Chapter 192: The Shaking Empire (5)

Blood dripped between the broken glass fragments.

Red spots spread across the table.

Even Nam Kun-ho, who had been pushing forward like a bulldozer, felt his breath catch at that sight.

Cold air seeped in along with the smell of blood.

‘Is this old man… really crazy.’

He cursed like that in his head, but the sensation scanning the center of his chest was different.

It was a feeling as if he had become a rabbit standing before a hungry tiger.

His instinct realized it first.

That this old man was truly prepared to throw something away now.

Lim Man-seok set his blood-stained hand down on the table with a thud.

A low voice echoed through the office.

“Do you see, Chairman Nam. I am already prepared to throw it all away. Losing one of my arms… I can endure it with a smile like this.”

He leaned his body and looked straight at Nam Kun-ho.

“But what about you?”

His gaze sank deeply.

“For me, it ends if I throw my own body. I came here prepared for both Taeseong and my son to enter the fire together.”

Silence flowed for a moment.

He asked point-blank.

“Are you able to throw away the empire called Daehan?”

That single sentence weighed down heavily as if pressed by a boulder.

His heart sank with a thud.

‘Throw away… Daehan?’

He knew in his head that he had to counterattack immediately.

As always, he just needed to snap back while mocking him.

However, his tongue would not move as if stuck to the roof of his mouth.

His throat was dry and no words came out.

As the silence lengthened, he conversely felt himself becoming pathetic.

“…Haa.”

Exhaling his breath with difficulty, Nam Kun-ho opened his mouth.

“Do you think I would be intimidated by something like that?”

He said so, but even to his own ears, the powerless voice was unsightly.

The corners of his mouth, which should have risen, trembled slightly.

‘I knew we would collide like this someday, but still, this is….’

He stared down at the documents silently.

The flow of funds involves the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, Naval Headquarters, Daehan subsidiaries, and even overseas SPCs.

It was obvious what would happen if this exploded.

Daehan would collapse.

The empire he built up could be swept away overnight.

The problem was not just that he alone would collapse, but the entire country would be caught up in it.

‘Is this old geezer planning to die together even while knowing that?’

He wanted to deny it desperately.

He still had leeway and cards to respond with, and that old tiger did not have many days left before collapsing.

However, the cold sweat seeping into his palms could not lie.

Lim Man-seok opened his mouth again.

“Fine, Chairman Nam. Let’s stop the wordplay here.”

His voice sank coldly.

“Now you only need to decide.”

He pointed toward the document envelope with a gesture of his chin.

“Decide here. Otherwise, do not think about leaving this place.”

His eyes flashed fiercely.

“Whether you will take this and stop here.”

The document envelope on the table looked heavy.

“Or whether you will try to fight with Daehan on the line.”

Lim Man-seok drove the point home decisively.

“Decide here, right now!”

Nam Kun-ho’s heart shouted instinctively.

He had to fight.

If he stepped back now, he would lose the initiative forever.

The board where Daehan was trying to swallow Taeseong whole could be flipped.

But at the same time, another voice pulled at his ear.

‘Now is… not the time to pick a fight.’

He had to first check whether that old man was bluffing or how far he had actually reached out his hands.

If he could not judge calmly, it was like walking into the fire together.

Nam Kun-ho gritted his teeth.

“…Tsk.”

He reached out and organized the documents.

He did not even look through them further.

He slowly pushed the documents into the envelope.

The tips of his fingers closing the envelope trembled minutely.

He spoke as if muttering lowly.

“I shall do as the Chairman wishes for now.”

Nam Kun-ho rose from his seat.

Straightening his waist for a moment, he looked down at Lim Man-seok.

“Chairman Lim Man-seok.”

The trembling voice regained its stability.

Outwardly, he was the head of Daehan who was leisurely as always.

“I shall send your son back safely.”

He gripped the envelope.

“Instead….”

His gaze turned fierce after pausing for a moment.

“It would be best for you to keep your promise.”

Leaving only those words, Nam Kun-ho strode out toward the door without even giving a greeting.

When the door closed with a thud, the office became quiet.

Kang Cheol-woo, who had been watching silently, moved his body first.

“Chairman, are you all right?”

He hurried over and took a handkerchief out of his inner suit pocket.

Carefully avoiding the table littered with broken glass fragments, he held onto Lim Man-seok’s hand.

“I… never imagined you would go this far.”

“Still, does it not bring back old memories?”

“You were young back then.”

“Are you also nagging me saying I have grown old?”

“I am worried because you are too full of vigor.”

“Your jokes have increased. Haha.”

The handkerchief became soaked in red.

Blood continued to seep out from the back of his hand and various places on his palm cut by glass shards.

With trembling hands, Kang Cheol-woo carefully pulled out the glass fragments first.

“There are many places where glass is embedded. You must go to the hospital immediately. I will have the car standby right away.”

“It is fine.”

Lim Man-seok spoke while shaking his head.

“This much is enough just by stopping the bleeding.”

He spoke as if it were no big deal, but his breath was gradually becoming rough.

There was no way there was no pain being transmitted to his hand.

Even so, his expression was strangely calm.

Perhaps it was because something was already leaking deep from his chest rather than the blood dripping from his hand.

The years during which Daehan and Taeseong had been entangled.

On the face of the old man who finally pulled out his sword, both stillness and sadness were laid out.

At that time, a clacking sound came from one side of the wall.

I came out of the hidden room.

Even before my eyes could get used to the bright lighting after coming out of the dark secret space, I walked straight toward the table.

It was completely different from the scene I had watched through the screen.

“…Grandfather.”

As I approached closer, he was finally visible properly.

The smell of blood, which was not felt well through the monitor, and the amount of blood that had flowed down from his hand were thick on the table and the floor.

More than half of the handkerchief had already turned red.

A few broken glass fragments still remained on the table as they were.

“You are hurt… much more than I thought.”

My voice came out cracked.

When Kang Cheol-woo stepped aside for a moment, I moved close to Lim Man-seok’s side.

“You must go to the hospital right now. You cannot be doing this here.”

Lim Man-seok looked at Kang Cheol-woo for a moment before shifting his gaze to look at me.

Then, he shrugged his shoulders slightly as if it were no big deal.

After glancing at his blood-stained hand and placing it on his knee, he slowly looked at me.

“Were you very surprised?”

The question was calm, but his gaze was deep.

I tried to open my mouth but hesitated for a moment.

I desperately suppressed the words that were about to burst out.

After picking and choosing, only then did I speak.

“Please talk later and first go to the hospital….”

“Hyunjun.”

At the sound of calling his grandson, my gaze rose again.

“This is the way I have protected Taeseong.”

He spoke as if muttering while looking down at his blood-stained hand.

“Throwing away a single body is no big deal to me. I have done it this way even for a long time to protect Taeseong.”

A smile along with fatigue brushed past his wrinkled eyes.

He raised his head again.

“How is it. Since I am such a grandfather… Are you scared?”

The air inside the office seemed to stop for a moment.

I deeply engraved what it was he intended to say.

He asked if I was scared, but I could not answer that I was not.

A human who throws his own body as collateral for the giant empire called Taeseong.

How many people would there be in this world who could put even Daehan and the entire country on a gambling board.

However, at this moment, the emotion hitting and rising in my chest was of a different grain than fear.

‘This is not something to be scared of.’

I organized it slowly inside.

What Chairman Lim Man-seok showed today was not simply the madness or obsession of an entrepreneur.

No matter what anyone says, Taeseong Group is an existence like a child he spent his whole life raising.

But despite that,

No, because of that, he made the resolve not to let his son be ruined like that, in the same way Nam Kun-ho had driven my father to his death.

Putting Taeseong, which was like his own life, as collateral, he had thrown his body to avoid putting Lim Do-hyun on that board together.

‘Rather than Taeseong… he was trying to protect Lim Do-hyun as a father.’

The back of the old man who seemed only cold and his hand scattering blood across the table overlapped.

If I had not been a parent, I might not have understood this emotion.

However, I was also a father of a child.

If someone tried to stand my child at the edge of a cliff like Nam Kun-ho had driven my father to his death.

‘I would have done the same.’

That thought quietly took place deep in my heart.

I slowly shook my head.

“I am not scared, Grandfather.”

I said calmly.

“To be honest, I was frightened. Because you were hurt a lot, Grandfather.”

While saying that, I pressed the blood-stained handkerchief once more carefully and continued my words.

“But just now, you looked more like a father trying to protect his son rather than a chairman protecting Taeseong.”

Lim Man-seok’s gaze wavered before sinking back into the abyss.

I took a short breath and continued.

“That is why. Assuming I were in the position of being a parent, I would have done exactly the same.”

I pulled up the corners of my mouth even by force.

“So I cannot say that I am scared. However, my heart hurts quite a lot today.”

For a while, there were no words.

In the space where silence spread fully, Chairman Lim Man-seok finally laughed shortly and spoke.

“Hahaha. You are like that because you take after me after all.”

While saying that, he gripped my hand with a slight strength in his blood-stained fingers.

“It is enough now. Yes. Did you say we should go to the hospital first?”

Only then did I exhale a sigh of relief and nod my head.

“Yes, Grandfather.”

Supporting Lim Man-seok, I turned my head toward Kang Cheol-woo.

“Chief Secretary, please organize the elevator and the underground parking lot. Make it so it is not exposed to the media. Let us move to Taeseong Hospital immediately.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Kang Cheol-woo moved busily.

I held onto Lim Man-seok’s other arm carefully and spoke.

“Please stand up slowly. I will take care of the rest. Do not worry too much.”

From the office full of blood, glass fragments, tension, and sharpness, we gradually broke away.

Even if the things that happened here today remain as history someday, this moment was etched clearly in my heart.

Inside the car heading toward Taeseong Hospital, the sound of a siren passed by shortly in the distance.

I was catching my breath while checking my grandfather’s condition several times in the seat next to him.

While I was heading to Taeseong Hospital, the black sedan was running for a long time after leaving Taeseong Hotel.

Nam Kun-ho’s expression inside it was hardened.

‘That old man keeps pushing the knife to the end!’

The veins on the back of his hand stood out.

His fist clenched and unclenched repeatedly of its own accord.

Shin Jung-woo, who was carefully holding the steering wheel, watched his mood through the rearview mirror.

Whenever the city’s traffic light glow brushed past the car window, red and blue lights alternately settled over Nam Kun-ho’s expression.

“He tells me to throw away Daehan? What a ridiculous thing to say.”

Even so, the image of Lim Man-seok spilling blood over the table would not be erased from a corner of his head.

He was more enraged that he was suppressed by the momentum that old man exuded than by the blood that flowed from his hand.

Nam Kun-ho spoke in a low voice while clenching his teeth.

“Chief Shin. What is Lim Do-hyun doing right now?”

“He is staying quietly inside the residence.”

“Is that so?”

A laughter mixed with mockery leaked out.

Fixing his gaze out the window, he spoke slowly.

“Send the boys at dawn.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean send Lim Do-hyun out quietly without making a fuss!”

“Yes, I understand.”