kids matter more than you. Because of the shit you brothers pulled, Father died early, and now it’s just us suffering!”
Jang Jihun and his wife had entered into a political marriage arranged by his father, Jang Yuguk. With the exception of Jang Jihae and the bastard Choi Suho, Jang Jihyeok and Jang Jihun had never even dated freely; they’d begun relationships under the premise of marriage at their father’s command and gone on to have three children each. Jang Yuguk was a man with an intensely patriarchal disposition, thoroughly steeped in the antiquated belief that one must have many children, and he had forced them to have three no matter what.
If they didn’t, he threatened every time to strike them from his will. He went so far as to have notaries and lawyers conduct psychological evaluations and academic checks on the children to ensure they were being raised “properly,” reserving the right to reclaim any gifted assets at any time if they failed as parents. If even one thing went wrong here, Jang Jihun stood to lose all of the distribution businesses he was set to inherit upon his father’s death—so his wife was in no position to let her guard down.
There were ironclad rules as well: the children of the Jang family had to personally handle their parents’ caregiving, and parents had to pick up their own children. Outsourcing was forbidden. Moreover, depending on who provided better care, the share written into the will would change, forcing the Jang brothers to show up unfailingly to nurse their father.
Yet while he was harsh with his sons, he was, in his own way, gentle with his daughters-in-law—“Just raise my grandchildren well, and I’ll give you everything.” He didn’t make them perform ancestral rites, didn’t force them to nurse him, didn’t make them do housework, and whenever a couple fought, he scolded only his sons and always took the wives’ side. That very father-in-law had died because of the bastard Choi Suho, so from the wives’ perspective, the situation was hardly pleasant. And on top of that, they now had to undergo even stricter evaluations by notaries and lawyers four times a year. If Father had still been alive, he would’ve handled asset transfers on his own.
And all because they wanted revenge on that bastard—they’d gone and told a man with a bad heart something as useless as “the bastard has become an Omega,” triggering the chain of events that led to his death.
In the end, it was that cry of, “I can’t believe it! Suho became a recessive Omega? I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes!” that made the Jang brothers personally escort their father to the Pyeongchang-dong mansion at just the wrong time—and he died there.
Because of the petty vengeance the Jang brothers held toward the bastard, assets worth trillions that their grandchildren could’ve inherited comfortably were now subject to the judgment of outsiders.
Who would’ve imagined their father trusted his sons so little that he’d write a will like that?
Even the sons themselves had looked utterly flustered when the lawyer announced the existence of another will. They’d intended to prevent Choi Suho from receiving his share by making him an Omega, tampering with the will so they could divide his portion among themselves—but behind it all, their father had known, and had commissioned a different lawyer to prepare another will entirely.
“I hereby decree that my children who inherit my estate—Jang Jihyeok, Jang Jihun, and Jang Jihae—must pass evaluations conducted four times a year by four notaries, four advisors, four lawyers, and five executives designated by me. This process must be repeated for ten years in order to fully inherit the company.”
At first, they’d assumed full authority had been delegated to their mother since she was still alive, but their father hadn’t trusted her either. He had distributed all authority among shareholders and executives like slices of pie. In other words, succession rights were never fully vested in anyone.
What they had now wasn’t true succession but provisional succession; fail to produce proper quarterly results over ten years, and you’d be dropped from the line of inheritance.
“Why the hell did you do that? Why did you kill Father?!”
The more she thought about it, the more it felt like Father had been cruel—and the sons had been blinded by revenge and committed unforgivable stupidity. What infuriated her most was that, in the original will, Choi Suho had been meant to receive a casino and large-scale marts without a single condition.
In the end, the one who inherited most easily was Choi Suho. Yet since they’d erased him through will manipulation, from Suho’s perspective it must have felt like his father had utterly abandoned him. And since the detailed contents of the will never made the news, he wouldn’t know the truth. Though she could understand intellectually why her husband had done it, as time passed, her resentment only grew.
“I get why you did it, but you could’ve just given him some stupid casino and a few big marts!”
“What? S-stupid? Hah—stupid?! To a bastard—ugh—give him nothing…!”
As Jang Jihun’s wife flew into a rage, a knock sounded. A nurse entered the room.
“President, visiting hours are over.”
“Ha… alright.”
Even after his wife left, Jang Jihun continued breathing harshly through the oxygen mask—huff, huff. Then he suddenly grinned, only to clutch the sheet and scream, “Aagh! Ngh! Aah!”
When he’d seen the will, he’d thought, no way—but to think Father had truly planned to pass everything to Choi Suho so easily, without conditions.
No matter how hard we try, we can never beat the bastard.
It had been when the three of them gathered, thinking Father might die any day. While Jang Jihun and Jang Jihae sharpened their gazes over who would inherit more—who’d get the private casino in Jeju, who’d get the large marts, who the department stores—Jang Jihyeok had arrived and abruptly opened the conversation.
“What the hell are you talking about, Jang Jihyeok?”
Among the three raised by Jang Yuguk, there wasn’t even 0.1 grams of brotherly affection to be found. It was only natural. They’d been raised not with love, but with endless competition and invisible duels.
“What’s with the surprise? Father’s planning to leave everything to Choi Suho. He actually wrote it that way in the will.”
As he said this, Jang Jihyeok opened the door and entered with Father’s advisor and lawyer in tow. Jang Jihun, who’d thought it was a lie at first, went pale the moment he saw the advisor and lawyer who’d worked with his father for forty years. Jang Jihae, on the other hand, looked bored from start to finish, as if he’d never expected anything. He just shrugged, speaking with the attitude that he didn’t care as long as even a tiny scrap fell his way.
“You’re only figuring that out now? That man never intended to give us anything in the first place. He talked about treating us well, threatened us with ‘you’ll be nothing,’ beat us with the stick—all while setting up succession just to hand everything to the bastard.”
“Fuck!”
When Jang Jihun openly cursed and slammed his fist on the table, Jang Jihyeok—removing his coat—said calmly,
“Don’t curse like that bastard. It’s low-class.”
“You think I can not curse right now? Father’s giving everything to that piece of shit!”
“So what if he is? If Father gives him everything, we just take it back.”
“What? How? The will’s already been written and notarized—”
At that moment, the lawyer seated across from Jang Jihyeok spoke up.
“There is one thing the Chairman has overlooked.”
“Father? No way. We know better than anyone that he’s not that kind of person.”
Jang Jihyeok let out a quiet snort. Watching his brother smile, Jang Jihun spat out curses, asking why the hell he was grinning like that, but Jang Jihyeok merely took a sip of the tea the server had brought and murmured,
“I just find it pathetic that you still have even a shred of affection for Father. Truly pathetic, Jihun.”
“What? Fuck! No I don’t!”
When Jang Jihun’s face flushed red and he slammed the table with both hands, Jang Jihae propped his head up with both hands and muttered disdainfully,
“If you’re going to fight, do it outside. This isn’t the time for you two to be brawling.”
“Unexpectedly mature of you, Jihae.”
Leaning an arm over the back of his chair, Jang Jihun shot Jang Jihyeok’s words right back at him like a ping-pong ball.
“Right. That’s why he had a kid the fastest, and even though we thought he’d abandoned them, turns out he takes better care of them than his main household—”
“That’s not what matters right now!”
Jang Jihae’s face flushed red, then blue. Jang Jihun stuck his tongue out at him, while Jang Jihyeok sipped his tea, showing zero interest in Jihae.
The advisor and lawyer looked over the three brothers—who, in some ways, were carbon copies of Jang Yuguk—and sighed inwardly. After finishing half his tea, Jang Jihyeok set the cup down and spoke with flawless composure.
“Please explain now, Lawyer.”
“Yes. According to the will currently drafted, Choi Suho is set to inherit all of the Chairman’s personal assets—”
“Fuck that—!!”
At that instant, Jang Jihyeok picked up a fork and stabbed it into the back of Jang Jihun’s hand. The suddenness of it left Jang Jihun unable to even scream, and the advisor and lawyer stared in shock. When the pain finally registered and Jang Jihun screamed, “Aaaagh!” Jang Jihyeok punched him square in the mouth and nose and said in a low voice,
“I don’t care if you don’t treat me like your hyung—but at moments like this, listen when I tell you to. This is important.”
