The Scandal-Proof Producer

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the air in the Aura Management office was light. A fragile, hopeful peace had settled over the small team, a welcome respite from the constant barrage of attacks and internal fractures. The source of this newfound optimism was glowing on the main conference room monitor.

The music video for "Echo in the Void" had been released twenty-four hours ago, and it was a phenomenon. Not a commercial juggernaut like Eclipse's perfectly polished hits, but something far more potent: a critical and cultural darling. The view counts were climbing at a dizzying rate, propelled by organic shares and a tidal wave of praise from music critics worldwide who lauded its raw artistry and unapologetic emotional depth.

"'A haunting masterpiece of visual poetry… Director Choi Soo-jin and Aura Management have redefined the K-pop music video,'" Go Min-young read aloud from a famous international music blog, her voice filled with disbelief and pride.

"They're calling Da-eun's performance 'a primal scream that the industry has been waiting for,'" Lee Seo-yeon added, excitedly scrolling through comments on her phone. "They say she's the future of Korean rock!"

Ahn Da-eun, who was usually reserved, allowed herself a small, genuine smile. Even Kang Ji-won, leaning against the doorframe, looked pleased, a quiet satisfaction in his eyes. They had done it. They had weathered the storm, stuck to their principles, and created something true. It felt like they had finally, truly, turned a corner.

Han Yoo-jin watched them all, a sense of deep, paternal pride swelling in his chest. This was why he had started this company. This moment of shared, pure artistic triumph. He felt his own anxieties begin to recede. Maybe, just maybe, they could actually win this thing by being the good guys.

It was in that precise moment of hope that his phone buzzed with a notification. It wasn't a standard text or a call. It was a message from a heavily encrypted, anonymous email service he used only for receiving sensitive, and usually unwelcome, information. A cold knot of dread instantly formed in his stomach, dispelling the room's warmth.

He walked calmly back to his office, closing the door behind him before opening the message. He didn't want to shatter the team's fragile peace.

The email had no subject line. It had no body text. It contained only a single attachment.

He clicked it open.

The image that filled his screen was a high-resolution photograph, taken from a distance with a powerful telephoto lens. It was a picture of a frail, elderly woman with kind eyes and silver hair, sitting alone on a park bench, enjoying the afternoon sun. A small, peaceful town square was visible in the background.

It was Lee Seo-yeon's grandmother.

Standing a few feet behind her, intentionally out of focus but still clearly, menacingly visible, was a man in a dark suit. Yoo-jin recognized him instantly from his time at Stellar. He was one of Chairman Choi's known fixers, a man who handled the company's dirtiest, most unsavory off-the-books problems.

There was no threat written in the email, because it didn't need to be. The photograph was the threat. A brutal, elegant, unspoken message delivered with the precision of a stiletto.

We know who you care about. We know where they live. We can reach them, anytime we want. And they are not protected like your artists are.

Yoo-jin's blood ran cold. His vision narrowed. This was an escalation so far beyond the pale it defied comprehension. This wasn't business. This wasn't a corporate war. This was a tactic from a gangster film. They were threatening an innocent old woman in a rural town to get to him.

He slammed his laptop shut, a wave of pure, unadulterated rage washing over him. He felt an overwhelming urge to smash something, to scream. He tried to rein it in, to think strategically. He focused his ability on the image in his mind, on the memory of the fixer, desperate for some kind of leverage, some weakness he could exploit. The data that appeared was sterile, clinical, and utterly useless.

[Subject: Unidentified Male]

[Affiliation: Top Tier Media (Internal Security & Special Projects Division)]

[Current Objective: Surveillance. Psychological Intimidation. Awaiting further orders.]

His power, his incredible gift, was impotent. It could tell him what was happening, but it offered no solution to stop it. He couldn't out-strategize a physical threat against a civilian hundreds of miles away. The Producer's Eye, which could dissect a balance sheet and predict a scandal, was useless against a thug standing behind an old woman on a park bench.

He felt powerless. Reactive. The promises he had made to his artists, the very foundation of Aura Management—that he would protect them, that this place was a sanctuary—felt like naive, pathetic lies.

He sank into his chair, his rage giving way to a cold, chilling despair. He opened his laptop again and navigated to a hidden, heavily encrypted folder on his hard drive. The folder was labeled simply, Insurance. He clicked it open, and the screen filled with files, each one a bombshell, each one a career-ending scandal connected to the most powerful people in the industry. And at the very top, the file on Chairman Choi, detailing his suspected money laundering and illicit political connections.

He had always seen this folder as his ultimate deterrent. A nuclear weapon he hoped he would never have to use. A button for mutually assured destruction.

And as he stared at the screen, a memory surfaced. A comment from a reader on one of the web novel forums he sometimes lurked on, a piece of anonymous criticism that had stung him at the time. The words echoed in his mind now, not as a critique, but as a voice of cold, ruthless logic.

"You make it seem like he has to answer to them… like he needs their approval… He has such an overpowered tool at his disposal, but he's not using it efficiently. Always reacting, never on the offensive…"

The voice grew louder, more insistent in his memory.

"He has information on their dirty laundry, but he just kept it, saying he has his own nuclear weapon… A weapon unused is not a weapon. It's a decoration."

He looked from the glowing file names on his screen to the photograph of Seo-yeon's grandmother, which he had minimized but could still see in the corner of his monitor.

A decoration.

The word hit him with the force of a physical blow. The reader was right. His moral high ground, his reluctance to use these secrets, his desire to win by being better, smarter, more righteous… it was all a useless fucking decoration. A pretty ornament in a world where his enemies had just implicitly threatened to murder an old woman to make a point about a business rivalry.

The debate in his soul was over. It had been ended for him. Chairman Choi and Nam Gyu-ri had crossed a line from which there was no return. There were no more rules. There was no more high ground. There was only victory, and survival.

A cold, hard resolve settled deep within him, extinguishing every last ember of fear and despair. He was no longer a defender. He would no longer react. He would attack. He would burn their house to the ground to protect the people in his.

His face was a mask of chilling calm as he opened a new, secure messaging window, his fingers moving across the keyboard with a steady, deliberate purpose. He began contacting his network—the journalists, the information brokers, the discarded people he had cultivated relationships with for years.

It was time to stop polishing his decoration. It was time to finally use his weapon.