The Return of the Ruined Chaebol's Third-Generation Heir - Chapter 46

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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 Regression of a Fallen Chaebol’s Third Generation 046
The next morning.
I’d just finished showering and was drying my wet hair with a towel when the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong—
I opened the door to my lodging with the towel still draped around my neck.
Standing outside were Jung Tae-sung, Park Jin-hyeok, and Choi Sung-hun.
“Come in, please.”
“……We should have come later. I hope we didn’t disturb your rest.”
Jung Tae-sung, seeing my dripping wet state, wore an apologetic expression.
“Not at all. I’m the one who called you at this hour. Please, have a seat on the sofa while I change.”
At my words, the three men entered the living room and settled down, while I rushed into my room and quickly changed clothes.
After roughly blow-drying my hair, I returned to the living room to find the three men paging through the A4 Papers I’d compiled overnight, passing them between them. In the silence, I heard only the sound of turning pages.
I sat down on the sofa across from them.
“Have you all finished reading?”
“That…… did you put all this together yourself, sir?”
Jung Tae-sung asked carefully, his eyes clouded with disbelief.
“Yes. Is there anything incorrect in the content?”
“No, it’s not incorrect…… You did sleep, didn’t you?”
“No. I was so absorbed writing this that I lost track of time. It was enjoyable.”
At my answer, Jung Tae-sung could only click his tongue in amazement.
The materials contained my analysis of Shinjin’s proposal from yesterday’s Whiteboard, the toxic clauses hidden within it, and even the three-stage merger roadmap that Nakamura Kenji was targeting.
“It’s remarkable that you analyzed and organized something this vast in a single night, working alone. That insight into the Governance trap and its connection to raw material supply—it’s on par with a seasoned Mergers & Acquisitions specialist.”
At Jung Tae-sung’s praise, Park Jin-hyeok, seated beside him, nodded with a serious expression.
“I agree entirely. Especially this raw material supply section. It’s chillingly precise.”
“That’s thanks to you, Director Park.”
“Me? How could it be thanks to me?”
“When you met Nakamura Kenji, you asked him directly about the proposal—about how the raw material supply would be handled. Without that question, I wouldn’t have dug so deeply into that aspect.”
It was the truth.
During yesterday’s meeting, when Park Jin-hyeok—an engineer, not the finance man—suddenly asked that question, I’d been able to read a subtle shift in Nakamura’s expression. That fleeting sense of discord became the starting point for all of this analysis.
Park Jin-hyeok opened his mouth, a wry smile crossing his face.
“I may not understand business or capital logic well, but I do know something about how this industry works. How major corporations silently swallow up latecomers with technology.”
“By tightening a noose with raw material supply?”
“Yes, exactly as you’ve written. First, they monopolize the supply under the sweet pretext of stable quality. Once the joint venture settles in, they gradually raise prices or adjust delivery schedules. Then the joint venture can’t make a profit. Eventually, it ends up begging for mercy, handing over technology or the entire company. It’s a classic predatory tactic.”
I nodded. In manufacturing, the moment a company becomes dependent on a single supplier for raw materials, unable to diversify its supply chain, its fate slips from its own hands.
Ironically, it was not unlike the strategy I was employing now—becoming a super-buyer to strangle my relatives.
I couldn’t let others do to me what I was doing to them.
“In any case, that’s my analysis. What do you gentlemen think? If there’s anything to add, please share it now.”
At my words, Jung Tae-sung pointed to one of the documents and spoke.
“It’s a near-perfect analysis, but there’s one more thing to address: safeguards regarding fund recovery terms. If the joint venture falls through, we need to explicitly include a Put Option clause ensuring we can resell our Equity Stake at fair value. We need a financial penalty to prevent them from having second thoughts.”
“A good point. Let’s add it.”
Afterward, Park Jin-hyeok provided concrete defensive logic regarding the dispatched technical personnel, while Choi Sung-hun compiled and reported information about the Japanese site.
For roughly an hour, we put our heads together and finalized our counterstrategy to Shinjin’s proposal.
“Good. Let’s wrap up the preparation here.”
I tapped and organized the documents on the table, looking at the three men.
“You’re all aware we have dinner plans with Shinjin tonight, yes?”
The three men nodded with resolute expressions.
“I’ll explain the position and approach we need to take. This time, we’ll need a slightly different performance than yesterday.”
At my words, everyone’s attention fixed on my lips.

* * *
That evening, at an upscale kaiseki restaurant in Kitashinchi, Osaka.
Jung Tae-sung, Park Jin-hyeok, and I stepped inside.
Choi Sung-hun stayed outside waiting—he was known to them as a driver, which suited us better.
“This way, please.”
The restaurant’s staff bowed respectfully to us and led the way.
“Have you been to a place like this before?”
“No. I’ve only attended places like this with Executive Director Kim Seok-jun, but this is my first time at such an establishment.”
“I… I haven’t either……”
The three of us said so as we followed the guide.
The private room we were shown into was so luxurious it was hard to believe it was a restaurant.
One wall of the room was entirely transparent glass, offering a clear view of a meticulously arranged Japanese garden, and in the quiet, the sound of bamboo water pipes striking stone echoed intermittently.
“Welcome, welcome.”
As we entered, Nakamura Kenji came forward to greet us.
From Shinjin’s side came Nakamura Kenji himself and a senior managing director overseeing the operational aspect of the negotiations.
“Thank you for the invitation.”
“Not at all. Since you’ve come to Osaka, I wanted to treat you to Osaka’s finest cuisine. Shall we be seated?”
At Nakamura Kenji’s words, the three of us took our seats across from him.
“Tonight, I hope you’ll forget all business talk and simply enjoy Osaka.”
As Nakamura Kenji spoke, an abundant spread of food and drinks was laid out before us.
Even I, a member of a chaebol family, had never seen such a feast of dishes in my previous life.
“How are you finding life in Japan?”
After several rounds of drinks and the atmosphere had warmed, Nakamura Kenji refilled Jung Tae-sung’s cup and asked with a smile in his tone.
Jung Tae-sung accepted the cup with an easy smile.
“I came on business, so I can hardly call it comfortable. I’ve been running around all over, so it’s quite exhausting.”
“Is that so? It seems you have many places to visit since you’re here.”
‘Look at him.’
I quietly ate my rice while suppressing an inward laugh.
He was probing still.
He must have already heard the report that we’d made contact with Otsu Industrial yesterday, yet he was pretending ignorance, trying to extract information about our next moves.
Given that I’d openly mentioned it at the first meeting, there was no way he wouldn’t know.
Jung Tae-sung, following the scenario I’d laid out for him this morning, naturally dangled the bait.
“Yes, tomorrow I have to go to Kobe as well. My schedule is quite packed.”
Nakamura’s hand stilled for a moment.
Kobe.
A port city reachable from Osaka by train in thirty minutes.
And there was one company there that Nakamura Kenji knew far too well.
“Kobe…… Are you perhaps referring to KBC Chemical?”
KBC Chemical.
Comparable to Shinjin in scale, but geographically closer and with overlapping product lines, they were like enemy rivals constantly at odds with each other.
While Shinjin kept its eyes on the major players, its real rival was KBC.
The kind of relationship where they had to keep each other in check while pushing upward.
Jung Tae-sung shook his head calmly.
“I won’t comment on that. It wouldn’t be polite to our counterpart. Besides, didn’t we agree not to discuss business tonight?”
In truth, this was pure Bluffing—unlike the Otsu Industrial situation, we had no actual connection with KBC.
We’d never even contacted them.
But it didn’t matter.
Jung Tae-sung didn’t confirm or deny, and that irrefutable silence was far more frightening to Nakamura.
‘You’re not our only option. There are plenty of alternatives.’ That was the message I was embedding—the core of my strategy tonight.
“The truth is, I came thinking a week would be part business trip, part vacation, but now that I’m here, it’s busier than back home. Ha, ha, ha.”
Jung Tae-sung laughed heartily, controlling the mood.
Nakamura forced a laugh along, but the corners of his mouth trembled faintly.
Otsu Industrial, and now KBC. He must have felt surrounded on all sides.
“Ah, drinking such fine sake in succession, I’m full already. Might I use the restroom for a moment……”
Jung Tae-sung excused himself and stood, and quick-witted Park Jin-hyeok set down his napkin and rose as well.
“I’ll accompany you, sir.”
At that, Nakamura Kenji quickly gestured to the senior director seated beside him.
The director immediately stood and bowed deeply to the two men.
“Allow me to show you the way. It’s this direction.”
The ostensible reason was courtesy—not to send guests alone—but the real intent was surely to monitor what they discussed, or whether they made calls elsewhere.
Slide— click.
The sliding door closed, leaving only Nakamura Kenji and me in the room.
A brief silence hung in the air. Nakamura toyed with his cup, lost in thought.
The name KBC seemed to have been quite a shock; his usual Poker Face had crumbled, his distress plainly written across his features.
My presence seemed beneath his notice. To him, I was merely a young attendant, perhaps babysitting luggage.
“You seem troubled.”
I set down my chopsticks and spoke to him in Japanese.
Nakamura Kenji’s head snapped up in surprise, his eyes wide.
“……You speak Japanese?”
He couldn’t hide his shock. His accent and pronunciation were so flawless, so indistinguishable from a native speaker’s, that this went far beyond merely “being able to speak it.”
“Ah, it’s a family tradition. My father had such an obsession with languages from childhood that he practically forced tutors upon us.”
I smiled easily, as if it were nothing.
But Nakamura’s expression didn’t soften. It wasn’t only about my Japanese.
‘How dare an attendant address me, seated at the place of honor?’
His eyes held a mixture of displeasure and suspicion.
I didn’t avoid that gaze—I met it directly. It was time to remove the mask.
“You should speak your true intentions before entering negotiations.”
“……What do you mean by that?”
Nakamura’s brow furrowed. I straightened my posture and spoke calmly but with the sharpness of a blade.
“The Korean expansion is vital for Shinjin, yes—but even after expansion, you don’t want to surrender control of Shinhwa Welltech to us. That duplicity of yours.”
“……!”
“Without laying that greed bare, nothing will move forward. At least, I can see it all plainly.”
Nakamura Kenji’s pupils trembled violently.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Kang Seon-woo, representative of SJ Holdings and owner of Shinhwa Welltech. I’m the one who decides whether this deal happens.”

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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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