The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 73

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 73. Whiskey Bar J&W (4)

“Ha Cheol-gon’s grandson…….”

A grand mansion perched high above Pyeongchang-dong, where the entire city sprawled into view.

A gaunt old man stood gazing out through a massive window, murmuring to himself.

His scalp was nearly bare, with only sparse wisps of white hair remaining.

Hands clasped behind his back, he gazed at the pine tree in the courtyard, its silhouette enhanced by the scattered lamplight.

Contrary to his expressionless eyes, the name Ha Cheol-gon escaped his lips.

For a moment, Ha Cheol-gon’s shadow seemed to flicker across his gaze.

“Of all people…… Ha Cheol-gon’s grandson…… Tsk.”

The old man clicked his tongue in displeasure.

His name was Kang Pil-sung.

His late parents had been wealthy merchants of some renown in Pyongyang.

When the puppet regime took control of North Korea, they suffered relentless persecution.

In a single night, everything they had accumulated—their fortune, their home, their very land—was confiscated.

A merchant family reduced overnight to a state lower than servitude.

When the Korean War erupted, they joined the tide of refugees fleeing southward.

After the DMZ was drawn, Kang Pil-sung’s parents settled in South Korea.

Their homeland, from which they had already lost everything, lay forever beyond reach.
His parents descended to Busan and started a tteokbokki stall.

Even amid the chaos of war, merchant blood ran true—it regenerated wealth.

A family steeped in commerce for generations, they were greed incarnate, finally meeting its match.

His parents grew their fortune ceaselessly, only to encounter fresh calamity.

The world did not obey their designs.

Wartime bred vagrants who lived for the quick score, and they were everywhere.

Alongside discharged soldiers and local ruffians, they preyed on the couple repeatedly, extorting their earnings.

After enduring this suffering for some time, his parents gathered other refugees from their province who could lend strength.

They doled out daily rations and money, then set these men to work.

Refugees with nothing left to lose, uprooted from home, were ruthless.

Not all wished to settle permanently in the South.

To survive, they risked their own lives and those of their remaining families without hesitation.

Those who had tormented his parents were dealt with, one by one.

Even the organized crime syndicates with roots deep in Busan came to fear the Kang Clan.

Over the years, as their influence expanded, the Kang Clan became the invisible heart of Busan’s power structure.

As their scale grew, they naturally ventured into loan sharking, where money bred money.

Not a single fish in the pond could borrow without Kang money, nor could they refuse to repay.

Over several generational turns, the Kang Clan established itself as a titan of the loan-sharking industry in South Korea.

Among the country’s enterprises, it would be difficult to name a single major corporation that had never borrowed Kang money.

Kang Pil-sung had always watched his parents’ methods of moving money.

He inherited the family trade naturally, driven by a sense of duty to its legacy.

An elite who had studied abroad in America, Kang Pil-sung wielded the logic of capital with even greater ruthlessness.

He multiplied his parents’ foundation with the cold precision of a capitalist.

He cultivated the wealth they had sown exceedingly well.

Then came the accident.
Over the years, Kang Pil-sung had built relationships through generous bribes with officials across successive administrations.

He conducted business with a fearlessness that seemed to defy even heaven itself.

Regardless of whether the nation prospered or stumbled, he invariably walked away with enormous sums.

So too when the Financial Real-name System was implemented during the Cho Young-san administration.

He received advance notice before the policy took effect and opened offshore accounts under false names, transferring his assets overseas.

Then came the IMF Crisis.
National financial policy shifted.

He transformed loan sharking from the shadows into a legitimate Savings Bank.

He redirected capital flows toward the capital region, purchasing undervalued buildings throughout Gangnam and central Seoul.

Drawing on real estate policy information released each season, he timed his sales and purchases opportunely, multiplying his wealth with precision.

Kang Pil-sung had risen to a level of financial power that no one dared dismiss.

Yet he did not relent, clawing harder to accumulate still more.

Then one day, calamity struck without warning.

He lost his son and daughter-in-law at once.

It was punishment from heaven itself.
Only then did he understand.

With his son gone, everything crumbled.

His only child, precious beyond measure.

His son and daughter-in-law left behind only one granddaughter as their blood inheritance.

But before that, the voice of a spirit possessing him came through faintly.

She had never formally introduced herself to the bartender.

Only the physical stamina accumulated during her Special Forces service kept her going.

Unlike usual evenings, it ran past one in the morning.

Alcohol deepened the loneliness and isolation creeping over her.

A basement whiskey bar with no prominent sign.

He had poured whiskey into an on-the-rocks glass.

Cold whiskey swirling around transparent stone ice.
Without hesitation, she downed it in one gulp.

As the sharp whiskey scent flooded her nose, a dreamlike voice accompanied it.

—The Wheel of Fate spins in the realm of the divine, beyond the reach of mortals…….

After hearing that voice, her memory went blank.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in her rooftop room.

Though heavily intoxicated, she remembered everything clearly.

The bartender, watching her drunken state, had told her to go home.

Partly because of the strange smile he’d worn watching her drunk.

Some time later, she learned the truth.

Through a YouTube video.

Many came seeking tarot readings, drawn by tales of his mystical power.

So he read fortunes only for guests who moved his heart, much to the chagrin of other visitors.
Like now, with the hall empty.

She thought of this place again today.

She didn’t know why it came to mind today.

She recalled the meaning of the voice’s words from that night.

The Wheel of Fate cannot be stopped by mortals.
It dwells in the domain of the divine.

The Wheel of Fate I was meant to turn.
Perhaps it had guided me here.

Though it was only our second meeting, it felt as though I’d known him across long years.

I was beginning to sense who the being was that spoke through the bartender’s eyes and lips.
He was…….

“The Dokkaebi decrees: one born under the Magician’s destiny carries an inherent brilliance and singular grace. The moment you forget that precious quality and character, the beauty granted to you will vanish as well. Thus you must recognize your own nobility and worth. When you do, the entire cosmos shall cherish and love the Magician’s child of fate.”

With a single card, the Dokkaebi—bartender set Ayura’s destiny marker.

The divine ones were scattered thus throughout the world, mingling invisibly with mortals.

Before the regression, would she have believed even half of this?

But now she believed utterly.

She was a being who had lived experiences beyond mortal imagination.

As one who had witnessed them firsthand, she held absolute faith in the divine.

A second life, granted by my grandmother’s blessing.

“And should you care for yourself as I care for you, pouring love and effort into the world and its people, multifold returns shall find you. My dear.”

The Dokkaebi regarded Ayura with quiet intensity.

“Y-yes. Yes…….”

Ayura blinked her wide eyes, her trembling voice offering reply.

“The Upright Magician signifies, in your life now, the beginning of a new bond. Your new connection shall make you shine, and it heralds the start of a fated fresh project. To wield the brilliant and beautiful gifts permitted in this life, you need only…….”

He paused, his gaze turning toward me.

“……follow this Ha gentleman faithfully.”

Ayura turned to look at me.

She’d come out for a casual drink.

A frightening proclamation.

A prophecy wielded as coercion.

“And you, Ha gentleman…… you there.”

Through the bartender’s eyes, the Dokkaebi fixed his gaze directly upon me.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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