Monday, November 24, 1997.
It was the first stock market opening since the government announced its application for an IMF bailout.
Yeouido was awash in blood.
The moment trading began, hundreds of stocks went straight to their lower price limits.
Even after the country went bankrupt, institutions and retail investors had failed to come to their senses, throwing themselves into the market like moths to a flame while clamoring for a short-term rebound.
Those who had rushed in calling for a 'dead cat bounce' were incinerated before they could even scream.
The KOSPI index plunged more than 7% in a single swoop, dropping to just above its lower limit and recording the worst 'Black Monday' in history.
"Baek! Are you sure there is no legal opening for them to challenge our freeze on progress payments to the subcontractors, including Jinsan Construction?!"
"Yes, sir. We have notified them that payments are being deferred on the grounds that we dispute the assessed progress of the construction work. There are no loopholes."
Taeseong Group's Strategic Planning Office was still in pandemonium.
Although I had eased his worries somewhat, the situation was so grave that Department Head Park demanded reassurance again, the veins standing out on his neck.
The moment I finished my flat report and returned to my desk, the telephone rang insistently.
"S-sir!! Mr. Baek Do-jin!!"
The voice of W Securities' branch manager burst from the receiver.
He must have spent the entire weekend trembling in fear. Now his voice was completely transformed by astonishment and delight.
"This is insane! The KOSPI 200 index is plunging through the basement beneath the floor! Those December-expiry deep out-of-the-money put options you bought with the full amount… Your return has passed 500%! No, it's heading toward 1,000% right now!!"
The 126 million won I had invested had soared past 1.2 billion won within hours of the opening.
The leverage inherent in derivatives had met a market crash and was multiplying money like a monster.
"Shall we close the position right now?! This is an insane return already! We don't know when the market might rebound, so we should take the profit immediately…!"
"Mr. Branch Manager."
I held the receiver close to my mouth, as though shutting out the noise around me, and whispered.
"Do you think I staked my entire fortune down in that basement just to make a measly 1.2 billion won?"
"Pardon?! B-but then how long……?"
"Hold the position. Not even half this country's abscesses have burst yet. We are holding until expiry."
"H-have you lost your mind?! If the market rises even a little……!"
CLICK.
I cut off his scream without mercy and put down the receiver.
From the break room came the sobbing of Jeong Min-jae, who had lost his entire fortune.
Billions of won were pouring into my account in real time, while the corpses of those who had lorded it over everyone only days earlier piled up beneath my feet.
'Ah. How sweet.'
Then it happened.
CREAK— BANG!
The heavy glass doors to the chaotic Strategic Planning Office burst open as though they might shatter.
The employees shouting into their telephones froze in an instant.
"Department Head Park! Department Head Jang! What the hell are you two doing?!"
The man who stormed in was Choi Tae-young, the eldest son and the managing director overseeing Taeseong Construction.
Behind him came Director Choi Kang-min, the second son, responsible for finance and electronics, and Director Choi Seo-yun, the eldest daughter, who oversaw retail. Both strode in irritably.
The 'princes' and 'princess' who held the group's fate in their hands had arrived.
But to my eyes, they looked utterly ridiculous.
There was no trace of the fully formed monsters who had smiled coldly as I was strangled in that penthouse.
All I saw before me were inexperienced whelps.
With the sudden national default cutting off their affiliates' funding, they were fidgeting in fear of the wrath of their all-powerful father, Chairman Choi Man-ho.
"Where is the head of the Strategic Planning Office? Why can't I get through to him?!"
Department Heads Park and Jang belatedly rushed out of their offices and bowed.
"W-welcome, sir. The head of the Strategic Planning Office was summoned by the chairman just now. He is in an emergency meeting with the affiliate presidents."
"Whatever! Construction has tens of billions in payments to cover right now. Isn't it Strategic Planning's job to come up with a solution? Do you want to see every site shut down?!"
Choi Tae-young shouted at Department Head Park, the veins bulging in his neck.
Choi Kang-min, who had followed him in, furrowed his brow and retorted coldly.
"Brother, please stop being unreasonable. Where do we have money to waste pouring into that bottomless pit of a construction division? Payment for the semiconductor production line expansion is due the day after tomorrow."
"What? Hey, Choi Kang-min! We have to cover the short-term merchant bank debt you recklessly piled up first. How dare you reach for Construction's funds!"
"Oh, you two are making such a racket. Can't you see the department stores' cash reserves have hit bottom? We're about to fall behind on supplier payments. Doesn't Strategic Planning even have a crisis management manual?!"
I watched the farcical family drama from behind the partition, my face expressionless.
A short while later, we were in the large conference room on the fourteenth floor, one floor below the Strategic Planning Office.
Raised voices kept coming from behind its firmly closed doors.
Standing in one corner of the room, I pretended to arrange the teacups and watched their vulgar mudslinging firsthand.
"If the construction sites stop, the foundations of this group will shake! We have thirty billion won in payments to first-tier suppliers to cover tomorrow alone. Strategic Planning, come up with a plan and direct funds to Construction first, no matter what!"
Managing Director Choi Tae-young shouted furiously.
But Director Choi Kang-min's counterattack was just as sharp.
"The foundations? What nonsense. Brother, you keep making me repeat the same thing. The merchant banks' short-term funding has all dried up! The payment for the semiconductor line expansion due the day after tomorrow has to be made in dollars. If we default on that, all the foreign investors will pull out, and Taeseong Electronics will disintegrate!"
"What? You little bastard! The way you speak to your older brother……!"
"Both of you, shut up! Taeseong Department Store's suppliers are threatening to close their shops tomorrow if they don't get cash now. When it comes to emergency cash, retail takes priority!"
Director Choi Seo-yun joined in irritably, reducing the conference room to a marketplace.
'Fools.'
They still had no understanding of how serious the situation was.
National default was not merely a liquidity crisis.
It was a catastrophe that would dismantle and rebuild the country's entire economic structure from its very foundations.
It was not a wave they could hold back by patching up the immediate cash crises at their affiliates.
But the 'princes' and 'princess,' raised like hothouse flowers, could see only what was being taken from their own plates.
If events followed their original course, it would take some time, but Chairman Choi Man-ho would step in himself.
He would squeeze the affiliate presidents and the head of Strategic Planning to devise countermeasures, consult with the Blue House, and ultimately force a resolution to the crisis.
That was how Taeseong Group had remained firmly in first place among the country's conglomerates, strutting proudly right up until my miserable death in my previous life.
Of course, countless subcontractors would be thrown onto the streets in the process, and the cries of the wronged would reach a crescendo.
As the shouting continued, not only the ordinary Strategic Planning employees, but even Department Heads Park and Jang, the most senior people present in the absence of the office head, had thick beads of cold sweat running down their foreheads.
Not one of them could step forward. They simply stood there, at a loss.
There was no winning move. Whichever side they supported, the others would bear a grudge and have their heads.
Then, amid the suffocating silence,
Department Head Park finally spoke.
"Managing Director, Directors. It is true that the entire group's available cash has run dry. This is not a problem we can solve by directing all our funds to one affiliate."
"However, there is a way to prevent an immediate default and give all three of your divisions room to breathe."
"A way? How? Tell us, quickly!"
"We have secured cash by freezing all progress payments to the construction subcontractors under Team 1. The scenario uses those funds to legally route support to other affiliates without exposing the group to legal risks."
Department Head Park held out the documents he had prepared for the meeting.
Choi Kang-min frowned and took them.
As he rapidly scanned the pages, his eyes suddenly narrowed to sharp slits.
This was no simplistic scheme to scrape together money and spend it.
It involved taking valuable subcontractor assets as collateral at dirt-cheap valuations, then laundering and circulating funds through phantom companies within the group.
"……Department Head Park. Since when has Strategic Planning been operating at this level? Did you design this?"
Choi Kang-min spoke in a low voice without looking up from the documents.
"Ahem. No, I did not."
Department Head Park cleared his throat before answering.
"It was…… Baek Do-jin of Team 1, who was given full authority over the subcontracting network's crisis response. Baek also devised this report and completed the on-site inspection himself."
The air in the conference room froze strangely.
Choi Tae-young and Choi Seo-yun stared at me in incredulity, as though doubting their own ears.
"I am Baek Do-jin, a new employee in Strategic Planning Team 1."
I bowed deeply with impeccable deference.
Then I slowly raised my head.
"Oh? A new employee."
My gaze met Choi Kang-min's serpentine eyes head-on as he rested his chin on his hand.
Those were the very eyes that had sneered coldly as the life was choked out of me in that penthouse in my previous life.
"Ah, you. You're the one who stood in my way in the lobby, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir. I was discourteous because I failed to recognize you at the time."
"Never mind that. Explain."
Choi Kang-min tilted his chin, looking intrigued.
"This is a 'Selective Survival Plan' that allocates the fifty billion won in financial ammunition secured by freezing subcontractor progress payments, along with affiliate credit guarantees."
"Allocates?"
"Yes, sir. Of the fifty billion won 'locked in' on the construction side by freezing all progress payments, we will first deploy twenty billion won to cover Taeseong Electronics' most urgent dollar payments."
A faint smile spread across Choi Kang-min's lips.
Meanwhile, Choi Tae-young's face twisted savagely.
"Is this crazy bastard joking? So Construction is supposed to fail to cover its maturing notes and just fucking die?!"
"No, sir. The remaining thirty billion won will be devoted entirely to repaying the construction division's toxic debt with extremely short maturities."
I drove the point home in an icy voice.
"In return, you need not worry about the subcontracting network collapsing in a chain of defaults caused by the unpaid progress payments. As for the valuable firms that go bankrupt because they cannot cover their notes, a shell company under the Strategic Planning Office can simply pick up their Gangnam land and heavy equipment at auction for next to nothing."
Looking straight into Choi Tae-young's eyes, I pressed the point home.
"By incorporating those acquired subcontractors' prime Gangnam sites into the books as sound assets and massaging the debt-to-equity ratio, we can pressure the creditor group and smoothly refinance maturing commercial paper (CP) worth tens of billions of won."
"……Huh?"
Choi Tae-young, who had been raging, slowly closed his mouth.
I immediately turned toward Choi Seo-yun.
"As for the retail division's supplier payments, we will put out the immediate fire with three-month promissory notes, backed by 'mutual payment guarantees' involving Taeseong Petrochemicals, the group's cash cow."
A strange silence settled over the conference room.
It was a bloody yet seductive division of the pie, perfectly suited to all three siblings' tastes.
But the proposal was lethal poison beneath a sweet coating.
Payment guarantees from other affiliates, illegal asset laundering through shell companies, and dollar payments kept afloat by desperate financial juggling.
It was a grotesque web of joint and several guarantees, binding them together as they pledged one another's throats as collateral to survive their individual crises.
As the liquidity crisis under the IMF tightened its grip further, the three siblings would inevitably tear into one another, fighting to seize each other's affiliate assets in order to survive.
They would have willingly swallowed the 'seeds of civil war' that would make this vast empire destroy itself.