Chapter 180 - Chapter 180 (1/2)

"For the time being, let me accompany you back to your home."

"...Alright."

Yu Jin-Ho left the hospital room of his father, Chairman Yu, with Secretary Kim a little while later.

But, just before the door to this special hospital room closed shut, a portion of the shadow beneath Yu Jin-Ho's feet separated away and slipped inside the room. No one witnessed this strange phenomenon happen.

Tak.

The door closed shut and the light within the room automatically switched off. And time continued to tick by like this.

When the hour became late and no more people came around to visit this room, a 'shadow' sneaked out from underneath Chairman Yu's bed.

Shururuk...

Then, an ant soldier emerged from this shadow. He quietly looked around the room and discovered the sleeping Chairman Yu.

What sort of delicious open buffet was this?

Kiieehk.

The ant soldier fixed his gaze on the Chairman Yu and began drooling avariciously, but too bad for him, he got rapidly sucked into the shadow and was replaced by Jin-Woo.

That was the effect of the skill 'Shadow Exchange'.

Jin-Woo already had cloaked himself with 'Stealth' even before activating the exchange. Now that he was here, he took a careful look around the hospital room.

There was no source of light to be found inside and, as a result, it was completely dark in the room, but with his Perception Stat having reached such an extreme peak, he could see just fine as if this was in the middle of the day.

Jin-Woo's eyes gleamed coldly in the darkness as he finished searching for the presence of security cameras in the room.

'Looks like it's clean.'

The only people nearby were four guards manning the door from the outside.

As long as there was no event of Chairman Yu Myung-Han suddenly waking up and start yelling at the top of his lungs, Jin-Woo's presence wouldn't be detected at all.

Feeling sure of this conclusion, he undid his 'Stealth'.

Shuuuk...

His once-transparent body revealed its faint outer line before gradually regaining its original colour.

There was a reason why Jin-Woo was being doubly, triply cautious like this. Because he should not carelessly reveal the existence of the item called 'Divine Water of Life' to anyone. That's what he thought.

Not too long ago, Chairman Yu presented him with a blank cheque. That was not all. He even promised to fulfil whatever Jin-Woo wished for as long as it was within his powers.

Did he offer all those juicy terms because he was a kind-hearted gentleman? Of course not.

No way such a thing was true.

He was a man who stood at the apex of the cutthroat corporate world where one could only survive by coldly calculating their gains and losses.

He was also a naturally-gifted businessman who even managed to turn a small corporation he inherited from his parents into one of the biggest conglomerates in the entire world.

He should be fully aware of the true worth of something that 'can heal the illness he's suffering from'. And that was his reason for offering up everything he could realistically put on the table.

However, not everyone in this world was as gentlemanly in conduct as Chairman Yu. Desperation could sometimes become a motive that caused one to make rash decisions.

Meaning, it was for the best not to create a potential source of trouble.

That was Jin-Woo's reason for concealing the existence of the 'Divine Water of Life' to the best of his abilities.

Even if he was the father of the kid he thought of as his little brother, Jin-Woo wasn't naïve enough to risk unknown dangers that may or may not occur in the future for the sake of Chairman Yu, someone whom he didn't know all that well, to begin with.

'Well, there wouldn't be that many naïve fools out there who bring out an item like 'Divine Water of Life' just because someone asked them to….'

So, he waited quietly for the best timing to make his move, and finally, that moment had arrived.

It wasn't as if Chairman Yu's life would negatively be affected or he'd suffer from some after-effects just because the treatment came about a little later.

If Jin-Woo were to think about those who might be getting a raw deal out of this, then it'd only be the shareholders who quickly got rid of all their shares related with Yujin Corporation after hearing about Chairman Yu's collapse.

'Is this why people say investing in stock markets is pretty much the case of 'all or nothing'?'

Jin-Woo smirked to himself and accessed his Inventory to retrieve one of the five remaining bottles of the 'Divine Water of Life'.

With the usage of this one bottle, he'd had four more left.

He knew exactly what it was like to lose one's parent through this illness. So, he felt that using this bottle for Yu Jin-Ho's sake was not a loss to him in the slightest.

'That kid, why did have to he go and cry like that? Making me feel all bad and stuff.'

Jin-Woo carefully raised the upper torso of Chairman Yu Myung-Han, opened his lips, and slowly poured in the 'Divine Water of Life'.

Very slowly, and only a small amount at a time.

However, Chairman Yu must've known that this item was the sole lifeline capable of saving him, because he gulped the Water down rather commendably well.

"Cough."

The bottle became empty in no time at all.

Jin-Woo lowered Chairman Yu's upper torso back on the bed and returned the empty bottle to his Inventory.

Just like how he remembered with his mother's case, the colour of vitality returned to Chairman Yu's complexion very quickly. Even his faint, weakly-beating heart gradually picked up pace, as well.

Jin-Woo nodded his head in satisfaction.

'It's done.'

The medicine was working perfectly.

The only remaining thing would be to escape from this room before Chairman Yu Myung-Han wakes up and leave not one trace of himself behind. Jin-Woo reactivated 'Stealth' and stood before the room's door.

Wuiiing...

"Huh?"

"What's this?"

The door could only be opened by pressing an electronic button either on the outside or inside, yet it automatically opened up by itself, so the guards quickly fell into a state of panic.

"Huh?!?!"

Before long, though, they spotted Chairman Yu through the glass wall.

An event dozens of times – no, make that hundreds and thousands of times – more shocking than the door opening up was unfolding inside the hospital room.

The guards all discovered Chairman Yu sitting upright on the bed and their eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

"Huh? Uh??"

"C-Chairman has... woken up?!"

Guards stood there completely frozen as if they had seen a ghost, before one of them regained his wits and loudly yelled out, veins on his neck visibly bulging in the process.

"Doctor!! Where is a doctorrrrr!!"

Excluding one guard who ran to elsewhere in search of a doctor, the rest quickly rushed inside the hospital room.

"Mister Chairman!"

"Are you alright?"

Yu Myung-Han formed a refreshed expression of someone just waking up from a good, long rest and took a look at the guards.

"Why are you people raising such a fuss here? Besides all that, who are you people, anyway?"

"S-sir, we're...."

"No, wait."

Yu Myung-Han cut into the guard's reply, and took a good look around his surroundings first. And he found himself in the VIP hospital room designed to accommodate a victim of the Eternal Sleep.

He easily recognised this place, because it was he who had prepared this room soon after learning of his own terminal condition.

'Which means, I....'

Could he really have?

"....Did I collapse, but somehow woke up again?"

Wuuiiing...

Chairman Yu Myung-Han's head quickly swivelled in the direction of that sound. He watched through the glass wall the electronic door slowly closing shut by itself.

***

Ting!

The elevator's door slid open.

Jin-Woo wordlessly stared at the cordon of doctors rushing in from the other end of the corridor as if they were gathering storm clouds before climbing into the empty elevator.

Now that he thought about it, wasn't Yu Jin-Ho's birthday at the end of this month?

'I know it's a bit early, but well, happy birthday, Jin-Ho.'

His father's full recovery – Jin-Woo thought that it might prove to be the best birthday gift for Yu Jin-Ho as he pressed the button for the ground floor.

Click.

An ahjussi belatedly climbed into the elevator and was about to press the same button as well, but he stopped after seeing the light come on all by itself.