Chapter 140 – Ranker (Part 1)  

It had been a long time since I drove in the Porsche cayenne.

I sat Cha Ji-hye in the passenger seat and as we departed, I asked her.

“Aren’t you bothered?”

“Not at all.”

She was the same when Marie clung to me all the way to Korea, she’s oddly tolerant to these things.

“You’re oddly not annoyed by people.”

“I’m not the type to want to be alone on purpose. Plus, she’s cute.”

“What?”

I was suspicious of my own ears for a second.

“Your little sister, she’s cute.”

Saying Hyun-ji is cute, Cha Ji-hye’s head is an extraordinary place.

The car arrived quickly at Hyun-ji’s place. I sent her a text to come out and she quickly ran out.

“Oraboni!”*

(TN: Old/historical version of oppa.)

“Don’t do that, that kind of speech.”

“Aw

“Hi, unit!”

“Yes, its been a long time, miss.”

“Hehe, you can just call me Hyun-ji.”

“Yes, miss Hyun-ji.”

“Aw, you can just call me Hyun-ji. Miss is too much.”

“Got it.”

I almost burst out laughing.

It was because, in an instant, her tone changed to how an army superior would talk to you.

Hyun-ji, who wanted a close unni-sister relationship, looked a bit sour. In a moments time she became the soldier of this ranked officer.

“Anything you want to eat?”

“Um, in the Bucheon neighborhood there is a pasta specialty shop that is open late.”

I drove towards the Bucheon district.

We got to the pasta specialty shop and sat down and ordered.

“What is it you wanted to ask that you begged to meet at this hour?”

“Hey, is there a reason for a cute little sister to miss her oppa?”

“You wanna get hit?”

“Hehe don’t be embarrassed. Aren’t you proud and happy you have such a cute little sis?”

I clenched my fist to the point a vessel might pop.

I had to try hard to hold in my annoyance.

Hyun-ji giggled and laughed while she said to Cha Ji-hye.

“Oppa’s like this. He’s shy so he can’t be honest. You must be having a hard time dating him, unni.”

“Not really.”

“Hoho, you’re the same as him.”

“Is that so? I don’t really know.”

While we ate, Hyun-ji began to ask this and that about us and every time, I felt a sense of embarrassment.

With her special kind of brazenness, Cha Ji-hye answered easily with lies, and it amazed me.

And looking at it, the current Cha Ji-hye and our relationship was very undefined.

There were many things that happened but it’s because I felt like we weren’t actually dating.

Rather it felt like we had just climbed a hill and come back down is all.

“Oppa, honestly, actually……”

Now Hyun-ji finally started getting to why she wanted to meet.

“Speak.”

“Hehe, actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about my future.”

“If you fail all the employee admits for the first half year, that is understandable.”

“Hmph! Don’t twist my words, listen to me for real.”

“Alright, alright, keep going.”

“Ok. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and a person should do what they’re good at doing. So, I thought ‘what are my talents and aptitudes, what genre would I like?’”

“And?”

“And it just so happens that my friend Ji-hyun told me something about.”

“And what is that?”

“An unni she knows set up an online shopping mall and makes tons of money.”

“……”

“So, I’m thinking about setting up an online shopping mall too with Ji-hyun.”

“That is your aptitude?”

“Yup! I do have a killer fashion sense.”

I was at a loss for words.

This kid couldn’t get employed and now she’s lost her mind.

Does anyone just set up an internet mall?

And her only pro is that her she thinks she has good fashion sense?

“But to do something like that needs business capital, lots of capital. So, I was thinking…… hehe, maybe oppa, you could invest……”

I took out my smartphone.

“Oppa?”

I firmly pressed the numbers and hit the call button.

The call sound rang out.

“Oppa, um, who are you calling right now?”

I easily ignored Hyun-ji’s scared question and put the smartphone to my ear.

-Hello?

A cold speech, no less than Cha Ji-hye’s, could be heard on the other end.

“Noona, it’s me.”

-You’re back in Korea?

“Yea, I returned today. But I’m talking with Hyun-ji right now……”

“Kyaak! Oppa!”

Stricken white, Hyun-ji jumped out her seat and screamed.

Whether she does or not, I continued to say.

“She’s saying she wants to set up an internet mall and is asking me for investment capital.”

-…… where are you?

Noona’s chilly voice practically froze my ear.

“A pasta restaurant in Bucheon district.”

-Text me the address. I’m coming right now.

“Okay.”

After I hung up I texted the address to noona.

Hyun-ji’s face was stricken with terror. Then, with a voice full of sorrow and resentment, she started yelling at me.

“Oppa, that’s too much! How could you!”

“Think about this carefully. If this is something you are sincerely considering, start by convincing noona. If she approves, I’ll give you the capital.”

It’s not that I find the money rotting away in the Swiss bank account to be too precious to give her. What I’m worried about was your mental state, my child.

“You think unni will listen to what I have to say? She’ll just grill me to make fried chicken with mom!”

“It’s all for your own good, you think she’ll push you without considering what you want? Convince noona with your carefulness and determination to earn her approval, show me you can do that.”

“Hiing, unni is scary! She’s just going to yell at me!”

“Honestly, looking at your current situation you can’t get a job, mom has a store and you don’t want it, it just sounds like you’re using an internet mall to try and escape your current predicament.”

“……”

Hyun-ji began to sulk.

I sighed and pat Hyun-ji’s head.

“So, I’m saying, prove it. If you really mean it and you’re going to work for it, oppa will help.”

“Whatever!”

She whined and then began to cry.

We left the restaurant and talked in a nearby 24-hour café.

Then noona arrived.

“Hyun-ji.”

As soon as noona arrived, she open her mouth with chilling speech.

Hyun-ji was all tense and, like a private, she stood at attention as soon as she spoke.

“Let’s go. We need to have a sincere talk with mom.”

“Oh, okay.”

Hyun-ji barely mustered up some courage and followed noona out.

Just like that, noona took our family trouble maker and disappeared into the wind.

In the café, only Cha Ji-hye and I were left.

I sighed and said to Cha Ji-hye.

“I wish I could be like her and agonize and ponder over trivial things. For her, this is all very serious I’m sure, but it is all evidence she has a peaceful life.”

At the very least, it wasn’t a matter of life and death, who to kill or not to kill.

Then Cha Ji-hye said.

“I envy it.”

“Right? I envy that idiot too.”

“I envy you.”

“…… me?”

“To think things over together and cry and laugh together, I envy that. That is what it must feel like to have a family. It has been too long since I have forgotten that feeling.”

“Ah.”

Then I remembered again that she had lost her parents at a young age and was alone.

When she says Marie and Hyun-ji are cute, she must be talking about that feeling.

“I really wish you happiness, Miss Ji-hye.”

Was that too random.

But I said it as honestly as a love confession.

Cha Ji-hye looked at me, then smiled.

‘Ah!’

I got surprised.

I think this was the first time Cha Ji-hye had smiled and shown it openly.

“Thankfully, while I live my life, there are two things I have found that will bring me happiness.”

“What are they?”

“One of them you’ll find out tomorrow or the day after or so.”

“And the other?”

“That is.”

Cha Ji-hye extended her hand towards me.

She caressed my cheek and said.

“Right now, you’ll find out when we return home.”

My heart was shaking.

This woman too knows how to make a man’s heart shake.

After that day, our relationship changed for sure.

First, she took her things that were in the guest room and moved them into my bedroom. We fell asleep together and woke up in the morning together.

Her behavior and speech towards me didn’t change but at the least, no matter when I held her or kissed her, she took it all.

And I was able to read her emotions hidden under her expressionless face a little more.

She wasn’t a woman like Min-jeong with lots of aegyo or displays of affection, but I was happy with it. I could feel what happiness was while being with her.

And then I figured out what the other thing that brought her happiness in life was

One day Cha Ji-hye said she had business to take care of left the house and she came back riding a white Lamborghini.

“I ordered it a few weeks ago but it took longer than expected.”

At the exotic splendor of the Lamborghini, my jaw couldn’t help but drop to the floor.

She bought this by selling the wyvern majeong I had gifted her.

***

A large and fancy mansion.

From the entrance of the mansion surrounded by steel bars to the expansive front lawn, it was bustling with security guards in black suits.

The front of the residence.

Lee Chang-wee got out of his car and snickered as he looked at the forbidding residence scene before him.

‘He’s set up a bunch of scarecrows.’

Was he trying to look dangerous by placing all these useless security guards everywhere?

This was what Lee Chang-wee was thinking when he made a fierce cynical smile.

“Open it.”

Lee Chang-wee called out coldly.

The security guards recognized him and opened the gates.

Lee Chang-wee entered confidently and was once again stopped by the security guards at the gate entrance.

“We will have to pat you down first.”

“That’s bothersome.”

“I apologize. But we have to inspect……”

“Get lost.”

“Excuse me?”

Puuk! Puk!

As if shooing away a fly, lee Chang-wee flicked his wrist twice. Two security guards, in one second, flew to either side.

“……!”

“Wh, what?!”

The surprised security guards instinctively reached inside their jackets and pulled out their guns.

“Kuk kuk.”

Lee Chang-wee chuckled.

Paat!

A blue aura flared up and wrapped around his body.

The security guards couldn’t bring themselves to pull the triggers and hesitated.

The opponent was Lee Chang-wee. An important figure who had entered this residence numerous times in the past.

“Move aside. If you get in the way, I’ll kill you all.”

Like that, Lee Chang-wee went onwards.

At front door, he shoved aside the security guard that tried to stop him and without knocking, opened the door.

“Lee Chang-wee? Why are you causing such a ruckus?”

A fat old man with a white beard was sitting in a rocking chair with a frown.

It was the old man that had thrown an alcohol bottle at Lee Chang-wee in the past.

“It’s not like this is the first or second time I’ve come to see you, the process to enter was too bothersome.”

“……”

The old man felt an uneasy atmosphere at Lee Chang-wee’s impertinent demeanor. Because of that, instead of getting angry, he dealt with him calmly.

“I see. I guess you’re right.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

“How did Heising’s work go? Why have I not heard anything from Heising?”

“Heising is dead.”

“Wh, what?”

The old man raised his large frame out of his rocking chair at once.

“He failed his mission and he died in the middle of it.”

“Then…how bad is the damage to the pirate fleet……”

“The members of the pirate group returning to the pirate islands all died as well.”

“……?!”

The old man’s face became white as a sheet as he teetered back into his seat.

Lee Chang-wee’s words continued.

“Upon their return, it seemed they must have met an unidentified assailant. Unfortunately.”

Lee Chang-wee was smiling like the devil.

“Uhh…!”

The old man’s face was stricken with terror.