A Rather Lethal Name

The founder and reigning chief executive of Neovision, Jason Jang, had been circling the globe at a breakneck pace.

The United States.

Europe.

The Middle East.

Asia.

Only yesterday, he had huddled with the chairman of an international data center conglomerate. By this morning, he was hammering out power-supply guarantees with top energy executives, and tomorrow's calendar was already crammed with confidential briefings alongside key semiconductor manufacturers.

It was a grueling, murderous schedule. Yet Jason displayed not the slightest hint of exhaustion. In truth, he looked like a man who relished the sheer, exhilarating chaos of it all.

The global AI market stood poised to crown its undisputed monarch. Atlas Core had already erected an imposing fortress, but their claim on the throne was far from absolute. Neovision still had an opening. More than that, Jason was dead certain that the moment to strike was right now.

There was just one problem: Neovision could never seize that throne alone.

In this new dawn of artificial intelligence, victory did not belong to whoever simply fabricated the finest silicon. That was why Jason was personally scouring the earth for an ally—not a mere financier throwing capital over the fence, but a true partner to ride out and conquer the world at his side.

The shortlist had narrowed to three finalists.

First was an American cloud colossus. Their market share and sprawling server farms were undeniably staggering, but they would inevitably attempt to leash Neovision inside their proprietary walled garden.

Second was a Taiwanese chip foundry. Their technical acumen and manufacturing throughput were top-tier, yet the geopolitical powder keg in the region could never be discounted.

Third was a Japanese consortium specializing in precision components and advanced materials. Reliable and steady, yes, but that was all. They lacked the explosive, disruptive velocity Jason craved.

A heavy sigh slipped past his lips.

"Whew... Is it really this hard to find someone willing to be our friend?"

Standing just beside him, his executive secretary, Alex, hesitated for a fraction of a second before speaking. Friend. While corporate titans across the planet tore at each other's throats for supremacy over the global AI ecosystem, Neovision's CEO chose to describe a multi-billion-dollar strategic partnership as making a friend.

Naturally, Alex had long since grown accustomed to his superior's eccentricities. "I believe the candidates on our shortlist are of exceptional caliber, sir."

"Being decent caliber and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠being someone who can be a real friend are two entirely different animals," Jason replied, leaning back into his executive chair and tilting his chin toward the ceiling. "Every one of them keeps showing off their immaculate stables. But I don't want a bloody stable, Alex. I want a thoroughbred that can run flat out beside me."

Alex quietly tapped the screen of his tablet. An instant later, his eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly.

"Sir."

"Hm?"

"We have received an official inquiry from Seonghwa Group."

The steady tapping of Jason's finger against the desk froze mid-beat.

"Seonghwa Group?"

The name rang familiar. After all, Jason had once shared a personal history of sorts with their late titan, Chairman Kang Seong-cheol. In the first place, Seonghwa was the unchallenged industrial behemoth of the Korean Empire—the undisputed sovereign of the peninsula's corporate realm, its sprawling empire encompassing electronics, energy, telecommunications, heavy construction, and finance.

In fact, Seonghwa Electronics had originally occupied a spot on Neovision's candidate list. A premier memory semiconductor powerhouse, world-class fabrication and packaging, combined with the collective muscle of its affiliated subsidiaries... on paper, the strategic synergy was brilliant. An exceptionally seductive card to play.

At least, that had been the case before the disaster struck.

"Isn't that house currently drowning in absolute chaos?" Jason asked, casting a skeptical glance at his secretary. "Their entire direct bloodline was wiped out in one stroke. It ought to take months just to sort through the wreckage... and yet they're reaching out to us now?"

A dry, amused chuckle escaped him.

"Are they begging for a lifeline? Hoping to borrow Neovision's prestige to stop the markets from panicking?"

It was a plausible scenario. A conglomerate thrown ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into existential turmoil routinely hungered for a towering foreign name to steady the waters. Merely leaking rumors of a high-level strategic alliance with Neovision would send their cratering share prices surging back to life.

Alex, however, shook his head.

"That does not appear to be their objective, sir."

"Oh? Then what is it?"

"Contrary to your assessment, Seonghwa Group is stabilizing at an extraordinary pace."

A subtle gleam sparked in Jason's eyes. "Stabilizing? Quickly?"

"Yes, sir. The culprit behind the mass poisoning of the owner family was apprehended from within their own ranks, and operational control over their primary subsidiaries appears to have returned to normal parameters. Domestic market volatility has largely subsided as well."

"How long has it been?"

"Precisely nine days since the incident occurred."

"Nine days... and in that span they caught the killer and locked down the entire conglomerate?"

Jason's fingers resumed their rhythmic tapping against the polished wood, but the tempo had shifted entirely. It was a telltale habit whenever an insatiable curiosity gripped him. Without an inside player orchestrating a staged coup, such breakneck resolution was frankly inconceivable. That very assumption had led him to divert his attention from the Korean Empire altogether, yet now...

"Alex. Who pulled the strings at the center of it all?"

If this was not an orchestrated farce, there was only one logical explanation left: an exceptionally brilliant, overwhelmingly charismatic leader had emerged out of nowhere to seize the helm before the ship could sink.

In response, Alex swiped across his tablet and cast an encrypted video stream onto the wall monitor. It was footage of a young man delivering an inauguration address within the grand halls of the Korean Empire's Imperial Palace.

His face possessed the fresh, boyish contours of youth. Though tailored impeccably, the formal executive suit didn't quite look like second skin on him just yet. And yet, the instant his voice echoed through the speakers—

"Oh?"

Jason let out a soft exclamation of genuine admiration.

On the screen, the youth was speaking. He declared that Seonghwa Group would no longer remain confined within the comfortable confines of the Korean Empire. They would forge alliances with titans across the globe, and they would wage fierce, unapologetic competition against those same titans on the world stage.

His phrasing was clean and direct. There was no baroque rhetoric, no hollow corporate buzzwords, no endless recitation of grand, ungrounded strategies. Even so, Jason instantly parsed the calculated intent underpinning that concise proclamation.

He's drawing a line in the sand.

The boy knew exactly where the grasping hands would reach out from to rein him in, and before those fingers could close around his throat, he was executing a preemptive strike by stepping out into the wider world. Conceiving such a maneuver was one thing, but standing before the empire's entrenched oligarchs and declaring it to their faces was a feat on an entirely different plane.

"He didn't have someone write that speech for him," Jason murmured in a low, appreciative rumble.

Alex glanced at the screen, a flicker of doubt in his voice. "Is that your impression, sir?"

"Take a look at those sharp, focused eyes. He knows down to the bone what every syllable means, and he knows precisely what kind of expressions are dawning on the faces of the people watching him."

That was what made the spectacle so fascinating. A boy who barely looked old enough ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to shave possessed that caliber of swagger, backed by an innate, commanding delivery that seized the breath of everyone in the room.

"What's the kid's name?"

"Kang-geon, sir."

"Gang... Gun?" Jason rolled the syllables over his tongue, testing the English cadence. "Well, that's a rather lethal name."

"In standard imperial Korean, it is pronounced Kang-geon."

"Aha. The new chairman of Seonghwa Group goes by Gang Gun. That will certainly be hard to forget."

Jason threw his head back and laughed heartily. Alex offered no indulgence to the executive's wordplay, seamlessly swiping to the next dossier to continue his debrief.

"He is documented as the illegitimate son of the late Vice Chairman Kang Jun-hyuk. Because he was an out-of-wedlock child, he was never invited to official family banquets, rendering him the sole surviving direct bloodline following the mass poisoning."

"So he survived by sheer stroke of bastard's luck."

"Correct, sir."

"And landed straight in the chairman's seat?"

"Under Seonghwa Group's strict bloodline succession bylaws, he was the only legally qualified heir remaining."

"I see... And how old is he?"

"Eighteen by domestic reckoning."

Jason's eyes widened noticeably. He stared back at Alex, completely taken aback.

"What did you just say?"

"Eighteen domestically, which places him at seventeen by international standards."

"You mean to tell me the kid giving that speech up there is seventeen years old?"

"Yes, sir."

A brief, stunned silence enveloped the suite.

Jason turned his gaze once more toward the screen, studying Kang-geon's visage. He had noticed the boy looked young. He had noticed the youthful contours. But seventeen? At that age, an ordinary kid ought to be trapped behind a high school desk stressing over exams, sheltered under the protective wing of his elders. Instead, this boy was perched atop the imperial throne of his nation's premier business empire, spearheading a war against the entire world.

"Ha." A breathless laugh spilled from Jason's lips—a cocktail of sheer incredulity and burgeoning delight. "He's even more absurd than I gave him credit for."

"According to verified intelligence, Chairman Kang-geon played a direct, pivotal role in capturing the assassin and purging internal traitors. Under his centralized command, Seonghwa's flagship subsidiaries are returning to full operational capacity."

"A seventeen-year-old bastard child ascends to the chairmanship, crushes a fatal poisoning conspiracy, stabilizes a multi-trillion-won empire, and delivers a manifesto inside the Imperial Palace..." Jason muttered, savoring the sheer audacity of each milestone. "All in the span of nine bloody days. And now, he has the gall to reach out to us under his own signature?"

"That is correct, sir."

It defied all conventional reason. But Jason Jang had never cared for conventional reason; in fact, he adored madness. History had taught him that the world was reshaped not by sensible men, but by extraordinary aberrations who dared to shatter the mold.

He studied Kang-geon's eyes once more through the glowing display.

"Looking closely now, he bears a striking resemblance."

"Pardon? Resembles whom, sir?"

"Never mind. Nothing you need concern yourself with." A wistful, nostalgic smile touched the corners of Jason's mouth. One thing, however, was crystal clear. "Intriguing. Utterly intriguing."

"......"

Witnessing his boss's grin stretch wider by the second, Alex drew the obvious conclusion. He hasn't even read the body of the dispatch, and he's already deciding to fly straight to the Korean Empire.

"Sir, you should at least review the contents of his letter," Alex noted dryly, extending the tablet toward him.

Jason accepted the device with an air of fond reminiscence. But as his eyes traced the translated correspondence, his scrolling thumb came to a sudden, involuntary halt.

Yongsan.

That single geographic name ignited embers buried deep within Jason's memory. The cramped electronics stalls. The towers of cardboard component boxes. The wide-eyed shoppers marveling at experimental graphics cards.

Reading those sentences, Jason felt a fierce heat flare up in the pit of his chest. It was as if the boy was reaching through the screen, staring into his soul, and asking a brazen question: Do you still possess the eyes to glimpse the future, just as you did back then?

"Ha... Well, would you look at this brazen brat?"

This was no standard corporate proposal. It was a personal challenge disguised as an invitation. Poignantly enough, Jason had received an invitation strikingly similar to this once before in his youth—penned by an old giant who shared the exact same surname.

"Alex."

"...I will adjust your itinerary immediately, sir."

"Good. As fast as humanly possible. Ah, and make sure to pass along an addendum to Seonghwa's team."

A mischievous, predatory grin spread across ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Jason's features.

"Tell them I find myself craving authentic imperial fried chicken... Surely they won't hesitate to treat a weary traveler who has crossed oceans to see them, will they?"

Neovision's response arrived far faster than I had anticipated. Not only did they accept the dialogue, but Jason Jang was personally touching down on Korean soil in a mere two days.

This is moving almost too fast...

I had assumed their executive board would deliberate for at least a week before clearing his schedule. Besides, hadn't intelligence reports placed him on another continent just days ago? At this rate, the man's sheer resistance to jet lag bordered on the supernatural.

For the record, I made sure our team drew an absolute line: Jason Jang's upcoming arrival would officially have zero public association with Seonghwa Group.

Why? Because a global heavyweight of his stature was descending upon the Korean Empire in the flesh. Turning such an earth-shattering event into a predictable corporate photo-op would be utterly dull.

More importantly, I had made an audacious promise to Jason in my letter: I will prepare the stage for you.

To deliver on that pledge, preparations had to begin immediately.

"Have we arrived?" I asked, looking out the tinted glass.

"Yes, Chairman. We are right outside the corporate headquarters of Green Whale."

Without fanfare or an executive motorcade, I slipped quietly into the nerve center of the empire's dominant digital platform and streaming giant.