《Empire of the Ring》Chapter 19: Fatima, the girl from Istanbul (2)
Advertisement
In the morning, Youngho woke up to the sound of someone knocking at the door in haste. It was Fatima. Realizing that she had slept through the whole night without visiting her sister in hospital, she was flustered.
As he opened the door for her, Youngho explained what happened last night. Fatima smiled brightly and gave him a big hug. He was startled but soon he realized that hugging is a common expression in their culture unlike in Korea.
While having coffee, Youngho tried his best to explain about the ring that Fatima had sold, using all of the Turkish words he knew. However, Fatima who did not get what he was saying, just stared at Youngho with her eyes blinking. At the moment, Youngho felt like he was mesmerized by Fatima's deep eyes. Trying to ignore her eyes, he kept on explaining.
Whether Fatima understood him or not, she just weakly nodded. It seemed like she did not care about the ring anyways. She was just curious about Youngho who had come to help her family.
When he could not convince her about the ring, he took out another ring and asked her to put it on. Fatima unwillingly put the ring on her pinky. The ring did the same thing from last night at the hospital, and shrunk to her size. Fatima's face was full of astonishment. When Youngho could not communicate with her anymore, he hastily left the table. It was also because he did not think that he could handle looking at her eyes anymore now.
***
The sound of Zeynep's laughter echoed in the hall of the hospital. The nurse from yesterday chatted with her, and left when she saw Youngho and the siblings coming.
Fatima quietly shed tears when she saw her sister who had improved dramatically overnight. Youngho could hear her weeping sound. She was sorry that she could not visit her last night. Szechenyi also cried next to her.
Youngho left the room to give some time for the siblings. When he took out a cigarette to smoke in front of the hospital, Mustafa's car stopped in front of him.
"Hey Youngho, how's the child?"
"She is doing a lot better even though it's been only a night. It's all because of your help."
Advertisement
"Oh, stop that. It's because you searched for the girl. I'm glad that we were able to save a life."
With a satisfied look on his face, Mustafa left Youngho, saying that he had plans for the day.
In the afternoon, Youngho signed a one-year leasing agreement for an apartment room that was close to the hospital. It was for Fatima and her brother to stay, and also for him who visited them often. Youngho could not stand the environment that they lived in in Balat. The place must have been intoxicating for the children.
Youngho told Fatima that he was a businessman who often visited Istanbul and the place is for him to stay during his business trips. He lied that he needed someone to take care of his place when he was gone, and asked her to stay there.
She seemed like she was aware of his intention, and hearing that Youngho would visit often, she agreed happily.
They stayed two more days at the hotel. After picking up the siblings' belongings from their place in Balat, they moved in to the new apartment. The apartment was furnished but they needed to buy daily necessities to move in. Youngho and Fatima busily went to market and bought items they needed. Fatima seemed to have become comfortable around Youngho. Not rejecting his favor, she even picked up some stuff for herself.
Before heading to Baku, Youngho made a bank account under Fatima's name and put $20,000 in there for the living cost and hospital payments. When receiving the bank account and credit card after signing her name in the bank, Fatima did not know what to do for she never had her own account before.
***
Even though Youngho returned to Baku later than expected, his employees managed to run the stores in good condition.
Baku's officials actively helped Youngho who had just been to Istanbul to buy seedlings and equipment immediately after he signed the farm contract with the government.
It was easy to find people to hire since it was a trustworthy business that the government was encouraging. People wanted to get hired because the word had spread that Chunho Merchant paid their employees well.
Advertisement
Kamal, the head of Ministry of Foreign Affairs stopped by his farming site every day asking if Youngho needed any support. Officially, Kamal was the one who successfully induced a foreign investment in this business, so he had high hopes for Youngho.
As for the government, it was a pilot case to receive foreign investment for farming. Because the state land was almost a waste land for it was on the hillside, they welcomed foreign investment on those lands.
Youngho asked Edward for help.
Youngho could manage 500 acres of land but he wanted to invest in more land to establish better relationship with the Azerbaijan government and to be able to raise his voice. He asked if he can use CIA's budget.
"Hmmm. It's unprecedented." said Edward and continued.
"But. There's another way. We can use the information expense to use it for your investment. However, only a regular agent can use such amount of money."
Edward was saying that only regular agent, which Youngho was not because he was a temporary agent, could spend more than a million dollar as an information expense. Edward then started to convince Youngho to apply for a regular agent, encouraging him that he could manage to handle second-class secrets by now.
Youngho thought for a second.
Well, it doesn't matter what kind of agent I am, my job will be still the same.
Youngho agreed to Edward without thinking too much. Edward congratulated him, saying that Youngho would need to receive further education for information security.
Youngho doubted for a second if all this was planned by Edward all along, but what could he do now? It was no use to doubt Edward.
After a few days, Youngho received a million dollar in his account.
Youngho immediately took action.
He sent a message to Kamal asking if he could invest in the development of another 500 acres of state land.
Kamal returned to him with an exclusive government's offer greater than the one before. He said, if Youngho invest in the development of 1000 acres of state land in sum, the government would lent it to him free for three years under the condition that Youngho would buy the land at a price of $700 per each acre, and they would not charge the property tax for five years. The government encouraged the development of their hilly land since more than 60% of their territory was either mountainous or hilly.
Youngho prepared the buyer's documents with deliberation through an international law firm in Turkey. Azerbaijan limited foreigners' land ownership. Youngho had to make a perfect document, so that the government would transfer the ownership of the land without any trouble after the leasing period ended.
Youngho needed to go back to Istanbul to buy more grape plants, he was running out of them already. Now that he was developing double the size of the farmland than he had planned, he needed more plants.
***
Youngho came back to Istanbul airport only after a month. Mustafa was greeting him with a weird look.
"Brother, You could have stayed in your store but you are glaring at me like 'Gah-jah-mi*'."
"What? 'Gah-jah-mi'?"
"You should learn Korean. Look at me, I study Turkish like eating everyday meals."
"Hmmm. That didn't sound good but didn't sound bad either. I will get back to that later."
"Well, it's hard to talk to a smart person."
Mustafa smiled at Youngho's compliment.
"Brother, how are the siblings? Fatima now has a cellphone but it's no use, I can't even talk to her."
"I visit them almost every day. Don't worry about them"
"Thank you brother. I'm glad I have a good friend in Istanbul."
Mustafa had that weird look again.
"I already made an order for grape plants, so you don't need to worry about it, and the equipment, we can just make a call…"
"…"
"There's no reason for you to come here, isn't it?"
Mustafa seemed to be asking what Youngho was up to.
"Brother, I came to pay the agency fee as a buyer."
Mustafa had been rejecting Youngho's payment. He even got upset when Youngho gave him money once. However, Mustafa was glad to hear that from Youngho, now that his carpet business was not doing so well because of the rough economy, Youngho's money was like a rain in a drought.
Advertisement
- In Serial119 Chapters
My Monster Adventurer's Guild
Cless was a girl with a sad fate. Orphaned at birth and born with a misshapen body, she would've died if the Church of the One God didn't take her in. Shunned by society, she grew to the age of fifteen knowing little love. Now it was time to leave the safe haven of the church behind. The day of her rite of passage to adulthood arrived. All humans earn Skills granted by the One God when they pray for guidance during the rite. Skills could go from a lowly G-rank to a powerful A-rank. There was a mythical S-rank Skill in the scriptures but nobody ever earned one. Until Cless' turn came, that's it. The world Cless lives in is a world full of danger. Monsters once prowled the surface and devoured humans. The One God created dungeons to imprison the monsters, but the dungeons are failing, threatening to spill wave upon wave of monsters upon the land. After becoming an adult and leaving the church she was sexually abused by a vengeful classmate and learned how to fight back using her Skill. After that, she went on the fast track to becoming the world's youngest guild master. With her dark heritage dormant, the girl will try to carve her place in the world. However, the kind of company she attracted might not earn her many smiles among her fellow humans.
8 85 - In Serial67 Chapters
Cultivating Civilization
Cultivating Civilizations are horrible places for people to live. Abducted from his retirement, Jack was placed into such a world. He has two options. Either he can follow the traditions of the world and kill his way to the top, or try to change the world into one where people don't have to. Follow him on his path as he tries to balance his past life's morals with this life's realities. Jack doesn't care that a sea of people stands in his way, he will nurture a sea of his own and drown them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey guys! I hope you like my novel. If you want to read advanced chapters then you can visit this site. You can visit the novel's Discord through this link. I will post at least 1 chapter per day here.
8 172 - In Serial7 Chapters
Interracial Love
Lyric an intersex boy from the hood transfer to a white preppy school.Tristan a "straight" white boy from the hills who think he asexual. Read to find out what happens next
8 73 - In Serial9 Chapters
Legacy of the Resourceful Hero
A hero by the name of Cereo is summoned from a cube moments before the entirety of Sabarum is laid to waste. Using nothing but his resourcefulness, he creates incredibly powerful gear and weapons on the fly using whatever he manages to find. Whether it's grass, dirt, sand, or - anything else! He manages to construct gear superior to even that of legend. Using his unrivaled skill, he defeats onslaught after onslaught of demonic and monstrous armies, eliminates disease that plagues the world to a seemingly unstoppable degree, and takes care of any and all problems this dangerous world seems to currently face. But... as the opposing force progressively becomes more difficult to fend off, Cereo comes to find out that this gimmick of his is not all that it takes to protect Sabarum. Furthermore, he begins to question whether or not the protection of this land is what's truly important.
8 128 - In Serial32 Chapters
All About Feelings
This is a compilation of my Poems I'm also going to put descriptions on when or how did I write that poem my motivation and such.I want this to be something interactive like we can share our opinions and beliefs so some updates I'll ask questions I hope you try to answer it heheyou can also ask me things but not about acads hehe.let's dive in!
8 157 - In Serial10 Chapters
Marina baby
Go along with carina and maya's pregnancy.(don't read if you don't like long or very detailed books)
8 144

