Chapter 79
Sara quickly straightened her expression and beamed like an innocent child.
“Thank you, Grandpa.”
“Yes, yes. Now that things turned out like this, I can’t just sell that land however I want.”
Chairman Seo leaned back leisurely, cracking a joke.
“Haha, how could I dare sell off the land you gave my daughter-in-law?”
“Father, if you need that land, I’ll sell it to you.”
The instant Sara finished speaking, the smiles vanished from Chairman Seo and Seok-hoon’s faces.
Smiling brightly, she turned to Seung-tae and asked,
“How much is it?”
“Well… we’d need an official appraisal, but even without a zoning change, you could easily get at least 400 billion won for it.”
Four. Hundred. Billion.
The scale was so large it didn’t feel real.
She hadn’t expected a number in the hundreds of billions and was briefly startled, but thankfully none of it showed on her face.
“So with a zoning change, it’d be worth even more.”
“Correct.”
“Then, Father—how about 800 billion won?”
A bomb dropped as casually as if she were discussing grocery prices.
Everyone seated at the table fell silent.
“…My.”
After a moment, Son Jung-hwa covered her mouth, unclear whether it was from awe or incredulous laughter.
Seok-hoon cleared his throat a few times before speaking.
“Eight hundred billion? Isn’t that a bit excessive?”
“If Mr. Seung-tae and I get married, we’ll become in-laws. What if people start accusing us of favoritism because you bought it cheap?”
“Haha, well… that’s not wrong. Better to pay full price than deal with strange rumors later.”
Chairman Seo, who had been silently observing, subtly sided with Sara.
After a brief hesitation, Seok-hoon nodded.
“Alright, let’s do that.”
“Dear…”
Son Jung-hwa lightly tugged at her husband’s sleeve before letting go.
“Whatever the price, better to keep it in the family than give it away. I’ll have the contract sent to my lawyer. Give his number to Director Oh.”
“Could you give it to Grandpa instead?”
“What? The contact info?”
“No. The money.”
Sara shifted her gaze from Seok-hoon to Chairman Seo.
Then she echoed the very words he had once said to her.
“Happy birthday, Grandpa. I realized I’ve never given you a proper present before. Please handle the taxes from that amount.”
“Wahaha!”
It was the hardest Sara had ever seen him laugh—his face even turned red.
“Alright, I accept my granddaughter’s wonderful gift. Hahaha.”
The dinner wrapped up shortly after.
There was still business talk to be had afterward, but Chairman Seo no longer mentioned Sara.
Everyone looked ready to leave, so Sara was about to head out with Seung-tae—but Chairman Seo stopped her.
“I’ll wait in the car. Come when you’re done talking.”
Seung-tae whispered softly in her ear, then greeted the chairman and walked off.
“The fact that you sold the land right then and there…”
The moment he disappeared, Chairman Seo’s smile evaporated.
“If you didn’t want to sell it, you shouldn’t have given it to me.”
Sara replied curtly. His intentions had been transparent from the start.
Giving the land to Sara meant he had no intention of selling it—just holding it under her name until he could bring it back to his own hands whenever he wanted.
“You figured that out but still sold it?”
He sounded displeased, but Sara scoffed.
“Well, I sold it for double. You can buy some ginseng with the leftover. You’ll need a long life to keep watching all this mess unfold.”
Chairman Seo let out a disbelieving laugh.
Then he examined her carefully for the first time.
“You’ve quite the tongue.”
“Tongue? I just gave my grandpa some spending money.”
“Hah… still, you’ve got far more backbone than your father ever did.”
“I take after my mom—the gambling addict. She was bold.”
Sara answered flatly.
She made it clear that being alone with him was unbearably boring.
It was a fresh experience for him—people normally swarmed around him like starving dogs hoping to get something out of him.
Chairman Seo asked, as if testing her,
“Want to quit acting and learn business?”
“What’s a lowly entertainer doing pretending to be a businesswoman? I’d ruin the company. You built it with your sweat and blood—you should give it to your dear son.”
“That brat is hopeless. I can’t find a single thing about him I like.”
He clicked his tongue.
That was why his son had only ever been given positions in minor affiliates—kept far away from anything important.
He had thought age would bring maturity, but though the scandals stopped, the man never changed.
The only thing he knew how to do was cling to his wife’s skirt and obey whatever she said.
Compared to him, Sara was completely different from her father.
Chairman Seo secretly felt disappointed.
If she had the proper bloodline, he would have taken her in and taught her everything.
“If you’re done talking, I’ll go.”
“Hold on. You really did inherit your father’s impatience.”
He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Take it.”
The small, luxurious card bore the name Seo Wan-cheol—the chairman’s personal card.
Sara immediately tried to return it.
It wasn’t hard to guess what he meant by giving it to her.
“I’m not marrying Seung-tae. And he has no plans to marry me either. If you’re looking for someone to be Executive Director Yoon’s wife, you picked the wrong person.”
“A man who doesn’t plan on marrying you wouldn’t snatch his stepmother’s ring and give it to you.”
His eyes flicked toward her hand.
Sara blinked, surprised.
“How did you know?”
“This world is small. The story of my daughter-in-law losing her ring to you spread like wildfire.”
“Ah… there were… circumstances.”
She couldn’t exactly explain the contract between her and Seung-tae.
“You’ve only known Executive Director Yoon for a year, but I’ve watched him since he was a baby. If he wants something, he’ll get it—no matter what.”
“Yes, I got that impression.”
Sara’s tone was indifferent.
She didn’t seem to care for his warning.
‘Young people these days…’
Wan-cheol knew saying more wouldn’t make her understand.
“Do whatever you want.”
He ended it there and walked off.
Sara debated throwing the card away but shoved it into her bag instead.
Then she headed straight to the car where Seung-tae waited.
“Did everything go well?”
“Yes. Listened to the old man ramble uselessly.”
“Haha… you might be the only person in Korea who describes a conversation with Chairman Seo like that.”
“It was rambling. I’m not describing it—I’m stating facts.”
As Sara grumbled, the car pulled away smoothly.
“I didn’t expect you to sell the land to my father right on the spot.”
“You know why he gave it to me.”
“Chairman Seo never intended to sell it.”
“Right. He put it under my name so he could take it back later with some flimsy excuse.”
The old fox.
He acted like a gentle grandfather who loved his granddaughter, but inside, he was a thousand-year-old fox.
“You knew that but still sold it? And for double?”
“Well, if this is how it is, I may as well give him a headache and also rip off your parents. Maybe they’ll cross me off the daughter-in-law list for being such a ruthless woman.”
She asked hopefully.
“Actually… it wasn’t exactly a rip-off. Large-scale land like that in Seoul is rare, and once the zoning changes to general commercial, it could even get sun-exposure rights.”
Sun-exposure rights? It all felt even less real.
“Oh… I see. Then what exactly is zoning change?”
“Haha, you called out eight hundred billion without even knowing that? Sara, you’re a natural at business.”
He burst into laughter as he explained zoning changes, but Sara couldn’t understand a thing.
“But if you got such a high price… why give it back to Chairman Seo?”
“It wasn’t my land, and it wasn’t my money. Eating something you didn’t pay for always leads to trouble.”
The unimaginable number—800 billion—didn’t tempt her at all.
Just because something looks tasty doesn’t mean you put it in your mouth.
It might be glass that tears your insides apart.
Sara knew her place, and she knew how dangerous unearned money could be.
Before they knew it, the car arrived in her apartment parking lot.
“Sara.”
“Yeah?”
“Should I buy you a necklace next time?”
“No thanks. I already have too much.”
“Really? I thought maybe you didn’t like the bracelet.”
His eyes drifted to her empty wrist.
Only then did Sara realize what he meant.
