Empire of the Ring

“Hahaha…”

“That’s an amazing suggestion. Nobody’s around the lumber storage yard but I’ll make sure that every staff member either stays in their home or in the hospital.”

“It won’t take so long to load them since our ship has a crane.”

“You should’ve brought a bigger ship. How much could you load in that 3,000-ton ship? People won’t even see a difference after you’re gone.”

“But I should still sign a contract with you.”

“Of course. This is business.”

Youngho and Sergeenko spoke seriously although they were having a deal over someone else’s lumbers. It was not their first time to steal others’ stuff. They shook their hands.

“That was good business.”

“We should do something like this more often.”

Youngho talked Sergeenko into his illegal deal. As he agreed, they made a contract saying that Sergeenko had sold someone else’s lumbers in the storage yard to Youngho. All Youngho had to do was to pay a little bribe to the mafia.

With Sergeenko’s henchmen’s help, he carefully chose lumbers in good conditions and filled his ship. It was several days after that when he closed the ship’s cargo hold. As Sergeenko said, no one came near the storage yard and the dock while the ship was there.

In fact, the lumber storage yard had no fencing around it and everything in it was carelessly neglected since lumber was everywhere around the region. Usually, these kinds of storage yards were where street thugs roamed around doing their black businesses, and common people did not come around there.

“Phew, you didn’t have to pull those mafias into this. No one’s interested in the lumbers.”

“No, the harbor staffs would’ve been here asking questions since our ship is docked. Everything will be easier if Sergeenko is involved.”

“Well, guess we could use him once in a while.”

Youngho wished if he had brought a bigger ship since he wanted to take all the lumbers in the storage yard. Even if he got caught by a harbor staff, he would be fine if he paid the penalty—saying that his employee made a mistake.

“I think we’ll be seeing that China-Russia joint-venture enterprise a lot here.”

“Should I tell my agents to watch the company?”

“You know they must have searched all over the Taiga forest to collect this much lumber. They probably found out about other resources too.”

“Even rough diamonds?”

“There’s no guarantee that diamonds are only in our area.”

“Man, I’ve got to look into that.”

“Don’t let the mafias find out about this, okay? They might know about the diamonds too.”

Maybe Sergeenko had been collecting diamonds too to prepare for his retirement. It would not make sense if he, who had been living here for a long time, had not known about the diamonds that Youngho discovered so easily with the help of an Evenk lad.

***

After sending off the cargo ship, Youngho stayed there for two more days before returning to the state. It was because there were quite a lot of Chinese companies working in Krasnoyarsk. They were in the city under the pretext of doing logging business, but it was just their cover because lumbers were just being neglected at the open-storage yard at the dock. They were rather busy taking other mineral resources from the Taiga region. Lumbers were only valuable in the Arirang Autonomous State, but the Chinese companies did not really care about them. The Chinese-Russia joint-venture enterprise would have thanked Youngho for taking the lumbers since the yard was running out of room for more lumbers anyway.

“It looks like Sergeenko already knew that those lumbers had been neglected for a while.”

“That’s why he took my deal with a delight. Otherwise, he would’ve refused to touch a foreign company’s property.”

“Should I tell my agents to approach the company for a lumber deal? If they say that they’re for Kazakhstan, the company won’t find it weird.”

Since the agents were Kazakh Koryoins, the company would not suspect them to sell lumbers. It was a way to approach the joint-venture company, but if the agents were successful, Youngho would not have to worry about logging for the state for a while.

“The company asked for two dollars per 1m3 of lumber.”

“Is that expensive or cheap?”

“You know lumbers that are dried and cut in planks are 60 dollars per 1m3. Do you get it now?”

“Well, then it’s expensive. Those planks are already transported and processed. Why are they selling lumbers at such a high price? We all know they’ve been just tossing them in the yard.”

“You know it’s still the best way to approach the company, which is our real purpose. Not to mention, it’s still a good price.”

“Man, I hope the staff we’re contacting knows a lot about other companies and this region. We need to figure out as much as we can from that guy.”

“I assume the underclerk of the company’s lumbermill would know quite a lot.”

“Would he ever come here to count lumbers at the yard?”

“No, he said that he doesn’t come here since it’s a crime-riddle district.”

“Phew, it seems like there are bad guys everywhere.”

“Are you talking about us? Hahaha…”

“Dude, we are not doing this for ourselves. We are getting lumbers for our state.”

Although Youngho said so, he was becoming the same people who did business in Siberia where ethics and morals were senseless.

‘Whatever. This is Siberia.’

“Okay, tell your agents to have him by their balls. Treat the company’s employees well with all sorts of delicacies and bribes, and take advantage of that. They will have to tell us whatever they know.”

“Let’s leave them to the agents and get back to the autonomous state. Our business here is done.”

Although Youngho wanted to ask Sergeenko if he had stored rough diamonds, he decided to wait until Sergeenko contacted him. If he had some, he would come to Youngho in the future since he could not sell them without someone’s help.

Yaniv also did not sell the gold bars from the Imperial Russian era since he knew that those gold bars could put his entire organization in danger if he sold them carelessly. He only gave them as gifts to his trustworthy business partners.

Youngho smiled as he thought that he should ask Yaniv about how many gold bars he had now. He might be able to convince Yaniv to sell his gold bars to him. What could he say, Youngho was such a grabby person for gold bars.

***

Although Youngho worked over the phone, still a lot of work was piled up on his desk when he came back from the trip. Suh Min-seok gave Youngho a bunch of documents that needed to be signed out of nowhere and reported that he was going to Istanbul for a business trip.

He was going with Cha Insoo to sign a security service contract for a new hotel. Insoo was back from Korea while Youngho was gone. It seemed he was waiting for either Youngho or Jong-il to come back to the state before he left to Istanbul.

“Whoa! Are you going to tackle Istanbul now?”

“Mr. Cha asked me to help him. We are going to sign two hotels.”

“Is Kim In-hwa going with you?”

“No, Mr. Cha will be fine with one of us. Besides, someone needs to be with you too.”

“Well, nothing’s going to happen just because you guys are gone for a day or two. Just take her with you.”

“I will, thank you.”

“Mr. CEO, are you feeling alright?”

“You always ask me that question even when I act slightly different than usual. I’m a healthy man.”

“Oh, it’s just you got quiet suddenly.”

“Well, there’s an important place you should visit in Istanbul. I was debating whether I should tell you about the place or not.”

“We’ve been to Istanbul when we worked for S Corporation. We know the place well.”

“You must’ve gone to only tourist spots. Have you been to the flea market?”

“There are so many other places to see. I heard that the flea market is full of fake items.”

“That’s why I was debating myself. You could buy a history of Europe in there.”

“…”

“When you go to Istanbul, go pay a visit to Mustafa and ask him to take you to the flea market. If you’re lucky, you’ll buy a very rare antique item.”

Since Youngho got the mystical rings and shoes from the flea market, Suh Min-seok might find something like that too there. He might just find some valuable antiques there or some kids like the Fatima sibling. If he would buy foods for a little child, it could develop as a relationship of a lifetime—just like how the Fatima siblings were to Youngho. That could be the most valuable experience rather than finding expensive antiques.

Youngho had a habit of searching people’s faces wherever he went since he had learned little friendship could be the relationship of his lifetime in the future.

Meeting Jelyan at the refugee camp in a northern city of Iraq was also that. She used to be a war orphan who could not speak due to her trauma.

Because of her existence in his family, the family had become more lively and happy together. Even though Youngho was not her real father, she was as important as Leon whom he was a biological father of. He could not imagine his family without Jelyan.

She was growing into a bright, young girl in the care of Youngho and Fatima. He had learned that a relationship like that could make a well-spent life to the fullest. It was the same with the Fatima siblings since he met them at a flea market and now they were his family.

“Did you get antiques from the flea market too, Mr. CEO?”

“Sure, I did. Mine’s so valuable that I can’t exchange it with anything in the world.”

“Wow, can you tell me what it is?”

“Can you show your treasure to anyone?”

“…”

“If you find something you’ll cherish as I do, then I’ll tell you.”

Suh Min-seok left the room still not fully understanding what Youngho meant.

When he got to Istanbul, he would ask Mustafa what Youngho must have found in the flea market although Mustafa might not tell him so easily.

Even if Min-seok and In-hwa did not find anything special, Youngho thought that it would be a good experience to remember for them.