Chapter 725

Going through the door, Hong Janghae took off his shoes and arranged them tidily. He had a glance at the darkroom before turning on the lights. He undid his tie and stood in front of the refrigerator. He saw three yellow sticky notes on it.

I won’t be here until the weekend, I’ve prepared side dishes so eat them as you wish, contact me via text message if possible.

Those were the messages left behind by his wife. He took off the sticky notes and put them in the trash. He opened the refrigerator. He saw containers of side dishes with labels on them. His wife had prepared the side dishes according to each day. He took out the braised tofu, stir-fried nuts, and the chicken breast salad. While he warmed up the braised tofu in the microwave, he took off his shirt. The noise from the microwave filled the room, putting him at ease.

“A meeting accompanied by my wife? I’ll call you back after I look into it.”

He hung up the call he got from his friend and got ready to eat. He first drank the stamina drink that his wife prepared for him before eating the heated food. When eating, Janghae always focused on the food. He didn’t turn the TV on or fiddle with his phone while eating. After he finished eating, he washed the dishes. He then shook off the water from his hands and sent his wife a text: Can you make some time next week?

He got a reply soon: Wednesday and Saturday. Janghae called his friend and told him that he could do Saturday. His wife was a woman of few words. Instead of words, she was a woman of action. Janghae liked that part of her. While they did not trust each other, they provided each other with what they needed. She wished to use the system of marriage to her benefit, and the same went for Janghae.

For the image of a family that society wanted, they also promised to have two children before they got married. Two regardless of gender. His wife splendidly fulfilled her role as a mother, but she did not stop working either. Janghae thought that there wasn’t a problem with it as long as she didn’t make a mistake while doing both of them, and his wife did everything perfectly. Janghae also did all the things that he had to do as a husband and as the breadwinner of the household; he trained himself to stay fit and satisfy his wife sexually, and he did not forget to buy gifts on commemorative days and anniversaries. She also did her best to stay slim. After all, maintaining an appearance that wouldn’t make them look shameful as a couple in public was important. After marriage, both Janghae and his wife still had other lovers in their respective workplaces, but they never fought over something like that. In fact, they even introduced each other to young lovers. His wife always brought him women that suited his tastes. Janghae also gifted her with young men in order to pay her back. It was a much healthier and more desirable relationship than those that relied on uncertain things like love. Their views on education also matched, and there was no discord there either. Though, they were surprised when Geunseok left the house.

In any case, his wife was a good woman and still proved herself to be useful. As long as she continued to be earnest, Janghae would continue to like her. The opposite was true as well.

He sat on the sofa and had a look at the reports that the team leaders submitted. The schedules of the various actors and musicians under Soul Entertainment were written in detail in them. The documents on his left were about the music streaming service ‘Music Soul’, that just finished the open beta and had been fully commercialized. The high number of users showed a drastic decrease ever since the platform became a paid subscription. It seemed that they didn’t like paying for music. It was a natural reaction since the internet was filled with illegal tracks.

There was no problem since this was all expected. Janghae stroked his chin. The only thing that could win against something that was free of charge was convenience. The advantage of being able to listen to the latest songs without much effort for just a few thousand won should be a very welcome thing for the people in their 20s and 30s, who consumed a lot of culture.

The slogan that Music Soul put forward was ‘trend leader’. That term started appearing on internet banners already. Music Soul, a step ahead. Rather than appealing to people’s sense of justice to use legal, paid services, telling them that using the platform would make them trendy would stimulate purchases more. Once he managed to open their wallets once, the hurdle would become a lot lower when renewing the subscriptions. A fee that was less than 5,000 won was stronger than any form of advertisement.

If it successfully takes root in the market, Music Soul would become a bigshot in the music market. Now that the CD market was on the decline, he had to make use of the advantages of the forerunner as much as possible.

After organizing the documents related to Music Soul, he looked at the reports for other departments. Currently, Soul’s signature actor could be called Lee Hyuk, while their signature singer was The Five. In Lee Hyuk’s case, he had to admit that he got lucky. He tried to go over to join JA Production after his contract expired with his previous agency, but that didn’t work out. Although he definitely once was a popular actor, he rarely had any activities for the past few years and other unfortunate events like how the premature ending of the drama he participated in was leading to his decline in value as an actor. Janghae managed to bring him in for a cheap contract deposit thanks to all those elements. Immediately after that, Lee Hyuk was cast in a movie directed by director Park Joongjin, and that ended up doing extremely well. He was in his mid-thirties, his prime as an actor, and his success at this time made him an actor called by many places.

However, Janghae did not have Lee Hyuk do any work. In his opinion, the success of a film was unrelated to the actor. It was purely up to the director. If he rowed the boat just because there was water, he might end up in the middle of nowhere, so he had to be careful. Sometimes, opportunity was like a storm that would capsize the ship when it got caught up in it. As he had suppressed Lee Hyuk’s rebellious personality, he did not resist that much. In fact, he looked even a little relieved. Janghae liked how he knew his own position. He was someone who gave rewards to docile sheep after all.

The Five wasn’t doing bad either. Perhaps thanks to appealing to the public’s sympathy with the problem of the slave contract, the fans stayed loyal. Although he only had three of the five members, as the remaining two still belonged to the previous agency, they were still allowed to use the team name ‘The Five’, which meant that there were no big problems. He was also working below the waters to get the other two to join his company, so they should be able to go back to their five-man team soon.

“I should slowly start pulling out from this one now.”

The reason The Five was able to rise so rapidly was thanks to the help of many rich ladies. Daughters of big chaebols, as well as female presidents, were The Five’s patrons. It wasn’t just women who sold their bodies. In fact, while there was less demand, the money involved with men doing the same work was much larger. On the day members of The Five satisfied a rich lady, public TV stations broadcasted The Five’s signature song by playing them during entertainment programs. They would appear in the golden slots for music programs, and they even had a program named after them. Janghae found out through managing the agency that stars were creatures that grew on money. The entertainment industry wasn’t that different from the logistics business that he was originally handling. The forerunner monopolized it all.

The problem was that The Five had become relatively big now.

Janghae came to know Lee Miyoon before he became the president of Soul. He went to meet her after hearing that she had a vast connection in the industry. He knew with one glance that she was the same type of person as him. Perhaps because she too was someone who desperately tried everything to climb higher, their business talks went smoothly. It was then that he found out about The Five. Back then, Janghae made a proposal. There were many people who would be in trouble if the sexual service matter became controversial, so they should cover it up with another incident. That was how they made an issue out of the unfair contract, sowing disharmony between The Five and their agency. That was just before the male idol sexual service controversy burst out. After that, some newbie journalists tried to stick their nose into that matter again, but society soon became calm because there were no follow-up articles. There was no reason to dig into it, and The Five’s sexual service matter disappeared back into the memories of people, and Janghae managed to bring them in. He also managed to bring them in cheaply to the point that it was no different from a slave contract.

The problem was that the rich ladies were starting to look for The Five again. Now that they were beginning to lose attention from the public again, they seemed to want to play around with those young men again. Janghae did not think negatively about those services. He was of the mind that it was a good thing to make use of their puny bodies if it meant that he could win a big contract. If The Five was doing badly, he would have sent them to do those services without hesitation, but right now, the value of idols was through the roof since they were becoming huge hits in Japan. Since they had become expensive, there was a need to adjust their price, but thanks to a middleman, it became a lot harder to calculate the benefits and losses. Lee Miyoon, that old hag, was up to shady business in the middle.

She was indebted to him too. Janghae found Lee Miyoon incredibly annoying when she reached out to him for help while not knowing what she was doing. She tried to manipulate The Five as she wished while hinting to him that she had a lot of connections in the political and financial world. Janghae disliked that. He was supposed to be the owner of The Five, yet it was her who tried to use that right as she wished to.

If he could, he wished to stuff her in a bag and beat her up. A beating was the only way to tame a foolish woman who thought that the power she gained by opening her legs was hers. He thought about hiring some mercenaries to bring her here quietly, but he left that for another day since she was hard to deal with.

His hands felt itchy. At times like this, he thought about Geunseok. He remembered how the boy looked at him with eyes stricken with fear. It felt good to beat him up, but unfortunately, Geunsoo took him away.

Janghae despised the incompetent but cherished the capable. When he saw Geunsoo escape the castle he built and become successful independently, he felt really proud as a father. It was to the point that he could stand the boy’s hostile gaze.

Just as he was reminiscing about that sensation he got from his hand, he got a call. Not from his business phone, but from his personal one. He reached out and opened his phone.

“Junior director Kim, it’s been a while. But what’s up today? Calling at this hour.”

-Junior director Hong. No wait, I guess you’re president Hong, now, eh?

He could hear a laugh over the phone. Junior director Kim wasn’t someone who would call without reason, so he decided to wait.

-There’s someone who wishes to meet you.

“Me? At this hour?”

Janghae looked at the clock on the wall. It was past 9 in the evening. Junior director Kim was not a rude person. He wasn’t incompetent either. If he wanted to see him at this hour without any prior notifications, it meant that it was that important. Above all, there weren’t many people who he would use polite speech like ‘who wishes to see you’ to refer to.

-Come to Sanggye-dong.

“Is it the chairman’s call?”

-Yes. You have to come to the chairman’s mansion.

“Junior director Kim, I’m asking just in case, but am I losing my position?”

-If it was like that, I wouldn’t have called you beforehand. Come as soon as possible.

“I will.”

Janghae put his shirt back on and put on his tie. He put his shoes on and brushed them off with a shoe brush. He stood in front of the mirror, checked his clothes, and went to his car and turned it on. On his way to Sanggye-dong, he thought about whether he did anything wrong, but fortunately, there was none.

He arrived at the chairman’s mansion, which was located on a hill that looked down on Sanggye-dong. He was guided by a driver waiting for him to park his car underground before going round to the front door. He checked his clothes again before stepping forward.

He passed the wide living room and arrived in front of the study. Junior director Kim was waiting for him there. After exchanging gazes, junior director Kim knocked on the door.

He was just getting ready to go in when the door suddenly opened. The chairman, who had a build that was better than most people despite the fact that he was in his seventies, came out holding his hands behind his back. Janghae bowed towards the chairman. This man was the legend who succeeded a small trading company that was YM and raised it to the super conglomerate of today.

“You’ve come.”

“Yes, chairman.”

“How about food?”

“I haven’t eaten yet.”

“What did you do until now? Geez. Junior director Kim, let’s eat together after a long time.”

Junior director Kim replied ‘yes’ before standing next to the chairman.

“Little Hong.”

“Yes.”

“Did you like bossam?”

“I do.”

“Then let’s go with that,” said the chairman.

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