If my sister really loved this middle-aged man in his forties and wanted to get my father's permission somehow, I would definitely support her even if my father vehemently opposed it.

Of course, if this was the case, the best I could do would be to persuade my father to think more about her request.

But my sister, who was standing behind my father, had a distorted face as if she was very dissatisfied with this situation.

So, I knew what her expression indicated.

'It seems like this middle-aged man is trying to force my father to marry my sister to him…'

As they say, love has no borders or ages. If one has a favorable feeling to someone of the opposite sex, they can confess freely.

Nonetheless, there are limits as far as proposing or marriage is concerned.

A middle-aged man in his forties cannot forcefully propose to a woman in her twenties if it was against her will. If he insists on it, he can safely be called an idiot.

Even so, the man can confess to her on the assumption that she accepts his proposal. But the current situation clearly showed that the middle-aged man was making a forceful demand like a boss towards his subordinate.

I frowned before I knew it.

At the same time I was puzzled about his identity because he was clearly a member of the Myongjin Group. I could not understand how someone belonging to the Myongjin Group could be so rude to my father, its chairman, and why my elder brother, my sister or Managing Director Sok or Chief Secretary Dongyoung Ahn were sitting idle without taking any action right now.

But I didn't want to intrude because they might find fault with me if I interfered without knowing the situation in detail. It was that although the middle-aged man was way below my father, who was Myongjin's chairmen, he spoke to my father confidently as if he was on the same level even though he used honorifics like "Mr. Chairman" when he spoke.

So, I just watched them talking to each other quietly.

"Mr. Chairman, where can you find a more talented man than me these days? Besides, if you accept me as your family member, you can make half of those with traits come back to the Myongjin Group, right? Don't you think so?"

Sunghan Kim, who was speaking to my father slyly, paused for a moment and smiled at my father.

Then he continued, "I gathered them by working really hard. Isn't it time you embraced them all?"

When he said that, Chairman Sangman Hong ground his molars slightly while controlling his expression. In fact, he was not able to fire this man before because of what the man just mentioned.

Chairman Hong couldn't use the knife easily, even though he knew that he had no choice but to cut off this festering sore of Sunghan Kim.

Even though Chairman Hong managed to gather up to 300 competent players with traits, this vicious man began to win them over one by one. When the chairman finally found out, nearly half of them had fallen under Kim's control.

As soon as Chairman Hong grasped the situation, he immediately took the necessary action. He separated those who had not yet been won over from Kim, and at the same time Hong tried to persuade those who had already been won over with more benefits. But he failed to break their blind trust in Kim, who spoke so eloquently that he was able to cover the eyes of even smart players with wool as if he was a cult priest and they were his fanatics.

Of course, Chairman Hong was determined to take revenge against him thoroughly since he was a true leader of a giant business group, not a paper tiger.

However, this serpent Kim had already taken preemptive action. He secured the help of a prominent Chinese business group as he felt it was insufficient to get insurance within Korea. At that moment Chairman Hong glanced at someone who was standing in the back with an unique atmosphere around him. That man was from China's Yanghwa Group.

Then Chairman Hong turned his gaze back to Kim, who was wearing a relaxed expression.

There were exactly 148 players with traits who have been won over by Kim's sweet words. Chairman Hong knew well that if he refused Kim's request, he would quit Myongjin along with these 148 players. And their destination would probably be China.

Of course, there was a high possibility that he could contact the Mirae Group, the Daesung Group or the Daeyu Group for their possible scouting, and there was the real possibility that Daeyu, which had been already taken over by a Chinese group, would reach out to them.

Anyway, Chairman Hong, who was silent for a long time, finally opened his mouth.

"Right. I know that you are competent."

"Hahaha. Thanks for appreciating my ability…"

Kim responded with a hearty laugh in response to Hong's words.

However, Kim couldn't finish talking because Hong cut in suddenly.

"If you think your cunning eloquence is talent…"

"..."

Kim distorted his face at Hong's scathing sarcasm.

Hearing what Hong said next, he now stopped smiling immediately, feeling off-color.

But Chairman Hong spit out what he wanted to say as if he didn't care about Kim's distorted face.

"I was stupid. I should have given you up the moment you deserted me. I just don't know why I had a lingering attachment to you like this. My mistake. Tut, tut."

Chairman Hong knew that things would end up like this at the end of the day.

In other words, he was concerned about the worst-case scenario in which Kim would forcefully marry his daughter Suyoung as he wished.

But this was not something he could approve under any circumstances.

Moreover, even if Kim was a man of character and intellect who really loved Suyoung, he would still likely reject his request because of his age. Now that Kim had shown his true colors as a vicious man, Hong could not accept his request at all.

In Hong's eyes, Kim was a typical serpent.

In addition, the enemy like Kim, disguised as an insider who hides his insidious intentions, was more scary than an outside enemy in the business world.

Chairman Hong decided that it would be better for him to cut out the festered area once and for all this time. Actually he thought it was simply long overdue because if he had cut it off earlier, he would not have been faced with this kind of terrible situation.

At that moment, Kim, who still couldn't control his distorted expression, opened his mouth.

"Chairman, are you now telling me like that when you know what kind of consequences your decision will bring about?"

Kim was now almost threatening him, but Chairman Hong replied with a lighter heart, feeling sudden relief as if an aching tooth fell out, "Of course I know. Wouldn't it be healthier than before by cutting out a rotten area full of pus?"

"You will regret your choice."

"Well.=, let's see who will regret it later."

Having heard Hong's ultimatum, Kim sprang to his feet and moved out, casting an angry glance at him, along with his men standing in the back.

Ten minutes later nine guys who were standing in the living room, led by Kim, got out of the place. And Managing Director Sok bowed to my father who was still sitting at the head of the table and said, "I'm sorry, sir. I had to pay more attention to this matter. It's my mistake that I didn't notice that poisonous mushrooms were growing inside."

"That's enough. I guess you would not have found it out no matter how much attention you had paid to it because this serpentine deliberately moved to win over them. We should take some comfort in the fact that we stopped half of them from joining Kim. By the way…"

My father, who was talking with the director, opened his mouth, looking at me.

"Juyoung, you must have heard from Suyoung that you should not come here today. How come you have come here?"

He seemed to reprimand me, but he didn't, of course.

So, I opened his mouth, looking straight at his eyes, without getting cold feet like before.

"Because I'm old enough to know what's going on."

"Oh, you're right." He agreed.

With that a stormy time has passed.

Of course, my father, my elder brother, and Director Sok moved to my father's basement study, while I and my sister sat in the living room to talk, though I mainly listened to her.