Chapter 158. Counterfeit Goods Are the Opium of Fandom
Lee Young-do finished his call with Do Jun-hyeok and tossed his phone onto the sofa.
"Wow. Just eyeballing it, there had to be a hundred copies. That's a gold mine."
Young-do had already set up what was technically a company in Korea.
Naturally, it wasn't a real company.
Since he planned to export goods into Korea, it was more like a local base for managing the products brought into the country.
"You're talking about the Blue Moon albums?"
"Of course. If you price them right, they're worth three hundred thousand won each now. Maybe even more. We could gather a lot of fans with those."
Lee Young-do began discussing with his business partner how they should use the albums.
Originally, the two of them had worked as brokers delivering counterfeit luxury goods to retailers in Korea.
But one day, their brokerage operation itself was discovered.
They were cut off from their company and forced to taste the bitter side of the law.
After that incident, whenever they tried to establish any corporation, the authorities rushed in to question them about the exact purpose of the company and how the business would operate.
Sometimes, they even monitored them afterward.
There wouldn't be a problem if they ran a clean business.
But Lee Young-do firmly believed that clean money was difficult to accumulate.
Wouldn't they make far more if they manufactured and sold counterfeit goods themselves?
So they'd given up on setting up a proper company and started operating on a smaller scale instead.
Without a company, even bringing products into Korea would normally be difficult.
But Young-do and his partner were masters of smuggling.
They weren't completely inexperienced when it came to business either.
Counterfeit luxury goods carried such a strong stigma that they were difficult to sell.
But counterfeit idol merchandise wasn't nearly as bad.
If they could secure a stable supply, they might even be able to open a proper shop in Korea.
"Didn't they say owning the albums gives priority for concert ticketing this time? If we say we'll raffle off album purchases to members, we should be able to gather quite a lot of people."
His partner spoke.
Exactly.
They were planning to create a new fan café to ensure smooth distribution of their merchandise.
Its name would be Full Moon.
Wasn't the fan café the place that held the greatest influence over Blue Moon fandom culture?
Apollo currently held the most power.
But even inside Apollo, there had to be fans who were dissatisfied.
And besides Apollo, there were plenty of other Blue Moon fan cafés.
If they gathered all those fans into one place and created the largest fan café in the fandom, promoting merchandise would become extremely effective.
They could sell out products almost as soon as they produced them.
"Giving priority only to people who already own the albums is discriminatory too, isn't it? If we word things properly around that issue, we can lure plenty of fans over. And we've got something else we're preparing too."
They'd already been planning to create Full Moon even before the eighty albums suddenly fell into their hands.
If they'd originally estimated their success rate at ninety percent, then now it had risen to ninety-nine.
That was how carefully prepared the plan was.
Their plan was to split Apollo apart and create a new fan café called Full Moon.
All so they could properly sell the merchandise they produced.
That had to be why they'd approached the akgaes.
No matter how perfect a new fan café was, people already settled into an existing community wouldn't move easily.
Not unless they were forced into a situation where they needed an alternative.
These bastards planned to stir up the akgaes and turn Apollo into a battlefield.
Then fans who hated fighting would naturally look for another café.
Honestly, even just watching akgaes fight each other was enough to make fandom activities feel exhausting.
It was annoying enough watching someone insult your favorite.
But then they created nonexistent rivalries between members just to make everyone feel like their bias was losing.
There might be other akgae groups they were contacting and provoking too.
I couldn't personally hunt down every single one and start wrecking them.
Among akgaes, I wasn't Do hyung.
I was Trash Do.
So sweet-talking them wasn't an option either.
The best solution was to crush the merchandise dealers stirring up all these fights.
On the promised day, I loaded every album into a rented car.
Then I headed to Goseong County, right beneath the eastern border.
Naturally, they would be surprised when someone other than Jang Dae-chang showed up with the albums.
But when things got awkward, I could always talk my way out of it.
It wasn't like I could drag Jang Dae-chang here when he'd already lost his freedom of movement.
"W-Who are you?"
When I arrived at the location I'd been sent, two men came out to meet me.
As expected, they looked surprised.
"I'm Do Yang-hoon from Universe Entertainment. I heard about you from Mr. Jang Dae-chang."
The moment I introduced myself, both men's expressions hardened.
At the same time, they shoved their hands into their pockets.
Did you bring surprise presents in there?
Sorry, but I had no desire to see them.
"Calm down. I'm not here to fight. I want to help."
"You want to help?"
"That's right."
I took one of the second albums from the back seat and handed it over.
Their expressions brightened immediately, making all that earlier suspicion look ridiculous.
"What exactly do you mean by wanting to help?"
I started by explaining my supposed relationship with Jang Dae-chang.
I told them Jang Dae-chang had been a fan since Blue Moon's debut, and that he and I had plenty of experience stealing company goods and selling them together.
I even joked that he was naïve and easy to use.
The two men exchanged silent glances.
"All right. The goods you brought are definitely genuine. I was wondering how that idiot got his hands on this much. So Mr. Jo Yang-hoon was the one who got them for him?"
You bastard.
I had gone through the trouble of creating the alias Do Yang-hoon, and he got it wrong.
I desperately wanted to correct him.
But this was a negotiation.
I decided not to nitpick.
"Hahaha. Yes, that's right."
"We'll pay you first. How much do you want?"
I almost said I'd take only the original retail price per album.
Then I stopped.
"Hold on. Mr. Jang Dae-chang said you're planning something much bigger than this."
"He did? Hahaha. I didn't know that idiot was capable of saying something like that."
I nodded.
"I don't know exactly how you plan to use these albums, but you're going to sell them, aren't you? Maybe by setting up some kind of company. But can you really do business with only eighty copies?"
"Of course not."
