The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 90

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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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Chapter 90. Sokcho (10)

“All-in!”

Whoosh.

A man sweeps all his chips onto the table in one motion.
A private space, roughly ten pyeong on each side.

No clock. No windows.
Just a few paintings hung on deep-blue walls.

Beneath dim overhead lighting, one female dealer and six men sit absorbed in a card game.

Texas Hold’em.
Chips tower at the center of the circular table, stacked high around the dealer.

One middle-aged man glances at his final card and, when his turn comes, shouts all-in.

Ten straight hours. The game grinds on.

Exhaustion etches every face.

Skin gleams with oil, hair hangs limp, and tired bodies reek of stale air from the dim room.

They look like addicts, every one.
Yet their eyes burn with feverish light.

The official maximum chip at the casino is one million won.

But this is the VIP Room.
Unofficially, they use ten-million-won gold chips too.

Clink-clink-clink.

Some seventy chips tumble across the center of the table.

Seven hundred million won in cash!

He’s liquidated everything—his entire remaining fortune—and pushed it all in.

“Call!”

Another man shouts back.
Fire ignites in this final hand.

Clink-clink-clink.

Another seven hundred million joins the pot.
With the two all-ins stacked atop what’s already down, the pot swells to two billion in a single breath.

‘I’m taking this hand!’

A man whose eyes glitter as he stares at the chips piled at the table’s center—he doesn’t bother hiding his hunger.

His name is Yang Soo-san.

He runs Pacific Fisheries, the family business.

Once upon a time, Pacific Fisheries was a kingpin of the fisheries trade along the East Coast.

His father, Yang Ho-chung, made vast fortunes from pollock, squid, and sand eel.

Back then, Pacific Fisheries handled over twenty percent of all East Coast fish distributed to wholesale markets nationwide.

At its height, Yang Ho-chung named his firstborn “Soo-san”—a tribute to the fisheries.

But after Yang Ho-chung’s death, Pacific Fisheries began to crumble.

His son Yang Soo-san took over—and slowly ran it into the ground.

Market share collapsed to single digits nationwide.

Even the old connections from his father’s era abandoned Yang Soo-san.

Only borrowed assets kept the company afloat.

Frozen storage warehouses scattered across the East Coast remained—that was all.

Now even those were being sold off piecemeal or seized as collateral.

Yang Soo-san hated his own name from childhood.

Children’s playful mockery had begun early: jeers about the fishy stench.

He begged his father many times to change it. His father always refused.

From then on, Yang Soo-san harbored resentment toward Yang Ho-chung.
But he swallowed it—for his father’s money sustained Pacific Fisheries.

Smart enough to enter business school at Yeonguk University, he won his father’s trust.

After graduation, he naturally joined his father’s company.

The times had changed. A business pivot was overdue.

But Yang Ho-chung clung to the old ways, dismissing his son’s proposals.

Unable to persuade a father armed with the thinking of the past, Yang Soo-san maintained the status quo.

Then, a few years later, Yang Ho-chung died of acute myocardial infarction.

As the eldest, Yang Soo-san suddenly inherited the family jewels.

He launched ventures he’d long shelved in his father’s shadow.

Every single one crashed.
When stress peaked, he stumbled into Jeongseon Casino by chance.

A swamp.

His first bets were measured in millions of won.
He won some, lost some—just amusement with pocket change.

Then, at some point, his stakes crossed into the hundreds of millions.
By then, he was already addicted.

When he won huge pots a few times, dopamine spiked beyond reason.

After that, he became a VIP.
Hundreds of millions in bets a month—vanished.

He abandoned the company.
Yang Soo-san’s life: he might as well have lived in the casino.

The company’s finances visibly deteriorated.

Recovery was now impossible.

Not long before things reached this point, he’d placed a friend on the board of directors.

A broken pot never seals shut.

They overlooked that their lifeblood drained as the dealer’s cut.

With his hidden King and Five of diamonds, a flush was complete.

Not an Ace flush—a flaw—but no matter.

A Royal Straight Flush or Straight Flush couldn’t be forced; the odds were impossible.

Without a pair on the board, a Full House was unlikely.

To beat him required an Ace flush.

Infinitesimal odds!

The man who’d called his all-in was a land-rich heir from Sokcho.

Hwang Young-chul by name; his alias was Hwang the Cannon.

A crass fellow who bragged about how women called him “Cannon” for his vigor.

Against this man, Yang Soo-san’s record stood at three wins, three losses.

Hwang Young-chul speaks to Yang Soo-san.

He flips his hidden cards: King and Five of diamonds.

“Oh!”
“Just as I thought!”

The other players gasp.

They rarely saw hands like this.

Hundred-million-won pots happened several times a day, but two billion was rare.

“Today will be mi—”

Yang Soo-san reaches out, palm open, as if to rake in the chips before the dealer moves.

“President Yang. You should see my hand too, shouldn’t you?”

Hwang Young-chul’s smile turns cold.

He flips his first card.

Two of diamonds!

Gulp.

Yang Soo-san swallows hard.
An icy dread crawls down his spine.

Swish. Thud.

Hwang Young-chul tosses the final card onto the table.

“No—!”
“Ah!”
“Ohhhhhhh!”

The spectators cry out in unison.

The card everyone deemed impossible lands beside the chips: Ace of diamonds.

An Ace flush!

Ha Dong-hwi stands bewildered at this moment.

But Ha Dong-hwi knows his brothers stood behind it.

His father, though cold, would never go that far against his own blood.

But his brothers, panicked over estate division, were capable of anything.

He sent a letter to the sister he’d once been close to: he would not visit again.

After that, Ha Dong-hwi disavowed and buried his connection to Haryun.

When his mother died, he learned of it—and wept bitter tears in silence.

He lacked the strength to protect his only child and honor his vow.

Time passed like that.
He’d wanted to leave Seoul behind.

By chance, a college friend had asked him to join his business venture.

The move to Sokcho was decided thus.

He left his high school son behind in Seoul.

For his son’s better future, Ha Dong-hwi threw himself into his friend’s business as if it were his own.

He took the title of Operations Director.
Ha Dong-hwi, a business school graduate with years of sales experience at small firms, was perfectly suited.

The work came naturally.

Pacific Fisheries—a name well-known in East Coast fishing circles.

He threw himself into the job with full force.

Where others saw a red ocean, Ha Dong-hwi glimpsed a blue one.

Pacific Fisheries owned large, numerous cold-storage facilities.

Rumors spread that the company was failing.

An indirect investment was on the brink of a windfall, he said, brimming with confidence.

Ha Dong-hwi believed him.

He even co-signed loans for operating capital.

Rumors about the CEO began circulating in fishing circles.

A friend from school days—they’d drunk together, sung away life’s sorrows.

He didn’t want to suspect him based on rumor alone.
And yet……

‘Gambling……’

His son’s report. The file on CEO Yang Soo-san.

His position, his current circumstances—all laid out in meticulous detail.

The company account had been in the red for ages.

Kept afloat by loans and bouncing checks.

Bankruptcy could happen tomorrow without raising an eyebrow.

Every time he went out on regional sales calls, merchants demanded payment for overdue invoices.

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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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