Episode 20. A Line Coming Up from Below Is Still a Line 4.
As Hyeonu drove, he asked.
“Um, if he’s the head of development, how involved would he be in the trials?”
“All of it, I’d say. It’s the position that oversees the entire trial.”
If, as Yang Gyeonghun said, he was the person managing the trials overall, then it really was strange.
The question he had asked as they parted ways.
“Do you think the Phase 3 trial results will come out well?”
To that question, the man had thought this.
[Fuck, how would I know that? Only the CEO and the research director know.]
What did that mean?
Was it such a huge business matter that the CEO was keeping it tightly under wraps for security?
Or was there some other reason he couldn’t even tell the person in charge on the ground?
Seeing Hyeonu’s face looking somehow deep in thought, Yang Gyeonghun asked.
“Why, was something strange?”
“No. I was just curious, so I asked.”
At this stage, he couldn’t definitively say it was a problem, so he didn’t mention it.
But it was certainly something they had to check at least once before things proceeded officially.
As Hyeonu was thinking that, Yang Gyeonghun’s voice reached his ears.
“Ah~ I suddenly want a Mandeugi hot dog.”
“Pardon?”
“Let’s stop by the rest area before we go.”
* * *
He bought one Mandeugi hot dog and a tornado potato, then went to where Yang Gyeonghun was sitting.
“Here you go, team leader.”
“Thanks.”
Yang Gyeonghun took a bite of the Mandeugi hot dog, heavily drizzled with ketchup and mustard, and chewed noisily.
He must have really wanted it, because he was eating it with great relish when his eyes widened.
“Huh? Team Leader O.”
The head of Sales Team 6, whose face Hyeonu recognized from passing by, was walking toward them while spearing baby potatoes with a toothpick.
“Oh! Senior.”
The moment he opened his mouth, his face turned into an amoeba-shaped mass of light and rippled.
[What the hell, why is that man here…? Ah, right, he said he was going to Yangwoo Bio. Heh, wasting his time again, that guy.]
Hyeonu’s eyes deepened.
How did he know they had gone to Yangwoo Bio?
According to what he had heard from Yang Gyeonghun’s inner thoughts earlier, this was the team leader of Sales Team 6, the one who had taken MBiotech.
He had said there was office politics involved in that process.
And something was probably happening this time, too.
“Where are you coming back from?”
“A client.”
[Where else would it be? MBiotech. The one you struck out on.]
“MBiotech?”
“…Yes.”
“MBiotech has been shooting up lately. When is the treatment coming out?”
The brow of the Sales Team 6 leader furrowed almost imperceptibly, then a smile formed on his face.
“It’ll be out soon.”
[Out, my ass. That damn CEO is about to be indicted for illegal gambling, embezzlement, and breach of trust.]
Hyeonu didn’t show it, but he was truly shocked.
Yang Gyeonghun, who had no idea about any of this, said.
“Must be nice, Team Leader O. I heard you even signed a distribution and sales agency contract. Your performance is going to explode from now on.”
“Well, you know, more or less.”
Yang Gyeonghun lightly smacked Hyeonu on the back.
“But this guy hit the jackpot too. He’s holding a crazy amount of MBiotech stock.”
The gaze of the Sales Team 6 leader turned to Hyeonu.
“Really? How much are you holding?”
An opportunity to exchange words with him!
In the two or so lines they would trade, he had to draw out the crucial inner thoughts.
First, he shook the man’s psyche.
Jealousy was one of the emotions with a large amplitude.
So he inflated it a little beyond the actual amount.
“About one billion won.”
“What? One billion?”
A smile returned to the eyes of the Sales Team 6 leader, which had gone wide, and at the same time, Hyeonu heard his inner thoughts.
[Heh, that one billion is going to turn into scraps of paper now. Trading will be halted soon and the stock price will crash. There’s a high chance it’ll even get delisted. Developing a dementia treatment? Don’t make me laugh. Who knows when that’ll come out? If the CEO ends up like that, the company will go under before the treatment comes out. Whew—anyway, thank goodness. I almost got jealous for nothing.]
“Congratulations. If I weren’t in charge of MBiotech, I would’ve bought MBiotech too. I’m jealous.”
He was truly a vile human being.
When one saw such a vile human being, one would naturally show a hint of disgust, but Hyeonu didn’t reveal anything at all.
Because he possessed a steel mentality that would not be shaken by anything.
The Sales Team 6 leader turned his head toward Yang Gyeonghun.
“Then I’ll get going first, senior. Something came up that I need to handle urgently.”
There were still things Hyeonu had to hear from him, but he was trying to leave too quickly.
He had exactly one chance to speak!
This one question was his last opportunity.
“Team leader.”
His gaze came back to Hyeonu.
“What are you going to do about MBiotech?”
The Sales Team 6 leader rolled his eyes for a moment with a blank look, then burst out angrily.
“What kind of question is that? What am I going to do about MBiotech? Are you saying I’m holding that company’s stock or something?”
Hyeonu, his gaze deepening, lowered his head.
“I’m sorry, team leader. I meant to ask whether it would be okay for me to keep holding the stock, but I think it came out wrong.”
“This bastard is completely clueless. Hey, punk, are you dying to put me in handcuffs? Don’t you know I’d end up in handcuffs if I told you that?”
“Ah, is that so? I didn’t know. I’m sorry, team leader.”
Clicking his tongue, he looked Hyeonu up and down, then turned around with an indifferent expression.
“Well, then, I’ll be going first. Take care.”
Yang Gyeonghun raised his hand slightly and took a bite of his Mandeugi hot dog.
“That bastard is weirdly disgusting. He hasn’t done anything in particular, but he’s just disgusting.”
He really was a disgusting person.
Hyeonu also bit into the tornado potato, which was covered in cheese powder.
With a crisp crunch, the inner thoughts the man had just had echoed in his ears.
[What am I going to do about MBiotech? First, I need to dispose of the stocks I bought under borrowed names. My wife’s sixth cousin, my college classmate… And then I need to get out fast. I can’t go down with them.]
Judging by how he was going to dispose of the stocks he had secretly bought and also withdraw in a business sense, it seemed certain that MBiotech was going to become a serious problem.
‘Then should I sell my stock too?’
He took out his phone and opened his securities company app.
Yang Gyeonghun, who was eating his Mandeugi hot dog, glanced at him and asked.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to sell my stock.”
“MBiotech?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, punk, didn’t you hear what Team Leader O just said? He said there’s no problem. If that treatment comes out, it’ll be a real mega-hit. It’s going to go up even more.”
“That’s true, but I somehow got a strange feeling from Team Leader O. Like I do with you, team leader.”
“What?”
“So I’m going to sell half.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he pressed the sell button.
‘Confirm sell order. Stock name: MBiotech. Order quantity: 34,146 shares. Order price: 12,300 won. Would you like to execute the sell order? Yes, No.’
Without the slightest hesitation, he pressed “Yes.”
‘Your order has been executed.’
When he checked his balance, a little less than 420 million won had come in as cash.
Seeing the amount, Yang Gyeonghun’s eyes went wide, and the hand holding the Mandeugi hot dog trembled.
He seemed shocked by the sight of 420 million won being created in an instant.
“Team leader.”
“Huh?”
“There’s ketchup running down your hand.”
“Huh? Oh.”
Yang Gyeonghun licked the ketchup trickling down his hand.
In his eyes came Hyeonu, eating his tornado potato as if nothing at all had happened.
‘What the hell is with this guy? Four hundred and twenty million won just came in, so how can he have that look on his face? Is four hundred million nothing to him? Now I’m sure. This bastard really was from a royal family, wasn’t he? Everything he said about being a squid was a lie.’
Yang Gyeonghun looked at Hyeonu that way, but Hyeonu’s attention was elsewhere.
Yangwoo Bio, which seemed somehow ambiguous, yet not quite.
And the unexpected information about M Biotech.
If things were as the Sales Team Six manager said, it would be better to just sell everything and see, but all he had heard was the man’s inner thoughts, so he did not want to move rashly.
He wanted to verify it once.
But if, before he could verify it, the CEO’s criminal allegations really broke out and the stock went through trading suspension and delisting, then just as the man had said, all that money would turn into scraps of paper.
So he sold only half.
Even selling only half left him with a profit of four hundred million, and if things did not flow according to the Sales Team Six manager’s inner thoughts, the price of the unsold half would rise even further.
He did not know which side would be more profitable, but in the current situation, he had made the most rational choice.
In any case, the important thing was investigating M Biotech.
Judging by the Sales Team Six manager’s inner thoughts, the timing of M Biotech’s problem erupting was soon.
He had to find out as quickly as possible.
Should he go directly to M Biotech after work and check?
That was not a certain method.
If he went after work, it would be hard to meet the executives and key personnel.
They would have left work too.
But he could not go during work hours over a matter like this either.
What should he do...
Just then, Yang Gyeonghun’s voice came to him.
“What are you doing, not eating?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes.”
He took a bite of the tornado potato, and the man’s voice came again.
“Eat quickly. We have to head back now.”
[Once we get back to the company, I have to look for a technical advisor first. How am I supposed to find one? Damn it, as if I’ve ever done anything in biotech.]
It seemed they needed to bring in a technical advisor in order to verify how far Yangwoo Bio’s anticancer drug development had progressed.
Biotech was a specialized field difficult for ordinary people to understand.
At that moment, something flashed through his mind.
Ah!
Right. If he did that, there would be no problem.
“Team Leader.”
“What?”
“Shouldn’t we look for a technical advisor first? It’s such a specialized field that even after reading the business plan, I couldn’t understand what they were saying.”
Yang Gyeonghun’s brow furrowed.
“A technical advisor?”
[Huh, look at this guy’s sense for work.]
“Yes, Team Leader. A technical advisor.”
“Once we get back to the company, we’ll look into it right away.”
“If you don’t happen to know anyone, may I try looking into it?”
One of Yang Gyeonghun’s eyebrows slowly rose.
“You know someone?”
“Just a moment.”
He took out his phone, searched, and showed it to Yang Gyeonghun.
“This is him. Dr. Go Hwi-geun of Seoul National University Hospital.”
The man’s eyes went round.
There were an enormous number of articles about Dr. Go Hwi-geun, and among the headlines, phrases like “the nation’s foremost authority” and “a representative figure of the medical community” could be seen here and there.
“How do you know someone like this?”
“I have a bit of a personal connection with him.”
‘What the hell is this guy...? It’s one thing for the word technical advisor to suddenly come out of a new hire’s mouth, but how does he personally know someone like this? Is it because he really is from a royal family?’
Once again, what Gu Hyeongjun had said came to mind.
“Since we couldn’t grab hold of the top, let’s try grabbing hold from below. Our lives...”
[Shit... So it really couldn’t be helped, just like Manager Gu said...]
“All right. Try looking into it.”
Yang Gyeonghun spoke in a subdued voice, and his face looked somehow empty.
Since morning, he had been having these thoughts unusually often, and he had been confused as well.
On one hand, he seemed to think he would climb onto the back of a new hire who appeared to have something behind him; on the other, he seemed to feel self-loathing over it.
It seemed he had become like this after hearing what the head of HR had said yesterday.
“Understood, Team Leader.”
Without showing anything outwardly, Hyeonu answered and immediately called Dr. Go Hwi-geun to make an appointment.
Then he dropped Yang Gyeonghun off at the company and headed to Dr. Go Hwi-geun’s house.
It happened to be his day off today.
* * *
When Dr. Go Hwi-geun saw Hyeonu, he frowned and started by cursing at him.
“You rascal. What have you been doing, only showing up now? Did I tell you to come once every three months, or didn’t I?”
“I’m sorry, Doctor. After my father passed away, I’ve been a bit busy.”
The gaze that had been glaring at him with fierce, wide eyes soon changed to one of pity.
It was because he knew all about Hyeonu’s circumstances.
“Good grief, you...”
“Still, you should have contacted me.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor. I was really busy trying to start over.”
He was the doctor in charge who had treated him for five years after he injured his head at the department store.