Empire of the Ring

“Of course you should raise the price. In fact, we should have done that long ago.”

Yaniv agreed with Youngho’s idea to raise the wine price.

“Nope, Mr. Yaniv. I consider the past as; Zeynep’s wines were on a special sale so that people could taste the wine at cheap prices. Now that they’re in love with the taste of the wine, I don’t think they’ll stop buying the wines because of a little price change. From now on, I want people to think of Zeynep wines as premium wines.”

“Good, good. You can produce premium wines as many as you can and let me do the distribution part.”

“Also, Mr. Yaniv, I was thinking to distribute wines that were aged longer in the Western Europe market. Do you have any connection in there?”

“Hmmm. You’re saying that I should yield some of your wines. Okay, if you want to make your company world-famous, I understand that you need to sell it to different markets. However, you should give me a chance to distribute them when I secured markets in different places.”

“Absolutely, I will.”

Yaniv gave in easily unlike Youngho expected. It was a relief.

The great taste of Zeynep Farm’s wines was now known to President Aliyev too, since Youngho had been giving him free wines as gifts. He heard that his wine could be picked as the official wine for the presidential palace banquets. He was focused on producing even better-tasting wines aged in oak casks. It was a great honor to get picked for an official government event.

Since there would be many leaders of different countries attending the event, it could be a great way to advertise the wine. Not to mention, the wine presented in an official event was already proved as a premium quality. If the leaders liked his wine, nimble-footed entourages would ask about the wine to the staffs in the presidential palace. Then Zeynep Farm’s wine would be official wine of Azerbaijan.

Also, the press would be there after the event to broadcast the event to the world and his wine might be advertised to the whole world. Exuberated to imagine how Zeynep wine would get famous, Youngho’s heart was pounding.

“Hey Lee, what are you thinking about? You look extremely excited.”

“I’m just excited that Zeynep wine could be picked as the official wine for presidential palace banquet.”

“I also told the president that we can’t even sell the wines since they sell out fast and I get them at very cheap prices.”

It was wise of Yaniv for saying that he bought wine at cheap prices. The Azerbaijani tax authority had no idea about the price of wine yet. Although Youngho did not have to reveal the prices yet since he was exempted for tax until the end of next year but the tax authority would be expecting low for beginning prices just like what the former Charles Wine Company had begun with. Their wine was sold at three dollars in the beginning but Zeynep Farm wines were more expensive. Knowing the prices of Youngho’s wine, they would probably charge more taxes for him. As he would rather pay less tax.

Yaniv gave two more percent of the oil company’s share for the fire incident since Youngho’s fast rescue prevented more damage done to the company. Youngho now had five percent of district seven oil exploration business. He rejected a few times but Yaniv insisted to give him the share. He could not even imagine how much money he would be making for the addition of the share.

While they were talking about the construction of warehouse complex in Vladivostok, they saw Zeynep coming into the hotel lobby with her friends.

***

Bach’s Air on the G Strings’ delicate violin was playing in the library. The well-controlled sound of a violin playing along the piano calmed down Youngho’s mind.

Youngho was into classical music these days and he often meditates while closing his eyes and listening to the music. As the period of meditation time got longer, his mind was clearer and the heavy trauma on his mind seemed to disappear slowly. Along with that, he could see that the rock on the ring’s color was turning clear. He did not experience going to high place in just a moment or having five times more strength than regular people as written from the old literature. However, he could tell that his vision had improved dramatically. Although he needed a flashlight when there was fire on the ship, he did not have trouble seeing in the dark. It was not normal for a regular person. Since the literature also talked about the improvement of hearing, he would be able to experience that too soon.

He was not sure about the mysterious power of the ring to its fullness, but as of now, all he knew is that his ring was clearer than Szechenyi’s. He wanted to keep it to see what would happen from now on. He thought that he had a special bond with the ring and leather shoes since they were passed down to him somehow, even though he did not share blood with the siblings.

“Oppa, have some tea.”

Fatima interrupted Youngho who was immersed in his thoughts.

“Oh, thank you. I was getting thirsty anyway.”

“You don’t drink a lot lately but you smoke more than before. You should cut it down.”

Since there were a lot of things to think about, Youngho could not keep his hands off cigarettes. Now he smoked a whole pack of cigarette in a day. Realizing that he was getting addicted to smoking, he was thinking to quit soon but just in time, Fatima had pointed that out to him. He felt sorry that he was not being a good influence on the siblings.

“Okay, I’ll quit from this moment and forth. Zeynep is now avoiding me because of my bad breath.”

“Hahaha…”

“I’m serious, I going to quit. I’ve done that before.”

“You know, Jongil oppa is having withdrawal symptoms.”

“I bet he’d be smoking back in a few days.”

Since Karajan had been complaining that smoking was not good for the baby’s health, Jongil quit smoking. However, Jongil had gotten extra-sensitive out of frustration lately.

“Well, I’ll be glad if you quit. You won’t smell bad when I come near you.”

“Then, you’ve been forcing yourself to hold me until now?”

“Umm…That’s a different story.”

Youngho hugged her since she was being too cute.

***

Youngho visited the Charles farm to check the construction process of the low-temperature storage unit.

When he parked his car after passing the gate of the farm to park, the security guard saluted and opened the door for him, which never happened before. Kim Ilkwon also came running toward Youngho. He had been watching the workers putting up the roof of the oak-aging storage building and found Youngho’s car coming in.

“You are here, boss.”

“Wow, the work process is going quite fast in here. I guess we can move empty oak casks here starting in August.”

“Insoo hyung told me to hurry since new trial oak casks would be arriving next month.”

“Those are just trial products. We’ll have them in a large quantity in August. So, don’t rush it. It’s better to be slow than having safety accidents because of rushing.”

“Don’t worry, boss.”

Ilkwon worked too hard. Youngho worried that he might get sick from work.

“Hey. So, why did you make the security guard salute me?”

“Well, he has a hat on, so saluting is a more suitable way to greet his superior. It’s not good to see when people don’t respect their boss.”

He had been educated by the North Korean way for all of his life. Positions were not really meaningful in the free world unlike in a communist society. In North Korea, authorities could send people to jail when they did not like their ways of doing things such as greeting. In the free world, making people salute to their superiors did not mean much since they would not be seeing their boss when they quit their job. Youngho worried that it would be difficult for Ilkwon to get used to the ways of living in the free world.

Kim Ilkwon’s siblings and parents were working hard on the farm as well, his brother especially did everything passionately since Youngho promised to let him enroll in the international school where Szechenyi and Zeynep went once he learned English and Azerbaijani.

Because he was also Szechenyi’s age, they became friends easily. When the whole family studied languages in the morning and helped out with the farm work in the afternoon. Kim Ilkwon’s family all referred Youngho as Mr. Lee, he probably told them to call him that way. He still felt uncomfortable around Youngho since he was his boss, unlike Jongil and Insoo whom he called hyung.

It would be a month since they started working. Youngho was already determined to give them their payments for working on the farm just like any other workers. Although they would be rejecting, he thought it was only fair if he paid them.

It was part of teaching them about the free-market economy. Once they were paid, he would stop supporting them financially, so they could buy what they need on their own. They should learn how to survive on their own.

It was an experiment to accept Kim Ilkwon’s family and making them settle down in here. If they successfully settled down in here, Youngho planned to gather North Korean defectors scattered in different mountainous locations like wanderers to Vladivostok. There were many North Korean defectors who could not go to South Korea due to their own conditions. It would be great if he could help them settle down and offer them a place to work. Of course, he would need Yaniv’s help too.