Chapter 08
What was he thinking?
Without realizing it himself, Yoon Jin-woo dialed the number he had memorized. A slow ringtone spilled out of his phone’s speaker.
─ Who is this?
“Why aren’t you coming?”
─ …….
The silence, close to suffocating, filled the room with only the faint sound of her breathing. Beyond the door, the birthday party was noisy and chaotic, but inside, it felt like a completely different world.
Time passed with nothing but silence. She could have said anything—asked how he got her number, mocked him for winning the bet, whatever. Anything would have been better than this silence.
Even if Kang Da-som had just hung up on him, it would have been less frustrating than this.
One minute. Two. Three.
He knew that opening his mouth now would mean falling into her pace, but he couldn’t help it.
“What are you thinking?”
─ …Excuse me?
“Don’t play dumb. I’ll give you credit for lasting three months with my brother. But what woman doesn’t know that my brother is a complete piece of trash?”
─ Don’t interfere with my relationship with him.
“I don’t care what you two do. But you should keep your promises.”
─ So you resorted to stalking? You even figured out why we fought, dug up my number, and now you’re calling me?
As Kang Da-som sneered, Jin-woo sat up from the bed and leaned against the wall.
He wasn’t someone who smoked often, but his throat burned strangely whenever it came to her.
After exhaling a sigh to steady his breath, he spoke in a lowered voice.
“Why are you so sharp with me?”
─ You were the one who… Forget it. Just stay out of it. What do you think will happen if my boyfriend finds out I spoke with his little brother right after a fight?
“He’ll throw another tantrum, what else?”
─ And how do you plan to handle that tantrum?
“So it’s fine when he fights with you over another woman and then calls someone else right after, but it’s not fine for you to talk briefly with his brother? What kind of double standard is that? If you’re really that anxious, delete the call record the second you hang up.”
He wanted to add I’ll pretend this never happened.
But oddly, his throat tightened, and no words came out.
Why? Because he didn’t actually want to pretend it hadn’t happened?
“I had a meeting with Studio UKE last week.”
─ …Why are you telling me this?
“Studio UKE—the company that holds the rights to the drama you mentioned.”
After she told him about the novel, Jin-woo had read Exiled from Paradise.
He normally didn’t touch romance novels, and the psychological barrier kept him from starting for a while, but once he did, it only took a few days to finish.
When he contacted the company, they were astonished that he even knew about it.
“Let’s talk in person.”
─ You’re at home?
“Where else would I be?”
─ I mean at your family’s house. Your brother said you almost never attend family gatherings.
“I just didn’t go because I was busy with work.”
Even to his own ears, it sounded like a blatant lie.
─ Then I’ll see you at home.
Kang Da-som hung up first.
Jin-woo, suddenly drained, slumped to the floor, fiddling with his phone.
“Oh, Dasom, who were you talking to for so long?”
From beyond the firmly closed door came Yoon Sung-hoon’s faint voice, his footsteps thudding down the hallway. Jin-woo’s fingers froze over the phone.
What am I doing?
He could have just ignored it. This was unlike him.
[Delete call history?]
Jin-woo erased the call log with Kang Da-som.
But he didn’t delete her number.
A few hours earlier
The evening view from Seoul’s highest restaurant was breathtaking.
The private room was wide enough to seat thirty, yet partitioned off with just a single table.
Through the three-story-high glass wall, the cityscape spread out in full view.
Not long after Kang Da-som arrived, a man appeared.
He was dressed head to toe in luxury brands, but with such understated neatness that it wasn’t immediately obvious.
As he sat down at the round table, his secretary—walkie-talkie clipped to his waist—approached.
“Sir, about your meal…”
“After thirty minutes. Just coffee for now. Do you need dessert?”
The man glanced at Kang Da-som, who was sipping coffee. Outwardly he showed little reaction, but inside, he was very surprised.
“Something not too sweet. We’ll eat later.”
“Yes, understood.”
“And clear the room.”
“Yes, sir.”
The staff left, and shortly after, the chef himself brought in the dessert.
Only once even he had gone did the two begin to speak.
Kang Jong-woo, CEO of Knight Investment, leaned back casually in his chair, studying Kang Da-som.
“Two months ago, the company got an anonymous tip-off. Said Quantum was manipulating stock prices. At first, I thought it was an inside job, so we searched everywhere. Found nothing.”
Quantum’s stock manipulation was exactly what Kang Jin-woo had been investigating, under strict confidentiality until official release.
Yet someone else had already known.
“Then the second tip came.”
He tossed the documents he’d been holding onto the table with a thud.
In this day and age, a physical package instead of an email was absurd, but the contents couldn’t be ignored.
“The first time, I wasted time suspecting insiders because Quantum’s short-selling was in full swing. But the second time, it was different.”
He tracked down the sender. But the sender said they’d only been asked to forward it.
After chasing the trail twice, three times, the name Min Yu-rim emerged—an employee at Cheonmyeong Department Store’s Gangnam branch.
There was no way a VIP seller at a department store would pull something like this. So he dug through her client list—and found Kang Da-som.
She set down her coffee cup and smiled faintly. The red glow of the sunset through the window lit her face even more beautifully.
“Nice to meet you. Should I say it’s our first meeting?”
“……”
“But while it’s my first time, I get the feeling my oppa already knows me quite well. Is that just my imagination?”
“Maybe I should’ve ordered alcohol instead of coffee.”
“You can change it now. It’s not every day we have a family reunion, right?”
“You know who I am?”
“Eldest brother.”
Before Kang Young-jun, the official eldest son, was even born, Chairman Kang already had another woman.
Not long after Kang Jong-woo was born, the chairman married Seo Mi-young.
His mother died, and Jong-woo was left in an orphanage.
“Or should I call you Daniel Miller?”
When Da-som pronounced the name fluently in English, Jong-woo chuckled.
He had been adopted into the wealthy Miller family in America.
After walking the elite path, he founded the investment firm Knight Investment.
“I envy you, oppa.”
“You don’t even know me. How am I your brother?”
“You’ve been watching me. You can’t deny at least that.”
“I never—”
“Baek Seong-tae. Head of Strategic Planning. He’s your man. I know.”
“Let’s skip to the point.”
Baek Seong-tae.
He was the man who had once handed Da-som car keys, a loyal shadow to Kang Young-jun since he first took over management.
UL Cables will be sold off to a foreign company.
The public thought UL Cables was just a utility pole manufacturer. Few knew its real value. When the news broke that a so-called “black-haired foreigner” would acquire it, the whole country erupted, screaming betrayal.
Kang Jong-woo had sharpened the blade of vengeance against Chairman Kang, who had abandoned him, his entire life.
Would that change now that he had returned to the past?
“I want to invest.”
“We don’t take pocket change.”
“As the informant, and as family, maybe make a little exception?”
Jong-woo looked down at the documents on the table.
He had read them at least a hundred times.
Elon.
The hottest hydrogen self-driving truck company in the U.S. Everyone was rushing to invest in it.
And yet the tip-off said it was a fraud.
At first, he dismissed it as a prank. But since the tip about Quantum had been dead accurate, he investigated further.
Not even a week after the Quantum short-selling wrapped up, doubts about Elon began piling up the more he dug.
The hydrogen self-driving truck project was a nationwide scam in the U.S.
“Do you even have any money saved up?”
