CHAPTER 170: CHAPTER 169. THE GARDEN OF GREED

Jacob Oh didn’t have much ambition, but he knew he wanted to live comfortably. Working for a company didn’t seem comforting, so he decided to build a company with his inheritance money.

He just didn’t know that building a company was even worse in the comfortable scheme.

Without much skill, the first company went under. He established another one, and that too, failed. After many repetitions, as he was drowning in debt and almost at his wits’ end, Jacob met a senior at his college reunion.

Joseph Seo was a senior whom Jacob met in a college MT, a successful executive in a company, and an extended family member of a conglomerate group. Jacob could hardly believe it when that kind of person offered him help.

So what if he had to be this senior’s lackey? He still got to be his own company’s CEO, even paid off his debt. His wife no longer grumbled all the time, and he had employees he could order around. He didn’t even have to think much, just following instructions.

Joseph, however, could be very insufferable. High demand and everything should be done perfectly. Jacob had to write everything down because Joseph hated repeating himself, and would sometimes ask about what he had instructed in the past.

The stress made Jacob look for some kind of relief. It was a harmless-looking gathering with friends at first, playing card games to decide who paid for the food and drinks. The stakes increased to a little bit of cash money, and while sometimes it escalated to the level of luxurious goods or a vehicle, Jacob thought it was just a fun time.

The wealthy could even spend that much just for a single dinner, so having fun playing card games or mahjong wasn’t that different, right? It sucked when he lost, but the dopamine rush when he did win was absolutely addictive.

Besides the bragging rights, of course.

When he kept losing to his friends, Jacob searched for another source of dopamine and clicked on an online slot game ad that randomly appeared when he was browsing for gambling tricks.

Oh, the joy of the returning dopamine rush as he won a few times at the start...

Even when he began to lose, Jacob thought he only needed to win the next one. And then the next one. Or the next one.

But the next one never came, even after he was drowning in debt. Again. He took a loan from the bank in the company’s name, and when it was all used up, he took one from the loan shark with his house as collateral, telling himself that he would get it all back through his next big win.

The big win that still hadn’t come, even when the loan shark started to call him over and over again, reminding him about the due payment date and the ballooning interest he had accumulated. They finally threatened to barge in and take his house deed, and Jacob became desperate.

Should he ask for Joseph’s help? Jacob thought about it for a long time, but in the end, he knew Joseph wouldn’t like it. Hell--Joseph might tell those shady friends of his to get rid of Jacob and have someone else take over the company.

Yeah, no--he couldn’t ask that old snake with a rotten heart for help.

And that was why, in his desperation, he turned to someone young enough to be his daughter.

And Sarah knew all of this.

"W-what?" the CEO widened his eyes desperately. "B-but you said--"

"I said I’d help you, yes," Sarah nodded, still keeping her voice soft and sweet. "But what I meant was that I could help you with company matters."

"But..."

Sarah leaned back, acting completely unfazed while observing the CEO. As scummy as this old man was, he seemed to realize that it was rather unreasonable to ask for a personal favor out of the blue. His eyes deepened as the gears in his mind worked to shift his personal problem to the company’s problem.

His eyes flitted to Sarah, and the way his fingers fidgeted together made him look like a rat. "Young Miss, if you can’t help me...we might lose this company."

Sarah raised her brows high. "Huh? Did you put the company as collateral?"

The CEO shook his head quickly. "N-no, but...my house’s value is not high enough for the loan payment...and the interest, so..."

"So, you mean they’d take the company’s assets to fill up the rest?" Sarah rolled her eyes as the CEO lowered his gaze--perhaps in shame, perhaps in desperation.

What a scum

--Sarah scoffed inwardly. He hid the fact that the company was already in jeopardy if he couldn’t pay back the bank, and how could he when he couldn’t even pay back the more pressing debt of the loan shark? The company was already going to be seized in the future, but he couldn’t tell Sarah that clearly because the money he got from the bank was never used for the company’s operation.0

Certainly, he would never tell Joseph that.

Wasn’t that why he came to Sarah?

"I...I’m afraid so..."

"I see..." Sarah nodded, tapping her chin in contemplation. She looked like she was deep in thought for a few seconds, but in the end, she just spoke lightly with a shrug. "Eh--I guess I’ll just move to another affiliate, then--or stop working! Yeah, I get bored going to the office lately..."

The CEO looked like he would drop a bunch of things if he were holding them. "Y-Young Miss?"

"I mean, Uncle..." Sarah leaned forward again and sighed, looking at the old man with a sympathetic gaze. "How much money do you need that your house wouldn’t be enough to pay it off? Do you think I’d have enough money to help you?"

"Oh..."

"Don’t you remember I had just used up my money to invest in Henry’s project?"

The CEO scratched the back of her head. "Oh, r-right..."

"Besides...aren’t you close with Uncle Joseph, Uncle Oh? Why don’t you ask him for help?" Sarah baited with a cheerful tone.

"T-that’s..." the CEO looked away, eyes shaking in a mix of annoyance and fear. "He had...helped me a lot before, so..." he laughed nervously, "I can’t burden him again."

"Humm..."

Sarah hummed lightly, glancing at her phone which was filled with Hajin’s messages--a series of pictures of him walking to a coffee shop, of him waiting in a queue, of him making an order...

Adorable. Sarah chuckled while saving each picture, waiting for the CEO to make his next move. Would he give up and leave? Would he beg on the floor? Would he get angry?

"Are you really can’t...help me, Young Miss?" the CEO looked at Sarah desperately, fiddling with his tie as he looked at Sarah with desperate intensity. "Don’t you have some...secret stash or something?"

Sarah almost laughed at his face, and she had to bite her tongue to stop herself. She grabbed her armrest and threw her head back, closing her eyes to fix her expression while pretending to contemplate deeply.

"Hnggh...it’s not like I can’t ask Father for some money, but..." Sarah opened her eyes, and the CEO perked up. "But how will you pay me back, Uncle?"

Once again, the CEO deflated. "Uhh..."

"You almost lost your asset, so...do you even have a way to pay me back? I’m not a charity, you know," Sarah shrugged.

The CEO’s eyes darted around the desk as if there was an answer there. He started to mumble incoherently, as his mind was trying to contemplate. "W-what about...my house? I can...I can hand it over to you once the debt is paid and move to a smaller place."

"But you said the debt’s value is higher?" Sarah tilted her head, trying not to laugh at the way the CEO was flailing with his hand. "What else do you have? If I have to ask Father for money, I need something to reassure him, you know. A house is not...very interesting for us."

The CEO groaned uneasily, looking down while massaging his throbbing head. He had already been losing sleep from the loan shark’s terror calls, and they might start calling the company soon if he couldn’t pay more than the monthly interest.

"Come on, Uncle. Don’t you have some assets lying around?" Sarah pressured him further, cutting his chance to think too deeply. "If you don’t...well, I couldn’t care less about what happened to this company, to be honest ."

The CEO bit his lips while Sarah was chukling--giggling, really--like the nonchalant, burdenless princess that she should be.

Right--Sarah wouldn’t care about a house that she wouldn’t want to stay in and was too much of a hassle to sell. But what else did he have? He had no more assets in hand, at least he had nothing that belonged to him.

Oh...

The CEO gripped his knees. He shouldn’t do that, though; it wasn’t his. Joseph would really kill him if he knew. But--but! If he could pay this debt back, he could find a way to take the thing again. Or, or...he could use the money to get more money and pay everything all at once--yes!

He looked at Sarah and spoke quietly, as if he was about to tell her something scandalous. "If...if I give you some shares..."

"Pfft--this company’s shares? The other half won’t even be worth as much as your house," Sarah snorted.

"N-no..." the CEO shook his head quickly.

Sarah tilted her head. "No?"

"I...I have..." the voice dropped even lower, basically a whisper. "HS Group’s shares."

"Oh?" Sarah straightened her back. "Which one?"

"HS...Stone..."

She smiled deeply. "Now we’re talking."