The Scandal-Proof Producer

The atmosphere in the private dining room had undergone a chemical change. The air, once thick with polite menace, was now charged with raw, undisguised suspicion. Nam Gyu-ri's brief, almost imperceptible flicker of shock had been a tectonic event, shifting the entire landscape of the conversation. She was no longer studying Yoo-jin as a fascinating anomaly; she was staring at him as a tangible threat, her mind racing to re-evaluate every assumption she had ever made about him.

Chairman Choi, a master reader of people, sensed the shift immediately. His daughter-in-law's perfect composure had cracked, and that meant the nature of the game had changed. The time for subtle probes and philosophical traps was over.

He placed his hands flat on the table, a gesture of finality, and dropped all pretense of a friendly chat. His voice, when he spoke, was stripped of its patriarchal warmth, leaving only the cold, hard steel of absolute power.

"Let's be done with these games, boy," he said, his eyes boring into Yoo-jin. "You have an information source that is beyond the normal. I don't know if it's a gift, a system, or a traitor on my payroll." He glanced at Gyu-ri, whose new theory was now plainly written on her face. "But I promise you, I will find out. I will dedicate the full resources of my company to finding the source of your… insight. And when I do, I will dismantle it. I will burn it to the ground. And I will dismantle you along with it. This industry has no room for secrets it cannot own and control."

It was an open declaration of a new kind of war. It was no longer about album sales or chart positions. It was a war of intelligence, a battle for secrets. He was threatening to turn his entire corporate empire into a counter-intelligence agency with a single target: Han Yoo-jin.

For a moment, Yoo-jin felt a surge of pure, primal fear. But it was quickly followed by something else. A strange, exhilarating clarity. The threat was now on the table. The monster had shown its teeth. And in Gyu-ri's momentary shock, he had seen their weakness: they were looking for the wrong thing. She was now hunting for a spy who didn't exist, a ghost in her own machine. And that gave him an opening.

He decided to press his advantage. He leaned forward, a confident, almost predatory smile touching his lips. He would use the Chairman's own weakness—his underestimation of unconventional power—against him.

"You're right, Chairman," Yoo-jin said, his voice dropping to a low, confidential tone that mocked Choi's own. "I do have an information source. An incredible one. But you're looking in the wrong place." He watched as Choi and Gyu-ri both tensed, waiting for a confession. "You're looking for spies on your payroll, for bugs in your office, for hackers breaching your firewalls. You think in terms of conventional power, of assets and liabilities. My source is much simpler than that."

He paused, letting them hang on the precipice. "It's you."

Choi stared at him, uncomprehending. Gyu-ri's eyes narrowed, searching for the trick.

Yoo-jin launched into a stunning, high-stakes bluff, a masterwork of improvised psychological warfare, weaving together everything he knew from his ability, from Jin's intel, and from the new theory he'd just seen bloom in Gyu-ri's mind.

"I knew you were trying to poach my composer," he said, his gaze locked on Choi, "because your own internal creative department has been in shambles since the last corporate restructuring. Your best producers are unhappy, and you needed a big, flashy acquisition to shore up morale. It was a predictable move for a man who values perception over substance."

He shifted his gaze to Gyu-ri. "I knew you were pushing the 'suffering Jin' narrative because your own Q3 projections, the ones you presented last Tuesday, showed a significant dip in fan engagement among the 18-to-24 demographic. You needed a new, powerful emotional hook to re-engage them before the quarterly report, and turning him into a tragic hero was the most efficient way to do it."

He turned back to Choi. "And as for Prism… I knew that demo was a plagiarism risk because I knew the producer who sold it to the original company. I knew he was a hack who had been recycling melodies for a decade. I knew his personal finances were a wreck and he was desperate. I knew he'd cut corners."

He leaned back in his chair, the picture of calm assurance. "You call my insight a secret. I call it paying attention. I don't need spies, Chairman. I just need to watch you. You, your company, your people… you are the most valuable intelligence asset I have. Because you are all so brilliantly, predictably… human."

He was giving them an answer that was both completely true and a complete lie. He was framing his supernatural ability as a kind of hyper-competent, Sherlock Holmes-level analytical genius. He was creating a smokescreen, a legend of himself as a master strategist so brilliant he seemed psychic, hoping it was a more palatable—and more confusing—explanation than the impossible truth.

He saw the doubt warring with the suspicion on their faces. They didn't fully believe him, but they could no longer be certain of what they were fighting. He had muddied the waters perfectly.

Now, it was time for the parting shot.

Yoo-jin stood up slowly, placing his napkin on the table. He looked Chairman Choi directly in the eye, and with a quiet, almost casual deadliness, he deployed the information he had been holding in reserve. The ace from his 'Insurance' folder.

"You're right about one thing, though," Yoo-jin said softly. "This isn't about music. It's about patterns. And powerful men have the most predictable patterns of all. Especially when it comes to their finances."

He saw Choi's jaw tighten.

"Shell corporations, for instance," Yoo-jin continued, his voice a silken dagger. "The kind registered in the Cayman Islands or Panama, used to move money around in ways that are… creative. It's a very common pattern for men who have things to hide."

He didn't need his ability to see the reaction this time. It was a visible, physical flinch. A flicker of genuine, primal fear crossed Chairman Choi's face, a look of profound shock that Yoo-jin had never seen on any human being. He hadn't just hit a nerve. He had struck the very core of the man's hidden life.

Checkmate.

"Thank you for the dinner, Chairman, Ms. Nam," Yoo-jin said with a polite bow. "It was most… illuminating."

He turned and walked out of the private room, his heart hammering against his ribs but his stride steady. He didn't look back. He had just bluffed the devil and won. He had survived the dinner. More than that, he had turned their interrogation into his own counter-intelligence operation.

He walked out of the silent, air-conditioned restaurant and into the cool, bustling night air of Seoul. He felt like he could finally breathe. He pulled out his phone, his hands steady now, and opened the secure chat.

Producer: The cage is open. The Viper is now hunting for a ghost in her own house. They are officially spooked. Good work, Mockingbird.

Back in the silent dining room, Chairman Choi stared at the empty doorway, his face a mask of cold, murderous fury. All thoughts of psychic abilities and uncanny insight were gone, replaced by a single, burning certainty.

"Find the leak," he snarled at Nam Gyu-ri, his voice a low, guttural growl. "I don't care who it is. Tear the entire company apart if you have to. I want the head of the traitor who is feeding him my life."

The hunt for Han Yoo-jin's secret power had just become a brutal, internal witch hunt inside Top Tier Media. The Chairman was now aiming his cannons not at Aura, but at himself, all thanks to the double agent they didn't even know existed.