“Ugh…”
It was a weekend morning. I didn’t need to get up early, but since I went to bed early yesterday, I woke up early. Today was the weekend, so Bora, Haru, and Maru weren’t around. Only an employee I wasn’t close with was left. Dragging my slippers, I went outside.
After quickly grabbing breakfast on the first floor, I returned to my room. With my stomach full, I had a place to go today. I thought about taking the employee’s car but decided to go alone.
I dressed simply and went outside the building. The security guards couldn’t stop me. I was a master of stealth, so slipping out silently was second nature. I already had their patrol routes memorized. Plus, security had gotten lax since the building moved.
It’s not uncommon for kids to go out and play alone, right? Parents can’t stop them. My situation was no different.
“Hmm hmm~”
Humming, I stepped outside. My destination today was the farm I was building. Though the building had moved, the farmland hadn’t. The plants I had worked so hard to grow were still at the research institute.
I couldn’t abandon my “children.” So, I decided to set aside one day each weekend to visit the farm. Abandoning the plants I had irresponsibly grown would be a crime. I felt like a parent responsible for their child.
I wanted to move everything here, but unfortunately, there was no place in the city to grow crops. The city was a forest of buildings, not suitable for farming. The land was too expensive to grow crops anyway. Securing land for farming here would cost a fortune.
It was smack in the middle of Seoul.
I went out to the road to hail a taxi. It would cost me, but I had a card with no limit. However, there was a fatal flaw in taking a taxi.
“We don’t go there, kid~”
“Take another taxi.”
Every single taxi refused to go to the research institute. It was probably too remote. I had no choice but to take the bus. It didn’t matter which bus I took.
The portal site kindly explained which bus to take after I entered my destination. My phone made it easy to figure out.
“Oh ho!”
Indeed, the mobile phone was humanity’s most revolutionary invention. I would never go back to a time without it. Life without a phone was unimaginable.
I walked toward the bus stop. I wouldn’t need to transfer many times to get there. It would be strange to get lost with such clear instructions.
———————————————–
“Ugh…”
I was walking down the street. The bus stop that was supposed to be a 5-minute walk away was nowhere in sight. I was definitely not bad with directions. This was the phone’s fault. I did my best to find the bus stop. It was wrong that the bus stop wasn’t visible.
After walking for 30 minutes, I ended up in a strange place. I looked around, on the verge of tears. I had no choice. I had to call Maru on my phone. I believed Maru would come running in no time.
[Maru, help me.]
[Hana, what’s wrong?]
[I’m lost, Maru… I can’t find my way home.]
[I’ll be right there, wait for me.]
Maru replied to my message immediately, even though it was her day off. I felt bad. She probably didn’t like being called for personal matters on her day off. But I had no choice.
And so, my little adventure came to an end. Not a happy ending, though.
—————————————————
Now that the farm was built, I needed to buy cows. Just having a farm wasn’t enough to do anything.
Kim Sehee only outlined the basics. The rest was left to the employees. Micromanaging would only lead to chaos.
Kim Sehee’s instructions were simple: focus on increasing the number of cows this year. A new department for livestock was created under her direction.
Sub-departments also sprouted like spiderwebs. With the massive number of cows to sell, expanding departments was inevitable.
There, the cow…
The departments in charge of purchasing were the busiest. They traveled all over the country.
[Let’s buy cows even if we have to pay extra.]
Since Kim Sehee gave the order, the employees just had to follow. If they offered extra money, no one would refuse to sell their cows.
The employees diligently traveled across the country, visiting barns left and right.
“Buying cows?”
“Yes. Whether it’s a bull or a cow, we at Starlight Food will buy all the cows being shipped this year.”
“Starlight Food? I’ve never heard of them being in the livestock business.”
The middle-aged man looked puzzled as he spoke to the Starlight Food employee. He knew Starlight Food was a famous company, but only in the food industry, not livestock. After all, he was a regular customer who enjoyed the grapes they produced.
“I can’t give you the details, but we plan to enter the domestic market as long as it doesn’t take a hit. Mainly, we’re aiming for the overseas market.”
“Really? Whether what you’re saying is true or not, if Starlight Food is offering a good price, there’s no reason not to sell. Let’s make a deal.”
The ranch owner didn’t really care if Starlight Food entered the domestic beef market or not. He was already planning to retire from the livestock business and had saved up his retirement funds.
Besides, he thought even if Starlight Food entered the beef business, it wouldn’t be on a large scale. The beef business wasn’t very profitable for companies to jump into. Starlight Food was better off focusing on their thriving plant-based products.
Anyway, Starlight Food employees traveled all over the country, buying cows left and right. They didn’t care if it was a bull or a cow. As the saying goes, “Word travels fast,” and soon, domestic ranchers couldn’t help but hear about Starlight Food’s beef business venture.
Domestic ranchers weren’t thrilled about Starlight Food’s moves. Sure, they were making a short-term profit by selling cows at high prices. But rumors started spreading.
“Starlight Food has already bought thousands of cows?”
“What? They bought that many?”
“I heard it’s over ten thousand. And they’re still buying like crazy.”
Domestic Hanwoo (Korean beef) cattle numbered around three million. The cows Starlight Food bought were less than 1% of that. But the ranchers were still shocked.
“Buying that many… Do they even have enough ranches to raise them?”
“I heard they built a huge ranch in Gangwon-do. Supposedly, it can hold hundreds of thousands of cows.”
“Is Starlight Food planning to take over our Hanwoo market?”
Raising cows wasn’t as profitable as people thought. Due to past government negotiations with the U.S., they had to compete with imported beef. Plus, the rising cost of feed was a problem. Just like everything else, cow feed prices were skyrocketing every year.
“Things are already bleak…”
“Will the government step in?”
The more cows there were, the better it was for consumers. For sellers, it was a disaster. It’s simple economics—supply and demand.
The more Hanwoo cattle there were, the more prices would drop. Just like mass-producing goods lowers production costs, the same applied to Hanwoo.
If prices plummeted, Hanwoo farms across the country would take a huge hit. The government managed the number of cattle for Hanwoo farms, but now they didn’t know what to do with Starlight Food. Could they just bulldoze everything like they did with grape farms and let Starlight Food dominate?
Hanwoo farmers were trembling at Starlight Food’s arrival. But they couldn’t unite. Most farms were selling cows to Starlight Food through backdoor deals. It would be strange not to sell when they were offering extra money.
And so, a massive typhoon named Starlight Food was slowly rising over Korea’s Hanwoo market.
