Money Keeps Piling Up No Matter How Much I Spend

Chapter 197

Translator: Dreamscribe"Ppoppi?"

"Yeah. Ppoppi."

Ppoppi is...... the name of the pet dog our parents brought home out of nowhere one day.

They'd never so much as glanced at a pet their whole lives, yet for some reason, they went and got one.

Apparently, they'd been feeling lonely.

It made me wonder if I hadn't been a good enough child to them.

Thinking about it, there were times I'd been too busy with work to spend much time with them.

Still, it was awkward at first, but whenever the little guy came trotting over, wagging his tail, the sheer explosive cuteness made me understand why people keep dogs.

"What about Ppoppi?"

"He got really sick all of a sudden last night. Mom and Dad didn't notice at first, and by the time they realized, they rushed him to the vet."

"Seriously? Is he okay?"

"Yeah. Thankfully he's fine. They got him emergency treatment in time."

The little guy who always clung to me and my sister wagging his tail when we left for work had been nowhere to be seen, and now I knew why.

"That's a relief. Mom and Dad must have been scared out of their minds."

"Right? I was shocked too. Who would've thought he'd get sick like that out of nowhere? If they'd found out even a little later...... ugh. Isn't there some way to catch these things early?"

Just thinking about it made my head spin too.

"Honestly, watching Mom and Dad get older these days, I worry. What if something happens to both of them in the middle of the night while they're asleep? We'd have no idea, would we?"

"That's true."

"And it's not like we can hook them up to hospital equipment and monitor their heart rates in real time. I've looked for something decent they could wear, like a watch, but there's really nothing out there."

It's the kind of thought that comes naturally as your parents age.

What if something happens to them in the middle of the night? That kind of anxiety every child has felt at least once.

"On top of that, Ppoppi's the same. There's no way for us to know ahead of time when he's hurting, so......."

But why?

While listening to my sister's concerns, my whole body suddenly trembled as my Intuition flared to life.

"......"

"What's wrong?"

"Hm? Oh. Nothing."

The fact that my Intuition had reacted to this...... did that mean there was something here?

"By the way, oppa. The reason you haven't been coming home lately is because of that, right?"

My sister pointed at the TV, where breaking news was streaming nonstop.

They'd been briefing on the North Korean and Chinese situations all day long.

"The foreign guests at our hotel have all cleared out too. They're saying a war between North and South could break out again now that China's collapsing into Civil War. Everyone's terrified."

I was uneasy about that too.

North Korea was shaking from China's collapse.

No one knew what kind of madness they might pull, which was why the entire country was on high alert.

"This isn't actually going to turn into a real war, is it, oppa?"

"I don't know......."

"Oh my God. You're not saying it's actually going to happen?!"

That was something I couldn't be sure of.

All I could do was pray that this would end quickly, just like this.

* * *

"So you're telling me this all happened because of the Civil War in the Three Northeastern Provinces?"

Aiden blinked his weary eyes as he studied the map on his tablet.

"Yes. The Three Northeastern Provinces of China are the closest region to North Korea. The Civil War there created waves of refugees, and they've been crossing over into North Korea to escape the fighting."

"I heard there are armed forces among them. What's that about?"

"They're remnant soldiers defeated in the Civil War. They're heading south looking for a way to survive, and the problem is that their equipment is far from trivial. They're armed with heavy weapons, and they're moving south with tanks and armored vehicles."

Dandong and Sinuiju are connected by a long bridge, making them the largest trade hub between North Korea and China.

But flip that around, and it also means China could march south across that same route and strike North Korea at any time.

"The Chinese remnant soldiers used that exact route to seize the bridge in a surprise assault, and as a result, military units armed with tanks and armored vehicles have been pouring in."

This wasn't like the heavily fortified DMZ between North and South Korea, with its minefields and strict security perimeters.

It was an adjacent border city, one that was always open for trade during peacetime, so they'd never anticipated that Chinese troops would actually come south.

"What is North Korea doing about it?"

"Kim Jong-woon immediately declared a national state of emergency and dispatched forces to the border to hold back the flood of refugees and remnant soldiers, but....... it doesn't look easy. The bridge has already fallen to the Chinese troops, and refugees and soldiers keep streaming across."

"Then just destroy the bridge. Bomb it."

"It seems they attempted that, but the effort to demolish the bridge failed. Above all, North Korea's air force is hardly capable of......."

"Their military is that far gone?"

He'd already known that North Korean society and its military were in dire shape.

But they couldn't even manage to bomb a single bridge?

"Even without the air force, they could probably find a way to blow the bridge somehow. But North Korea's condition has deteriorated far worse than before. Repeated financial crises and the surge in energy prices have torn the country apart from the inside."

North Korea had never been in good shape to begin with.

Internal factors played a role, but it was external factors that had hit the hardest.

"Wait. So you're saying North Korea's in worse shape because of Kwangwoon?"

"Yes. Financial crises that dealt blows to China and Russia, North Korea's lifelines, the energy crisis caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, and so on. All of it is connected to Kwangwoon, is it not? If not for Kwangwoon, North Korea wouldn't have deteriorated to this extent."

In other words, without Kwangwoon, North Korea would have been able to defend itself far more comfortably.

"Are you saying Kwangwoon actually planned for all of this?"

All this time, he'd assumed Kwangwoon had been triggering financial crises around the world for other reasons, like corporate acquisitions or driving up certain stocks.

But that was because he'd failed to see the forest for the trees.

He'd only been looking at the individual trees.

"Kwangwoon's true objective may have been aimed at this from the very beginning."

"China and North Korea?"

"Yes. With China's collapse, the world's dependency on Kwangwoon will only deepen. Kwangwoon already laid the groundwork in Africa, didn't they? Companies will start building factories there, and beyond taking over as Asia's financial hub after the Hong Kong crisis, Korea and Kwangwoon will become the center of Asia itself."

It meant Kwangwoon's plans were proceeding step by step.

The productivity that China had monopolized.

The role as Asia's hub that China had controlled.

"But what Kwangwoon is most concerned about is North Korea. As long as North Korea exists, Korea will never be seen as truly safe."

North Korea was a powder keg that could go off at any time, in any way.

The days when a North Korean missile launch would rattle the Korean market were over, but the risk North Korea posed always lingered like a tumor, making it difficult for the Korean market to receive a premium valuation.

"You're saying they want to resolve the North Korea problem?"

"If what Kwangwoon wants is control over the Korean and Asian markets, North Korea is the biggest wildcard. They'll try to bring it under their heel by any means necessary."

Aiden himself had always been curious about how Kwangwoon viewed North Korea.

There hadn't been any particular moves against it, so he'd assumed they were simply ignoring it.

After all, North Korea was the most closed-off nation on earth.

It was difficult to run operations there, difficult to infiltrate, so he'd figured they'd just given up entirely.

"But while our attention was focused elsewhere, they were quietly laying the groundwork behind the scenes. So that North Korea would collapse from a single shock."

Of course.

There was no way Kwangwoon would sit by and leave North Korea alone.

The world was increasingly revolving around Kwangwoon.

Because they controlled social media and networks.

But the two places that rejected their ideology head-on were China and North Korea.

If they left those two alone, they could never build the world Kwangwoon envisioned.

That was why they had spent all those years building up to this, orchestrating events to bring both nations down.

"What is South Korea doing?"

"They're already in real-time communication with our side, preparing military operations. All units are on combat readiness, and they're closely monitoring North Korea's status. So they can respond immediately if Kim Jong-woon does something insane."

And what would "something insane" from North Korea mean?

Nuclear missiles.

The Kim dynasty were selfish dictators who would rather everyone die together than lose their grip on power.

They had never, not once in their lives, cared about the lives of the North Korean people.

If they had, they would have opened their borders and developed the country long ago.

Instead, they were devils who sacrificed their people's lives solely to preserve their own power and luxury.

"Can we stop them if they try something reckless?"

"Yes. We're monitoring them in real time via satellite. The moment we detect signs of a nuclear missile launch, we can strike immediately. Our forces are fully trained for that contingency, and North Korean technology cannot detect our stealth fighters."

Military experts these days say that if war broke out between North and South Korea, it would be over in twenty minutes.

That wasn't entirely wrong.

"What is the UN saying?"

"They're in a difficult position as well. With international sanctions in place, the UN has no way to help North Korea, and they can't just send food aid either. Everything depends on......."

"Kwangwoon's decision?"

"Yes. Whether it's food aid or relief supplies, it all comes down to Kwangwoon. They're sitting on massive stockpiles of resources. Especially those Kwangwoon ships that were en route to China but got stranded in the middle of the ocean because of the Coup d'état, carrying enormous quantities of food."

In the end, it meant that the power to either save or destroy North Korea rested entirely in Kwangwoon's hands.

Aiden was beginning to wonder just where this madness would end.

* * *

"You've relayed everything to the UN?"

"Yes. I've submitted a request for the UN to cooperate so that we can deliver aid by any means possible. Unless they lift the sanctions and dispatch peacekeeping forces to mediate the situation, there's no predicting what will become of North Korea going forward."

I didn't want North Korea to collapse.

Their dictatorship and human rights abuses were clearly wrong, but if the country showed signs of falling apart like this, our country would bear the full brunt of the aftermath.

What if one Coup d'état after another erupted in North Korea, leading to nuclear war?

Even without nuclear war, what if the chemical weapons they reportedly had enough of to blanket our entire nation over fifty times were unleashed everywhere?

A nation as brilliant as South Korea could be turned into hell in an instant.

That was why I wanted to prevent the worst-case scenario at all costs, no matter what it took.

"All we can do is wait and hope the U.S. and the UN resolve this."

"Yes. There's really no option besides watching and waiting. Oh! And here are the documents you asked about last time, sir."

"These came from the Research Department?"

"Yes. After looking into the industries you mentioned, we compiled the ones that are most advanced in their development. If you decide to invest, the funds can be deployed immediately."

I scanned through the list.

The research team had been thorough; everything from the list itself to the development potential and current progress of each venture was detailed precisely.

After absorbing a certain amount of the information, I closed my eyes for a moment.

Then, following the sensation transmitted through my fingertips, I opened them again.

Sure enough.

Colors that hadn't been there a moment ago now floated above the list.

"......"

I checked off several companies and projects, then handed the list to the Department Head.

"Please proceed with these."

"Ah, yes sir."

Even if the situation with China and North Korea had everyone on edge, work still had to get done.

* * *

"How are the domestic and overseas markets looking?"

"Exactly as expected. Ever since North Korea and China turned out like this, the global financial markets have been flooded with panic."

Vice President Kang Ji-hwan let out a short sigh.

It had been a long time since he'd seen markets this chaotic.

And no wonder, given that China and North Korea, which nobody had predicted, were collapsing.

As a result, every financial market was dumping their holdings, scrambling to escape this inferno.

"But...... what's this?"

"Oh. CEO Jung Jin-ho asked the Research Department a few days ago to look into companies in a specific industry. It seems he received the report and made an investment decision."

Of all times, now?

Vice President Kang Ji-hwan quickly opened the file, driven by rising curiosity.

But what was written there was completely unexpected.

"Pet RFID Chips?"

"Yes. As you know, it's already mandatory to implant RFID Chips in dogs over two months old. But this is a step beyond that. It's technology that uses an RFID Chip to monitor a pet dog's condition in real time. It even integrates AI to detect where the dog is experiencing discomfort, along with stress levels, emotional state analysis, and more. The development pipeline is quite extensive."

"The CEO really decided to invest in this?"

"Yes. And he's allocated 100 billion won for the first round of investment alone."

It was a completely out-of-left-field investment.

Pet dogs, all of a sudden.

"And the next one is......."

The next item was different in nature but somehow seemed related.

"This one's similar. It's technology that immediately notifies children if something happens to their elderly parents while they're asleep."

"But this one also involves micro-chips?"

"Yes. They're researching a way to embed a micro-chip that can monitor heart rate, blood levels, and various other health indicators in real time. Smartwatches exist, of course, but unfortunately, even when they detect something like cardiac arrest or abnormal heart rates, they don't send alerts to a guardian. There are also technological limitations."

"So the idea is to implant a micro-chip to directly monitor health?"

"Yes. The ultimate goal is to develop technology capable of detecting diseases in real time, eliminating the need for regular checkups. By combining AI with the technical capabilities."

On the surface, it looked great.

Being able to detect a pet's condition faster, and relieving the anxiety of wondering, what if something happens to my parents in the middle of the night and nobody notices?

But one had to consider who made this investment decision.

None other than Jung Jin-ho.

Kang Ji-hwan knew full well what Jung Jin-ho really was.

Always smiling on the outside, looking so genuinely innocent, but the man was practically the devil incarnate.

Only a handful of people in this world knew his true nature.

Building the Trinity Guild into what it was, establishing Sentinel and running countless covert operations, all of it was Jung Jin-ho's doing.

Would someone like that really pour hundreds of billions into a project just to look after people's health?

"What if this technology actually succeeds and gets commercialized?"

"It probably won't be able to detect every disease. But it could identify quite a few. Especially if deployed in areas with poor medical infrastructure, it could make diagnosing conditions much easier."

"Like Africa and North Korea?"

"......Yes. That's, that's correct."

And if the technology advanced further, eventually every person would want this chip implanted. It might even become a national mandate.

If that happened...

"Vice President. You don't think this investment is......."

When one of the executives spoke up in a trembling voice, Vice President Kang Ji-hwan raised his hand and covered the man's mouth.

"Everyone, quiet. I know what you're all thinking, but don't say it out loud. Consider that a piece of advice, for your own sakes."

"!?"

The executives clamped their mouths shut in alarm, swallowing hard.

They too had realized what this investment truly meant.