[ Lee Ji-eun's POV ]
The drawing room of the Lee estate smelled of lilies and stagnation.
It was a scent Lee Ji-eun had come to associate with silence. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn to keep out the afternoon sun, casting the room in a perpetual, dusty twilight.
"Ji-eun, sit up straight. You look like a wilting flower."
Ji-eun straightened her spine instantly. It was a reflex, drilled into her since she was four years old. She set her porcelain tea cup down on the saucer—clink—and looked across the mahogany table at her mother, Madame Kim.
"I am listening, Mother," Ji-eun said. Her voice was soft, melodic, and perfectly hollow. It was the voice of a doll that spoke when you pulled the string.
"I wasn't asking if you were listening; I was asking if you understood," her mother said, flipping through a glossy brochure. "The second son of the Choi family, Min-seok, has requested a private dinner. He enjoys golf, collects vintage watches, and has a... spirited personality."
Spirited.
The word tasted like ash on Ji-eun's tongue.
She knew what "spirited" meant in their circle. It meant Choi Min-seok was a drunkard who had crashed three imported sports cars in the last year. It meant he had a reputation for throwing wine glasses at waiters and slapping women when he lost at cards.
"I understand," Ji-eun lied, her face a mask of polite interest. "He sounds... formidable."
"He is wealthy," her mother corrected sharply. "The Choi family owns Myung-il Construction. They control three shipping ports in Busan. If we secure this alliance, your father's textile division will survive the winter. If we don't..."
Her mother didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.
The Lee family was old money, but old money rots if it isn't watered with new cash. They were drowning in debt. 4.2 billion won, to be exact. A number Ji-eun saw in her nightmares.
"Wear the blue dress tonight," her mother commanded, standing up. "The modest one with the high collar. It makes you look obedient. Men like Min-seok prefer women who don't look like they have opinions."
Ji-eun stood up and bowed exactly fifteen degrees. "Yes, Mother."
She waited until her mother left the room. She waited until the sound of heels on marble faded away.
Then, she walked to her bedroom, closed the heavy oak door, and locked it.
The mask fell off.
She didn't scream. She didn't cry. Tears were inefficient. Instead, she walked to her desk, swept a stack of fashion magazines onto the floor, and opened her laptop.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in a command that flooded the screen with complex financial data.
To the world, she was Lee Ji-eun, the decorative daughter. But in the shadows, she was the top graduate of Seoul National University's Business School. She had secretly managed her aunt's stock portfolio and tripled its value in six months. She understood derivatives, leverage, and hostile takeovers better than the men trying to buy her.
She was a shark born in a goldfish bowl, and she was suffocating.
"I need out," she whispered to the empty room. "I need a way out."
She opened the job recruitment boards. It was a masochistic ritual. She looked for analyst positions, strategy roles, anything that would let her use her brain.
Samsung... LG... Hyundai...
Useless. They were all connected to her father's circle. If she applied, the HR director would call her father within the hour to congratulate him on his daughter's "cute little hobby."
She scrolled further, past the prestigious firms, down to the chaotic world of freelancers and start-ups.
Then, she saw it.
It was a post buried at the bottom of the "High Risk / High Reward" section. It had no corporate logo. No links to a flashy website. Just a plain text header that looked stark against the white background.
[ Hiring: Director of Strategy ][ Company: Apex Investment ][ Pay: Equity + Salary (Negotiable) ][ The Test: Solve the attached case study. ]
Ji-eun hovered her mouse over the attachment. Apex Investment? She had memorized the names of every investment firm in Seoul. Apex didn't exist.
It's probably a scam, she thought. Or a data mining trick.
But her finger clicked the mouse anyway.
The file opened. It was a PDF titled "The Bio-Gen Hostile Takeover Defense."
Ji-eun intended to scan the first paragraph and delete it. But as she read the prompt, her breath caught in her throat.
"This is..." she murmured, leaning closer to the screen. "This is a trap."
The problem wasn't a standard textbook scenario. It was a messy, complex, real-world disaster involving a failing biotech firm, "poison pill" shareholders, and a regulatory loophole regarding patent law that shouldn't exist.
It was an Impossible Problem.
A puzzle designed to break standard analysts. Any conventional answer—like a merger or liquidation—would lead to failure. The only way to solve it was to be aggressive. To be unethical.
For the first time in months, the crushing weight on her chest vanished. Her mind sharpened into a blade.
She pulled out a notebook and started scribbling.
If you leverage the debt against the subsidiary... no, that triggers the audit. But if you use a shell company to buy the patent rights first, you can starve the attacker...
She worked for three hours straight. The sun set outside her window, casting long shadows across her room, but she didn't turn on the lights. She was in a trance.
When she finished, she stared at the solution. It was elegant. It was vicious. It was perfect.
She attached the file. She typed a single sentence in the body of the email: The only way to win is to burn the patent.
She hit [SEND].
[ The Next Day - 2:00 PM ]
The address for Apex Investment led her to the wrong side of Yeouido.
This wasn't the gleaming financial district where her father had his office. This was the grey zone—a block of nondescript concrete buildings that housed struggling tech start-ups, shady loan sharks, and freelance graphic designers.
Ji-eun checked her reflection in the scratched metal of the elevator doors.
She was wearing her sharpest navy suit—the one her mother hated because the shoulders were too bold. Her hair was pulled back in a severe, professional bun. She clutched her portfolio like a shield.
What am I doing? she thought as the elevator shuddered its way to the 12th floor. I'm sneaking out to interview for a company that rents office space by the hour. I should be at the salon preparing for Min-seok.
But the thrill of the puzzle was still humming in her blood. She had to know. She had to meet the mind that wrote that test.
The elevator dinged. She stepped out into a dimly lit hallway.
Suite 1205. The door was plain wood. A piece of paper was taped to it with scotch tape: APEX.
She knocked.
"Enter."
The voice was young. Too young.
Ji-eun frowned, pushing the door open.
The office was sparse, smelling faintly of cheap coffee and ozone. There was a single sputtering air conditioner unit trying to fight the summer heat, a whiteboard covered in manic scribbles of stock tickers, and two cheap desks.
Sitting at the main desk was a boy.
He was wearing a high school uniform—Somyung High School, if the crest was correct. His tie was loose, his top button undone. He was sipping a carton of banana milk through a straw and reading a webtoon on his tablet.
Ji-eun froze in the doorway. The portfolio in her hand felt suddenly heavy, ridiculous.
"Excuse me," she said, her voice dripping with polite confusion. "I believe there has been a mistake. I'm looking for the Director of Apex Investment. I have an appointment."
The boy didn't look up. Slurp. The sound of the empty milk carton was obnoxiously loud.
"You're early," he said. "Sit down."
Ji-eun blinked. A flash of irritation cut through her confusion. "I don't think I will. Is your father here? Or perhaps your boss?"
The boy finally put the tablet down.
When he looked at her, the air in the room changed.
Ji-eun had met powerful men. She had dined with senators, drank wine with CEOs, and been inspected by Chaebol patriarchs. She knew what authority looked like. It usually looked like grey hair, expensive watches, and arrogance.
This boy had none of that.
But he had the eyes of a wolf that had just finished eating. They were cold, flat, and terrifyingly intelligent. They were eyes that had seen the end of the world and found it boring.
"No mistake, Miss Lee," Kang Jin-woo said. He stood up. He was tall—taller than he looked sitting down. "I am the CEO. I wrote the problem. You solved it."
He picked up a file from his desk—her solution.
"Your analysis of the patent loophole was excellent," he said, his tone clinical, as if grading a paper. "You realized that the only asset worth protecting was the IP, not the company itself. Most people try to save the employees. You fired them to save the stock price. Ruthless."
Ji-eun felt a chill run down her spine. "You're a high school student."
"And you are a Chaebol heiress who is about to be sold off to a drunkard to save a failing textile factory," Jin-woo countered smoothly.
The silence that followed was absolute.
The blood drained from Ji-eun's face. Her grip on her portfolio tightened until her knuckles turned white. "How... how do you know that?"
"I know a lot of things," Jin-woo said. He walked around the desk and leaned against it, crossing his arms. "I know your father's debt is due on the 30th. I know your mother thinks a blue dress will make you look obedient. And I know that you are the only person in this city smart enough to run my company."
He slid a single sheet of paper across the cheap desk.
"I need a Face," Jin-woo said frankly. "I am eighteen. The law says I can't sign M&A contracts, trade in certain derivatives, or even buy a bottle of scotch. But I have the capital. And I have the information. I know which stocks will fly and which will crash before the opening bell rings."
He pointed a finger at her.
"You have the name. You have the degree. And you have the desperation."
Ji-eun looked at the paper. It was an employment contract.
Role: Director of Strategy. Salary: 300 Million Won/Year + 5% Equity. Signing Bonus: Immediate repayment of the Lee Family Textile Debt (4.2 Billion Won).
Ji-eun's breath hitched. She stared at the numbers. 4.2 Billion. It was the exact amount. The exact chain around her neck.
"This is..." She looked up at him, searching for the lie, for the trick. "Who are you? Really?"
"I'm the person giving you a choice," Jin-woo said, his dark eyes locking onto hers.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheap plastic ballpoint pen. He held it out to her.
"You can walk out that door, put on that blue dress, and go on your date with Choi Min-seok. You can let him touch you, let him own you, and save your father's pride."
Jin-woo paused, letting the image sink in.
"Or," he said softly, "you can sign this paper. You can become my partner. You can take this money, throw it in their faces, and help me eat this city alive."
Ji-eun looked at the pen. Then she looked at the boy—no, the predator—standing before her.
Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. This was madness. This was dangerous.
But then she thought of the suffocating smell of lilies in her mother's drawing room. She thought of Min-seok's sweaty hands.
She reached out and took the pen. Her hand wasn't shaking.
"If I sign," Ji-eun asked, her voice steadying into steel, "what is my first order?"
Jin-woo smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of a king declaring war.
"We're going to destroy the company your fiancé owns," he said. "I hear their stock is due for a very bad week."
Ji-eun felt a shiver run up her spine. It wasn't fear. It was excitement.
She uncapped the pen.