“Yes, daddy. Let’s do it,” said Hyunwoo, with a smile. Maybe it wasn’t just the wall that his father wanted to pull down.

I guess both of them might have something serious to discuss. What should I do for them?.

But there was a somber look on his face. He just didn’t know what to do because his father was thinking of reviving his old dream.

Is his dream feasible at all? Can he get help from Mr. Kuroda? Does he have to compete with a big company like before? If he miserably collapsed like before, he would rather not risk it…

Despite his concerns about his father, Mr. Kuroda was just happy, following him into his house with deep gratitude.

Hyunwoo had a dinner with Mr. Kuroda. It was only their second meeting, but Hyunwoo’s family treated him as a family member. In particular, Hyunwoo’s father continuously pleased him, recommending each of the side dishes and asking him about Japanese customs while explaining Korean customs, but that was as far as he went in terms of the topic. His father didn’t mention any heavy topics such as car engines or research because it would ruin the atmosphere.

Even after he finished dinner, Mr. Kuroda stayed in the living room for a while, chatting with Hyunwoo’s parents and headed to his house late at night.

Hyunmin, who helped Hyunwoo’s mother preparing breakfast orders for company employees, followed Mr. Kuroda and helped him unpack his stuff. Mr. Kuroda said he brought only his personal stuff, and that the large packages would be delivered by freight later.

In the meantime, his father called Hyunwoo in his room.

“Can I see you for a moment, son?”

Seated in a chair, he was silent for a moment and then opened his mouth, “I’d like to do research on green oil again. What do you think?”

Green oil is automotive fuel based on a concept that he developed about 20 years ago. It was intended to replace gasoline by refining and mixing cheap fuel. At the time, it was regarded as a groundbreaking fuel, drawing lots of media attention. However, before it became commercialized, he was attacked by big oil companies including Singyong Co. They slandered him by arguing that such a fuel could cause serious damage to car engines when customers used it for long, and it was the main conduit of tax evasion. As a result of such a massive attack, green oil disappeared, and Singyong Co. scouted the key technicians from his father’s company and developed similar fuel. Though it was only a half-baked replacement fuel, Singyong recorded tens of trillions won in sales thanks to the new fuel and grew as the largest oil company.

However, Hyunwoo’s family fell into the bottomless pit, namely extremely poverty from which they could never get out. Now, Hyunwoo’s family seemed to have barely come out of the tunnel of poverty. Though the stock price of N&C in Vietnam went up and down, it was on steady rise. When marketized in cash, Hyunwoo’s stocks were worth almost 10 billion won, or 9 million dollars. In addition, the current uptick trend in sales would continue its steady increase in the sales market.

Hyunwoo’s monthly income in Korea was almost 20 million won, and continued to grow as time went on. Thanks to that, his salary from his employer Aurum was just pocket money to him.

His mother’s income was bigger than his. Since she moved to the cottage, the sales of the breakfast orders drastically increased, and the combined income of Hyunwoo and his mother was over 40 million won per month. In other words, they were in a very solid financial situation where they didn’t have to worry about money at all. It was a rare financial stability that they regained by working really hard.

There was no reason for his family to take the new risk at this point when they’re in financial stability. And that risk could destroy it something went wrong. Even if his father succeeded in the venture, he would have to fight a fierce battle with big oil companies including Singyong.

Instead of replying, Hyunwoo cautiously asked, “Are you confident this time?”

“Do you mean about me fighting with Singyong?”

Hyunwoo shook his head. His father thought of Singyong first when he thought of reviving his old dream, but he put the cart before the horse.

“No, daddy. Are you confident of success? The green oil that you developed in the past is over. They developed a similar product and applied for a patent on it, so if you want to do it again, you need to develop a new type of green oil. I’m asking you about that.”

His father could not reply at all because he was not yet fully prepared for it.

So, Hyunwoo asked again, “Are you going to do the research again with Mr. Kuroda’s help?”

“Not really. I’ve been thinking about it for some time.”

“When did you begin to think about it then?”

“Since I taught the kids at the alternative school I’ve given a thought to it. While I was sorting out the teaching material, I felt my heart full of enthusiasm about reviving my old dream. Yea, beyond my control…”

When Hyunwoo heard his father’s mention of ‘beyond my control’, he was shocked because he knew that was his father’s passion and ambition was something he could never give up. And Hyunwoo could not block it, either.

“Okay, then. Please go ahead and do what you want to do, ut please remember this by all means,” His father looked at Hyunwoo, as if he was asking for some kind of advice, “You should think of developing it on your own without anybody’s help. Don’t ever try to depend on others. I wonder if Mr. Kuroda can help, and even if he can, I wonder if he will take side with you to the end. He could betray you like the man who deserted you in the past.”

His father’s eyes darkened at that. It looked as if Hyunwoo poured cold water on his revived ambition.

Hyunwoo once again asked his father, “Please do it only when you have the confidence.”

“Well, if you want me to proceed that way, I’m not confident, to be honest with you.”

“Then, try to regain your confidence first. That’s the first thing you have to do, and research comes after that.”

His father nodded without replying, staring into space.

Hyunwoo quietly left the room, and so did his mother when he felt his father needed some time to think for himself.

Hyunwoo’s daily schedule was always tight. It was because he was getting involved in others’ business when he was also busy with his own stuff. He seemed to work twice as much as other team members, so when he got home, it looked as if he could fall asleep immediately and sleep into the next morning soundly, but he had too many things to take care of.

After washing his face with cold water, he turned on the computer.

In the past, he mainly surfed the internet cafe of N&C Korea, but recently, he made it a habit of checking the novels and webtoons uploaded in the web novel site, Story Mecca.

Garbage World was not popular like before. Even in Hyunwoo’s eyes, it was just dull. The original animation targeting the children would have been more popular, but Hyunwoo could not figure out why it was so unpopular.

“What the heck is the problem?”

Though Hyunwoo thought hard about it, he could not find the right answer. As things stood now, it would have been better for him to create a new animation than stick to Garbage World.

“Okay. Let me wait a little more. If I feel there is no chance at all of the animation’s success, I think I have to suggest it be replaced with something else.”

Hyunwoo stopped paying any attention to Garbage World and checked out other works.

Story Mecca was the paradise for the webtoon writers. There were so many active writers there with their own unique characteristics. Naturally, all eyes were on the bestseller writers.

There was a writer with the pen name Pilgaek. The reason Hyunwoo got interested in him was because of the recommendation. In the recommendation section, there were lots of readers’ recommendations on his novels, which was quite unexpected in Hyunwoo’s mind.

Typically, when there a reader submits his or her recommendation, it was backed up by positive replies of other readers, but in the case of Pilgaek’s recommendations, there were 30 replies refuting the recommendation. In short, the replies were mostly like “Let’s not recommend this kind of writing”.

Pilgaek had completed two web novels up to now. And currently he was running two novels at the same time, but the nature of the visits to his novels was very peculiar.

When Pilgaek started running his novel, he always enjoyed the readers’ enthusiastic response, with the initial visits numbering over 500,000, but when he was into the half of it, the visits drastically dropped. When Hyunwoo checked out the number of visits to his complete novels, the visits were less than 500. As a result of such a drastic drop in visits, he stopped running the series earlier, with the number of visits to his two novels plummeted. That’s why the readers criticized the writer as a betrayer, recommending not to read his novels.

“Why didn’t he maintain his popularity?”

Hyunwoo began reading his novels carefully to find out why.

Obviously, the beginning of his novels was good. The theme and structure of his novels was very original enough to make one wonder how he could come up with such a fresh idea. His fresh idea alone had some power to draw the readers’ explosive interest.