The Scandal-Proof Producer

The victory over Sofia Kang, followed by the stunning revelation of Oh Min-ji's hidden talent, had left Yoo-jin feeling a rare, unfamiliar sense of control. He felt like he was finally ahead of the game, dictating the tempo instead of just reacting to it. The feeling lasted until he walked out of his office building late that night.

The underground parking garage was quiet, the air cool and still. His footsteps echoed off the concrete. He had just pressed the button on his key fob when a figure stepped out from behind a thick support pillar, moving into the harsh fluorescent light.

His hand immediately went to the burner phone in his pocket—the one connected to Director Yoon—his mind flashing back to the last time he had been ambushed in a place like this. But it wasn't a thug.

It was a woman in her late fifties, her face a mask of crumpled grief and absolute desperation. She wore an expensive-looking coat, but it was disheveled, as if she had been wearing it for days. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wild. Yoo-jin recognized her instantly from years of seeing her at stuffy corporate events. It was Kang Min-hyuk's wife.

Before he could even process her presence, she stumbled forward and collapsed to her knees on the cold, oil-stained concrete in front of him.

"Please!" she cried, her voice a raw, ragged sob that tore through the garage's silence. "CEO Han, you have to help him! Please, I'm begging you!"

Yoo-jin was completely blindsided, frozen in place. His two security guards, who had been lingering by the elevator, started to move forward, their expressions hard. He held up a hand, waving them off. This was not a physical threat. It was something far more complicated.

"Mrs. Kang," he said, his voice softer than he intended. "What is this about? You shouldn't be here."

"I have nowhere else to go!" she wept, her hands clasped together as if in prayer. "I know you and my husband… I know you were rivals. But everyone has abandoned him. And I think you're the only one who can save him."

He stared down at her, a profound sense of unease washing over him. "Save him from what?"

"From himself!" she cried. "Since the investigation… since he was disgraced… he's not the same person. He just sits in his study, in the dark. He refuses to eat. He barely speaks. He just whispers to himself, over and over again."

Her body shuddered with another sob. "He keeps saying, 'The Chairman sold me out… The Chairman threw me away.' And he keeps saying your name. 'Han Yoo-jin knows,' he says. 'He knows everything.'"

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with a desperate, uncomprehending plea. "I saw his email. The one you sent him. The photo from the golf trip. The message… 'Loyalty. It's expensive.' I don't understand what it means, but he's obsessed with it. He's terrified of you, CEO Han. And that means you have power over him. The kind of power no one else has."

Her voice dropped to a desperate whisper. "He's going to die. I know it. He keeps talking about ending it all, about how there's no other way out. The prosecutors don't care. His friends won't even answer my calls. But you… if you would just talk to him. Tell him… tell him whatever you need to tell him to make him want to live again. Please."

As Yoo-jin listened to her desperate, sobbing plea, the world around him seemed to warp. His ability, the ghost in his machine, triggered without his consent, drawn by the sheer, overwhelming force of her grief. He was hit with a full, unfiltered synchronization of her emotions.

He didn't just hear her pain; he felt it. He felt the profound, unconditional love she still held for her corrupt, broken husband. He felt the gnawing, sleepless terror of watching someone you love self-destruct before your very eyes. He felt the agonizing, soul-crushing helplessness of being completely unable to stop it. It was a secondary wave of trauma, the pain of the person left behind, and it was deeply, fundamentally uncomfortable. It forced him to see the human collateral damage of his strategic attack from a devastating new perspective.

He was caught in an impossible moral crossroads. The ruthless strategist in his head, the producer who had just checkmated Sofia Kang, was screaming at him to walk away. This was not his problem. Kang Min-hyuk had made his bed. Intervening was insane. It was an incredible risk. Making any contact with Kang now, while he was the subject of a massive public investigation, could easily link Yoo-jin to his downfall. It could expose him as the architect, the anonymous source. The smart move, the safe move, was to express his condolences and leave.

But the man standing on the concrete, the human being currently drowning in a phantom echo of a stranger's agony, felt otherwise. He thought of the flash of suicidal despair he had witnessed when he'd synced with Kang himself. It hadn't been a bluff. It had been real.

His Producer's Eye offered no easy answer. It only presented him with the cold, brutal data of his choice.

[Option 1: Intervention]

[Risk Assessment: High probability of exposing personal involvement in Kang Min-hyuk's case (70%). Potential for unforeseen legal and professional consequences.]

[Option 2: Non-Intervention]

[Risk Assessment: High probability of Subject Kang Min-hyuk attempting self-harm within 48 hours (60% and rising).]

There was no clean, winning move. Only a choice between risking his war and risking a man's life.

He looked down at the weeping woman at his feet. He thought of his promise to himself, made in the dark of his apartment after feeling Kang's despair the first time: that he had to be better than the monsters he was fighting. Monsters let their enemies destroy themselves. They called it a clean victory.

With a deep, weary sigh, he made his choice.

"Get up, Mrs. Kang," he said, his voice heavy with a weariness that went far beyond his lack of sleep. He reached down and helped her to her feet. "I will see what I can do."

He pulled out his personal phone, not the burner, and scrolled through his contacts. He found the number for a discreet, highly respected psychiatrist he had used in the past to help a trainee deal with a private breakdown. He made the call right there in the garage, his voice low and firm, arranging a private, off-the-books consultation, promising to cover all the expenses anonymously.

He was beginning a dangerous, personal intervention that had nothing to do with charts, contracts, or business. It had everything to do with the crushing weight of the ghosts he himself had created. He was choosing to risk his entire war to save his enemy's life—a deeply human, profoundly foolish decision that could very well be his undoing.