Are You Fearless?

As soon as Seol-hye swiftly wrapped up the meeting and crossed over to Pax, she stepped into Chairman Kang’s private study. The chairman, who had been staring intently at something for a long while, looked up at her and beckoned with a warm gesture.

It was when she moved with her usual calm steps and came to stand beside the table.

“Take a look at this.”

“Yes, sir.”

Seol-hye accepted the newspaper scrapbook and turned the pages one by one.

With his exceptional drive and innate leadership, Chairman Kang Dong-chul had devoted a full fifty-five years to forging the Kang-an Group as it existed today. Its history had begun alongside the launch of Korea’s first domestically produced automobile in 1970.

He had claimed the unrivaled title of the greatest contributor to South Korea’s economic development and a model of transparent enterprise.

He was a figure for whom the word “great” seemed the only adequate description.

“It’s already been thirty years.”

When Chairman Kang suddenly pulled a handkerchief from his cardigan pocket and dabbed at the corners of his eyes, Seol-hye closed the scrapbook, set it down, and clasped her hands behind her back.

“It was an accident. It wasn’t a crash severe enough to kill anyone.”

Seol-hye lowered her gaze as the chairman continued without context. She tightened her clasped hands until the knuckles whitened.

In truth, she already guessed which person he kept mentioning so abruptly.

“I prayed the whole time he was in the ICU, begging that he at least stay alive, but that damn god never answered my prayers.”

She, too, had prayed countless times while her own mother lay on her sickbed. Yet the one who had turned away from those prayers had not been God—it had been her mother.

“If it weren’t for that boy, that car would never have been born. He was the very foundation that allowed this Kang Dong-chul to reach the position I hold today.”

At the sound of the chairman clutching the handkerchief in his palm, Seol-hye lifted her bowed head. His expression was not so much self-reproach as it was faintly laced with regret.

She knew better than anyone how self-blame could devastate a person’s emotions.

Her mother, wrapped in bandages, had tormented herself daily by claiming she had caused the death of her benefactress, the madam, and in doing so had sickened her own child.

Self-reproach was the kind of pain that could drag even those watching nearby into the same abyss.

“Yet I realized it too late. If I could, I would hand over the entire Kang-an Group without the slightest hesitation. That’s how precious a younger brother he was.”

A month earlier, health warnings had begun to surface, making even walking difficult, yet Chairman Kang had always projected only strength and resolve.

“The fact that he keeps coming to mind must mean the time has come for me to go meet him.”

Watching the vulnerable side of the man known as the nation’s foremost leader made the air grow heavier with solemnity.

It was only natural before a sincerity that had endured thirty long years.

“You know very well what principle I value above all else, don’t you, Director An?”

At the tone that seemed deliberately meant to shift the subject, Seol-hye set her own solemn feelings aside.

“Of course, Chairman.”

Managing the unavoidable array of corporate risks. It was thanks to that very conviction that she had been able to enter the Kang-an family, so it was not something she could fail to understand.

“The risks posed by the family must never be allowed to harm the life of Kang-an, which I have built over my entire lifetime.”

“I fully agree.”

“Why do you think I place you, Director An, above those actual blood relatives of ours?”

“You mentioned it once before.”

“I did.”

He had especially prized her flawless ability to make no mistakes and her brilliant mind that allowed her to speak seven languages fluently.

He had said without hesitation that a person with such capabilities would surely possess the strength to stand against their influence.

“Actually, there is one more reason.”

“What is it?”

“Every once in a while, when I look at you, Director An, that boy comes to mind.”

“May I ask in what respect?”

“That lone-general temperament of yours is exactly like his.”

It matched the words her mother had often repeated since she was very small. That her fate itself was that of a lone general, so she had been given a name to suppress that energy.

That she was so stubborn and ill-tempered that her mother had worried terribly about who would ever take her.

That it would have been less worrying if she had been born a son.

Yet even so, although she possessed the spirit of a strong woman, wasn’t her appearance as lovely as an angel?

That when she was born, he had felt as if he possessed the whole world, and that he could have placed her in his eye without it hurting.

“She was the kind of person who would never bend, even if a blade were pressed to her throat, when it came to her convictions.”

Remarkably, he often saw in his daughter the same qualities her father had shown—qualities that had never once yielded, not even to his only child.

“That’s why I trusted you from the very beginning, Director An.”

She did not know a word that could define the emotion one felt upon achieving the intended result, but one wish had taken shape inside her.

She hoped her mother, looking down from heaven, would be glad to see her now.

“No matter what others may say, I consider keeping you as my closest aide to be the best decision I have made in my life.”

“I will continue to devote myself completely.”

The road ahead was still long and treacherous, but she would reach the final destination.

“I hope you will simply remember that this is how much I trust you.”

“I will keep it in mind.”

Only now had she become such a presence within the Kang-an family.

An Seol-hye, who had been born the daughter of an unwed mother in Amicus, a helpless twenty-year-old who could do nothing in the face of her only family member’s unjust death.

It had taken three years since she returned to this house carrying a colossal secret that would turn the entire family upside down.

It meant the day when everything would finally return to its rightful place was not far away.

The moment she stepped into Lux, her phone began to vibrate. She pressed the call button and brought it to her ear.

“I’ve arrived.”

The call ended with a sharp click.

Seol-hye stared blankly at the disconnected screen, lips pursing once as she tilted her head.

She was unbearably curious about the expression on the face of the person who had called with exactly zero margin for error, confirmed her arrival, and hung up without another word.

Having been so obsessively fixated on meeting that absurd time limit, she wondered what on earth she had been doing.

She had shortened the meeting, arrived at Pax earlier than scheduled, and even finished her discussion with the chairman in a frantic rush.

Perhaps it was because she could not understand what had driven her to behave this way.

The urge to press the call button again and ask where he was burned inside her, but she decided to let it go.

Fortunately, she could still maintain relative composure in the face of these erratic emotions that surged forward without warning.

Just then, the helper who had been looking after her appeared from the kitchen, carrying a tray with medicine and water.

“I was waiting for you. Lux is different from the other annexes, you know.”

“I’m sorry to trouble you. How exactly is it different?”

“None of us stay here permanently. We come and go according to the timetable assigned to each role.”

“I see.”

“Please take your medicine.”

“I’ll take it in a moment.”

“I need to see you take it before I can leave.”

Seol-hye knew better than anyone that the servants were accustomed to obeying orders, so she swallowed the medicine without protest.

“Then please rest.”

“Yes. Thank you for your hard work today as well.”

“Thank you!”

She also knew that a single word of appreciation was enough to make their mouths stretch ear to ear; they were always emotionally starved.

After the sound of the helper’s footsteps had completely faded beyond the entrance, Seol-hye set her carrier bag aside and sat down on the sofa.

She folded both hands neatly over her lap and remained still. At some point she took out her phone and checked the app again, wondering if the location had reactivated.

But as expected, the gray dot remained fixed at the parking lot where it had stopped earlier.

As she watched the minute hand of her wristwatch complete its tenth revolution, her body literally began to fidget.

For someone who rarely sat still, the current situation was genuinely torturous.

Because of her personality that hated wasting even a single minute or second, she still felt lingering regret over the twenty hours that had disappeared.

Seol-hye decided that perhaps not looking at the clock would make time pass faster, so she leaned back and assumed a more comfortable position.

She had not expected at all that the drowsiness she had been suppressing while carrying out her duties after taking the lunchtime medicine would come rushing in at once.

How much time had passed like that?

In the end, she could not overcome the pull of the medication and her eyelids fell shut.

She did not even hear the soft click of the door opening.