NA: I apologize for not uploading any chapters last week, but my sleep schedule for the past few months has been a disaster.
During the day I've been busy with work and writing at night. It's a tough schedule, but I enjoyed writing. Besides, I didn't want to let my Patreon subscribers down.
But not sleeping properly has been affecting me, so I decided to get proper sleep last week and haven't written any chapters. I only managed to post chapters on Patreon that I had saved.
I don't know how long I can keep writing like this, but I'll keep trying.
If you'd like to support my work, you can do so on Patreon/GOATXXI or by sharing my stories in various groups to reach more readers.
.....
"Are you saying you want to apologize to Kozue Ishihara?" a middle-aged man asked.
"And"
"The late Mrs. Hanako asked me for a favor, and I unintentionally offended her."
"I just found out his identity and wanted to apologize to him," Imada said while sitting across from Shinzo Ishihara.
Shinzo Ishihara was one of his acquaintances from the Ishihara family.
He came looking for him specifically because he was the one with the highest rank among his few acquaintances within the Ichihara family.
Although it could be said that he had no power within the Ichihara family, his father is one of the elders of the family.
Facing Imada, Shinzo looked at him in confusion.
I knew the man well enough to know that he wouldn't do this without a reason.
Apologize to Tetsui's abandoned son?
Although outsiders might think that Tetsui valued the boy after giving him five of his properties, the family knew that the man never called the boy again, and the young man never sought out Tetsui, making it clear that he had not forgiven his dying father for ignoring him in his childhood.
Therefore, they didn't think much about the boy.
After all, they were busy debating who would be the next patriarch of the family.
Especially now that Noboru had died and the other young people in the family had a chance.
What about Tetsui's other children?
None of them had the support that Noboru had because of his mother's family, so they were sidelined.
In contrast, the rest of the young people in the family were descendants of one of the elders, so they all wanted one of them to take the position.
One of them was Takehide Ichihara, Shinzo's nephew.
Takehide was the son of one of his brothers, and his father, who was an elder in the family, was supporting him to take the position.
Shinzo had no problem with this, as he got along well with his nephew and expected to have a good life when his nephew became the head of the Ichihara family.
With all this happening in the Ichihara family, Shinzo and the rest of the family would never even think about Tetsui's abandoned son.
But I knew Imada and was curious as to why the man wanted to apologize to the young man.
"What happened?" he asked, and Imada quickly began to recount what had occurred.
Imada kept nothing and added nothing.
She told him everything that had happened, and Shinzo mocked the deceased woman.
Many now knew that the woman had promised many properties to the family elders in order for them to support her son in taking his father's position.
But because Tetsui gave 5 of them to another of his sons, he ruined the woman's plans and cut off the support of several elders in the family.
Shinzo thought the boy had both good and bad luck.
Bad luck for having attracted the malice of that woman, since many suspected the woman because several businesses that went against hers suffered several accidents that forced them to close.
A young man like Kozue wouldn't last long if the woman wanted him dead.
Being Tetsui's son wouldn't stop the woman from doing things in secret.
Of course, Hanako died, and that's why I thought the young man was lucky.
Many of the woman's opponents would have liked the same fate.
"There's no need to apologize," Shinzo said, shaking his head.
"After Tetsui dies, the boy will have nothing to do with the Ishihara family."
Shinzo thought Imada was too cowardly, but he only thought it and didn't say it to his face.
"So why...?" Imada wanted to ask why the family would leave such a large business in the hands of that young man. But in the end, she kept quiet because he wasn't supposed to know.
This was obviously a secret operation by the Ichihara family. And if they found out he was aware of everything, they might eliminate him.
"Is something wrong?" Shinzo asked.
"No, nothing," Imada said quickly.
"I have to meet with a client"
"I'll visit you later," the man said, and quickly said goodbye to Shinzo before leaving.
Shinzo looked at Imada's back and wondered why the man looked so scared.
But since she didn't care about the man, she shrugged and went on with her day.
Imada, on the other hand, left the Ichihara property and cursed himself for letting greed get the better of him.
He had forgotten that the Ichihara family was conducting a secret operation and obviously didn't want anyone to find out.
But since he wanted to gain something, he forgot about that and went straight into the lion's mouth hoping that he wouldn't be eaten just because he was promised more food in the future.
'Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!' Imada said to himself and quickly returned to his office in the Takuji company building.
He quickly retrieved the document detailing what he had ordered his secretary to find out and took it to a metal bin he kept in the corner of his office.
Using a lighter, the document in his hands quickly turned to ashes.
With the document destroyed, the man returned to his chair and sat down, thinking, 'Forget about it all, this has nothing to do with you.'
Of course, what Imada didn't know was that a copy of the papers was already in someone else's hands.
.
.
.
"Is this real?"
Facing a young man, dressed in colorful silk clothes, was a middle-aged man who had a thin mustache with points towards the sides.
"Yes," replied the middle-aged man.
If Imada were here, he would immediately recognize him as Eikichi, the manager of the Takuji company and nephew of the company owner.
"I became interested in this store and did some research."
"I didn't expect to find such a hidden gem," Eikichi said with a proud smile, taking the credit for himself.
What Imada didn't know was that his secretary was Eikichi's person, who informed him of all his movements.
Eikichi had bought the woman's loyalty to watch over the man and prevent any sign of betrayal.
But who would have thought they would come across this?
When Eikichi read the same document that Imada had burned, he knew immediately that he had found a gold mine if he knew how to use it.
Of course, he could also be buried under the rubble.
The young man in front of him was what would protect him.
Toichi Kawada is the young master of the Kawada family, a wealthy merchant family just as large and rich as the Ichihara family.
If Eikichi wanted a piece of this big pie, he had to trust Toichi to go forward and take the most damage.
Although he will only be able to pick up the crumbs, it is a large amount of money considering the estimated wealth of the target.
"This is incredible"
"And you're right, the Ichihara family normally couldn't afford it."
"Even by disrupting their cash flow and harming all their businesses, they wouldn't be able to raise enough cash to get this company off the ground," Toichi said as he read the papers in his hands, and Eikichi smiled proudly.
Unlike Imada, who was only in charge of negotiating sales, he was the one in charge of the logistics of the entire company and could calculate almost precisely the money needed to sustain this company, SENBON TORII.
Especially when all the priorities were bought and not rented. The money would be astronomical.
That's why I was sure that the Ichihara family was laundering money behind this young man, money that they surely obtained illegally.
Toichi thought the same.
The Kawada family was also involved in some illegal businesses, but none had brought them as much money.
Looking at the numbers on the sheets, greed clouded the mind even of him, who was the young master of the Kawada family.
But knowing that he couldn't make decisions with a mind influenced by greed, he decided to close the document and question Eikichi a little more.
"What ideas do you have for my Kawada family to benefit from the Ichihara family?"
Toichi's question was very important.
Although the Kawada family wasn't afraid of the Ichihara family, they couldn't afford a direct confrontation. After all, there were plenty of families who would take advantage of the opportunity to devour them when they were weak.
If Eikichi doesn't convince him, he prefers to lose this opportunity.
"It's not that I'm sure..." Eikichi said, making Toichi frown.
But before he could say anything, Eikichi continued.
"...but we shouldn't make things so complicated"
"There is no family in the country that can sustain such an enterprise without harming their own businesses."
"Only the Daimyo could, but we know that the man wouldn't spend a penny more if it wasn't necessary..."
"Therefore, the Ichihara family doesn't want to attract attention and wants to earn money quietly," Eikichi said in a mysterious voice.