The Scandal-Proof Producer

The bookstore was a dusty sanctuary of forgotten stories, tucked away in a quiet, overlooked corner of Seoul. The air smelled of aging paper, leather, and neglect. It was the perfect place for a clandestine meeting, a place where no one of importance would ever think to look.

Nam Gyu-ri sat at a wobbly table in the back, dressed down in faded jeans and a nondescript gray sweater, her hair hidden under a baseball cap. She looked like a university student studying for exams, utterly anonymous. She was a chameleon, and today, her camouflage was boredom.

Across from her sat Park Sung-min, a man who looked exactly like what he was: a disgraced ex-reporter running to seed. His suit was shiny and ill-fitting, his face puffy, and his eyes held the perpetually hungry look of a man whose best days were a distant, bitter memory. He had been fired from a major sports daily a decade ago for fabricating sources, a scandal that had made him an industry pariah. It also made him bitter, desperate for money, and, most importantly for Gyu-ri's purposes, a walking encyclopedia of the industry's dirtiest, most forgotten secrets.

"A biography of Stellar Entertainment," Park said, eyeing the thick, plain white envelope she had placed on the table between them. "That's ancient history. Why dredge that up now?"

"Nostalgia is a growth market," Gyu-ri replied coolly, pushing the envelope an inch closer to him. "And my client is a completist. I'm not interested in the official narrative. I'm looking for the stories that never made it to print. Specifically, I want to know about their A&R department from about ten to fifteen years ago. Whispers, rumors, spectacular successes, and even bigger failures. I'm particularly interested in a young rising star from that era. A man named Han Yoo-jin."

She framed the request with practiced ease, burying her true target under a pile of biographical fluff. She wasn't investigating Han Yoo-jin, the current CEO of Aura; she was merely researching a historical figure for a book.

Park's eyes lit up at the mention of the name, and then at the thickness of the envelope. He pocketed it without counting the contents. The sheer weight of it told him this was more than a simple fact-checking job. "Han Yoo-jin," he mused, a greasy smile spreading across his face. "The 'Demon Producer' of Stellar. Hot-headed. Arrogant. But damn, the man had an ear. I've got a few old numbers. Let me make some calls. People love to talk when they think no one is listening anymore."

The scene split, a study in contrasts. Gyu-ri sat calmly in the dusty bookstore, sipping a lukewarm tea, the picture of patience. Miles away, Park Sung-min hunched over a grimy desk in his cluttered officetel, working the phone like a bookie calling in debts. He dialed numbers that hadn't been active in years, pulling on the threads of memory from people long since spat out by the industry machine: retired road managers with gambling debts, forgotten trainees now running fried chicken restaurants, disgruntled former Stellar employees who still harbored decade-old grudges.

Most of what he got back was standard industry gossip, confirmation of Yoo-jin's official legend.

"Brilliant? The kid was a prodigy," said one retired manager. "He could listen to a hundred raw demos and pick the one that would go to number one. It was uncanny."

"Ruthless," said a former colleague. "He'd fight anyone, even Director Kang, if he believed in a song. Didn't make a lot of friends, but he made a lot of hits."

It was all useless, public knowledge. Gyu-ri was about to call it a day, dismissing Park as a washed-up hack, when her phone buzzed with a new message from him.

Call me. I've got something. One of his old rivals is finally talking.

She answered immediately. Park's voice was slick with the thrill of the hunt. "Okay, so I'm talking to this guy, a former low-level A&R manager at Stellar. Always hated Yoo-jin, thought he was a fraud. He just told me something interesting."

The scene cut back to the ex-manager on the other end of the line, his voice dripping with resentment. "Golden ear? Please. The man was lucky, that's all. For a while, anyway. Then there was the 'Miracle Five' incident. That's when everyone knew he was either a genius or a complete lunatic. Ask anyone from that era. They'll know what you're talking about."

Gyu-ri's posture straightened. An incident. A specific event. This was the kind of breadcrumb she was looking for. "Park," she said into the phone, her voice cold and sharp. "Find out everything you can about the 'Miracle Five.' I want names, dates, and outcomes. Double your fee if you get it for me by tonight."

The promise of more money worked its magic. Two hours and a dozen more phone calls later, Park had pieced together the forgotten story. He relayed it to Gyu-ri, his voice crackling with triumph.

About seven years ago, Stellar Entertainment was on the verge of a massive acquisition. They were about to buy out a smaller, struggling company primarily for its prize asset: a five-member girl group that was considered a guaranteed, can't-miss success. They had the visuals, the talent, and a collection of killer songs. Han Yoo-jin, then a rising A&R star being groomed for a leadership position, was put in charge of the final evaluation—a formality, really.

But at the eleventh hour, in the final executive meeting, Yoo-jin had inexplicably and violently opposed the deal. He presented a secret, self-authored dossier outlining a series of "potential future risks" that his superiors, including Director Kang, dismissed as paranoid fantasies. They thought he was trying to sabotage the deal because he hadn't discovered the group himself.

The risks he listed were chillingly specific. The group's leader, he claimed, had a father with a secret, high-stakes gambling addiction that would eventually indebt the family and create a massive scandal. The main vocalist was in a secret, long-term relationship with the member of a rival boy group. One of their key demos, their supposed debut track, bore a striking structural resemblance to an obscure indie song from Japan, creating a major plagiarism risk. And the group's visual center, the most popular member, suffered from a severe, undiagnosed anxiety disorder that would make her incapable of handling the pressures of fame.

His report was so detailed, so prescient, and so completely out-of-the-blue that management questioned his sanity. He was overruled. The acquisition went through. The group was rebranded as "Prism" and launched with a massive marketing budget.

And within eighteen months, every single one of Han Yoo-jin's predictions had come true. A devastating, catastrophic, career-ending domino effect of scandals. The leader's father was exposed by a loan shark. The main vocalist's secret relationship was outed by a tabloid. The plagiarism accusation surfaced and went viral. The visual center had a nervous breakdown on a live television broadcast. Prism imploded in one of the most spectacular failures in recent K-pop history.

Stellar lost millions. Yoo-jin's uncanny prediction was officially written off as a bizarre coincidence, a one-in-a-billion lucky guess. But the incident had stalled his career, cementing his reputation internally as a brilliant but difficult, negative, and borderline insubordinate employee. It was the beginning of his fall from grace at Stellar.

Nam Gyu-ri stood up from the table in the bookstore, her tea untouched. She walked out into the fading afternoon light, her mind racing, the pieces clicking into place with a terrifying clarity.

A hidden gambling addiction. A plagiarism plot. A secret relationship. A debilitating anxiety disorder.

It wasn't a coincidence. It was a pattern. The exact same types of insight. The actor he exposed to save Stellar from a bad contract. The American artist he tracked down to disprove the plagiarism accusation against Ahn Da-eun. This wasn't a golden ear for music. It was a golden eye for disaster. The name of his secret ability had been staring them in the face all along.

Her hunt was no longer about finding a human source, a mole, an informant. That was far too simple. She was hunting something else. The source she was looking for wasn't a person. It was a gift. A seemingly impossible, supernatural gift.

She pulled out her phone and sent a short, encrypted message to Chairman Choi.

I have the key. He's not a spy. He's a prophet.