A white girl he had never seen before suddenly glared at him and picked a fight, but to Jaesung, who had the mind of a middle-aged man, she only looked adorably cute.
“I’m James. Who are you?”
Since she was at Sam Walton’s house during the year-end season, she seemed to be part of his direct family, but he needed to confirm the exact family tree.
“I’m Dorothy Walton. This is my grandpa’s house!”
From a quick glance, Dorothy appeared to be the daughter of one of Sam Walton’s children.
She looked too young to be the daughter of the eldest son Rob, as she seemed like an elementary school student, but she could be a late-born child, so he avoided jumping to conclusions.
“I’m a middle schooler. How old are you? My little sister here is in sixth grade.”
“I’m in fourth grade.”
Dorothy had the typical appearance of a blonde white girl.
White children are doll-like and cute when young, then grow up to look like Korean college students by high school, and aging begins once they reach university.
Young Dorothy still had that plump, bouncy charm, and even the way she widened her eyes to keep Jaesung in check looked nothing but cute.
“Then I need to go greet Grandpa Sam, so play with my sister Jenny here.”
It seemed Dorothy’s father had praised him, and she was wary of Jaesung for receiving her parents’ attention. He lightly dealt with the elementary schooler’s tantrum and passed her to his max-level sociable sister, who was already unleashing a chatter storm, calling Dorothy doll-like.
Dorothy might have been hostile toward the Asian siblings she was meeting for the first time, but younger children are more honest about appearances, and objectively handsome and pretty Jaesung and Jaeeun quickly earned her favor.
“Come on in. It’s the end of the year, so the whole family is gathering. It might be a bit chaotic, but I love this kind of bustle.”
Sam Walton warmly welcomed the mother, Jaesung, and Jaeeun who had returned during the school break, and like an elder who had built a great family, he had summoned the entire clan to his home.
In Korea, relatives gather for Lunar New Year and Chuseok, while in America, Christmas and New Year are traditionally spent at home with family.
In Korea, Christmas is a peak season with crowds outside, but here everything closes on Christmas and people spend time with family at home—it was hard to adjust at first.
They were assigned the same guest room as before, and when they came down to the living room, unfamiliar people were gathered.
“So you’re the James that Jim mentioned.”
“James, come here. This is my brother Rob, and this is my sister Alice.”
Jim spotted Jaesung and introduced the siblings who would later rank in the top 20 richest Americans.
The three people who would possess astronomical wealth dressed in ordinary-looking clothes, perhaps because frugality had been drilled into their bones.
Is this the old money look? The style is plain, but the fabric is top-quality.
Their father had glared and prevented overspending, but the children had still found ways to get around it.
“I’m James. Thank you for inviting me to this important family gathering.”
“I heard you immigrated to America this year. This is your first Christmas here, so you should experience it properly, right?”
The second child, Alice Walton, smiled at Jaesung’s polite and intelligent response and welcomed his joining the Walton family’s year-end party.
His mother felt awkward at first, but they treated her far more comfortably than she had worried, and she quickly adapted to the American-style family gathering.
“During winter break, Mrs. Kim, James, and Jenny will be staying at our house, so make sure they don’t get bored and take good care of them.”
Sam Walton personally instructed that Jaesung’s family be looked after.
Jaesung would be busy working, but his mother and Jaeeun had nothing in particular to do here.
Though Bentonville was in the middle of nowhere, it was where Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart and a tycoon, lived, making it the perfect place to experience rural American life.
This feels like they’re deliberately trying to get close. Did I show too much?
While building America’s representative big-box retail chain had broadened his thinking, a white man living in the central rural area was more conservative than one might imagine.
Such people valued family even more than the eldest-son lineage in Korea, so inviting Jaesung to the most important year-end family gathering was equivalent to becoming godfather.
In a way, the Walton family, which tightly gripped America, was naturally no ordinary clan, and there was a reason they treated Jaesung and his family so kindly.
“Dorothy and James really get along well. Be good friends from now on. It would be nice if you visit Seattle sometime too.”
Sam Walton openly tried to pair his young granddaughter with Jaesung.
She was still young, so rationally it was unclear what would happen, but he at least intended to create a connection.
“Grandpa! I’m not interested in Asian boys!”
“Haha. Race isn’t unimportant, but the people who transcend race are truly outstanding.”
Having met countless people through the retail business, Sam Walton recognized at a glance that Jaesung and his family were special and planned to build a relationship while showing favor.
After Jaesung’s previous visit, Walmart’s top executives had held meetings for several days and concluded that using the new program would save hundreds of millions of dollars annually and enable faster decision-making.
Especially for executives who understood the importance of data but were not yet comfortable with computers, Jaesung’s user-friendly program was a tool they absolutely needed to secure.
Thus, the conservative Walton family exceptionally showed great favor to Jaesung’s family and decided to form a connection, foreseeing that the still-middle-school-aged Jaesung would grow into an even more remarkable person.
It’s a bit burdensome, but since I’ve earned the Walton family’s recognition, I should think positively. To complete the AI ecosystem I envision in the future, I’ll need Walmart’s help too.
Having returned to the past and awakened in a 13-year-old body in America, Jaesung had not given up on the dream of the AI company he failed to complete in his previous life.
In Korea, a small country with agriculture, heavy industry, defense, and cutting-edge industries all present, AI could create optimal synergy and solve various scattered problems.
The issue was that developing proper AI required enormous capital and policy support, and in this life, he intended to meet all those conditions.
While receiving the Walton family’s hospitality and organizing his thoughts, Jaesung called over Dorothy, who was pouting and glaring at him, and whispered in her ear.
“I’m not interested in little kids either. Don’t bother me and play with Jenny.”
He told Dorothy, who clearly seemed to have grown up spoiled like a princess in a wealthy home, that he had no interest in her.
Shocked by the unexpected counterattack, Dorothy’s mouth fell open. Frozen for a moment, her heart strangely pounded at the fact that a boy had rejected her for the first time, and her cheeks flushed red.
“W-What did you say! I’m not interested either. I was just watching in case you did something bad!”
Grumbling, Dorothy ran to her father Jim Walton, but whenever she could, she stole glances at Jaesung, her face red, and all the adults except Jim wore pleased smiles at the sight.
More relatives continued to arrive at Sam’s house, all showing great interest in the Asian woman and siblings they were meeting for the first time.
Time passed quickly with just greetings, and they busily spent their first Christmas in America at the home of Walmart’s chairman.
Afterward, many more people visited Sam Walton’s house to greet them, and his mother built connections while conversing with them.
Fortunately, there were many children too, and Jaeeun taught them strange dances and played well together.
“If you code it this way, it becomes much lighter while still working perfectly. How did you come up with this idea?”
“I just thought about making it simple and easy, and it turned out like this.”
While his mother and sister mingled with the Walton family, Jaesung commuted to the headquarters IT team and created the contracted program.
At first, Walmart’s IT developers dismissed the fact that an Asian middle schooler had made the program, thinking it was a strange order from above, but they quickly changed their attitude upon seeing Jaesung’s creative ideas and outstanding coding skills.
No matter how great these developers were, they couldn’t match the thinking of Jaesung, who knew technology from thirty years in the future, and he appropriately suggested improvements to the current program without causing misunderstanding.
The developers who directly witnessed Jaesung’s skills cooperated sincerely, and the management program was completed much faster than expected.
“They said it would take about a month, but it didn’t even take three weeks.”
“I pushed a bit because I have vacation homework. The Walmart programmers helped a lot too.”
Jim Walton, who had come to see Jaesung in person, was shocked again to see the program completed faster than the schedules he had always experienced, which usually ran late.
Impressed by the far superior quality compared to the mockup, he handed over the check for the remaining contract payment.
“I convinced the company to have you make the management program, but I still find it hard to believe.”
“Everyone learns it the hard way, so they only think about making difficult programs. It’s not particularly hard.”
“A shift in perspective is the hardest thing. Anyway, thank you. I look forward to working with you in the future.”
Though the program was complete, Jim Walton, who wanted to continue the connection with Jaesung, requested annual updates and maintenance with additional payments.
IT technology would continue to advance, so in three to five years Jaesung’s program would likely be replaced by superior products, but until then he agreed to provide updates.
Working in Bentonville, Arkansas like that, 1995 arrived.
With the new year, Jaesung did not advance to second year of middle school—since the American school year starts in fall, he was still in first year.
He promised Dorothy, who had grown close to Jaeeun and cried that she didn’t want to part, that he would return, and they headed to Seattle on the private jet that one could no longer downgrade from after getting used to it.
“You worked hard making the program from afar. But, Jaesung, you’ve ended up with way too much money. What do you plan to do with it?”
Upon returning to Seattle, his father, who had only visited Arkansas twice on weekends due to hospital work, looked slightly flustered at Jaesung’s bank account and said.
“For now, I’m thinking of investing in Pixar and NVIDIA. And going forward, more computer companies will emerge, so I’ll invest in those too.”
Pixar, releasing Toy Story this fall, was struggling with final funding shortages, and Jaesung naturally planned to snatch shares from Steve Jobs.
NVIDIA, which had said it didn’t need investment right away, was shrinking this year after failing to develop a new product, so he intended to extend a helping hand and take a good stake.
“And starting this year, I want to buy stocks. I looked it up, and I can open an account, but I need parental consent at first.”
Seokhoon worried when his son said he wanted to trade stocks, but Jaesung promised he would stop if he lost money while in middle school and received permission.
The dot-com bubble would start this year, so there was no chance of losing money, and to maximize profits he needed to ride the early bubble, so he had to open a stock account now.
While discussing the 1995 financial plan with his father, Jefferson Bezos, who had been frugally using his funds all this time, came to the garage.
“James, can we talk for a moment?”