The Return of the Ruined Chaebol's Third-Generation Heir - Chapter 2

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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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The Fallen Chaebol Heir’s Regression — Chapter 2
“Haah…….”
A long breath escaped him. The three days of the funeral had felt like being trapped on a battlefield.
His father’s face in the portrait — a face he hadn’t seen in thirty years — still wore that gentle smile. Kang Seon-woo forced something back down into his chest, pressing hard against whatever threatened to burst free. There would be time to grieve later.
That place had not been a gathering to share sorrow. It had been a circle of hyenas settling around the ownerless carcass of Seonjin Group.
“There’s a great deal ahead of you, sister-in-law. Let’s get through the funeral first, and then we can talk things over.”
He had stood there wearing the Chief Mourner’s armband, watching it all unfold — Kang Tae-yong and the other uncles, every one of them.
The memory rose, bile-thick: false tears wrung out in front of his father’s portrait, while behind their grieving masks they whispered roundabout suggestions into his mother’s ear.
“And I saw that bastard Kang Jin-ho, too.”
A young, boyish Kang Jin-ho — still a university student — had been there as well.
“Wearing that look on his face, like he’d already won.”
In his previous life, he had taken Kang Jin-ho’s condolences at face value. But this time, looking closely, he could see the man had been fighting back a smile.
Every muscle in him had wanted to grab the man by the collar and scream, but he had bitten the inside of his lip and held himself still.
It wasn’t time yet.
Show your teeth too early and you’d be finished before you even began.
“Still — I really did come back.”
He dropped into his desk chair with a heavy thud. His room. His familiar room. The world outside the window was exactly as he remembered it — 2003, unchanged. The mirror on his desk threw back the face of an eighteen-year-old Kang Seon-woo, still carrying his baby fat, staring at him.
“This is really…….”
No question about it.
He had died, and now he was alive again. Why?
He had turned it over in his mind all through the funeral, but it was a question with no answer.
What mattered was the single fact that he had been given a second chance.
“Let’s think this through.”
His father was dead.
On top of the company’s debts, a political scandal had surfaced, and the prosecutors had come in hard.
Whether that was the cause or not, exhaustion compounded by a heart attack had taken him — and given the family history, Seon-woo had eventually met a similar end.
“Those wonderful uncles of mine had their fingers in it.”
He hadn’t known it at the time, in his previous life, but the pieces had come together later.
It was those brothers who had handed the prosecutors the very leverage they needed to go after his father.
“Now the reins of Seonjin Group pass to Mother.”
A woman who had lived her whole life as a homemaker, thrown headlong into the middle of that jungle called the business world.
“Good grief.”
He exhaled without meaning to.
The timing couldn’t be worse. If they were going to send him back, five years later would have done it — three years, even.
If he’d already come of age, if he’d had even a little business training under his belt, his room to maneuver would have been so much wider.
“Who’s going to listen to an eighteen-year-old stepping up to run things?”
A minor — legally incapable of signing any contract, with no grounds to take a seat on the Board of Directors. Of all the obstacles he might have anticipated, his own age was going to be the biggest one from the very start.
Even so, he couldn’t simply sit back and watch things play out.
He had to make whatever preparations he could with the hand he’d been dealt.
“There isn’t enough time.”
Time, unfortunately, was not going to wait for him — that much was certain.
The attack from the extended Kang family would come soon.
What people would later call the Younger Brother’s Rebellion — in his previous life, his mother had weathered it remarkably well.
“But she had to sell off everything worth keeping.”
Scrambling purely on defense, she’d been forced to hand over the most valuable subsidiaries at throwaway prices, and every engine of future growth had been stripped away.
In the end, Seonjin had been left a hollow shell, drying out and dying by inches.
“This time it has to be different.”
Not just holding the line — he needed to hit back. Why?
“Because they won’t ever stop coming.”
A weakened Seonjin Group would draw his father’s other brothers like blood draws sharks.
Unless the first attack cost the aggressor something real, every one of them would see an easy target.
Knock-knock —
Just then, a cautious tapping came from his door.
“Seon-woo? Are you asleep?”
His mother. He drew a slow breath and steadied his voice.
“No, I’m up. Come in.”
The door opened and his mother stepped inside, her face drawn and thin. In her hands she carried a warm glass of milk.
“Can’t sleep? You haven’t slept in days…… my poor boy, you’ve worked so hard.”
She stroked his hair with a tender look in her eyes. It felt good to be near her again, after so long.
But there was a problem.
The hand stroking his hair.
That was the problem. Right now, in her eyes, he wasn’t a capable ally who could carry his own weight — he was just her grieving son, a boy who had lost his father. Nothing more.
If he couldn’t break that frame, he would be useless.
“Mom.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“You’re meeting with Uncle tomorrow, aren’t you?”
His mother’s hand paused at his words.
“How did you know about that……?”
“I heard it at the funeral parlor.”
He took a casual sip of milk as he spoke, keeping his tone light.
“You’ll be fine, Mom.”
“…….”
“You’re wise. I trust you.”
His mother was quiet for a moment, but soon a smile softened her face and she resumed stroking his hair.
“……My boy’s all grown up.”
“Of course I am. Look how tall I am.”
She smiled, the tension in her shoulders easing just a little. But he knew the truth.
Once she actually walked into that company, she would find herself desperately short of people she could rely on.
The existing executives would either already have been bought off by Kang Tae-yong or the other relatives, or they’d be watching which way the wind blew. She needed a blade she could trust.
“Oh, Mom — one more thing.”
“Hmm?”
“Do you remember? That time Dad took just me, the two of us, on a fishing trip.”
“Of course I do. Neither Seon-ah nor I were too happy about it — your father always claimed he had things to talk about with the men and dragged you off practically every time.”
He affected a distant, nostalgic expression and let the words come naturally.
“Every time we were together in the tent, Dad used to tell me things.”
“Your father did?”
“Yes. He said that when I was older and started learning the business, there was someone I absolutely had to keep an eye on.”
“Who was it?”
Her eyes lit with curiosity. He said the name clearly, without hesitation.
“Choi Dong-su, the team leader. He’s in Finance, I was told.”
Choi Dong-su.
The man who would one day become the CFO responsible for the financial lifeblood of Seonjin Group.
In his previous life, his mother hadn’t discovered him until she was already battered and bleeding from all sides.
He remembered something the man had once written in his memoirs — a lament that had stayed with him.
“If the chairwoman had trusted me and brought me in just a little sooner, we would never have lost those companies the way we did…….”
“Choi Dong-su…… I don’t recognize the name.”
“Dad said he was almost stubbornly honest, and that his eye for numbers was extraordinary. He’d been passed over for promotion because he kept speaking his mind to his superiors instead of telling them what they wanted to hear — but Dad said the people who truly care about a company are exactly that kind of person.”
His father had never said any such thing, of course.
But no guarantee in this world was more powerful than the words of the dead.
“Dad called him something like a reserve fund he’d set aside for a rainy day. When you go to the company, please seek him out first. He’ll be a real help, I’m sure of it.”
His mother turned the thought over quietly, then gave a slow nod.
“All right. If your father noticed him, there must be a reason. I’ll make it the first thing I do when I go in.”
She nodded once more and rose from the edge of the bed.
“Get some sleep.”
“Yes. You’ve had it hard too, Mom — please rest well.”
She left the room, and he let out a long, slow breath.
“Good. That’ll do.”
Looking back on their previous life, his mother had never been a fragile woman.
The day she made up her mind to run the company, she had convened the Board of Directors and stood before the Creditors alone.
A woman of iron who had faced down those beast-like uncles and their threats without so much as blinking.
That was his mother.
“I don’t need to be holding her hand at every turn.”
If he blundered in clumsily now and twisted the course of events, he might end up stealing the very moment that forged her into who she needed to be.
Facing Kang Tae-yong tomorrow was his mother’s trial to walk alone — the first rite of passage she would have to pass through as chairman in her own right.
“You hold the home ground, Mom.”
He would be watching her back from the shadows.

* * *
The following morning.
A heavy silence pressed down on the living room of Seon-woo’s house. Seated across from Seon-woo’s mother, Kim Ja-yeong, was an uninvited guest — Kang Tae-yong, chairman of Seonjin Motors.
Thwack.
Kang Tae-yong reached into the Leather Bag he had brought and set a Document Folder on the table between them.
“This is……?”
Kim Ja-yeong looked at it with questioning eyes, and Kang Tae-yong answered with a show of grave solemnity.
“A list of recommended Professional Managers.”
“Professional Managers?”
“Tae-jin is gone, just like that, and Seonjin Group is the foundation of our Kang Family, is it not? Then at the very least, the company needs to keep running properly until young Seon-woo finishes his university studies.”
Kim Ja-yeong opened the folder with trembling hands.
Page after page of names. Former government officials. Finance sector figures. Corporate restructuring specialists.
Each one boasted a résumé that gleamed on paper — yet none of them struck Kim Ja-yeong as the kind of person who would save a company. They looked like the kind who would take it apart.
She studied the list for a long moment.
The fog of grief that had clouded her mind lifted all at once, as though cold water had been thrown over her.
‘The reason he’s pushing this list toward me……’
The late chairman — her father-in-law — had drawn the lines of succession with absolute clarity before he died.
To the eldest son, Kang Tae-yong, he had given the automobile business; to the second son, shipbuilding and chemicals; to her husband Tae-jin, the original core of the group — Seonjin itself; and to his only daughter, the Seonjin Foundation.
Bundled with Seonjin, the group’s founding heart, came the Resort business, the trading company, and logistics.
It had already been decided. The matter was settled.
So why was her brother-in-law — who had taken Seonjin Motors and flourished — inserting himself like this the moment her husband’s funeral was over?
‘Transparent.’
“Until Seon-woo finishes his university studies.”
Those words were nothing short of a declaration of intent: to pick the group’s most valuable bones clean before Seon-woo was old enough to stop him.
Those Professional Managers were nothing but Kang Tae-yong’s proxies.
“You’ll be fine, Mom.”
At that moment, Seon-woo’s words from the night before came back to her. A smile nearly broke through — but Kim Ja-yeong kept her expression hard and met Kang Tae-yong’s gaze.
Slide.
She closed the Document Folder and pushed it back across the table toward him.
“……?”
Kang Tae-yong’s brow twitched. He hadn’t expected this.
“I will handle it myself.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I am telling you that I will handle the affairs of Seonjin Group myself.”
Kim Ja-yeong’s voice was calm, but it left no room for negotiation. Kang Tae-yong lost his composure for an instant, his face twisting.
“What could you possibly know about any of this——!”
He caught himself mid-shout, snapping his mouth shut.
A slip. But once words leave your mouth, you cannot call them back.
It was his true feeling, laid bare.
The contempt was woven into every syllable — the unspoken question of what a woman who had only ever managed a household could possibly know about running a corporation.
“Ah, ahem, ahem. What I mean is…… a company is not a game of house. This is not a weight you can carry when you’ve only ever managed a home. The Creditors could come knocking as early as tomorrow — do you really think you can deal with them? I’m not trying to frighten you. I’m telling you the reality.”
Kang Tae-yong smoothed himself over and settled into a lecture, assuming the pose of a man dispensing patient wisdom.
How grave the company’s crisis was. How grueling the work of management.
But Kim Ja-yeong held his gaze without wavering.
“I understand perfectly. And I am grateful that you’ve gone to such trouble on my behalf.”
“Then——”
“However, Seonjin Group is what Seon-woo’s father gave everything to protect until the very end.”
Kim Ja-yeong paused to collect herself, then spoke.
“Until Seon-woo is ready to take his place, I will take responsibility for it.”
Kang Tae-yong’s jaw dropped.
He was speechless.
That a woman who had lived like a flower in a greenhouse could be hiding this much iron inside her.
“You’re serious?”
“Completely serious.”
The look in Kang Tae-yong’s eyes sharpened to a blade.
“Things could get dangerous for you.”
“…….”
“You won’t be able to hold on alone. By the time you regret it, it will be too late.”
It was an unambiguous warning.
Refuse my hand, and I will come at you myself.
But Kim Ja-yeong only offered him a thin, quiet smile.
“Please leave now.”
Kang Tae-yong’s face cycled through red and purple. He looked like a man whose pride had been ground into dust.
“Well, I never.”
He snatched the Document Folder from the table with a sharp, irritable motion. There was no reason to sit here a moment longer.
“Fine. But the next time we meet, don’t expect a friendly face from me.”
Kang Tae-yong rose, turned his back, and walked straight toward the entrance without a glance behind him. The door slammed — a bang that rang through the living room.

* * *
‘Maybe I should’ve just stayed home today.’
His teacher had told him he could take as much time away from school as he needed, but he’d come in anyway to avoid running into someone who would only make things more uncomfortable at home — and yet he couldn’t settle into any of it.
High school, of all the things. And he had to live through it again.
He propped his chin in his hand and stared out the window. The Corporate Governance Structure of Seonjin Group refused to leave his mind.
‘Seonjin Group.’
Whatever anyone said, his grandfather had been a titan — a man who had helped build this country on manufacturing.
Even when he died and divided the group among his sons, the principle behind each division had been deliberate and firm.
The eldest, his uncle, had received automobiles; the younger uncles had received heavy industry and finance.
‘And my father received the Resort and the trading company.’
People had said his father got the short end of it.
Compared to the prestige of automobiles or heavy industry, a resort and a trading house didn’t look like much.
Especially after the IMF Crisis, when voices began calling general trading companies obsolete, their perceived value had fallen through the floor.
‘What nonsense.’
He snorted softly.
You only had to look at Japan’s general trading company model to see the truth.
Iron ore to crude oil, children’s toys to you name it —
Monstrous organizations that threaded the entire world together and squeezed money out of every knot.
This country’s whole structure runs on importing raw materials, processing them, and exporting the finished goods — a trading company in that system has no business going under. And when it controls logistics and distribution across the entire group on top of that, it’s the circulatory system, not a branch office.
‘Beyond that, Grandfather believed that only Father had the right to carry the Seonjin name — the very name the group was born from.’
His grandfather had been deeply fond of his father. He had given the son he cherished most the thing he himself had cherished most.
‘Kang Tae-yong knows that perfectly well.’
His mother had most likely turned Kang Tae-yong’s proposal down flat this morning.
Which meant his uncle would have no pretext to push further for now — but……
‘The real problem comes a year from now.’
Another figure rose in his mind.
His grandfather’s younger brother — his great-uncle — Kang Byeong-chul, chairman of Seonjin Aluminum.
An old man more cunning and more covetous than any of the hyena nephews circling around him.
A year from now, when the group was struggling for cash, he would be the first to bare his teeth.
His target was Seonjin Trading Company. He would try to swallow the company whole in order to monopolize the export channels for his own aluminum.
‘In my previous life, Mother stopped him. But……’
A victory that left nothing but wounds.
Fending off that assault had drained every last piece of prime real estate and every last reserve of cash they held.
Because of that, when the Financial Crisis swept in later, there was nothing left to fight with — and they had simply collapsed.
‘I have to step in.’
He couldn’t let things bleed out in that war of attrition again.
Before his great-uncle even opened his mouth, he needed to lay out a board that made it impossible for the man to utter a single word.
‘But me? Right now?’
He caught his own reflection in the window glass. A shaggy-haired high school student in a school uniform and necktie.
If he went to his mother now and said “Great-Uncle is going to attack us, we need to prepare,” she would chalk it up to a teenager’s overactive imagination.
‘I need someone who can help me regardless of my limitations.’
A justification for moving money and reading the board legally — without any official title, within the constraints of being a minor.
He had been turning his pen over and over, deep in thought, when it came to him.
‘Would that person be able to do it?’
A face flashed to the surface of his mind.
‘Mother will need Choi Dong-su right now — and if Executive Director Kim Seok-jun would help me……’
He had to go find him.
Now. Right now.

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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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