The Scandal-Proof Producer

Twenty-four hours after Yoo-jin fired his shots into the dark, the first stone fell. And it didn't just land; it shattered the polished marble lobby of Stellar Entertainment.

The morning had begun like any other. The vast, open-plan A&R department was a hive of activity, a symphony of ringing phones, clacking keyboards, and urgent conversations. Director Kang Min-hyuk was striding through the office, barking orders, a king surveying his domain. He had just finished a call with an associate at Top Tier, laughing about Aura Management's latest critically acclaimed but "commercially niche" music video. He was on top of the world.

That was when the elevators opened and they walked in. A group of six men in dark, conservative suits that fit too well to be salesmen. They moved with a quiet, grim purpose that silenced the entire floor. The lead man, his face a mask of bureaucratic indifference, approached the main reception desk and presented a badge and a thick, official-looking document.

"Financial Supervisory Service," he stated, his voice devoid of emotion. "We have a warrant to search these premises and seize all financial records, digital and physical, pertaining to the office of Executive Director Kang Min-hyuk."

Panic erupted. It was a wave of silent, wide-eyed terror that washed over the entire department. Phones were dropped mid-call. Conversations died in throats. Everyone froze, watching as the investigators, methodical and efficient, strode directly towards Director Kang's glass-walled office.

Kang stood there, his smug expression from moments before frozen on his face, replaced by a slack-jawed, ashen shock. "What is the meaning of this?" he sputtered, but his voice lacked its usual authority. It was thin, reedy.

"Director Kang," the lead investigator said, not unkindly, but with the finality of a judge reading a verdict. "We need you to come with us. We have some questions about certain trades made through a proxy account."

They didn't put him in handcuffs. They didn't need to. They escorted him into a nearby conference room, a lamb being led to the slaughter, as his subordinates watched, horrified. The other investigators began their work, efficiently boxing up files and connecting devices to his computers to mirror the hard drives. The carefully constructed empire of the 'Demon Producer' of Stellar was being dismantled before his very eyes.

At the humble offices of Aura Management, the mood was the polar opposite. The team was huddled around the main monitor in the conference room, watching a live news broadcast. A breaking news alert flashed across the bottom of the screen, bold and red.

**BREAKING: STELLAR ENTERTAINMENT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR KANG MIN-HYUK UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR INSIDER TRADING, EMBEZZLEMENT**

The reporter on the screen was Pluto, Yoo-jin's contact. He was standing live outside the gleaming Stellar Entertainment tower, a grimly satisfied look on his face. Behind him, the flashing lights of an unmarked police vehicle could be seen.

"…sources say the investigation was prompted by simultaneous tips to both the Financial Supervisory Service and the National Tax Service," Pluto reported, his voice filled with journalistic fervor. "Allegations include a sophisticated insider trading scheme and a multi-year embezzlement plot involving a shell company allegedly owned by a family member. The scale of the alleged fraud could be one of the biggest scandals to hit the K-pop industry in years."

Ahn Da-eun, Lee Seo-yeon, and Go Min-young stared at the screen in stunned silence. This was the man who had tormented them, who had dismissed them as worthless, who had tried to crush their dreams under his heel. To see him so publicly and spectacularly disgraced felt unreal, like a scene from a drama.

Da-eun's eyes drifted from the screen to Han Yoo-jin, who stood at the back of the room, watching the broadcast with a cold, unreadable expression. There was no triumph on his face, no hint of celebration. The reactive anxiety that had been his constant companion for weeks was gone, replaced by a chilling, absolute calm. She didn't know how, but she knew. She felt it in her bones. This was his doing. A shiver ran down her spine—it was a feeling that was equal parts terror and a profound, newfound respect.

In her minimalist, high-tech office at Top Tier Media, Nam Gyu-ri was watching the same news report, her perfectly manicured fingers steepled under her chin. Her mind, a finely tuned machine of strategy and analysis, was racing.

The timing. It was too perfect. Too coincidental.

Less than thirty-six hours after her dinner with Yoo-jin—a dinner where she had watched him get cornered—a key ally of Chairman Choi, a man deeply enmeshed in their plans to weaken Stellar, was publicly annihilated.

Her first instinct, her gut reaction, was that this was Yoo-jin's work. But how? The public narrative was that this was a coordinated, official government investigation. There was no salacious rumor, no media leak she could trace back to a source. The attack was clean. Frighteningly clean. It was a multi-layered, sophisticated takedown that had left no fingerprints.

Her carefully constructed theory of him—the man with the spy, the man with the leak—suddenly felt flimsy, insufficient. A single spy couldn't orchestrate a simultaneous investigation by two separate, powerful government agencies. This required a different level of influence, a different kind of power. The profile of her enemy had just changed again. He wasn't just a man with a strange gift. He wasn't just a man with a spy. He was a master strategist, a ghost who could move pieces on a national level without ever showing his face. She felt a flicker of something she rarely experienced, something she hadn't felt since she first met Chairman Choi: the cold, professional fear of encountering a true peer.

The final stone landed in the penthouse office of the Chairman himself. Choi Jin-hwan watched the news report on the massive screen that dominated his wall, his face a mask of incandescent fury. The destruction of Director Kang was, in itself, a mere inconvenience. Kang was a useful tool, but ultimately disposable.

The message, however—the message was a direct threat to his throne. A shot across the bow of his own ship. The attack was so clean, so devastating, it had sown the exact seeds of paranoia Yoo-jin had intended. Was Kang targeted by the boy from Aura? Or was he sacrificed by someone within Stellar's own board, someone who wanted to weaken Choi's network of influence? In this new atmosphere of distrust, everyone was a potential enemy.

His private, direct-line phone rang, its chime jarring in the silent, rage-filled room. He looked at the caller ID.

Han Yoo-jin.

The sheer, unadulterated nerve of the boy was breathtaking. Choi snatched the phone up, his voice a low, venomous snarl. "You have some nerve calling me."

Yoo-jin's voice on the other end was not the voice of the young, pressured CEO from the dinner. It was calm, cold, and utterly devoid of fear. It was the voice of a man holding all the cards.

"I just wanted to offer my condolences on the loss of your associate," Yoo-jin said pleasantly. "It's always a shame when loyalty proves to be a poor investment." He didn't wait for a reply. "I also wanted to let you know that I took the liberty of arranging for a private, round-the-clock security detail for Lee Seo-yeon's grandmother. They're very professional. Any uninvited guests in her town will be dealt with accordingly, and reported to the local police as potential stalkers."

A beat of silence.

"This is your first and only warning, Chairman," Yoo-jin's voice concluded, its pleasant tone gone, replaced by the hardness of diamond. "The children and the elderly are off-limits. This is a game for adults. Let's keep it that way."

He hung up.

Chairman Choi stared at the dead phone in his hand, his knuckles white. The boy hadn't just returned his threat; he had neutralized it and thrown it back in his face with a chilling declaration of his own. He had seized control of the narrative. He had demonstrated a capability for ruthless, sophisticated warfare that Choi had not believed him to possess. He had drawn a clear, undeniable red line in the sand.

The message was finally, brutally clear. Han Yoo-jin was no longer a decoration to be admired or a puzzle to be solved. He was a weapon. And he had just been fired.