Chapter 21 - Empire of the Ring

In the morning, Youngho woke up to the sound of someone knocking at the door in haste. It was Fatima. Realizing that she had slept through the whole night without visiting her sister in hospital, she was flustered.

As he opened the door for her, Youngho explained what happened last night. Fatima smiled brightly and gave him a big hug. He was startled but soon he realized that hugging is a common expression in their culture unlike in Korea.

While having coffee, Youngho tried his best to explain about the ring that Fatima had sold, using all of the Turkish words he knew. However, Fatima who did not get what he was saying, just stared at Youngho with her eyes blinking. At the moment, Youngho felt like he was mesmerized by Fatima’s deep eyes. Trying to ignore her eyes, he kept on explaining.

Whether Fatima understood him or not, she just weakly nodded. It seemed like she did not care about the ring anyways. She was just curious about Youngho who had come to help her family.

When he could not convince her about the ring, he took out another ring and asked her to put it on. Fatima unwillingly put the ring on her pinky. The ring did the same thing from last night at the hospital, and shrunk to her size. Fatima’s face was full of astonishment. When Youngho could not communicate with her anymore, he hastily left the table. It was also because he did not think that he could handle looking at her eyes anymore now.

***

The sound of Zeynep’s laughter echoed in the hall of the hospital. The nurse from yesterday chatted with her, and left when she saw Youngho and the siblings coming.

Fatima quietly shed tears when she saw her sister who had improved dramatically overnight. Youngho could hear her weeping sound. She was sorry that she could not visit her last night. Szechenyi also cried next to her.

Youngho left the room to give some time for the siblings. When he took out a cigarette to smoke in front of the hospital, Mustafa’s car stopped in front of him.

“Hey Youngho, how’s the child?”

“She is doing a lot better even though it’s been only a night. It’s all because of your help.”

“Oh, stop that. It’s because you searched for the girl. I’m glad that we were able to save a life.”

With a satisfied look on his face, Mustafa left Youngho, saying that he had plans for the day.

In the afternoon, Youngho signed a one-year leasing agreement for an apartment room that was close to the hospital. It was for Fatima and her brother to stay, and also for him who visited them often. Youngho could not stand the environment that they lived in in Balat. The place must have been intoxicating for the children.

Youngho told Fatima that he was a businessman who often visited Istanbul and the place is for him to stay during his business trips. He lied that he needed someone to take care of his place when he was gone, and asked her to stay there.

She seemed like she was aware of his intention, and hearing that Youngho would visit often, she agreed happily.

They stayed two more days at the hotel. After picking up the siblings’ belongings from their place in Balat, they moved in to the new apartment. The apartment was furnished but they needed to buy daily necessities to move in. Youngho and Fatima busily went to market and bought items they needed. Fatima seemed to have become comfortable around Youngho. Not rejecting his favor, she even picked up some stuff for herself.

Before heading to Baku, Youngho made a bank account under Fatima’s name and put $20,000 in there for the living cost and hospital payments. When receiving the bank account and credit card after signing her name in the bank, Fatima did not know what to do for she never had her own account before.

***

Even though Youngho returned to Baku later than expected, his employees managed to run the stores in good condition.

Baku’s officials actively helped Youngho who had just been to Istanbul to buy seedlings and equipment immediately after he signed the farm contract with the government.

It was easy to find people to hire since it was a trustworthy business that the government was encouraging. People wanted to get hired because the word had spread that Chunho Merchant paid their employees well.

Kamal, the head of Ministry of Foreign Affairs stopped by his farming site every day asking if Youngho needed any support. Officially, Kamal was the one who successfully induced a foreign investment in this business, so he had high hopes for Youngho.

As for the government, it was a pilot case to receive foreign investment for farming. Because the state land was almost a waste land for it was on the hillside, they welcomed foreign investment on those lands.

Youngho asked Edward for help.

Youngho could manage 500 acres of land but he wanted to invest in more land to establish better relationship with the Azerbaijan government and to be able to raise his voice. He asked if he can use CIA’s budget.

“Hmmm. It’s unprecedented.” said Edward and continued.

“But. There’s another way. We can use the information expense to use it for your investment. However, only a regular agent can use such amount of money.”

Edward was saying that only regular agent, which Youngho was not because he was a temporary agent, could spend more than a million dollar as an information expense. Edward then started to convince Youngho to apply for a regular agent, encouraging him that he could manage to handle second-class secrets by now.

Youngho thought for a second.

Well, it doesn’t matter what kind of agent I am, my job will be still the same.

Youngho agreed to Edward without thinking too much. Edward congratulated him, saying that Youngho would need to receive further education for information security.

Youngho doubted for a second if all this was planned by Edward all along, but what could he do now? It was no use to doubt Edward.

After a few days, Youngho received a million dollar in his account.

Youngho immediately took action.

He sent a message to Kamal asking if he could invest in the development of another 500 acres of state land.

Kamal returned to him with an exclusive government’s offer greater than the one before. He said, if Youngho invest in the development of 1000 acres of state land in sum, the government would lent it to him free for three years under the condition that Youngho would buy the land at a price of $700 per each acre, and they would not charge the property tax for five years. The government encouraged the development of their hilly land since more than 60% of their territory was either mountainous or hilly.

Youngho prepared the buyer’s documents with deliberation through an international law firm in Turkey. Azerbaijan limited foreigners’ land ownership. Youngho had to make a perfect document, so that the government would transfer the ownership of the land without any trouble after the leasing period ended.

Youngho needed to go back to Istanbul to buy more grape plants, he was running out of them already. Now that he was developing double the size of the farmland than he had planned, he needed more plants.

***

Youngho came back to Istanbul airport only after a month. Mustafa was greeting him with a weird look.

“Brother, You could have stayed in your store but you are glaring at me like ‘Gah-jah-mi*’.”

“What? ‘Gah-jah-mi’?”

“You should learn Korean. Look at me, I study Turkish like eating everyday meals.”

“Hmmm. That didn’t sound good but didn’t sound bad either. I will get back to that later.”

“Well, it’s hard to talk to a smart person.”

Mustafa smiled at Youngho’s compliment.

“Brother, how are the siblings? Fatima now has a cellphone but it’s no use, I can’t even talk to her.”

“I visit them almost every day. Don’t worry about them”

“Thank you brother. I’m glad I have a good friend in Istanbul.”

Mustafa had that weird look again.

“I already made an order for grape plants, so you don’t need to worry about it, and the equipment, we can just make a call…”

“…”

“There’s no reason for you to come here, isn’t it?”

Mustafa seemed to be asking what Youngho was up to.

“Brother, I came to pay the agency fee as a buyer.”

Mustafa had been rejecting Youngho’s payment. He even got upset when Youngho gave him money once. However, Mustafa was glad to hear that from Youngho, now that his carpet business was not doing so well because of the rough economy, Youngho’s money was like a rain in a drought.