Chapter 122. Overseas? Overseas!
"Hey, take it easy. If someone saw you, they'd think the company was mass-streaming the song."
I was completely absorbed in Dessault's newly released music video when Dae-hun started getting in my way.
New Dimension's music video had finally been released.
They had even released a physical CD album, something that hadn't originally been part of Moon Hee-jung's plan.
And that wasn't all.
When I heard that Cheongwoo Cement would go bankrupt once the tax investigation began, I'd assumed the justice-loving Jung Jun was exaggerating a little.
I figured the company would simply move its headquarters because of financial trouble.
Even if one of those things happened, I thought it would take several months.
But Cheongwoo Cement actually went bankrupt.
In just one week.
Jung Tae-jin told me to come look at the office building, so I visited Cheongwoo Cement's Gangnam headquarters again.
By coincidence, I ran into tax officials moving through the building, breaking open locked cabinets, checking documents, and connecting the remaining hard drives to inspect their contents.
According to one of them, Kim Hyun-tae had suddenly become the Seoul mayor's attack dog and staked both his remaining National Assembly seat and his entire political future on Cheongwoo Cement.
Ah.
I forgot to explain that part.
I'd been so distracted by Dessault's music video that I hadn't paid much attention, but Kim Hyun-tae had actually been disciplined and expelled from his party.
The stated reason was that blatantly pursuing political actions that went against the public's demands was practically a fraud against the people.
The charge sounded a little excessive, but no one defended Kim Hyun-tae.
To the Forward Party, he was a traitor.
To the Happiness Party, he was someone else's troublesome child.
-Hyun-taeㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ He was an elite who never lost a student-president election from elementary school through college. Now he can't even stay a National Assembly member~
-Dessault hit No. 1 the moment their song was released, though? Is this the girl group that was supposedly being used to hide slush funds?
-Stop using proportional representation as a loophole~ Let us filter out the people who need filtering.
When the overseas-company return project he'd criticized so fiercely really did collapse, countless victims appeared.
I didn't know whether it was legally viable, but plenty of people filed lawsuits.
Some even demanded that Kim Hyun-tae be removed from his National Assembly seat.
The Forward Party blamed the administration for opposing the project.
Naturally, the ruling Happiness Party claimed the project had been impossible from the beginning and that the opposition had forced it through.
No one worried about Kim Hyun-tae.
He simply went back and forth to court in silence.
I got curious about Jung Jun, so I called Jung Tae-jin.
Apparently, he'd been shocked, but unlike a character in a drama, he hadn't grabbed the back of his neck and collapsed.
Instead, I was asked to visit MVN.
Chairman Jung Jun wanted to see me.
Apparently, he had something to thank me for.
Was he going to thank me for stopping them from building on top of a garbage dump?
I wasn't sure.
But if one of Korea's richest chaebol chairmen wanted to have tea with me, I should probably run over barefoot.
After waiting in Jung Tae-jin's office for about five minutes, Jung Jun entered with several attendants.
"Where is he? Is this CEO Do Jun-hyeok?"
"Yes, Chairman."
"Aigoo...! I thought a businessman like me would look rough and burly, but you're a very handsome young man! Hahahaha!"
Jung Jun loudly greeted me while grabbing my hand.
Apparently, Chairman Jung Jun almost never came all the way to Seoul unless something important happened.
Yet he'd come here personally just to thank me.
Jung Jun kept the conversation friendly, but there was a firmness in his voice.
His aged face couldn't hide the sharpness in his eyes.
He had the presence of a giant tree that had led a massive company for decades.
He probably wasn't as cheerful as he looked.
Hadn't he brutally chewed out Jung Tae-geon, who was already in his mid-forties?
"When I heard you wanted to see me, Chairman Jung Jun, I wondered what kind of gift I should bring. So I kept it modest... and I thought something too expensive might become a problem."
I handed him a 300,000-won red ginseng set and a 210,000-won Solsongju set.
"Oh! Isn't this premium Solsongju? You'd have to go all the way to Hamyang to buy this. Did you go yourself?"
"Come on. I sent someone under me. I brought the red ginseng too, just in case you didn't drink alcohol. I'm glad."
Sent someone, my ass.
I had gone myself.
I'd heard it was a famous liquor known only to people in the know, so I'd put my foot down on the accelerator and made the trip.
At least the effort had paid off.
"I'm the one who owes you, yet I'm receiving a gift too. People would curse me if I did nothing after this. CEO Do, is there anything you want?"
"Nothing in particular. What did I even do? I'm sure your losses were considerable too, Chairman."
At my answer, Jung Jun and Jung Tae-jin quietly exchanged glances.
Jung Tae-jin spoke.
"Didn't you tell me last time to buy a domestic competitor instead?"
"Yes, I did say that. But you never answered, so I figured you didn't believe me. Did you buy one?"
"Of course we did. Assemblyman Kim Hyun-tae was acting suspiciously, and it was your opinion, CEO Do."
Apparently, it hadn't fully erased Jung Jun's losses.
But it had at least prevented enough damage to send his blood pressure into dangerous territory.
"If a benefactor saves me from losing a fortune, then that fortune should be spent for the benefactor. Isn't that right? Without him, that money would've disappeared anyway. How could I call it mine?"
"That's true."
"Still, I'm not generous enough to give you all of it. But tell me, CEO Do Jun-hyeok. There has to be something you need."
How much was he actually willing to do?
Was he asking me to name a price?
I didn't know exactly how much Jung Tae-jin had made by buying shares in that competitor.
All I knew was that they'd avoided a major disaster.
"Didn't you mention before that you were thinking of moving your headquarters? How about that?"
"Our company building? You can help with a building too?"
"What? Where's your current address?"
When I told him Seocho-gu, Jung Jun groaned.
"Seocho? Then if you're moving, the location should be an upgrade from Seocho, shouldn't it? Haa... That's a little difficult."
"No. I don't intend to ask for anything unreasonable."
"Hey, Tae-jin. Has Cheongwoo Cement been hit with a tax investigation?"
Jung Jun spoke briefly with Jung Tae-jin about Cheongwoo Cement.
Then he said,
"In that case, that company won't last long. I already thought something smelled fishy when I heard they were surviving in Gangnam with a single chemical plant. If they're the kind of people who bury garbage in sacred ground, what wouldn't they do? When those bastards move out, snatch up the building and give it to CEO Do Jun-hyeok."
Good lord.
Chaebol really spent money on a completely different scale.
This wasn't like sweeping the yard and finding a coin.
It felt like I'd been sweeping the yard and suddenly picked up a new social class.
"Still, giving it to you outright would be a little too much. I'll buy the land and building, but you'll have to pay me something like the bank deposit interest rate. What's that these days? Around three percent?"
"Some cheap ones are under one percent."
"These banks are thieves. They charge seven or eight percent on loans, then barely pay anything on deposits?"
If the total value was twenty billion won, he was basically asking for two hundred million a year.
Two hundred million.
If I just made one decent chunk of unexpected money every year, I could cover it.
"I've actually been wanting to expand the business. That would be a huge help."
"Really? What kind of business?"
I calmed myself down and explained my ambitions as grandly as possible.
He didn't seem like someone who enjoyed flattery anyway.
"If Universe starts producing entertainment content in-house, I eventually want to create our own broadcasting station and launch a channel. We'll build a drama studio, manage dozens of idol groups, and directly supply actors, singers, comedians, everything. Ultimately, I want it to grow into a broadcaster capable of supplying culture to the entire world."
Jung Tae-jin, who was listening even though I might become his competitor someday, looked impressed.
"So you want to build a massive entertainment IP organization?"
"Yes. There's been a lot of controversy lately about competition between entertainment companies. But if they're subsidiaries sharing the same IP ecosystem, then whether one side wins or loses, the overall group still earns money. I think it's possible."
Jung Jun silently thought over my words, then picked up the red ginseng and Solsongju.
"Interesting. Strange too. Is that how trends work these days?"
"It's similar to what you do, Chairman. You control almost every industry connected to your core businesses, don't you? I want to do the same thing in entertainment."
"...I should get going. Anyway, CEO Do Jun-hyeok. You've worked hard. I don't know whether this is enough to repay the favor."
Jung Jun said goodbye and quietly left the office.
It seemed my words had given him something to think about.
A few days later, Jung Jun summoned Jung Tae-jin to Busan.
It was after Heenari had debuted and their first music video had been released.
Even then, Jung Jun was still thinking carefully about what Do Jun-hyeok had said.
"Does entertainment really make that much money? That bastard's incredibly ambitious. If you're talented enough, can you make money in any industry?"
"I suppose so."
"Then did I fail to support Tae-geon enough? I'm suddenly regretting it."
Jung Tae-jin was slightly surprised by Jung Jun's words.
During all the years Jung Tae-geon had run ZJ Electronics and achieved both large and small successes, Jung Jun had never once acknowledged his ambitions.
Yet after a single short conversation with Do Jun-hyeok, he was reflecting like this.
Of course, the idea of building an entire entertainment IP ecosystem had shocked Jung Tae-jin too.
Who had ever seriously imagined producing every piece of content aired by one broadcaster entirely in-house?
Still, it wasn't impossible.
All they had to do was keep creating companies capable of producing every type of content.
"If you really want to make money, shouldn't you sell necessities? People won't die just because they don't watch idols."
"Yes. They won't."
"And yet people spend that much money on them? I don't understand."
The fact that Jung Jun kept saying he didn't understand meant he was gradually becoming convinced.
"There are so many global platforms these days that even if customers are scattered around the world, you can supply content without spending anything on distribution. Like you said, the demand isn't as high as necessities. But normally, sending products overseas by ship costs an astronomical amount, doesn't it? If you earn one thousand won from one person and spend five hundred on distribution, CEO Do Jun-hyeok earns ten won each from fifty people instead."
"Does it really work like that?"
Jung Tae-jin nodded.
"Accessibility has improved significantly. In fact, traditional broadcasters are already declining. In the past, content couldn't be shown unless a broadcaster distributed it. That's no longer true. In that sense, Universe is already running a small broadcasting station through Nutube and social media."
"I understand, but that's not something I expected to hear from someone running a broadcasting station."
"I only analyzed it because it has become a problem for us. Still, as CEO Do said, aiming straight for the global market seems too far into the future for now."
Jung Jun seemed to become seriously concerned by that statement.
He asked Jung Tae-jin to explain in more detail.
"The advantage terrestrial broadcasters have is stability. Until CEO Do builds a proper broadcasting station of his own, the original content he wants to produce will always remain unstable. No matter which country he enters, he'll have to overcome that same obstacle until he establishes a proper broadcasting network there. But before he can even worry about the next mountain, the mountain called Korea directly in front of him is already extremely steep."
After hearing that opinion, Jung Jun made a decision despite Jung Tae-jin's somewhat pessimistic outlook.
Then he proposed,
"Looks like we should invest some money in that Do Jun-hyeok bastard."
