The Quantum executive's final, chilling offer had left a poisonous residue in the air of the war room. Yoo-jin's team was trapped, caught in a perfect pincer movement with no obvious path to victory. The weight of the impossible choice—sacrifice their artistic integrity or surrender their corporate independence—settled over them, heavy and suffocating.
Yoo-jin, however, remained unnervingly calm. He had spent the entire night in his office, the two terrible scenarios written on his whiteboard like a devil's bargain. On one side: HIRE QUANTUM ACTOR. Beneath it, a list of consequences: Loss of creative control. Profit sharing with the enemy. Constant threat of scandal-based blackmail. On the other side: CAST UNKNOWN. The consequences there were just as dire: Compromised quality. Investor panic. A weakened story. Potential for catastrophic failure.
It was a classic Hobson's choice. A trap designed to make him feel powerless. But Yoo-jin's entire career had been built on refusing to accept the choices presented to him. He was a man who, when faced with a dead end, looked for a way to break through the wall.
He stared at the board, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about his sister, Han Ji-young. Her unexpected offer of intelligence, her desperate plea for a job—it was a chaotic, emotional variable in his otherwise cold, strategic equation. And he knew, with a deep, instinctual certainty, that the solution to his professional problem was somehow intertwined with his personal one.
He leaned back, the leather of his chair groaning in the silent room, and activated his Producer's Eye. He had already analyzed the scenarios. Now, he needed to re-analyze the key player. He focused his ability on his memory of his sister, on the complex, conflicted woman who had sat opposite him in the teahouse. He was searching for a different kind of leverage, a psychological key.
The data flowed, deeper and more nuanced this time.
[Analyzing Subject Profile: Han Ji-young]
[Primary Emotional State: Fear (LV 8 - Dominant)]
[Core Trait: 'Professional Pride (Damaged).']
[Analysis: Subject's decade of being professionally sidelined has created a deep-seated shame and a powerful, though suppressed, desire to prove her competence.]
[Secondary Trait: 'Ambition (Suppressed).']
[Analysis: The subject's natural ambition was not extinguished, merely redirected into bitterness. It remains a powerful, dormant motivator.]
[Primary Motivation: 'Self-Preservation.' Secondary Motivation: 'Desire for Redemption/Relevance.']
And then, a new, critical insight appeared, a note from the system that changed everything.
[Hidden Vulnerability Detected: The subject's 'Damaged Pride' makes her averse to charity. She does not want a handout or to be seen as a project for her successful brother to 'fix.' She wants an opportunity to *earn* her place, to restore her own sense of professional worth.]
The path forward became suddenly, blindingly clear. It was a third path, a narrow, dangerous trail that ran directly between the two impossible choices on his whiteboard. He didn't need to hire her at Aura, a move that would be seen as an act of pity and would destroy his team's morale. And he didn't need to cast her out, a move that would wound her pride and likely turn her into a desperate, unpredictable enemy.
He needed to give her a mission. A dangerous, off-the-books operation that would appeal to her suppressed ambition, leverage her unique position, and give her a chance to earn her redemption on her own terms.
A slow, cold, and calculated smile touched Yoo-jin's lips. He had his plan.
He picked up his phone and made a single call. "Min-ji. My office. Now. And bring a secure laptop."
A few minutes later, his brilliant young spymaster entered the war room, her expression curious and alert. She was the only one in the company he could trust with a plan this sensitive, this morally ambiguous.
"I've made a decision about my sister," Yoo-jin began, his voice low and serious. Min-ji listened, her face a neutral mask. "We're not hiring her. And we are not refusing her help." He paused, letting the contradiction hang in the air. "We're going to use her."
He walked to the whiteboard and laid out his audacious plan, his voice a quiet, conspiratorial murmur. "Quantum's impending attack is a media smear. They're manufacturing false testimonies to destroy Director Oh's reputation. The only way to definitively kill a story like that before it's even published is to prove, with undeniable evidence, that the entire narrative was a paid fabrication. We need to get a recording of a Quantum executive offering a bribe for false evidence."
Min-ji's expression remained unchanged, but her eyes sharpened. "That's impossible, CEO-nim. These people, especially the executive who contacted you, are professionals. They operate in a world of NDAs and back-channel payments. They would never be so careless as to get caught on a recording."
"They wouldn't be careless with a stranger, or a journalist, or a P.I.," Yoo-jin countered, his confidence growing as he spoke. "But they would be careless with a trusted asset who has already proven her loyalty and her value. My sister isn't just a potential source. She's their existing source. She's the one who fed them the initial, truthful information about Director Oh's past in the first place. They trust her. Her bitterness toward me is her bona fides."
The full, shocking scope of the plan began to dawn on Min-ji.
"We are going to send my sister back to her contact at Quantum," Yoo-jin explained. "She will claim that in her final days at Stellar, she came across one last, explosive piece of evidence against Director Oh. A 'smoking gun.'" He gestured to Min-ji. "You will create this smoking gun. A fabricated document, a forged affidavit, something that looks utterly authentic and is exactly the kind of thing they're looking for."
"She will then offer to sell this document to them," he continued. "Not just for money. She will demand a permanent, high-level position at their company, framing it as her final audition to join their team. And during this meeting, she will be wearing a wire. We will get our recording. We will get our proof."
Min-ji was silent for a long moment, processing the sheer, cold-blooded brilliance of the gambit. She looked at him, her expression a mixture of profound horror and deep, undeniable admiration.
"You want to turn your own sister into a double agent," she said, her voice a near-whisper. "You want to send her, alone, back into the viper's nest."
Yoo-jin's expression was hard as stone, his eyes betraying no hint of the personal cost of his decision. "She chose to enter the nest a long time ago, Min-ji. I am just offering her a way to walk out of it with her head held high."