Chapter 130. Legal Team, Assemble
"Hey! Maralak, are you sure you're Korean? Why are you so bad at this?"
"I'm Thai. And I'm suffering from freaking depression."
Trying to soothe the gloomy mood caused by the Serin situation, Anna had rushed to a PC café.
She was playing an FPS game in a duo with Revick, but she'd been dying in under a minute every single round.
"Not just depression, but freaking depression? Sounds pretty serious!"
"Yeah. It's serious."
Anna couldn't exactly tell anyone else about this disappointment.
But keeping everything bottled up made it nearly impossible to stay sane.
That was why she hadn't really come here to play games.
She'd come because she wanted to vent to Revick.
Revick kept the conversation light and joking, but surprisingly, he was extremely good at keeping secrets.
And when he gave advice, he usually meant it sincerely.
Anna hoped that talking about her problems might lighten her own heart too.
She looked around the late-night PC café.
A few people were sitting far away, but nobody was close enough to overhear her.
"You know Serin unni in our group? She says she's leaving."
"Leaving the group? Damn... You mean that slender girl who looks like she's made of glass?"
Revick spoke.
"Honestly, I don't know much about group singers. Even if you're in different groups, can't you keep in touch and write songs together like Billy and me?"
"Obviously not. This is worse than Kendrick Laba moving to the East Coast and getting whitewashed. Maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle, like Colorado, and have a drink once in a while. But that's clearly a betrayal of hip-hop."
"That's horrifying."
The more she thought about it, the more upset she became.
Now she could understand just how devastated the Astra members must have been when Zeus left.
That sadness slowly began turning into anger toward Serin.
If Serin needed money, Anna could've lent it to her.
No.
She could've just given it to her.
If Serin had honestly said she wanted to do more solo work, Anna would've happily sent her to Hollywood.
But contacting another agency without saying a word?
Had Blue Moon simply been a stepping stone for Serin to build her career as an actress?
Had she only gotten close to them because it was useful?
Was that why she'd always been so nice to Anna too?
Anna kept firing useless shots into empty space and repeatedly getting her character killed.
Then a text arrived from Do Jun-hyeok.
[Anna. When you wake up tomorrow, can you secretly come to the conference room? By 9 AM. And don't stay up gaming too long!]
"CEO. It's Anna."
"Yeah, Anna. Come in!"
The conference-room door opened.
Anna peeked inside and froze.
Naturally.
Dae-hun and I were sitting there with grave expressions.
Along with eleven lawyers.
"Who are all these people?"
"People who are going to help us. Sit down first. Dae-hun, start."
"Yes."
Dae-hun immediately stood and went to the whiteboard.
"I spent the entire night investigating Tienhua's recent movements. First of all, they've got an absurd amount of capital. To summarize, they're still basically a startup company with no artists or trainees under them. Right now, they're just a giant pile of money."
Dae-hun drew a rough map of the continent and the Korean Peninsula.
He wrote Tienhua over China.
Then he listed several Korean entertainment agencies beneath the peninsula.
"That said, they aren't exactly a newly established company. They've invested in dozens of Korean agencies over the years. It'd be more accurate to call them someone's investment corporation than an entertainment company. Taxes on money moving between Korea and China are brutal, so I have no idea what they're thinking. I guess whoever funds them is just that rich."
"So?"
"Tienhua has gone through two major changes so far, and both were connected to our company."
It had first appeared around the time of the Zeus defection scandal two years ago.
As anti-China sentiment made it increasingly difficult for Chinese capital to enter Korea directly, they began investing in entertainment agencies themselves.
They quietly made money that way for a while.
Then the narrow-mouthed-frog incident caused entertainment stocks to crash badly.
At that point, Tienhua apparently tried to simply swallow entire agencies with healthy financial statements.
They were doing it without cutting their losses.
These weren't ordinary rich people.
"Their first choice was our company. But as you know, CEO, you've kept rejecting them. So because Universe doesn't have many artists, they switched strategies. Instead of buying the company, they decided to steal the artists directly."
"They're insane."
"And the truly vicious part is that they correctly identified Serin as the center of Blue Moon. So they approached her uncle, found her weakness, and started shaking her through him. If they pull Serin out first, it'll be much easier to take the other members later."
Anna's eyes trembled when she heard that.
But she didn't immediately say anything.
One of the lawyers spoke.
"We're focusing on the possibility that they stalked Miss Kim Serin. Information such as her role as the emotional center of the group, her family circumstances, and similar personal details aren't publicly known, correct?"
"Correct. The fact that she grew up poor became somewhat known during the bullying rumors, but nothing beyond that."
"Then the key will be determining how much influence her uncle had over Miss Serin's decision."
Even if Serin had made the choice herself, we needed to establish a thorough defensive line around any contractual issues.
After that, I could deal with the uncle who'd filled Serin's head with ridiculous lies.
I planned to use every possible angle to beat the hell out of Tienhua.
Stalking.
Defamation, since they'd apparently told people I was deliberately restricting the members' activities.
If possible, I could even frame them as an industrial espionage organization.
"Then what exactly does Miss Serin herself believe?"
Another lawyer asked.
Anna also leaned forward nervously.
"Her uncle told her something. Probably all lines Tienhua fed him. Serin thinks the other members dislike her."
At first, her uncle had told Serin that I was preventing her from growing further.
He also persuaded her to leave Universe for the sake of her sick grandmother and himself.
That was when Serin's worries began.
Afterward, her uncle repeatedly called her and pressured her toward the same decision in different ways.
There had been several attempts.
He brought up the long-dead Club Area incident to attack me personally.
He also told her rumors that I was meeting Chinese businessmen to arrange sponsors.
None of those had been decisive.
What broke Serin was one line.
"The members are suffering because of you."
"Apparently, he said he met each of the members individually. He claimed he wanted to build goodwill with you all so you wouldn't attack Serin too harshly if she left. But he said nobody would meet him. Supposedly, he barely managed to meet Anna, and Anna told him this: 'Honestly, I don't feel comfortable meeting Serin unni's family. The team's atmosphere has been terrible lately because of Serin unni.'"
"I-I never said that! I didn't say anything like that!"
All the lawyers turned toward Anna.
"Then what did you say?"
"I barely said anything! He was the one who told me, 'Blue Moon is getting in the way of Serin unni's growth, so she'll probably leave soon. Don't criticize her. Support her instead.'"
So the bastard was completely insane.
Trying to drive a wedge between members who practically spent twenty-four hours a day together?
And telling each side blatantly contradictory stories?
"Is that really true? Serin unni actually thinks we hate her? That she's ruining the group atmosphere because of her acting work?"
"Anna, you know Serin's personality. She might never say it directly, but if her uncle told her that, she'd believe it. She's the type who might not do something for herself, but if she thinks it'll help someone else, she'll absolutely do it."
Anna abruptly stood.
"Then that's what this is about. No wonder...! Serin unni would never betray us. She thinks we're pushing her out! How hurt and lonely must she have felt? Where is she right now?"
Anna finally understood.
Deep down, she'd been badly hurt herself.
But that still wasn't the whole problem.
Serin also genuinely had money concerns.
Now that we'd cleared up the misunderstanding, we'd have to solve the money problem too.
Which meant I needed to hit Tienhua even harder.
Maybe once for every ten won.
[Shock! Chinese Agency Tienhua Stalked Universe Member... Goal Was to Steal Signed Artist]
[Following, Stalking, Background Checks, Even Hidden Recorders in Public Spaces. Tienhua's Methods to Recruit Kim Serin]
[Kim Jin-won's Editorial: Serious Problems in International Industrial Espionage Enforcement and Punishment. Korean and Chinese Governments Must Act]
When the head of the news division suddenly announced he wanted to run a breaking-news banner, Jung Tae-jin went down to the newsroom himself.
The story had come from Do Jun-hyeok.
The target was China's Tienhua Entertainment.
The reason Jung Tae-jin was interested wasn't merely because Do Jun-hyeok had supplied the tip.
It was because the story involved Tienhua Entertainment.
Tienhua Entertainment.
Jung Tae-jin had practically been monitoring them for some time already.
Anyone working in the entertainment industry probably knew about them.
For the past two or three years, they'd been desperate to shove capital into Korea wherever they could.
"CEO Do Jun-hyeok must be furious. These guys picked the wrong opponent and got bitten hard."
"Exactly. I heard he even gathered an entire squad's worth of expensive lawyers. Still, completely crushing Tienhua won't be easy. That place is basically just a giant pile of money."
That was probably true.
People said a rich family could survive three generations even after going bankrupt.
Still, one thing was certain.
Do Jun-hyeok's anger was far beyond ordinary.
About two weeks ago, he'd said Serin was his favorite member.
Of course, a month ago he'd said Youngchae was his favorite.
And about ten days before that, he'd shamelessly claimed Aran was his favorite.
His consistency was nonexistent.
Still, Tienhua had tried to steal Serin.
That was enough.
Jung Tae-jin stepped away from the studio and turned on another network's special report.
Reporters were explaining Tienhua's capital structure and retracing the process through which they had approached Serin.
Tienhua was a corporation created by anonymous wealthy Chinese investors pooling their money.
They used meetings to decide strategically where to dump enormous investments, then immediately took profits once the price rose.
Even after doing that, they still had too much money.
So they had invested simultaneously in dozens of Korean entertainment agencies.
Root Entertainment was one of them.
The reason Root, which should have had little capital left after 〈Rebooting〉, had been able to plan 〈Deep-Rooted Girls〉 at such high quality was also because of Tienhua's money.
Unfortunately for them, the entertainment-industry scandals had erupted.
Tienhua suffered massive losses and found it difficult to withdraw its investments.
Apparently, they intended to wait for the agencies to recover and then pull their money out.
But as long as Universe remained healthy, other entertainment companies couldn't easily expect good news.
"So you could say they were trying to kill two birds with one stone. Break Universe apart so the other agencies could start feeding themselves again, while stealing as many popular Blue Moon members as possible and using them to make money in China."
The reporter summarized it that way.
They also suggested that Tienhua had probably mobilized other entertainment agencies to help recruit Serin.
Which meant Do Jun-hyeok's counterattack against Korean entertainment companies would probably begin soon.
After all, if he wanted to damage Tienhua, attacking the Korean agencies they had invested in would be effective.
The special report was well put together.
But the prediction that Do Jun-hyeok would attack Korean entertainment companies was wrong.
Right now, Do Jun-hyeok was pouring all his strength into pounding Tienhua's headquarters alone.
He was telling them to pull out of the Korean entertainment industry as fast as possible.
"As expected. CEO Do Jun-hyeok's specialty is the counterpunch."
"Counterpunch?"
"Yes. You use the opponent's attack against them and hit back even harder."
Do Jun-hyeok was using this opportunity to hit Tienhua as hard as possible and trigger capital flight from inside the company.
Greedy rich people wouldn't calmly calculate their proportional losses and withdraw only that amount.
The first investors to flee could recover their principal in full.
So they'd race each other to get their money out.
Anyone who missed the timing would start selling shares tied up in Tienhua's investments to free up cash.
That money would leave too.
Because no idiot would keep holding onto a company that was currently being beaten senseless by Do Jun-hyeok.
"Huh? But that doesn't sound like something Do Jun-hyeok would stop at. Those rich investors can just create another corporation later. Wouldn't it make more sense to use this momentum to attack Korean entertainment companies one by one and maximize Tienhua's losses?"
"If his goal were to destroy Tienhua's members and the Korean agencies, yes."
But that wasn't Do Jun-hyeok's goal.
He was clearly using this opportunity to force Tienhua's capital out completely.
Then, once the Korean entertainment companies that depended on that money were left financially ruined...
He would gather them up himself.
What Do Jun-hyeok wanted now was acquisition.
