A Chairman Who Has No Regrets - Chapter 138



Only Krnovel

Episode 138 – Do as you wish – (6)

How should I say this?

“It’s okay, even if Heesuk doesn’t help.”

Hee-sook shakes her head vigorously as if to say no.

“I want to do it. I don’t do it because someone told me to. I just want to do it.”

“so?”

“yes.”

Even though I didn’t answer or give permission, Heesuk smiled brightly, wiped away the tears in her eyes, and ran off into the distance through the furrows of the field.

If he had said that he had pulled out weeds until his hands were all worn out and that he wanted me to live longer, it might have been easier to answer. The guy was grateful to me and told me that it was a reward, and he left.

“#1 hyung…”

Chang-Hyeon calls me with a very dejected voice.

“Oh, okay.”

“Can’t I play with Hee-sook anymore?”

“hmm…”

Before I answer.

“Hey! You’re talking nonsense!”

“Come quickly! Heesuk, help me!”

Mikyung and Miyoung quickly dragged Changhyun and disappeared along the furrows of the field.

The children disappeared into the vast sunflower fields here and there, and I was left alone on the way home.

“after-”

With a sigh, I shook off the strange thoughts and feelings and continued walking.

Before I knew it, I had arrived at my house, the first house I built with my own money.

“Tsk.”

From afar, beneath the tiles, on the pure white wall, a painting with traces of the hands of the children of Hodori Village caught my eye.

Looking at the picture that I used to look at every day and smile happily, I can’t smile easily these days.

I turned around and climbed Bukam Mountain instead of going home. I just turned around because I felt suffocated, but when I arrived at the flat rock on the side of Bukam Mountain, where my friend was sleeping, I felt even more suffocated as if something heavy had been placed on my chest.

“Did I come here for nothing…”

I realized later that the voice that came out without me knowing was a mistake and I snickered. How sad it must be to say that the first thing I said to my sleeping friend was, ‘Did you come for nothing?’

Swish, swish.

She looked down at the village of Hodori, which was becoming more colorful and detailed, as she stroked the area where she was sleeping.

Hodori Village, which used to have a shape similar to that of a Hodori, is now starting to take on the appearance of a Hodori even in its color.

I heard that the average number of daily visitors is increasing rapidly enough to develop full-fledged tourism products.

“Are things changing for the better?”

My friend gave me a house and land and asked me to use it well, so I answered that I am doing so.

It’s natural that there is no answer.

For some reason, I had a feeling she wasn’t satisfied with what I was saying.

My head is full of thoughts, and I go over each and every thing that happened now with the logic I know.

We will kick out the people who followed Park Jeong-yong and fill their place with several commercial establishments. With the profits from those commercial establishments, we will hire a manager for the sunflower field and reinvest the tourism revenue generated there in urban development projects.

“It’s perfect…”

The system was set up so that everything would work like gears that were aligned correctly, but why does it feel like something is wrong now and it leaves a bad aftertaste?

‘Do whatever you want.’

Why do my older sister’s words keep coming to mind?

“ah!”

Do whatever you want.

Yeah, I wasn’t able to do that. That’s why I was so depressed and annoyed.

I just found out.

Knock knock.

“I’ll do whatever I want and come back.”

I started going down the mountain.

The steps that felt so heavy when I was going up now feel incredibly light. It might be dangerous, but my body feels so light that I want to run down.

again.

We walk along a field of sunflowers where children are busily pulling out weeds.

A field of sunflowers that raise their heads toward the sun and bloom with fragrant flowers when summer comes.

I had planned to plant flowers here and use it as one of the tourist attractions in Hodori Village, but in the end, it all started because of Chang-Hyeon’s children.

A small idea to show a sunflower field to people who don’t know what a sunflower looks like. That idea just turned into a business idea.

Just flowers would be enough, but if possible, sunflowers would be better. Just because I have a small thought that it would be nice if the guys could smile one more time.

Clunk, clunk.

A man who was moving a lot of luggage on a cart stopped walking as if he recognized me.

He was the one who grabbed me by the collar and yelled at me to give up my house and give me my money.

Ssuk.

He avoided my eyes.

His eyes, which had been busy being hostile, were now busy observing the situation.

“Tsk tsk.”

I turned my head at the sound of tongue clicking coming from the side, and saw Hyoryong’s grandmother standing next to me.

“They’ll all go out today. As you can see. Those guys must have a conscience, judging by the way they’re being careful.”

“grandma.”

“okay.”

“Please gather some people.”

“Those teeth?”

“yes.”

My grandmother stares at me.

It’s as if he knows why I’m gathering them together.

The grandmother smiled brightly for a moment, then nodded and spoke.

“Okay, that’s right.”

“I’ll go to my grandmother’s house.”

“I get it.”

He entered his grandmother’s house, sat down at the table, and began writing on a blank piece of paper.

[ contract ]

It was the text written on the first line.

A draft contract that is neither legally complete nor notarized.

I started writing it down in detail. I don’t trust people, I trust documents. That’s who I am.

While writing the contract.

I knew that people were coming into the house one by one. They were trying their best not to make a sound. It seems like Hyoryong’s grandmother was right about watching me.

“Everyone is here.”

He bowed his head to express his gratitude to his grandmother, then handed them each the completed contract.

“contract?”

People looked at me with a questioning look on their faces, and I slowly brought up the main topic to them.

“Is there anyone here who doesn’t want to stay in Hodori Village?”

People were busy avoiding eye contact with me, and not a single person readily said they wanted to leave this place.

“The contract you have now is a simple contract. You will need to re-draft it with a lawyer later, but you can think of it as a type of employment contract.”

Is it still difficult to understand what it means?

“We will renovate the place where you originally lived. Then we plan to build various facilities there. Of course, they will be commercial facilities.”

He’s still blinking and it seems he’s having a hard time understanding what I’m saying.

“And that’s where you’ll work. That’s where you’ll sleep. That’s where you’ll live.”

“Uh, so we don’t have to go out…?”

An ambiguous tone of speech that is neither informal nor formal.

It seems that I have become a difficult person to them. Since we are going to be employer and employee, I guess that kind of relationship is not bad. I nodded without correcting myself.

“You said there was no one who wanted to leave Hodori Village?”

“That, that’s right….”

“If you look at the contract, it says so, right? 30 percent of net profits will be paid as operating expenses for Hodori Village.”

A rough man who had been keeping an eye on the situation while pulling a cart nods his head while looking through the contract.

“It’s there, it’s there, here, here.”

People nod their heads and focus on the contract.

“You have to earn money. That’s your labor cost. You can think of it as a kind of monthly rental contract.”

“So when you say monthly rent, you’re talking about a room on the moon…?”

“You can think of it as a similar concept. If you run a store, you have to pay store tax, right? That’s 30 percent of your net profit.”

People nod their heads.

Hyoryeong’s grandmother tilts her head and says.

“You can just get taxed, so why is it so difficult?”

She is right.

A new, cumbersome process has been created.

Can people who have no place to go and no money living in shantytowns bring in rent that I am satisfied with?

I shook my head.

So, that’s why this strange process happened. Originally, I had been looking for suitable people, and I had thought of the Sanggye-dong guys first because they could be a good opportunity.

Maybe they don’t know.

What an opportunity this could be for them.

“Do you not like it?”

People shake their heads at my question.

“So, that means if I stamp this contract, I can keep living here…?”

“Yes, that’s right. To be exact, you have to work.”

“Work! You even made me do work!”

The man who had grabbed me by the collar quickly put the contract down on the table and quickly turned his head away.

“Inju, where is Inju?”

Now, complete respect was coming out of his mouth.

It’s a process that we had to go through at least once anyway. It’s a process that we had to go through at least once anyway.

Even the king could not save the poor. He had to create an environment where they could overcome poverty on their own.

The situation where most of the men from the shantytown are being deployed as laborers in the urban development project I am working on.

The thought flashes through my mind that perhaps the people gathered here now are people who, unlike them, have not been able to get jobs.

There may have been another shantytown within the shantytown. And Park Jeong-yong’s cunning tongue may have scoured the area between them.

“Are you all going to sign the contract? If you don’t want to sign the contract, just pack your bags and leave the village.”

Everyone shook their heads.

For some reason, Hyoryong’s grandmother pats and caresses my shoulders and back.

I am neither a fool nor a retard.

Hyoryeong’s grandmother probably thinks I’m doing a good thing.

“I tell you again, if you sign this, you must remodel and operate this store into the type of store I want.”

I once again emphasized the points in the contract.

It will become a supermarket, a stationery store, and a restaurant. The foundation they lived in will change completely.

“You have to run a supermarket, a toy store, a souvenir shop. You really agree with that, don’t you?”

“Yes! I will! Please let me do it!”

“You can do it!”

“Me too! I will do well too!”

People who all answer unanimously that they will do well and work hard.

“Do you also understand the provision that 30 percent of net profits will be paid to Hodori Village as operating expenses?”

The man who had grabbed me by the collar nodded his head repeatedly and spoke.

“Are you saying that if you earn ten thousand won, you should pay three thousand won?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then just like that, just like that. Where is Inju!”

Everyone looks around, looking for Inju.

I opened the lid of the pearl on the table and held it out to me. People rushed forward, putting the pearl on their thumbs and stamping it on the contract as if they were writing a contract for a tea house.

“madam.”

“yes yes?”

“Are you Hee-sook’s mother?”

“Oh, that’s right.”

I asked because the child’s face resembled mine, and it looks like I was right.

“You raised him well.”

“yes?”

“Take good care of Hee-sook, don’t starve her.”

“Yes… Our daughter can’t go hungry.”

“You must have hurt your hand a lot today, so please take good care of it.”

“yes…”

I heard you’re coming to marry me later.

“Please raise him well.”

“yes?”

I stood up from my seat, holding the contract without answering.

Then I hurried my steps toward the sunflower field where the sun had not yet set.

“Changhyun!”

Then I called out to him loudly.

There was something I still hadn’t been able to answer him about.

“#1 hyung!”

A guy covered in dirt runs towards me from afar.

“I asked you earlier, right?”

“huh?”

“You can keep playing with Heesuk.”

Changhyun tilts his head.

“Hee-sook isn’t going today?”

“Don’t go.”

“Really? Are you really not going?”

“Yeah, now I can’t go even if I want to.”

I shook the contract.

“Now, I have stamped the slave contract.”

As if he didn’t even listen to what I said, Chang-Hyeon was already running after I gave him a firm answer that he wasn’t going.

“Hee-sook! Hee-sook! You didn’t go to Hodori Village! Your mother didn’t go!”

There’s a very small child over there.

A child who has turned black because he has covered himself in dirt.

Smile, showing off your white teeth.

okay.

I just wanted to see that smile.