Chapter 27 – Starting a Business.

Seeing my father, who had to go to work because he had to earn money even when he was sick, and his mother, who was trying hard to take care of her children by splitting her housekeeping and caring for her children, I thought that I had to earn money somehow.
Fortunately, after more than a week of idiots appearing, I didn’t pay attention to anything else, and started thinking about making more money.
First of all, I came to the conclusion that it would be difficult for me to earn money directly because I was still young.
Also, the family’s circumstances were not in a position to spend a lot of money to do something.
I just had to make it possible for my mother to earn money with little money.
After thinking about it for several days, she decided on an item that her current mother could do.

The next day she came home right after finishing school.
In her room her mother was still putting on her wig.
I walked over to her mother and said.
“Have you saved up your mother’s money?”
“Huh? Money? Why money?”
“Mom, I have a good item, so why don’t you try selling it?”
My mother didn’t say anything and she just stared blankly at me.
“Sale? How do I do business And where is the money for business?”
“It doesn’t take that much money for a business. But you can definitely make money. That’s what I guarantee.”
“What are you going to do? Mom, I really don’t have any money.”
“I know you have money saved up by saving your mother. That money should be enough.”
When my mother knew everything about me, she looked at me with astonished eyes and silently.
“Mom, I will tell you what to do. Let’s go.”
I took her mother by the hand and forced her to the market.
She went to the supermarket her mother frequented and bought wheat cakes for rice cakes, cooking oil, ketchup, starch syrup, sugar, and other ingredients.

It was the ‘tteok skewers’ ingredient.
When he saw me pick up things without hesitation and check the expiration date and capacity, he was amazed and said that I was better than my mother.
I decided to generously invest the money I had saved while running newspapers.
After I bought a lot of things and pretended to pay at the cash register, my mother was worried that she was spending a lot of money, but she still followed me around as if she was curious.
She asked what she was going to do to buy so many things, but she didn’t tell me to stop as much as she believed in me.
When I got home, I got the ingredients into the kitchen and started cooking.
I turned on the oil stove, put cooking oil on a frying pan, washed it once in cold water, and fried the wheat rice cakes that I had saved.
I made the sauce by properly mixing various ingredients such as sugar, ketchup, starch syrup, and soy sauce.
I turned around to see my younger siblings snooping around inside, swallowing saliva.
Today, since it was just to show the taste, I didn’t put the rice cake on a skewer, I just put the fried rice cake on a plate and put the sauce in a separate bowl and brought it out.
“Okay, that’s it. Now taste it.”
After talking in a bright voice, everyone was taken into the room.
I quickly picked up a piece of fried rice cake, dipped it in the sauce, and put it in my mother’s mouth.
As he gulped down, the younger siblings’ eyes followed the skewer.
“Now, you guys should eat too.”
As if they had been waiting for my sound, my younger siblings rushed at me.
Having lived without it for so long, the younger siblings, who had never eaten a proper snack, ate it all as if they were hiding their eyes.
“Wow, oppa, this is really delicious.”
“Brother, I want to eat this again.”
The younger siblings cheered and raised their thumbs up.
“How does your mother taste?”
“Huh. It’s the first time I’ve tried it, and it’s very delicious.”
“The name of this product is Tteok Skewers. Nowadays, rice cakes are just fried and eaten with sauce, but when selling, you can put several of them on a wooden stand and sell them. If you sell this in front of the school, it will probably explode. I can guarantee that.”
But her mother looked at me with a slightly suspicious expression.
“You mean to do business with this? Could that be possible?”
“Don’t worry mother. It is a product that has already undergone clinical trials. Why? Mother, do you think it will not sell?”
My mother couldn’t erase her doubts and she looked at me with a worried look.
“Don’t worry mother. Do you believe me This is bound to succeed.”
After dinner, I taught my mother how to make the sauce, and since I had already bought enough ingredients, I had her make her own with the leftover ingredients.
Her mother was a good cook, but she quickly learned to make a sauce that tasted even better by mixing other seasoning ingredients she had at home.
She must have been excited about doing something with her son. A bright laugh did not leave her mother’s mouth the whole time she was cooking.
When her younger siblings suddenly asked why she was making these things, she told her story, excitedly saying that her mother would make a lot of money doing business with it.
Her mother, who had not even thought about business until a while ago and only gave her a worried look, now, as she pondered over how to make it more delicious, she expressed her anticipation for business.
The younger siblings, who became test subjects for their mother’s cooking, had the luck of eating snacks until their stomachs exploded for the first time.

Next day..
I was waiting for Dong-gu and Young-rae to go home after the usual class.
Suddenly, outside the window on the hallway, I saw Kim Chan-young’s face.
I had completely forgotten about them because I hadn’t seen them for over a week, but when I saw Kim Chan-young’s face, my face hardened involuntarily.
Kim Chan-young looked toward the stairs, opened the front door of the classroom, cautiously bent down to let someone next to him enter, and respectfully put his hand forward.
Kim Chan-young’s face hardened with tension.
At Kim Chan-young’s guidance, a man wearing a brown suit and a height of about 180 cm entered the classroom.
All the kids had already left in the classroom, and it was just me and Dong-gu.
I looked at Dong-gu and urged him to go home quickly and let him go.
Dong-gu ran out of the classroom through the back door with a frightened face.
The man in a suit watched Dong-gu leave without saying a word, then approached me.
I got up from my chair and moved to the back of the classroom, ready to hit and run.
“Don’t be so nervous. Are you Seongjin Lee?”
The old man spoke to me with a weak voice and a soft smile.
I had to keep racking my brain trying to figure out what was going on.
“Let’s start with my introduction. I am Kim Chun-shik, who is leading the Chun-shik group in front of me.”
“Omg!”
I was startled and took a deep breath.
Even when things got bigger, they got too big.
Oh Ya-bung, a member of the gang that is holding onto this neighborhood, came to me directly.
Then the back door opened and Youngrae came in.
Seeing that Kim Chun-sik was there, Young-rae hesitated and stood still.
“Are you Jo Young-rae? Come here. I am Chunshik Kim.”
“Yes. Yes?”
Youngrae was even more startled than I was.
Why don’t you know Kim Chun-shik? Young-rae was also doing his own thing, so it would be a lie if you didn’t know Kim Chun-sik, the king of this neighborhood.
Youngrae cautiously approached me.
“I’m not here to scare you, so come sit down, both of you.”
Young-rae immediately sat down on the chair in front of Kim Chun-sik with his back straight, and I sat down as if on alert, slowly staring at Kim Chun-sik’s face.
“I really like his eyes.”
Kim Chun-sik looked at me and smiled.
“I’ve been hearing a lot about you lately, so I came here myself because I was curious about what kind of guy you were.”
“It was just a small fight between the children. But is such a trivial thing going into the ears of the boss of the organization?”
“Heh heh, this guy is a real thing. Even in front of me, say everything you say again and again. Good. Very good.”
Kim Chun-sik laughed out loud as to what made him feel so good.
“It’s no longer a kid’s fight.”
“Yes? What do you mean by that?”
“The kids you smashed in front of the gas station last time were our gang members. Do you think I’ll be interested in fighting high school kids I don’t even know? To be honest, even the fact that the youngest members of the organization fought is not my business. It’s something the middle kids have to take care of themselves. But I heard a very interesting story. Four adult gang members were so smashed to the point of being hospitalized by a freshman in high school. When I recruit members under me, I don’t pick just anyone. They definitely select kids who have some level of skill and skills. But no matter how recently they were chosen, they should be able to believe that they were smashed by a high school student. So I asked them directly and they said that I was really beaten by a high school student. What’s more, they say that they didn’t even use their hands properly. Do you know how crazy I was? That’s why I’m really curious about what kind of guy he is, so I have to be patient.”
After hearing Kim Chun-sik’s story, I was so absurd that I let out a ridiculous laugh.
“But now that I see it, Seongjin Lee, you are a real thing. He’s going to be very big. I like your eyes, and I like your guts. And the skills have already been verified. I guess it was good that I came.”
Kim Chun-shik seemed to be in a good mood and continued to laugh.
When something went wrong, I started to feel uneasy.
“Hey, Seongjin Lee. I was thinking of making a suggestion.”
“Yes? What…”
“You come under me. I’m sure you’ll grow Seeing what you do in the future, I might pass on my position later.”
“Yes?”
Youngrae and I screamed in surprise.
“You said your name was Jo Young-rae, right? If Sung-jin says he’s joining the organization, I’ll take you in too.”
We were dazed by the shocking sound that followed.
I was very nervous, thinking that they must have come to catch us, but when the scouting offer suddenly came in, I couldn’t think of anything.
What’s more, I’m going to hand over the boss position…
Youngrae was very happy with a strange excitement on his face.
From Yeong-rae’s point of view, just meeting Kim Chun-sik in person would be a huge deal, but the boss said he would accept him as a member of the organization, so what he dreamed of in his days as a rookie is now becoming a reality.
“How is it? Do you intend to come under me?”
Kim Chun-shik asked again.
“Well, what if I refuse?”
“Reject it. It’s also very simple. If you refuse, I will arrest you like this and pay back what the youngest children suffered. You’ll know how it goes.”
Kim Chun-sik twisted the corners of her mouth and smiled sinisterly.
Youngrae’s face was drawn, and I quickly organized my thoughts.
‘Now is mid-September, it was late October or early November when gangsters were arrested and there was a commotion in the neighborhood. It is said that if you hold out for a month and a half, this person will also be arrested. Then there’s no need to talk badly about it now.’
“Well, your suggestion is honestly tempting. Moreover, it seems that Youngrae likes it too. But do you really have to make a decision right now? We are still 17 years old and only in the first year of high school, but isn’t it possible to drop out of school and start living in an organization right away?”
“Indeed, it is. I met a guy I liked, but my greed was a bit too much. Okay. Then what would you like me to do?”
“Once I finish high school, I will make a decision and tell you. Even though I look like I can’t study, I got first place in the whole school with perfect marks in all subjects in the final exam of the first semester. And, there are things that parents worry about.”
“Oh, first place in the whole school. A guy who is good at fighting is also good at studying. Good, very good And never let your parents worry about you. Good night. I get it. Let’s make a decision for sure when we graduate from high school. Instead, there are conditions.”
I was just making up excuses to somehow escape this moment, but Kim Chun-sik didn’t seem to want to just let it go.
“You have to come to my office to see me at least twice a month. This is a command rather than a condition. Got it?”
“Yes. You look at me like this, so I will do it.”
There was no need to hesitate in answering as long as he decided to please Kim Chun-sik anyway.
“Okay. Good.”
Kim Chun-sik laughed out loud as he patted me on the shoulder.
Kim Chun-sik wrote down his office address and phone number on a piece of paper, shook hands with Young-rae and me, and left the classroom.