The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 5

Episode 5. The Regressor Stabs the Heart of the Moon!

-What was that? Grandpa?

Mom asks.

“Ah, nothing.”

-Da? Tae-woong, did you go to the army? Why are you ending your sentences with ‘da’?

“The military discipline from the seniors in my club is no joke.”

I changed the subject.

In our house, the word ‘grandfather’ is a forbidden word.

The old man with the kind appearance whom the world calls Chairman Ha, the Hahoe Mask.

I remember his true colors.

Childhood.

It was before I entered elementary school.

Knowing that Grandma was in critical condition, I visited the old man’s house with my parents.

Back then, as a child, I was excited.

I had only heard of a grandfather and grandmother through the mouths of my friends.

Until then, it was someone else’s story to me.

It was fascinating that I had a grandfather and grandmother.

And that wasn’t all.

I had many uncles and even aunts that other kids didn’t have!

I realized it only after I grew up.

Dad, who traveled all over the country every day as a sales employee for a small and medium-sized enterprise.

He was a direct senior from my university.

A graduate of the Yeonguk University Department of Business Administration, where it was easy to get a job at a large corporation back then.

Moreover, he was the youngest son of the then-chairman of the Haryun Group.

However, Dad worked at a small and medium-sized enterprise.

It was the result of marrying Mom despite the family’s opposition.

Dad was stripped of all the benefits he could have enjoyed as a scion of the group.

The Mom Dad chose had lost both her parents early and lived alone like an orphan.

The two met by chance on the beach in Sokcho and fell into a passionate love.

It was their first love, the most beautiful emotion permitted to humans.

The tragedy started from then.

Dad was already a man with a marriage arranged during his college days.

It was like the duty of a chaebol bloodline.

Dad, the youngest of four sons and two daughters.

He was already decided to marry the daughter of one of the top three media families in the country.

Nevertheless, Dad chose love.

Because of that, the Ha family even made ridiculous threats to kill Dad.

Dad did not yield and chose Mom.

Naturally, the grandfather kicked Dad out right then and there.

He needed a stepping stone for the empire the grandfather dreamed of.

He coldly abandoned the child who refused.

His brothers, who knew that their shares would increase in the calculation, also welcomed the grandfather’s decision.

Dad never regretted it once.

He overcame the world of prejudice with the love that chose Mom.

Thinking back to my childhood, our house was happy.

Mom and Dad, who were dripping with honey just by looking at each other, and me, an only son.

I have many memories.

On Dad’s days off, if the sunshine was good, we went to the Han River.

The three of us rented bicycles and tore into some chicken.

When it rained, we ate Mom’s delicious pancakes at home.

Pumpkin, chives, sweet potato, cabbage, and so on.

Mom’s pancakes made with common ingredients make my mouth water just thinking about them.

The ingredients were cheap, and the snacks changed with the seasons.

The two of them were happy even with a glass of makgeolli, even without expensive wine.

I grew up in their shade without a care in the world.

If it weren’t for that day, the nightmare I can never forget, we would still be…

Drip, drip.

It was a rainy day.

The neighborhood we three visited in the small commercial car Dad drove.

It was the wealthy village of Seongbuk-dong.

Grand mansions were lined up endlessly.

My heart was pounding.

I couldn’t believe that such a wealthy grandfather existed for me.

The two of them got off in front of the mansion.

The sight of Mom and Dad, who couldn’t settle down, is still vivid in my eyes.

Mom was nervous.

I could feel Mom’s emotional state in her small hand.

I held that hand of Mom’s tightly.

The faint trembling transmitted through the warmth of her palm.

I really didn’t know back then.

Mom was truly terrified.

Dad pressed the doorbell.

There was no response from inside.

Dad pressed the bell a few more times afterward.

A long while later, two men with sturdy builds opened the gate and came out.

And they said to go back if it was the Chairman’s instruction.

Dad begged, ‘Please let me see Mother’s face just once.’

That was the first time I saw Dad cry.

The two men were bodyguards.

They blocked the way with a stubborn attitude, saying it was absolutely impossible.

A scuffle broke out between the three.

Dad tried to push past them and enter the gate.

The bodyguards blocked such a Dad and held him back forcefully.

Dad shouted at the top of his lungs.

‘Mother, Mother.’

Covered in tears and snot, he struggled to get inside the gate.

The iron gate that blocked the front was unusually high and sturdy.

The door blocked by the bodyguards did not open.

Mom tried to pull away the bodyguards who were treating Dad roughly.

While the scuffle dragged on, the umbrella they were holding was thrown away.

Drip, drip.

Dad, Mom, and I, soaked to the bone like wet rats in the rain.

Then, as if it were a lie, the gate opened.

A grandfather with a good impression appeared.

‘Father.’

Dad called the grandfather in a trembling voice.

It was a grandfather who resembled the funny mask in a fairy tale book.

The gold buttons stood out.

Yellow gold buttons hanging all over his hanbok jacket.

“…….”

The commotion died down, and a thick silence flowed.

It was short, but it felt very long.

The heavy energy spreading in all directions was terror to a young me.

I was scared.

I couldn’t breathe.

I hid behind Mom and peeked at the old man.

Tight lips.

He looked stubborn and nasty.

It was the gaze of a tiger with no warmth.

The first impression of the grandfather that I remember clearly.

It is still vividly embedded in my brain.

It was different from the look in Mom and Dad’s eyes when they looked at me.

It was definitely not the look of someone looking at their child.

That cold and hostile gaze, as if facing an enemy.

He even made eye contact with me for a moment.

Those eyes that had no emotion.

There was zero warmth in how he treated his own flesh and blood.

He didn’t even look at Mom, who was greeting him.

Dad’s brothers stood in a line behind the grandfather.

They stood in a row like a folding screen.

Their gazes were no different.

The look they gave Mom, Dad, and me, who had become beggars, was arrogant.

I still clearly remember some of the faces that sneered at me, especially when I was young.

And the words I heard then.

“Get lost! You lowly thing, where do you think you are! How dare you.”

A shout erupted.

It was something one of the middle-aged women standing behind the old man shouted at Mom.

“You son of a bitch who was removed from the family register, where do you think you are crawling to!”

One of the men snapped.

He was talking to Dad.

Dad pleaded, ‘Please let me see Mother just once.’

It was raining, and he knelt in front of the gate.

Even seeing that, the old man remained silent.

The children, like a folding screen, shouted even louder instead.

There is no such son of a bitch as you in the Ha family.

Advice followed as well.

If you come looking one more time, don’t expect to enjoy your meager daily life and job!

After throwing those words, they all went inside the gate.

The old man turned his back and disappeared without a single word.

He was a man without blood or tears.

Even young me could understand that well.

Dad, who was wailing and looking for Grandma.

While kneeling, he hit the rain-soaked ground with his fists again and again.

He swallowed his sobs, kueuk-kueuk, as if he were going to fall backward.

Dad cried, heaving like that for a long time.

Mom wrapped her arms around Dad’s shoulders.

That was when I knew Dad could cry his heart out just like me.

After that incident, Dad’s words decreased significantly.

He also lost a lot of weight.

A while later, the face of the scary Hahoe Mask grandfather appeared on TV.

It was a funeral home.

It was an interview with the group chairman sending off his wife.

The old man shedding tears and appealing for sadness throughout the interview.

I felt like vomiting from the sight of him wearing a hypocritical mask.

I remember running to the bathroom at the time and throwing up everything I had eaten that day.

When Dad passed away, no one from the grandfather’s side came to visit.

I spent a few days comforting Mom, who was grieving.

Thinking about it, after that time, I erased the people from my father’s side from my memory.

The empty space was filled only with anger.

If I thought about it, I wanted revenge.

But reality was cold.

After entering university, I realized it for sure.

Haryun Group was not an opponent I could handle.

It was a huge monster that I couldn’t do anything about, even if I died and came back to life.

A monster that even a judge or prosecutor couldn’t attack.

It was a massive conglomerate group that supports the South Korean economy!

Petty revenge was possible.

Boycotting Haryun Group products.

I didn’t even stand a stick toward Seongbuk-dong.

The advertisement screen changed.

-It’s a small amount, but I’m just grateful to be able to contribute even a little to this difficult world.

Beautiful comments followed.

Ugh!

My stomach twisted, and I forcibly swallowed the vomit rising up.

Now I have the strength to endure this much.

“Mom.”

-Yes, son.

I also gained confidence.

The independent army funds that Grandma left behind!

Pfft.

I laughed at the sense of victory for no reason.

“Mom, can I be a chaebol for once?”

-Chaebol? Suddenly?

It was a regret while living.

I realized it more clearly while living as a member of society.

This damn world!

It was a paradise for those with money!

Especially the chaebols!

Especially, that old man!

Before the regression, right at this point in time.

That old man, it’s the right time for him to go to prison for embezzlement and breach of trust.

He spread money to smooth over the situation.

Media officials connected through marriage and personal connections protected him extensively.

Because he was also intricately linked with the political world, even big crimes didn’t explode and were smoothed over.

Of course, the 300 billion won announced at the official event was not thrown into society as promised.

It flowed into a foundation managed by the group.

Naturally, the foundation is also the old man’s.

The public clearly knows that he is just paying lip service.

Nevertheless, the favorability toward the Hahoe Mask grandfather was fervent.

I want to expose his true colors behind that smile!

The hypocritical, beast-like old man and his blood relatives.

Haryun Group, which is called the textbook of model chaebols in South Korea.

I want to crush those who only talk about money with money!

-Good, son! Be a chaebol. Do everything you want to do!

Mom seems to think it’s a joke.

-However, a human-like chaebol. Do that.

I can feel the resentment of Mom, who painfully experienced the cruelty of a chaebol.

A chance for a comeback.

Heaven gave me a chance.

No, Grandma brought the chance!

“Chaebol… Mom’s son will eat it up hot!!”

“1 billion won…….”

Thump, thump.

My heart is beating wildly.

1 billion won is an incredibly large amount of money that ordinary commoners find hard to touch.

I can buy one small apartment in Seoul.

This is my first time with this kind of money, too.

“But…… this money is not enough!”

The problem is that 1 billion won is nothing against a chaebol.

I can’t even compete with them.

I need to grow it to at least the tens of trillions in cash.

“Real estate is a no-go……. If I invest in US stocks now…… I could multiply it several times…….”

I steadied my breathing and recalled the past I had experienced.

And I organized my memories by period.

Countless memories that began to be listed sequentially.

“…….”

Thump! Thump!

Phenomena of the future that are a reality I experienced but are unknown at this point in time.

My heart was beating like crazy.

1 billion won.

It’s small, but it’s definitely not a small amount.

“Right now…….”

I pieced together the fragments of memory.

May 2022.

The great catastrophe of the coin market that exploded then!

Swish.

The best investment method that auto-plays and flashes through my brain.

“Kuh.”

Excited, a groan leaked out through my lips.

The curves of those guys filling my head and riding the waves.

“Coin!!”

The coin that young people like, which Grandma mentioned, only coin is the answer!

“You’re all dead!”

Once I set the goal, Grandma’s gift is enormous.

If the future flow doesn’t change like this, I…….

Tap.

I picked up my smartphone.

I opened the screen of Appbit, the number one coin exchange in South Korea.

It was a site I joined out of curiosity to commemorate becoming an adult.

At the time, I pretended to be an investor with 100,000 won of pocket money.

Coming back and seeing it again, a thousand emotions cross my mind.

“Then and now are different.”

The clumsy Ha Tae-woong, who was buried in a university club and dreamed of turning his life around, is gone.

I jumped into the coin market without background knowledge and lost everything I didn’t even have.

It wasn’t just me.

Most of my peers, seniors, and juniors were crazy about coins.

I remember the number of my assets at the last moment when I quit coins.

1,880 KRW.

The balance left on the bottom that couldn’t even be transferred.

It was a miserable situation.

I was liquidated several times before graduating.

Fragments left after the money I earned from part-time jobs and the dust I ground my soul into melted away in various fees.

“The king of speculation.”

In fact, after the activation of coins, many gambling houses went bankrupt.

May 18, 2010.

One pizza was traded for 10,000 Bitcoins.

After that, in 2013, it started at $13 per coin and hit $1,163.

A few years later, it exceeds $15,000!

People who experienced a new world started to go crazy.

I was also on that crazy board at the time.

“This time…… I’ll eat it too!”

No matter how much I think about it, it doesn’t feel like reality.

I couldn’t believe I regressed.

The life I lived fiercely in my youth disappeared like a dream in one night.

Instead, it’s not like I’m dead, but the future is clearly unfolding before my eyes.

They say life is a dream in one night, and it seems to be true.

It doesn’t make sense that I regressed, but the graph in my memory of my ruined life comes to mind vividly.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple…… etc.

It comes to mind amazingly, centering on the core high and low points.

Screens flowing on the waves of the graph.

There, even the world’s important economic flows are connected in a panorama.

Raw materials, bonds, foreign exchange, etc.

It’s amazing.

The habit of keeping an eye on the global economic flow, as expected of a business major, appeared in this kind of result.

“A cheat-level buff…….”

The miscellaneous knowledge I acquired as a dabbler in the past is unnecessary.

Information shared while living and eating with investment club seniors, juniors, and peers.

The rough waves of the coin market that repeatedly soared and plummeted overnight, breaking expectations.

We acted like people with great investment sense.

It was a daily routine to tear into chicken and suck on coffee while watching the graphs and staying up all night.

We patched together various indicators used in the stock market and applied them.

We designed for profit with the Elliott Wave Theory as the focus.

Fibonacci retracement, support/resistance levels, trend lines, MACD, RSI, STOCHASTIC, etc.

We borrowed numerous auxiliary indicators.

Everyone challenged with a hot heart and cold reason as weapons.

Looking back, we were too young and immature.

Only ambition went ahead.

When one of the group members luckily made a fortune, FOMO struck, and impulsive trading was triggered.

As blood boiled collectively, rational judgment was paralyzed.

Everyone who was together in the club room slowly became a wreck.

When riding the rising wave, my heart was too small to hold onto it.

And when it was falling, strangely, I became brave and jumped into buying.

Money melted by the second.

Reason also melted away.

In the end, all that remained was the miserable reality of the losers and the balance on the bottom.

“How can I beat the whales? It’s a gambling board where everything is rigged.”

I’m jumping back in.

Even though I’m at the level of a minnow just starting.

“The one who eats is the king!”

Now it’s a board I know and attack.

Even large stocks like Ilseong Electronics are managed and toyed with by the main players.

The global stock market is manipulated by Wall Street.

A minnow cannot win against the guys who create and run boards that last at least decades.

Especially the ants.

The role they play is to fatten and fill the pockets of the main players.

I remembered the perfect target most suitable for investing at this point in time.

“The fallen Moon…….”

It’s truly hair-raising.

My heart is pounding like crazy.

It’s still in a stable state before the crash.

A few days later is the jackpot.

A fraudulent, garbage stock that will crash by 99.9999 percent!

“Grandma……. Thank you so much!”

Bitcoin is also staying in the mid-to-high 30 million won range.

In a few years, it will rise vertically to nearly 150 million won.

Just owning it makes me a multi-billionaire.

If I didn’t have a dream, I might be satisfied with this much.

But my lost dream!

I want to find that again.

Conquering the chaebols with coins!

“It’s not enough. Far from it!”

Chaebols have been building their towers solidly for decades.

The political, economic, and legal cartels are their core assets.

“Cartels and such are untouchable…… I must create that much capital.”

The excited emotion cooled down coldly.

“Heart hot! Head cold!”

It’s the words Dad emphasized repeatedly.

The most important principle needed to live in the world.

“I’ll enjoy the Children’s Day gift!”

I like the number that points to the day I newly awakened.

It’s the year when the coins that hit the bottom and were sleeping started to rise and wake up.

I looked at the graphs with beautiful curves.

My appetite is whetted.

From this period, for a month, the coin market will fluctuate roughly.

And at the forefront of the crash existed the fall of the Moon!

The Moon that Grandma mentioned!

Crunch.

I clenched my fist.

The fall of the Moon is a huge gambling board that can never come again.

Even then, there were huge numbers of people who grabbed a large sum of money through short selling.

“I will stab a spear into your heart.”

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

“The battlefield is……. Bitnance.”

Bitnance will be the main trading battlefield for my new life.

The world’s number one coin exchange.

A market I left alone after opening.

A world that will be responsible for my future along with Appbit.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

I moved my hands quickly and accurately.

Time flowed, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, as I pleased.

“USDT purchase complete!”

The synonym for Tether, a stablecoin pegged to 1 dollar.

I copied and entered the address immediately.

As much as I had been clinging to this work for several years in the past, the speed was very fast.

“Transfer.”

It was transferred at a speed that cannot be compared to other coins.

And…….

“Even if the future is twisted, I won’t fail like then. Instead…… if I succeed.”

Thump! Thump!

My heart starting to jump like crazy.

Finally, I held the spear of a brave person called short selling!

And!

Phew-ook!

I stabbed it into the heart of the Moon.

“I’m going to eat you!!”