The Chairman Who Wants to Play and Eat

Episode 1. The Perfect Plan.

Since I was young, I have been realistic.

My plan was perfect.

There is a saying:

“I wish I were rich, but no one knew about it.”

I don’t remember where I heard it, but someone said it.

It’s true. It gets to the heart of the matter.

The more money you have, the fewer people who know about it, the better.

As for me,

I fulfilled the first condition from birth.

Being the youngest son of Hyun Deok-jae, the executive vice president of Seonghyun Group, the top conglomerate in South Korea, I was born with not just a silver spoon, but a diamond spoon in my mouth.

The problem was the latter.

Too many people in South Korea knew me.

[ The youngest son of Vice President Hyun, the ‘heir’ of Seonghyun family, Sang-yoon, at his middle school entrance ceremony. ······ The conglomerate family in full attendance, a spectacle. ]

[ “Curious about the school life of the third generation of Seonghyun?” Interview with Sang-yoon’s middle school classmate, Mr. Seo. ······ “Quiet but possessing leadership and wit, a versatile friend.” ]

It was inevitable.

It was beyond my ability.

My diamond spoon and this fame were like two sides of the same coin, inseparable by my own power.

Perhaps it was for this reason that I was able to open my eyes to reality at an early age.

Going back to the beginning,

“Okay. Fine. If I was born this rich, this much is within the tolerable range. Okay, I accept. But no more. It’s troublesome.”

I think I had this thought during the summer vacation of my second year of middle school.

Or was it winter vacation?

I made a plan.

First,

“I must never appear to be exceptionally capable.”

If I appear exceptionally capable, I will catch the eyes of the group people, and I will be caught up in the unwanted succession structure and have to compete for the throne.

If not now, it will happen in the future.

It’s not what I want.

I just want to live quietly, enjoying my wealth in a place where no one notices me.

Secondly,

‘But I shouldn’t appear too promising either.’

To tell this story, I need to touch upon the traditions of our family.

There is a saying that the position makes the person.

However, that saying was something that should never be uttered within our group.

It’s a failure in personnel management.

A major accident.

Having someone unfit for the position rise to that position.

Only those who are qualified for a position can rise to it.

In other words,

If I ever show incompetence or make a mistake that is unfit for my position as a ‘third-generation chaebol’,

My treatment would be worse than that of an intern who joined last month.

Even blood relations are not spared.

That’s Seonghyeon.

A comfortable and luxurious life of a chaebol’s son?

Don’t even dream about it.

Inheritance?

Not a chance.

Seonghyeon was a jungle without blood or tears. This applied equally to the third generation.

So, the two principles mentioned earlier are clear in their aim.

‘Although giving a subsidiary to someone might be a waste, since a third-generation chaebol is still a third-generation chaebol, they should at least have the ability to manage a prime building in Gangnam.’

That much is necessary.

At the very least.

Again, this was a plan I made when I was in the second year of middle school.

I was a realistic and quick-thinking person.

The number one in the Korean business world,

Becoming the captain of Seonghyeonho, a leading company expanding globally,

Of course, it is an honorable and ambitious thing that makes my heart race, but at the same time, I clearly realized that it was a very tiring and inefficient business.

Rising to that position itself was a big deal.

First, I have to overcome my two older brothers.

I don’t want to.

“I won’t do it.”

It’s not that I can’t. I just won’t.

I decided to think that way.

And so, it became the year 198X.

High school graduation was approaching, and the college entrance exam was imminent.

“College.”

It was the first major hurdle in my life as a newly minted adult.

It was also an important point.

If I went to a very good university, I would stand out too much, but if I went to a bad university, my position would be at risk.

It was a headache.

Not because studying was difficult.

I was confident in my studies.

But the best I wanted was to be in the upper ranks at a private high school in Gangnam, Seoul.

For this, I had to study harder than others.

Why?

The reason is this.

To get high scores, you just have to work hard.

To get low scores, you just don’t study.

But to maintain exactly the level of grades I wanted, it wasn’t that easy.

I had to study without missing a single part.

Because I had to completely exclude the possibility of getting higher or lower scores by guessing.

Anyway,

Aside from that, the college entrance exams of the children had become an important topic among the chairmen of the Federation of Korean Industries.

It was because of recent events.

The seventh son of Chairman Son of Daewoon entered the economics department at Korea University, and following that, Chairman Park of Jeongsang succeeded in pushing his first grandchild into the sociology department at Korea University the next year after much effort.

How proud they must have been.

It’s obvious even without seeing it.

All the other chairmen, except for those two, were upset because of that.

“Do you think we don’t send our kids to Korea University because we don’t know how?”

“What’s the point of studying well for a hundred days? If you’re the child of a merchant, you should grow the company by managing it well, like a merchant’s child.”

And among them was my grandfather, Chairman Hyun Byung-gun, the founder of Seonghyun, the number one conglomerate in Korea.

If I fail the entrance exam in this situation? I would be the only one to blame.

That was the atmosphere.

So, I made a plan.

A way to not become the one to blame while also not being too outstanding.

To cut to the chase, I did well.

On the day the college entrance exam scores were announced,

“Hyun Sang-yoon!”

After class, the homeroom teacher called me first.

“Everyone, as you all know, our classmate Hyun Sang-yoon scored 301 points in the college entrance exam, ranking first in our class. Let’s give him a round of applause.”

I successfully achieved my goal of barely making it into the 300s.

Clap, clap, clap,

My friends applauded.

“Sang-yoon, you’re going to apply to Korea University, right?”

At that time, applications were made in two rounds, early and regular. Korea University was in the early round.

“Yes, teacher.”

“Good. With your score, Korea University is a sure thing. What department are you going to choose? Your family must have a preference.”

“Well…”

“With this score, Korea University’s business department won’t be difficult. Haha.”

I never flaunted being the child of a conglomerate family at school.

But that doesn’t mean the teachers and classmates weren’t aware of it.

The conversation just now was a case in point.

“Yes, I have a department in mind.”

The law department.

“What, the law department?”

“Did he just say the law department?”

The murmurs among the classmates grew louder at my answer.

It was understandable.

Even though this score is enough to get into Korea University, it’s not enough to get into the law school, which is considered the best department in South Korea.

You need at least 320 out of 340 points.

With my score, there’s a high chance I’ll fail.

I’m doing it on purpose.

From the beginning, I made my score just regretful enough.

My specific plan was to narrowly miss out on Korea University’s law school in the early admissions, and then enter the highest-ranked law school at Anseong University in the regular admissions.

The chairman?

He wouldn’t like it, but he wouldn’t hate it either.

It can’t be helped.

Anseong University is not a bad output. If that’s not enough, I can follow my brothers and get a degree from a university in Japan or the United States.

All the kids from chaebol families around me do that.

Except for those who have completely given up.

Not too outstanding, not too lacking, this is the result I want.

“Ha, haha. Korea University’s law school is good.”

The teacher was flustered. His reaction was exactly as I expected.

It couldn’t be helped.

The grandson of the Seonghyeon Group is applying to Korea University’s law school, and he can’t say something like “It’s impossible with your score.”

He probably thinks there’s some way to make it happen behind the scenes.

“Sorry, but there’s no such thing, teacher.”

I aimed for that too.

I judged that the teacher would think this way and not interfere. Fortunately, I was right.

Thanks to that, I smoothly completed the application without any resistance.

It’s a satisfactory result.

After that, I enjoyed a fruitful and rewarding day while planning for the future.

At least until the acceptance announcement came out.

But,

[198X Academic Year (Korea) University (Law) Department Acceptance List]

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265 Hyun Sang-yoon

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I rubbed my eyes.

“Did I see it wrong? This can’t be happening.”

Is it someone with the same name? But the registration number matches mine.

No way?

Did I really pass?

“Damn it.”

For the first time in my life, I swore out loud.

The plan was perfect.

Until that plan, unfortunately, led me to become the first third-generation chaebol in our country to be admitted to the law department of Korea University.

Why?

What caused my perfect plan to go awry?

The news explained it for me.

– Today, the results of the 198X university entrance exam were announced. For the first time in the 30-year history of university entrance exams, there was a shortage of applicants for the law department at Korea University. According to the admission guidelines, all applicants except those scoring below 100 points were accepted, as announced by Korea University. As a result, ······

※ The content of this novel is fictional. If the names of people, places, or organizations (companies) in the novel are the same as or similar to reality, it is purely coincidental.