Chapter 79. The Chairman Wants to See You
At this point, I'd already poured everything I could into 〈Rebooting〉.
It certainly wouldn't hurt to stay on good terms with either Tak Hyun-mo or Shin Hyung-geol, but for now, the important thing was seizing this opportunity to turn Serin into a major actress.
After all, Univ's debut-lineup selection and Serin's acting career were separate matters.
Maybe that was why the first spam message was related to 〈Rebooting〉.
Judging from the title, it looked like I'd be receiving five spam messages this time.
No.
If there was another upgrade mission, then it'd probably be four future videos.
[Title: 1/5]
[Recorded: 2023.08.27. 14:03]
It was a video from August.
The CEO of Riven Entertainment, whom I'd gotten acquainted with through 〈Rebooting〉, was talking to someone.
And he looked furious.
"No, we poured all our money into this because we were counting on that! What are we supposed to do if this episode's ratings turn out like this? Come on. You think I want to keep pouring water into a bottomless jar?"
"For now, if we can somehow persuade CEO Shin..."
"I feel bad for the trainees, but we don't have a choice. We're already broke as it is...! Either make everyone split the cost, or we'll have to call it off."
What the hell was that foul-tempered bastard talking about?
The person he was speaking to was probably a Riven Entertainment employee.
I didn't know who.
And since they never even said what they planned to do by persuading CEO Shin, the identity of the other person wasn't particularly important.
What mattered was what Riven's CEO was saying.
They had spent a lot of money, but the ratings were bad.
Because of that, continuing with whatever they had planned would be like pouring money into a bottomless pit.
If they could persuade CEO Shin, perhaps there was some way to solve it.
And judging from the way he said they'd have to "call it off," he was even considering canceling something entirely.
If the broadcast-related project collapsed, the trainees would be in trouble.
Public opinion wouldn't be good either.
To make sure I understood the situation exactly, I transcribed Riven's CEO's words and read them back.
Getting spam videos with actual sound was definitely more convenient.
The meaning was clearer too.
The videos were longer, the picture quality was cleaner, and I could inspect far more detail.
From now on, I'd probably be able to extract much more information.
For example, I might even recognize someone whose face had been filmed from a distance.
First of all, Riven Entertainment held the management rights over the debut group created through 〈Rebooting〉.
In other words, once the program produced an eleven-member girl group, Riven Entertainment would be responsible for managing and promoting them.
Of course, since the group was born from a joint-investment program involving multiple agencies, the profits would be shared to some extent.
Still, the company holding management rights could decide how the members would promote.
They had to invest the most money.
Naturally, they would also take the largest share of the profits.
To do that, they first needed an enormous amount of money to operate the debut group.
Since Riven had the management rights, they should have already set aside those funds.
But apparently something else had happened, leaving them broke again.
Did they spend it all on snacks or something?
Judging from the date of the spam video, it was after the fourth 〈Rebooting〉 competition had aired.
I didn't exactly enjoy dealing with that man, but if the debut group's activities were canceled, that wouldn't be good for me either.
Riven could handle sucking up to Shin Hyung-geol while working the members to the bone.
If the sucker who was supposed to promote the Univ members for me went bankrupt, I wouldn't even get the chance to exploit him.
How should I respond?
There had to be some way to deal with it.
Otherwise, this spam wouldn't have been sent to me.
Should I go to Riven now and tell them to start saving money in advance?
Probably not.
Or was it telling me to take the debut-group management rights away from them?
Meaning I should prepare the money myself?
Just then, my phone rang.
It was Prosecutor Lee Ho-seong.
"Yes, hello."
"I told you to come down to Geochang once. Why haven't you come? This is Lee Ho-seong."
I could recognize Lee Ho-seong just from the accent.
This was our first call since I'd tipped him off to investigate Jo Jin-a.
We briefly caught up.
He said nothing much had happened.
He could return to his original post in Changwon, but apparently he liked the park beside the Geochang Branch Office enough that he was still thinking about it.
"You helped out quite a lot behind the scenes, Mr. Do Jun-hyeok, but hardly anyone knows about it. Must feel disappointing."
"A lot of people tell me that."
"Really? Hahaha. Anyway, that's why whenever I meet people these days, I keep bringing you up and giving you plenty of free publicity. I'm meeting that... chairman tomorrow too. When I mentioned you, he said he absolutely wanted to meet you."
Chairman?
Which chairman wanted to meet me?
"Who?"
"You know Park Gwang-cheol's father. Chairman Park Jong-moon. He's practically retired now, but he wants to meet you in Geochang tomorrow. Think you can come down?"
Park Gwang-cheol's father, Park Jong-moon.
That meant the chairman of Talent Holdings.
I'd been curious about what he thought after everything that happened.
From his perspective, I was the guy who had brought down his eldest son and saved his second son.
Still, the fact that he was meeting Lee Ho-seong suggested he wasn't hostile.
"Of course I'll go."
Either way, it was all or nothing.
And it clearly wasn't nothing.
This was an opportunity to build a connection with him.
The moment we set the appointment, I started looking into Riven Entertainment again.
First, I wanted to know why they would run out of money in the first place.
If they were destined to be struggling for investment capital later, it meant they were currently pouring money into something.
After investigating, the only obvious place Riven had been spending heavily was on a new boy group.
The group had been planned with a massive budget, riding on the success of Riven's previous-generation boy group.
They'd debuted recently.
Their digital ranking was still poor, but their album sales were fairly strong.
There were even articles saying Riven was preparing for an IPO.
If the group simply continued doing well, Riven's CEO shouldn't have been throwing that kind of tantrum at 2 PM on August 27.
I checked the new boy group's revenue indicators again.
The albums were selling well.
But their digital ranking remained near the bottom.
Was it because the general public still didn't know them?
No.
If you were spending huge money to push a group and the digital ranking still wasn't moving, that meant the song simply wasn't good.
The respectable album sales, meanwhile, reflected the existing Riven fandom's expectations for the rookies.
In other words, they were in the exact opposite situation from Blue Moon's 〈N.Dolphin〉.
Blue Moon had had a small fandom, but the song itself had become a major hit.
Was 〈Rebooting〉's debut group some personal project of Riven's?
The other agencies had all agreed in advance and set the table together.
And just because Riven was short on money, their first instinct was to flip the whole thing over?
Even if they had to borrow money, they should guarantee the activities they'd promised.
Anyway, they were broke because of the rookie project.
And based on the timing, the ratings collapse happened at the fourth competition.
If Riven's CEO was talking about the "latest episode ratings" on August 27, that would indeed be the fourth competition broadcast.
I didn't know why it failed.
But since Univ was on the same boat, I couldn't just sit back and watch.
I replayed the video several times, but there wasn't a single clue explaining what had actually happened.
All I knew was that the show failed.
Then I first had to accept that, if things continued as they were, it was going to fail.
Should I just say Universe and Blue Moon were pulling out before that happened?
Sign a separate contract with Univ?
Or should I somehow establish enough influence to keep the disastrous fourth competition from collapsing?
After thinking about it, I decided to ask a powerful big brother for help.
The big brother of the American entertainment market whom I was meeting tomorrow.
Park Jong-moon sat beside a pavilion near the Monument to the Unknown Soldiers in a Geochang park, quietly letting the wind wash over him.
His eyes were closed, so at first glance, he almost looked asleep.
I waved my hand to slow Lee Ho-seong, who was following behind me.
A powered wheelchair sitting still.
Hair completely white, yet thick and abundant like that of some Taoist immortal.
A pale face dotted here and there with age spots.
When I'd met Park Gwang-cheol, he'd seemed younger than I'd expected.
Park Jong-moon, on the other hand, looked far older than I'd imagined.
"I don't think he's sleeping."
Lee Ho-seong slowed down at my gesture and looked at Park Jong-moon.
He was right.
As we drew closer, Park Jong-moon slowly opened his eyes like an AI booting up and raised one palm toward us.
"Prosecutor Lee Ho-seong."
"Yes, I'm Lee Ho-seong. And this is Mr. Do Jun-hyeok, whom I told you about yesterday."
He had only said a few words, yet his manner of speaking already sounded unusual.
Not like a foreigner.
Rather, it seemed to be an odd blend of the Seoul dialect from the era when Park Jong-moon had left Korea and traces of the Hadong regional dialect.
"I get around in a chair, so I chose this place because I was worried the young people might not have anywhere to sit."
Park Jong-moon turned his electric wheelchair and faced the pavilion.
Lee Ho-seong and I sat inside it.
When I asked if he'd recently returned from the United States, Park Jong-moon shook his head.
"I've been back in Korea for quite a while. I just stayed at home. My house is near here too."
So I was the only one who'd traveled a long way.
"Anyway, you're Do Jun-hyeok, right? You run an entertainment agency. I really wanted to thank you, so I called you here. You must be busy doing that kind of work. The Korean side of the business is awfully relentless..."
"It's nothing."
"I've already been worrying plenty because of my sons. It's all been settled properly now, though. I knew Gwang-ho had been a slippery little bastard since he was young, but I never imagined he'd do something like this..."
They had removed most of the people who could be considered part of Park Gwang-ho's faction within the company.
That included the senior prosecutor who had arrested Park Gwang-cheol instead and effectively sent Lee Ho-seong to Geochang.
And now Park Jong-moon was apparently trying once again to hand the chairmanship to Park Gwang-cheol.
"Park Gwang-cheol? He told me he hasn't built up any experience inside Talent Holdings."
"What does a lifetime of experience from an ordinary man amount to compared to a genius? Gwang-cheol can do it."
Apparently, Park Jong-moon had met Gwang-cheol several times in Korea over the years and tried to persuade him to return to the company.
But Gwang-cheol hadn't budged.
His reason had always been simple.
He just didn't want to.
"That brat started his academy with barely any seed money and never asked the company for a single won. Then he grew it all the way into Cheongdam. He just doesn't do things unless he wants to. But if you make him do something, he'll do it well. Maybe not as well as you, Mr. Do Jun-hyeok."
I'd assumed he'd started the academy entirely with money from his father.
That was unexpected.
"Anyway, I want to repay Prosecutor Lee Ho-seong here, CEO Do Jun-hyeok, and even Attorney Lee Eun-bit. What do you think, Mr. Do? How would you like me to repay you?"
"Ah, I don't need anything."
Refuse once first.
"Hahaha... Of course. Who answers properly when you ask them like this? Think about it slowly and call me later."
For now, I said I understood.
Lee Ho-seong did the same.
After that, we talked for quite a while.
Judging from Lee Ho-seong's expression, his "I'll think about it" was basically a polite refusal.
He didn't seem to have any intention of asking for compensation.
But while the conversation wandered through various topics, I kept thinking about what kind of favor I could ask Park Jong-moon for that might help with the future disaster involving the fourth 〈Rebooting〉 competition.
If I knew why it was going to fail, asking for help would be easy.
Instead, this felt like drawing a card while blindfolded.
Still, every spam message until now had always given me at least the minimum clue I needed.
Maybe the difficulty had gone up after the upgrade, but I should start by thinking the same way I always had.
Whether it was a photo or a GIF, there had always been at least one clue inside that let me understand the future event.
Even if it was only a tiny clue needed to solve the problem.
In this case, I needed to know why the fourth competition failed before I could respond.
So somewhere, there should've been a clue explaining the reason for the failure.
But no matter how carefully I looked, there wasn't one.
If that was the case, there was only one thing I could do.
If this spam wanted me to draw a card while blindfolded...
Then I'd just draw all fifty-two cards.
If I needed to kill a flea but didn't know where it was, I could simply burn down the entire thatched house.
Normally, that would've been a little reckless.
But the person who could help me right now was none other than Park Jong-moon, chairman of Talent Holdings.
In terms of capital, influence, and scale, there was no reason for me to play some guessing game.
When the conversation with Park Jong-moon briefly paused, I immediately seized the opportunity.
"I've finished thinking about it. Can I tell you what I want now?"
