The Scandal-Proof Producer

Han Yoo-jin walked out of the Stellar Entertainment conference room feeling a sense of victory so clean and absolute it was almost dizzying. He hadn't just survived Sofia Kang's ambush; he had turned it back on her, seizing control of the festival's narrative with a single, surgical counter-play. He had proven to himself, and to the old guard at Stellar, that he was no longer a piece to be moved around the board. He was a player.

He was still riding the high of this triumph when he got back to his office. He had just started briefing Go Min-young on the new, aggressive marketing angle for the festival—"The Future vs. The Past"—when his desk drawer began to vibrate.

It was the burner phone. The one Director Yoon Ji-seok had given him in a shadowy parking garage months ago, after saving him from a beating. The phone he had hoped would never, ever ring.

A cold dread instantly extinguished the warmth of his victory. A call on this phone was not a social one. It was a bill coming due. He picked it up, his hand steady despite the sudden pounding in his chest.

"Yes?"

"You handled the American well," Director Yoon's dry, emotionless voice stated, without preamble. "She underestimates you. A common mistake."

"She's focused on the wrong battle," Yoo-jin replied, keeping his own voice level.

"Perhaps," Yoon said. "But that is not why I am calling. We had a deal. A debt was incurred. In a parking garage. It is now time to discuss payment."

Yoo-jin's grip tightened on the phone. "What do you need?"

"As you may have noticed," Yoon continued, his voice as calm as if he were discussing the weather, "the recent… departure… of Director Kang has created a certain instability on our Board of Directors. There are factions. Alliances are shifting. There is one board member in particular, a man named Director Oh Seung-hwan, who has become a persistent obstacle to Chairman Nam's vision for the company's future. He is a holdover from a previous administration. We need him gone."

Yoo-jin was silent, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Director Oh has a weakness," Yoon explained. "An Achilles' heel. He is a devoted, almost obsessive, father. His daughter, Oh Min-ji, is a trainee in the Stellar system. She has been for four years. She is… talented. But she is not exceptional. For years, her father has been applying subtle, deniable pressure on our training department, on our producers, trying to secure an opportunity for her that, frankly, she has not yet earned."

Yoo-jin could already see where this was going, and he felt a wave of revulsion.

"My request is simple," Yoon said, and the brutality of its simplicity was chilling. "I want you to give Oh Min-ji a slot on your 'Indie & Rising Stars' stage at the festival."

Yoo-jin was horrified. "You want me to put one of your trainees on my stage? A stage that is supposed to be for independent, authentic artists?"

"Precisely," Yoon confirmed, ignoring the indignation in Yoo-jin's voice. "She is not ready for a stage of that size. She will be nervous. Her performance will likely be mediocre. When she inevitably falters under the spotlight, she will not be seen as a rising star, but as an unprepared nepotism case. Her father, Director Oh, who will no doubt be watching from a VIP seat, will be publicly and profoundly humiliated. The shame, the loss of face, will make his position on the board untenable. He will be forced to resign."

Yoo-jin felt sick. This was the dark, ugly underbelly of the industry he had fought to escape. Using a young girl's dreams as a weapon to destroy her father's career. It was cruel. It was monstrous. And it went against every single principle Aura Management was built on. The stage was meant to be a sanctuary for deserving talents like Seo-yeon and Kevin Riley. Giving a slot to an undeserving trainee as part of a cold-blooded corporate power play would be a betrayal of everything he claimed to believe in.

"You will have paid your debt to me," Yoon's voice continued, cold and transactional. "And I will have solved my problem with the board. A clean, efficient transaction."

Yoo-jin was caught in a moral vise. To refuse was to make a powerful enemy of the one man at Stellar who was offering him protection. It meant defaulting on a debt he genuinely owed; Yoon's men had saved him from a serious hospital stay, or worse. But to accept… to accept was to become them. To become the very type of corrupt, cynical industry player he despised.

He needed a way out. He needed a third option. He closed his eyes, forcing his mind to focus, to find an angle. He activated his ability, targeting his memory of Director Yoon from their meeting at the tea house. He didn't need to know the man's emotions; he needed to understand his core programming.

[Synchronization Mode: TARGETED]

[Selected Frequency: Transactional Loyalty / Corporate Pragmatism]

[Establishing Connection...]

He felt it instantly. A cold, clear, absolute belief system. Yoon Ji-seok didn't operate on morality, on right or wrong. He operated on leverage, on assets and liabilities, on outcomes that strengthened his master, Chairman Nam, and by extension, Stellar Entertainment. There was no room to appeal to his better nature. But perhaps there was room to appeal to his pragmatism.

Yoo-jin opened his eyes, a new, desperate strategy forming in his mind. He couldn't win by refusing to play the game. He couldn't win by playing it Yoon's way. He had to change the rules of the game itself.

"Your plan is flawed, Director Yoon," Yoo-jin said, his voice now steady and analytical.

There was a moment of silence on the other end. "Explain."

"You want to humiliate Director Oh. Your method is messy. It will create a minor scandal, generate negative press about a young girl being thrown to the wolves. It's needlessly cruel, and the blowback could damage the festival's brand," Yoo-jin argued. "There is a cleaner, more effective way to achieve your objective."

He took a breath. "I will not put an unprepared artist on my stage. It would be a betrayal of my brand and, frankly, an act of cruelty towards the girl. However, here is what I will do. I will offer Oh Min-ji something else. A formal, six-month mentorship contract with Aura Management."

"A mentorship?" Yoon's voice was skeptical. "How does that solve my problem?"

"You want Director Oh's loyalty, or at least his compliance," Yoo-jin pressed on, his mind racing. "Humiliating him will only make him a bitter, lifelong enemy. But if I take his daughter, his greatest treasure, and I turn her into a genuine success… If I train her properly, find her unique voice, produce a digital single for her that actually charts… I will have done something for him that his own company, with all its resources, has failed to do for four years. He will be profoundly indebted to me. And by extension, his loyalty will belong to you and Chairman Nam."

Yoo-jin was proposing to pay his debt not with an act of destruction, but with an act of creation. He was turning a demand for a corrupt, cynical favor into an opportunity to do what he did best: nurture talent.

"You solve your problem not by forcing a resignation," Yoo-jin concluded, "but by acquiring a powerful, grateful new ally on your board. My way is more elegant. And more permanent."

The silence on the other end of the line was long and heavy. Yoo-jin held his breath, waiting for the verdict. He had tried to find a moral third way, a path that allowed him to pay his debt without sacrificing his soul.

Finally, Yoon Ji-seok's dry voice returned. "Your proposal is… unorthodox." Another pause. "It is also more interesting. Very well, Han Yoo-jin. You may pay your debt your way. Let's see if your method works."

The line went dead. Yoo-jin sank into his chair, the burner phone slipping from his sweaty palm. He had done it. He had navigated an impossible moral trap. But he had also just willingly taken on the burden of another young artist's dreams, not for her own sake, but as currency in a war between kings. He wondered if his attempt to find a moral path was a sign of brilliant strategy, or just naive folly in a world that only ever seemed to deal in absolutes.