CH1 : Prologue

I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I did hold a spoon as soon as I was born.

My parents were the ones who manufactured those spoons.

In the 60s and 70s, Jeonpo-dong in Busan was a neighborhood packed with tiny metal workshops.

Sparks flew from welding torches and the sounds of pounding metal echoed through the alleys, but to me, it was a fun playground, and to my parents, it was a precious livelihood.

Playing marbles, slap matches, and tag was fun, but the kids in the workshops had a special game.

As dusk fell, we would run around the neighborhood with a large magnet attached to a string, gathering all kinds of metal pieces.

After a round, we'd exchange the collected scrap metal at the junk shop for sweets or puffed rice.

While we enjoyed our snacks, the adults would finish their day with dried pollack grilled over a coal fire and a glass of soju.

"Father! I got a perfect score on my test again."

One day, I ran to my father after school, holding a test paper with a perfect score.

Whenever I scored 100 points, he would give me 50 won as a reward, and that day, I was excited about buying snacks.

"Haha, well done, my child. Study hard and become a great person."

"What are you talking about, dear? Son, you have to study hard and become rich. Then you can live happily with a beautiful wife in a big house."

My mother's words resonated with me more than my father's. I wanted to say that I would marry the prettiest girl in the world.

"I'll be both. I'll study hard and become a great, rich person."

"Haha, our son is so smart."

My parents were delighted, patting my head.

Little did I know that those words would become their last will.

My somewhat enjoyable life in the workshop was shattered when a truck crashed into our house early the next morning.

Our house opened directly onto the road, so there was no way to avoid a truck driven by a drowsy driver at dawn.

At just 11 years old, I lost both my parents and had to live with my aunt.

The workshop was rented, and so were the machines, so my parents left no inheritance for me.

Since the truck driver in the 70s likely didn't have insurance, there was no compensation for the death of two people. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have come to a child like me.

My childhood ended abruptly, and from then on, all I could do was study frantically while enduring my situation.

My aunt pitied me, but my uncle didn't.

Already struggling to make ends meet, he would kick me whenever he drank, complaining about having to take in a nephew.

During those times, I would crawl under the desk, covering myself with a blanket.

With a small light bulb under the desk, I would spend the night memorizing my textbooks, which became my only hope and refuge.

Fortunately, I knew that if I ran away recklessly, I would either starve to death or become a thug.

I had no interest in studying, but I didn't need any. The desperate need to escape this house was my driving force and my best teacher.

All I did was memorize and memorize again.

I couldn't afford reference books, so I memorized the textbooks and my notes, focusing intensely during classes.

As a result, I rarely missed being the top student in my middle and high school, and I scored 305 on the 1983 entrance exam, proudly entering the mechanical engineering department at K University.

It wasn't that I particularly liked K University's mechanical engineering department, but it offered a full four-year scholarship and dormitory to students who scored over 300 points on the entrance exam, so there was no hesitation.

Even if I had been admitted to S University, I had no way to afford the tuition and living expenses in Seoul.

Although my aunt cared for me a little, my uncle kept telling me to earn money quickly to repay the debt of raising me.

He was already dissatisfied with me not attending a commercial or technical high school, so I couldn't continue to rely on them with my future salary as collateral.

Anyway, after that, I became completely independent.

The scholarship covered my tuition, and I earned about 500,000 won a month by tutoring.

That was enough for living expenses.

After graduating with difficulty, when it was time to find a job, application forms from Korea's top four conglomerates were piled up in the school office.

In the mid-80s, when I graduated, engineering students had a guaranteed 400% employment rate, making this possible.

Among those applications, I applied to Daese Construction, whose motto was "Creativity, Challenge, Sacrifice."

It wasn't because I liked the motto, but because it also said, "Frequent overseas assignments, preference for English speakers."

I was tempted by the possibility of flying on the company's dime.

It was a naive choice, but in those days, joining any conglomerate meant no worries about making a living.

I worked hard, always saying, "Yes! I will do my best.", "I'm sorry."

Though it was the end of the boom, I experienced the Middle East construction boom, became a site manager for a Southeast Asian plant, and was promoted to the head of the new offshore plant business unit.

About 15 years into my career, the Daese Group suddenly disbanded.

Despite the IMF financial crisis, it collapsed shockingly.

The second-largest conglomerate in Korea fell apart, with debts totaling 89 trillion won, marking one of the largest bankruptcies in human history.

Chairman Woo Chan-soo, who had been a role model for salarymen with his global management, became a fraud overnight, and the employees scattered.

As an employee, I had lived by the company's motto, but creativity and challenge became faded glories, leaving only sacrifice.

I felt incredibly wronged.

Not only did I lose my job overnight, but despite 15 years of service, I didn't even receive my severance pay.

It was such an unprecedented national crisis that there was nowhere to complain.

It brought back the nightmare of losing my parents in my childhood.

Once again, I struggled to survive, gathering colleagues in similar situations to form a small construction company.

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.

Just as the construction industry was hitting rock bottom, the 2000s brought new town constructions and redevelopment projects in Seoul, giving the industry a new lease on life.

**

But then, just as life seemed to be getting better, everything fell apart again.

January 11, 2022.

Roar. Crash.

"Breaking news: Newly constructed apartment building collapses in City A, Gyeonggi Province."

As soon as I saw the breaking news, I rushed to the site, which was in chaos.

The exterior wall of the apartment had torn off entirely.

The rebar that should have been firmly embedded in the concrete was exposed like fish bones. It was obviously due to insufficient concrete curing.

"Yes... President. I'm terribly sorry. Sob."

"No matter how much pressure the main contractor put on you, I told you repeatedly not to pour the concrete in this weather! It's been consistently below freezing! Even with heaters, six days isn't enough. It needed at least ten days of curing."

Pouring concrete and allowing it to harden takes physical time.

Despite having spent my entire career on construction sites, I had never seen such insufficient curing time.

From early December to mid-January, the weather had been persistently below freezing, so no matter how much we used heaters, the concrete couldn't cure properly.

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic had caused shortages of construction materials, and the project itself had been halted several times, preventing us from allocating the necessary time for the work.

With the pre-sale scheduled for August, and it being mid-January, the main contractor was desperate to make up for the lost time, making it impossible for us to meet the deadline.

No matter how crucial it is to shorten the construction period, this was excessive.

"The main contractor threatened to terminate the contract if we didn't pour the concrete by today, so we had no choice. We've poured concrete at six-day intervals before without any problems, but why is it different this time?"

"It was only possible because the emergency evacuation floors up to the 20th floor held up. Above that, the apartment design doesn't have load-bearing walls. You should give instructions knowing that."

"... Sob, what should we do, President?"

There was no point in getting angry.

We were in deep trouble.

No matter what the main contractor said, we were the ones who poured the concrete.

With a disaster of this magnitude, it would be hard for our company to survive in the industry, and we might even lose our construction license.

"Manager Kim, do you have the work instructions?"

"Yes."

"Do we have evidence that we refused to work in this weather?"

"Yes. All the phone conversations are recorded."

We had to fight back somehow.

It was a lame excuse, but we had to argue that we only followed the main contractor's instructions.

"Let's go in!"

"Excuse me, President? What are you talking about?"

"We need to take pictures. Didn't they order us to pour the concrete without reinforcing the temporary supports?"

"Oh! I see."

The collapsed site showed almost no temporary supports.

The concrete columns and slabs that were curing couldn't withstand the weight of the concrete being poured from above.

An apartment should prioritize the convenience and safety of its residents over the contractor's profits... It reminded me of Daese Group's downfall due to Chairman Woo's greed.

The old nightmare came back to me.

If only I hadn't joined Daese Group... Or if Chairman Woo hadn't ruined the company...

 The regret and anger were unbearable.

"Take pictures of everything! We need to take samples from the curing concrete columns to test their strength. We're just a subcontractor pouring the concrete, not the main contractor or the supervising company."

Our company specialized in concrete pouring with ready-mix trucks and pump cars.

The main contractor clearly ignored the concrete curing standards and ordered the pouring, and the lack of reinforcement for the formwork during pouring was undoubtedly their fault.

Leaving evidence might help us avoid taking the full blame.

I raised my smartphone and went further inside.

Up to the 20th floor, there were load-bearing walls, so I thought I could carefully go up the stairs and take pictures.

"Gasp! President, it's dangerous."

"This..."

I realized my judgment was wrong when I reached the 3rd floor.

Crack. Crack. Rumble.

The ceiling was already sagging, and pieces of concrete started falling like hailstones.

Was I also suffering from a safety insensitivity?

Or was it the anxiety of having to start from scratch again?

Why did I rush into such a dangerous situation?

'Maybe it's better this way...'

Manager Kim screamed and ran away, but I couldn't move my feet.

No, I could have escaped, but I didn't.

Suddenly, everything seemed pointless.

Honestly, I wondered who would feel sad if I died.

Even though my wife and daughter promised to return in three years, they kept extending the deadline, using studying abroad as an excuse.

I hated the idea of starting from scratch at my age, hated the separated family life, and most of all, I was sick of a life that kept collapsing just when it seemed to improve.

"... Father, Mother, I'm sorry... I can't do it anymore..."

Beyond the collapsing apartment wall, I saw the sky.

I apologized to my parents in heaven.

There was no way to explain it, but I felt terribly wronged.

I had worked hard all my life, but there was no way to fulfill their last wishes anymore.

I studied hard as they told me to, but I didn't become a great person, didn't earn much money, and couldn't even achieve the simplest goal of living happily with my family.

A life with no rights and only responsibilities and obligations was enough.

If there was a God, I wanted to curse Him.

Who asked to be born with a silver spoon?

Or to win the lottery?

If He took my parents away early, couldn't He at least give me a peaceful life after 30 years of hard work?

Crash!

A huge chunk of concrete fell from above.

Everything collapsed around me, and I collapsed too.