Chapter 76
Translator: Dreamscribe
My younger sister was lying on the sofa, blankly staring at her phone.
It was the weekend, so she was just lazing around like an average office worker.
“Aren’t you going out?”
“Nope. I don’t have anyone to meet.”
“...I’m already a loner, and now even my little sister’s one too.”
“That’s not true! And how are you a loner? People from the Kangseong Group faint with joy just hearing your name. Didn’t you say you meet Chairman Kang Sung-ho all the time? I even overheard our CEO saying it sounds like you two see each other every day.”
“Is that... so? I don’t think so. Wait. But they still don’t know you’re my sister?”
“They haven’t said anything? Judging by how they nag me like usual, they really might not know?”
I thought for sure Kangseong knew that my sister worked in the hotel sector. But seeing as they hadn’t said anything, maybe they really didn’t know, or they were just pretending not to.
“No, they really seem clueless. I thought they’d dig into backgrounds and all that, but maybe not.”
“Well, doing a background check on me would be ridiculous anyway.”
I poured water into a cup and was about to head to my room when my sister stopped me.
“But you’re not going out either?”
“No. I have to play the game. I’ve been too busy with work and couldn’t play, so there’s a lot to catch up on.”
“During the week, you earn real money, and on weekends, you earn game money, huh.”
“It’s not really about game money. There’s a new raid that just came out, and I have to run it with my guild members.”
There was a new raid, but I hadn’t been able to play because of work.
Starting yesterday, I was grinding hard to catch up.
“You should get a girlfriend or something too. Anyway, you still need to eat.”
“I’ll just order room service.”
“Ugh. The room service here is ridiculously expensive. How can a single boiled egg cost 15,000 won?”
“Just don’t skimp on stuff like that. If you want to eat it, eat it.”
“No way. Even if you make tons of money, my conscience can’t accept a 15,000-won egg! I’m ordering tteokbokki today!”
“...You just wanted to eat tteokbokki.”
She was grinning ear to ear while browsing tteokbokki places.
“It’s nice that when you get delivery here, the staff brings it up. But it’s so annoying that you can’t get delivery after 10 PM.”
"It's good because you won't gain weight."
“Still, sometimes I really crave chicken.”
Before 10 PM, the staff downstairs would receive deliveries and bring them up to our unit. But after that, they all clocked out, and we had to go down to the first floor ourselves.
The floor we live on is over the 100th floor.
Going down and back up just to get one delivery... isn’t easy.
“What about Mom and Dad?”
“They went golfing.”
It seemed our parents were totally hooked on golf.
Ever since they retired, they’d been playing every single day.
Seeing them enjoy their retirement life made me feel good too.
"Do you want to eat some too, oppa?"
“If you order, I’ll eat.”
“Wow. But seriously, things have gotten so much better these days. Back then, if you wanted to order delivery, you had to flip through pamphlets and stuff. Now you can just find everything through an app like this?”
Just a few years ago, people used catalogs or flyers to order delivery.
Even I used to call in orders until just last year.
But now, even at our company, more employees were using delivery apps, and my sister didn’t use printed menus at all anymore.
“Hey, this just came to mind, but doesn’t your company invest in stuff like this? I don’t know when this app was made, but lately, it seems like everyone’s using only this one.”
An app called Midnight Snack Nation was currently holding the number one spot among food delivery apps.
Actually, I had looked at a report on Midnight Snack Nation last year.
But at the time, I didn’t get any strong intuition from it, so I passed on it.
"If you want to eat something too, oppa, take a look."
So I casually tapped the app on my phone.
“...!”
It felt like a surge of electricity ran from my fingertips straight to my brain.
***
“So, did you look into it?”
“Yes. According to what we found, it seems he’s not seeing anyone.”
“Really? I thought women would be all over him.”
How many people in this country at that age could be as successful as Jung Jin-ho?
“Actually, one media outlet has been tailing CEO Jung Jin-ho recently. Since his name is spreading more and more in the business world, I guess they got curious.”
“And?”
“They say they dug deep but couldn’t find anything to use against him.”
But Jung Jin-ho’s personal life was remarkably clean.
“That’s strange. With that much money, most people would be dying to spend it.”
“Yes. They say he either works on weekends or just doesn’t leave the house.”
Kang Mi-ra knew well what kind of behavior patterns were typical of people who suddenly became rich or achieved great success at a young age.
Lavish spending was a given, and scandals with women were so frequent they had to throw money around just to keep things quiet.
“All he does is stay home or go to work. Occasionally, he meets with Chairman Kang Sung-ho or Chairman Hwang of Kwangwoon Group, and if not, he joins company dinners. Or he goes on short trips with his family.”
“So, he’s basically a clean-living, filial son?”
“Yes. He’s so clean that I double-checked multiple times myself.”
The investigation into Jung Jin-ho had originally been because of Kang Sung-ho.
At first, she thought he was just joking, but she came to realize that Kang Sung-ho truly wanted to bring Jung Jin-ho into the family.
And if someone is going to become family, shouldn’t you know what kind of person they are?
But to think he’d be such a model citizen.
Sometimes when her brother spoke about Jung Jin-ho, she could tell he wasn’t someone to be taken lightly.
How to put it? Just listening to him talk made it feel like he could see straight into the distant future.
But when it came down to it, his day-to-day life was more ordinary than expected.
“But CEO-nim. While investigating CEO Jung Jin-ho, an unexpected name came up.”
“An unexpected name?”
“Manager Jung Yoon-ah from the Strategy Team.”
“Manager Jung Yoon-ah?”
A talented individual who had risen to the Strategy Team at a young age due to her abilities.
“What about her?”
“She’s CEO Jung Jin-ho’s younger sister.”
“...!?”
Kang Mi-ra froze on the spot for a moment.
Manager Jung was CEO Jung Jin-ho’s sister!?
Then all this time, CEO Jung Jin-ho had been keeping an eye on Baekje Hotel from the closest position through his sister?
“W-why are we only finding this out now?”
“Well, we had been focused solely on Chairman Hwang up until now. But once we realized that CEO Jung Jin-ho was the true core of Kwangwoon Group, this information naturally surfaced.”
“......”
Her brother had been right when he said Jung Jin-ho looked far into the future and prepared thoroughly.
Just when did he plant his sister in Baekje Hotel?
And now she had even made her way into one of the company’s key departments.
“Then, don’t tell me even our background check...”
“If she really entered this company according to CEO Jung Jin-ho’s plan, she’s probably collecting internal information from here and there. I mean... wouldn’t she have noticed by now?”
Kang Mi-ra tightly shut her eyes.
Her brother had repeatedly warned her never to make an enemy out of Jung Jin-ho.
“What should we do? Should we just call her in and have a talk...?”
“No. That would only lead to unnecessary misunderstandings. We need to take a different approach.”
“What do you mean by a different approach...?”
“If the other side knows we’ve done a background check, shouldn’t we show some kind of apology? Let them know we’re definitely allies. Bring me Manager Jung’s performance evaluation.”
If they were to fire her or demote her to another department now, it would be no different from openly declaring a split.
After all, even starting with this Kwangwoon Tower, the top revenue source of Baekje Hotel, wasn’t it already in Jung Jin-ho’s hands?
“Ugh. My heart’s pounding.”
A thought crossed her mind, what if it wasn’t just Jung Jin-ho’s sister?
What if Jung Jin-ho’s people were already scattered all over the place, beyond their control?
For some reason, today, the words of her late father echoed in her ears.
If someone must not be made an enemy, then you must make them your ally.
***
“So, this is... an app co-developed with ByteDance, correct?”
“Yes. Originally, this app should’ve launched a long time ago. But due to global server issues, the project was scrapped, and this app was effectively abandoned as well.”
Under the name tiktok, ByteDance had planned to launch a new app worldwide after acquiring Musical.ly.
Because of Chinese laws, they couldn’t operate the same SNS that ran in China in other countries.
So they partnered with Musical.ly, developed a brand-new app, and were just waiting for the launch date. But due to the global semiconductor shortage and server expansion problems, they eventually washed their hands of it and walked away.
“We conducted market research and developed the first-ever AI recommendation system that allows users to browse comfortably and without getting bored. We also made major improvements to the UI for convenience. The goal is to have users come in and just zone out watching videos for hours.”
The app’s biggest strength was its AI recommendation system.
Short-form content, consisting of brief video clips, could be found on other SNS apps as well. But this one had an AI system that automatically recommended videos tailored to the user’s preferences.
So once you held your phone, it kept you glued to it, feeding you an endless stream of content from within the app.
“What does everyone think?”
“To be honest... I’m not sure. Do people really watch stuff like this these days? Videos this short?”
“More than anything, there’s too little content. There aren’t many videos, so I’m not sure either. Of course, the AI system seems solid though.”
Most people in our department were negative about it.
“What about you, CEO-nim?”
“I...”
The truth is, I had already made up my mind.
From the moment they started introducing the app, my instincts were already ringing loudly in my head.
“I think I need to hear the price first.”
But I couldn’t just blurt out that I liked it.
As they say, the position makes the person.
Now, I too had become someone who negotiated.
“I heard ByteDance had prepared 1 billion dollars to acquire Musical.ly. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
ByteDance had valued Musical.ly at 1 billion dollars.
At the time, the platform was experiencing some growth, and the developers had technical capability, so it seemed that price was justified.
“What price are you thinking of now?”
Musical.ly’s CEO, Broll, answered immediately.
“800 million dollars.”
I waited for a moment.
But the feeling didn’t come.
In other words, it was absurd.
“800 million dollars?”
Then Department Head Seo, who was sitting next to me, raised his voice.
“That’s an outrageous price. Everyone knows Musical.ly will have to shut down soon if we don’t acquire it now. And you’re trying to take 800 million dollars from us!?”
“Th-then... 700 million dollars...”
I said nothing.
“600?”
“......”
“300, 300 million!! That’s our limit. At 300 million dollars, we’d just be recouping the development costs.”
At that moment, the intuition that had been dormant sparked and my closed eyes opened.
“Let’s do 300 million dollars.”
The Musical.ly team let out a sigh of relief.
If even we had turned our backs on them, they really would’ve had to shut down.
“I look forward to working with you. Even though the ownership structure has shifted to Kwangwoon, I hope all of you stay in your positions. And let’s expand the servers as quickly as possible so we can launch the app globally.”
With that, all shares of Musical.ly transferred to us, and their technology and app also became the property of Kwangwoon.
“Yes. But you’ll probably need to change the app’s name.”
“Ah, the name...”
“We brought a few name candidates with us. Would you like to take a look?”
I browsed through the naming list they brought.
They say naming a character in a game is the hardest part.
But this time, there was no need to hesitate.
“This is the first page, and on the next page-”
“Let’s go with this one.”
Among the countless name ideas, I picked the one that stood out in the center.
It was the only name that seemed to shine on its own.
[PicPic]
“Oh. That’s a good name. In Korea, it could be taken to mean ‘quickly swiping through’, and overseas, it could feel like ‘picking’ something.”
The staff liked it too.
But even after deciding on the name, I still felt the same way as Department Head Seo.
Will a time really come when people sit and mindlessly watch short videos like this for hours on end?
***
“Why did Mi-ra go and do something unnecessary?”
“But I don’t think it’s a bad thing to know. Especially if you truly want CEO Jung Jin-ho to be legally tied to Kangseong, just like you planned, Chairman.”
“Tsk. But that’s not easy. Even when I try to set up a meeting, he turns it down.”
“I believe CEO Jung prefers more natural encounters.”
“Right. I suppose I need to lay the groundwork for those natural encounters myself, but that’s easier said than done.”
Kang Sung-ho’s project to make Jung Jin-ho a part of Kangseong was still in motion.
But Jung Jin-ho, this man.
He wasn’t easy.
It was fortunate that he wasn’t someone who lived a reckless private life.
Still, whenever they tried to set up a meeting or create an opportunity from this side, he firmly rejected it.
And if they tried to push it, it might just upset him for no reason, so they were stuck, unable to do this or that.
“Well, I’ve got my own plan for that, so let’s move on. What did Kwangwoon request this time?”
“Ah, yes. Kwangwoon is planning to launch a new SNS app.”
“Hmm? SNS? All of a sudden?”
“It was originally an app meant to launch globally from China, but due to server expansion issues, the plan fell through. It seems CEO Jung Jin-ho picked it up. Now they need large-scale servers, so they’re requesting that we prioritize supply for them.”
“Well, that’s not difficult. Do everything you can to accommodate Kwangwoon.”
Right now, Trump is wildly swinging his sword.
Countries that stood still and got caught in Trump’s sword dance are now all imposing retaliatory tariffs, but still, this is the United States we’re talking about.
No one can come out unscathed when dealing with the U.S.
That’s why Kang Sung-ho felt even more grateful to Jung Jin-ho.
If Jung hadn’t connected them with NK in advance, Kangseong might have been caught in that sword dance.
“Wait. Speaking of this server issue, how are the other SNS platforms handling it?”
“Well, the U.S. government is treating this as an urgent national security matter, so they’re prioritizing that facility for supply. That’s why others have been pushed down the list, but it should be resolved soon.”
“Really? Is it really that urgent?”
“Right now, they’re managing the traffic to some extent. But all those platforms also need to replace their servers, so if this drags on any longer, they won’t be able to keep running.”
“...Is that so?”
At that moment, Kang Sung-ho suddenly had a good idea.
They say if you receive a favor, it’s only right to return it with equal gratitude.
“Find out when Kwangwoon plans to launch that SNS app.”
“...Should we delay the supply for other SNS competitors?”
At the secretary’s suggestion, Kang Sung-ho grinned.
“You really do catch on quick. I like that.”