Chapter 54
Wednesday morning.
5:00 AM.
The sun was only beginning to rise.
At the Bongau-tang branch in Gwangju's Sangmu District...
Normally, by this hour, boxes of ingredients would be piled so high behind the kitchen that the paving stones could barely be seen.
Fresh Korean beef rib cuts.
Essential vegetables.
And boxes of additional ingredients for the cauldrons.
But today...
There was nothing.
Not a single box.
Only the cold autumn dawn wind swept across the empty yard.
“Huh?”
“What the hell?”
“Why is there nothing here?”
The Sangmu Branch owner frowned and looked around.
“Did the delivery drivers take a wrong turn?”
“There's no way every single ingredient truck is late at the same time.”
His face slowly turned pale as he repeatedly looked between the empty yard and his wristwatch.
Normally, by 4:30 AM...
Or 5:00 AM at the latest...
Refrigerated trucks from the large logistics company contracted with headquarters should have arrived and filled the kitchen refrigerators.
They needed to prepare the ingredients and start cooking immediately if they wanted to serve their first customers only a few hours later.
“How can not a single ingredient have arrived?”
“Was there some accident on the expressway into Gwangju?”
He pulled out his phone.
Nothing.
No messages.
No calls.
The more he thought about it, the stranger it became.
For a restaurant to receive absolutely no food supplies...
It was essentially the same as being told not to open for business.
He urgently called the regional logistics driver for Honam.
After several rings...
The voice that came through the phone was nothing like the man's usual friendliness.
It was curt and rough.
“Driver, this is the owner of the Sangmu Branch...”
“Ah, Sangmu Branch.”
“No deliveries today.”
“What?”
“What do you mean?”
“Haah... Didn't headquarters tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“DD headquarters officially sent out a notice suspending the franchise business and completely terminating logistics deliveries.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Seriously... I don't know what the hell happened either.”
The driver sounded furious as well.
“The delivery center's entire system got blocked at three in the morning.”
“And that headquarters manager... Team Leader Oh or whatever his name is...”
“His phone is turned off too.”
“Driver, I honestly don't understand what's happening.”
“Can you explain it properly?”
“Our logistics company is about to lose tens of millions of won in nationwide delivery fees that DD headquarters owes us.”
“We might have to shut down too!”
“They aren't paying you?”
“You mean DD headquarters?”
“That's what I said.”
“Forget the restaurant.”
“Call headquarters yourself and figure it out.”
“I'm hanging up.”
“Wait, driver!”
“What about the ingredients for today's business...?”
Click.
The call ended unilaterally.
The Sangmu Branch owner's vision went dark.
Cold sweat poured down his back.
Business had been going so well that he had never once seriously doubted headquarters.
This bizarre situation made no sense at all.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding, ding.
At that moment...
Notifications from the secret franchise-owner group chat began exploding from his phone.
The logistics trucks for all 130 branches nationwide had vanished at the same time.
Franchise owners who had been pacing inside their kitchens since dawn waiting for supplies began screaming into the group chat.
[Seoul Myeongdong Branch Owner: The vegetable and meat trucks haven't arrived at all! Every planning-team employee at headquarters has their phone turned off! What the hell is going on?]
[Busan Seomyeon Branch Owner: Same here! I called the logistics center directly. They said headquarters' accounts are frozen and the entire system has been wiped. How are we supposed to open today?]
[Daejeon Branch Owner: Team Leader Oh's phone is off! The CEO's number says it doesn't even exist anymore!]
[Jeonju, North Jeolla Branch Owner: How can headquarters become unreachable when business is booming so hard that customers are lining up outside?! What kind of nightmare is this?!]
[Gwangju Sangmu Branch Owner: I just spoke with our driver too. Apparently the logistics company is in chaos as well. What in the world is happening...?]
[Busan Haeundae Branch Owner: Don't tell me... No. It can't be, right?]
[Gangneung, Gangwon Branch Owner: A scam? You're saying we were scammed like this?]
[Paju, Gyeonggi Branch Owner: Those crazy bastards. Seriously? No. It can't be.]
[Seoul Wangsimni Branch Owner: I'm heading to headquarters right now.]
[Gwangju Sangmu Branch Owner: Please tell us immediately when you get there.]
[Busan Haeundae Branch Owner: We'll wait for your update, Wangsimni owner.]
The entire nationwide logistics network had collapsed.
Until yesterday, customers had been taking numbers and lining up outside the stores while money poured in.
Yet within only a few hours of headquarters' midnight escape...
The kitchens of the wildly successful brand had transformed into scenes of screaming panic.
The franchise owners had trusted headquarters completely.
Now, faced with this incomprehensible collapse of distribution...
They looked as though they had been smashed over the head with a blunt weapon.
They could do nothing but pace helplessly.
At the same time...
WG Food was beginning to fall apart as well.
“Crazy...”
“A... scam?”
Manager Kwon Seunghun had received calls from suppliers since dawn and had rushed into the office early.
CEO Jeong Seonghan was beside him.
“That bastard Han Danghyun planned to force the company into bankruptcy and run from the beginning?”
CEO Jeong slammed his fist onto a desk covered in receipts and unpaid-invoice documents.
His face had turned red.
He was breathing heavily.
The hand gripping the back of his neck was trembling violently.
“CEO.”
“The livestock vendors and ingredient suppliers have brought dozens of large trucks and completely blocked the factory entrance.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“They're demanding payment and causing a scene.”
“Our corporate cash flow has completely stopped because headquarters...”
“No.”
“Because those bastards never paid us.”
“Haah...”
CEO Jeong squeezed his eyes shut.
“The warehouse is filled with hundreds of thousands of packs of special Bongau-tang sauce and Korean beef broth.”
“If this continues, all of it becomes dead inventory.”
Manager Kwon was gripping his pounding head.
Even so...
He forced himself to remain rational enough to explain the situation.
Someone had to solve this disaster.
And that responsibility belonged to the company's senior leadership.
Manager Kwon.
And CEO Jeong.
“We're already owed hundreds of millions of won.”
“If this continues, we won't be able to pay our suppliers next month.”
“WG Food will go bankrupt too.”
“We'll be dragged into a chain bankruptcy!”
Manager Kwon grabbed his hair and collapsed onto the floor.
In the middle of that hellish chaos...
Filled with despair, panic, and screaming...
Another person had arrived at the company early.
Assistant Manager Choi Inwoo.
Neither Manager Kwon nor CEO Jeong seemed surprised by his arrival.
“Assistant Manager Choi.”
“Did the factory call you too?”
Choi Inwoo looked toward the wall clock with cold, sunken eyes.
Then he calmly exhaled and whispered under his breath.
The future article...
Everything is happening exactly as it said.
Wednesday.
Exactly 7:00 AM.
A sharp breaking-news alert rang across the country.
At the same time...
A massive exclusive report exploded across South Korea's restaurant industry and the main pages of every major online portal.
[EXCLUSIVE: Ghost Franchise 'Bongau-tang' Embezzles Nationwide Franchise-Owner Funds Before Deliberate 'Planned Bankruptcy'... Key Manufacturing Subcontractors Face Chain Bankruptcy]
It was the exact headline Choi Inwoo had once seen in the message from the future.
Not a single word was different.
The article dominated the number-one real-time news position on every major portal.
Red breaking-news banners on television channels were filled with Bongau-tang's name.
The anchor's voice rang throughout the country.
[The Korean beef galbitang franchise 'Bongau-tang' entered the market targeting the winter dining season.]
[In less than a month, the company appeared to rapidly expand after signing 130 franchise agreements nationwide.]
[However, it has now been confirmed that the corporation suddenly filed for bankruptcy with the relevant court, in what appears to be an intentional planned bankruptcy.]
[CEO Han Danghyun, Team Leader Oh, and other key executives are believed to have fled overseas after taking tens of billions of won in franchise owners' interior deposits, franchise fees, and related funds...]
[Headquarters' internal computer systems have also been completely destroyed.]
[Total damages are estimated to reach tens of billions of won, with further details pending police investigation...]
The report revealed one of the cruelest and most organized planned fraud schemes in the small-business distribution industry.
Franchise owners across the country watched the news...
And felt as though they had been struck hard in the back of the head.
They fell into overwhelming panic and despair.
Only yesterday...
Their restaurants had been packed with customers standing in long lines while money poured in.
Now, overnight...
Those same restaurants had become nothing more than shells in an elaborate international scam.
The reality was too absurd to accept.
Small-business communities and nationwide franchise-owner group chats filled with tears, rage, and desperate screams.
[Seoul Gangnam Branch Owner: What is this supposed to mean? Planned bankruptcy?!]
[Seoul Hongdae Branch Owner: Headquarters pressured me yesterday, so I borrowed from the bank and even took emergency private loans to transfer fifty million won! You're telling me they ran away with all of it? Please tell me this is a lie. I'm really going to die!!]
[Goyang Ilsan Branch Owner: I sent mine yesterday too. They said it was the final warning and my last chance... I even took out a loan against my house.]
[Iksan, North Jeolla Branch Owner: I borrowed from private lenders. God... I want to die.]
[Wonju, Gangwon Branch Owner: Same here. Those bastards committed the fraud. Why are we, the victims, the ones who have to die?]
[Busan Seomyeon Branch Owner: I'm in Seoul at headquarters right now. The office is locked. There's nothing inside except abandoned furniture and dust.]
[Incheon Branch Owner: Team Leader Oh and the others are all gone. Even the CEO's number says it's disconnected.]
[Busan Seomyeon Branch Owner: Are there any owners who didn't send the additional fifty million won?]
[Suncheon, South Jeolla Branch Owner: I heard most of the people who attended that meeting didn't send it because Assistant Manager Choi Inwoo from WG Food told them not to.]
[Andong, North Gyeongsang Branch Owner: That's right. I attended too. Other than a few people, most of us avoided losing that final fifty million. But we already lost so much before that...]
[Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Branch Owner: What are we supposed to do starting today if the sauce stops coming?]
Online comment sections and self-employed business communities filled with cries of despair.
The betrayal and fear were overwhelming.
This was not a business that failed because customers stopped coming.
It was a vicious scam that had used a wildly successful business as a hostage...
Squeezing the franchise owners dry until the final drop before disappearing.
Dozens of furious franchise owners rushed to the headquarters building.
But the office was already empty.
Only scraps of abandoned documents lay scattered across dusty floors.
The company's main computer system had been completely formatted the previous day.
It was a nightmare in which even finding proof of their own franchise contracts had become difficult.
At that very moment...
Han Danghyun and Team Leader Oh were probably already on American soil after crossing the Pacific.
They were likely celebrating what they believed had been the perfect scam.
Meanwhile...
More than a hundred honest small-business owners remained behind in Korea.
They collapsed onto the cold pavement...
Pounding the ground with their fists as they cried.
The cruel future that the message had predicted...
Had finally become reality.
It swallowed the entire country.
And at that moment...
There was only one person in South Korea thinking differently.
Assistant Manager Choi Inwoo.
He began to move.
