Chapter 39
Chapter 39
It was a relief.
‘Hangi Spirit…….’
I wasn’t possessed by that Evil Spirit.
It was just the influence of Father, like the typical growth process we all go through. In my case, it was just more pronounced because my brain had undergone Awakening.
But was it because of a natural aversion to things that aren't alive?
"Ugh……."
A headache bloomed in one side of my head.
At first, it was a faint ache, but it gradually felt like it was crushing my entire brain.
I tried to regain my focus.
But the deeper I delved, the clearer the pain became.
Anything related to Father that wasn't alive—the closer I got to remembering those things, the more everything twisted and shattered.
Still, I didn't give up.
But I should have stopped there.
Crackle—
Dark, twisted afterimages surfaced. They surrounded me as if mocking me with giggles, and then began to emit a tearful wail.
At first, they had no form.
They just looked like blurry patches of darkness.
I could only distinguish that the places where their eyes should be were black and empty, and only for a moment.
The constant whispers leaking from their faint lips filled my head with crackling noise.
I felt my whole body freeze.
At the same time, I felt like I was burning.
It was the same pain as the illness I suffered as a child.
An even greater fear rose to my throat, making it impossible to breathe.
I tried to step back, but at that moment, something beneath my feet grabbed me and pulled me down.
My center collapsed.
A chill as if the floor had suddenly disappeared.
I'm falling—
"Ugh!"
My whole body twitched, and my eyes snapped open.
It was just a memory. But the feeling of falling just now was too vivid.
Then I saw Mom's face, pale with fright. Her eyes were shaking wildly.
Mom jumped up.
"Where, where is it? Your head? Your leg?"
I had already shown Mom my strange symptoms.
‘Oh, dear. What should I say…….’
Saying it was just like waking up from a falling dream wouldn't work at all.
‘Don't try to fool me so obviously.’
Even so, Mom began to make a sound, her lips trembling. She stroked my back with a terrified hand.
"Ogui, Ogui, this is not your place……."
The very sound that was a lullaby to me as a child.
"I will resolve your resentment and sorrow.
Return to the heavens.
There is no place to remain here.
Follow the clear light and find your way."
Rummaging through memories related to things that aren't alive is dangerous.
I learned that for sure this time.
A warning that was hard to describe still enveloped my entire body.
If I had gone any further, it wouldn't have ended as just a fragment of memory.
Something more would have invaded reality.
Eyes that can see things that aren't alive.
My Spirit Eye was almost opened.
This isn't just a feeling, it's a conviction.
Anyway, the first priority was to soothe Mom, who was terrified of worrying about her son.
My strange symptoms just now seemed to have started similarly to when I was tormented by Japgeot as a child.
Judging by the way Mom was staring intently at my reaction with reddened eyes, she had found some characteristic in me that reminded her of that time.
Even though I had only twitched because of the feeling of my body falling, Mom had read the shadow of the past in it.
"Mom."
When I spoke calmly, Mom's voice stopped abruptly.
"I'll be careful from now on."
I added.
"I can control it now. I didn't know what to do when I was a kid, but now I know what to do. And it wasn't real just now."
The next morning.
I approached Mom cautiously, watching her reaction.
Mom looked tired, as if she hadn't slept a wink last night.
However, Mom also knew that the more she talked about negative things, the worse it would be.
So, after hearing my false promise to return to the main house in Soyang and get a 'checkup,' Mom seemed to believe me for now.
Instead of talking about what happened yesterday, Mom worried about our real reality.
"Now, even animals are getting Corona. Be careful on your way to work."
She was referring to a tiger at the Bronx Zoo testing positive for Corona.
The world is in an uproar because of Corona, but Mom's heart is rotting away.
‘Because of those damn Japgeot…….’
No matter how many times we pledge, the shadow of the past is still hard to shake off.
I took the mask Mom handed me and left the house.
More people are wearing masks every day, yesterday more than the day before, and today more than yesterday.
The number of confirmed Corona cases in the Federation was exceeding 300,000.
But inevitably.
The market is mistaking this as a hopeful sign that the pandemic is nearing its peak.
Needless to say, the aftermath of the red flag I waved and the Federal government's quantitative easing policy are starting to take effect.
That's why the S&P 500 index started the day with a gain of over 3% today.
As long as we get to Seoul, it doesn't matter how we get there, right?
It's a bull market again starting today.
In other words, the Tesla stock price that I had raised as a force had been in a correction phase for the past week, but that's over now.
‘Let's run again, Tesla!’
Don't have any silly ideas because of just over 1% stake.
Palo Alto, California, Tesla headquarters.
Scott Herbert, the Team Leader of the IR team, who is in charge of managing Tesla's stock price and communicating with investors.
He ran his left hand through his disheveled hair and looked across the table.
His eyes were quite tired.
The whiteboard was a chaotic mess of hypotheses and numbers written in various colors of markers.
「March 23」 「Barclays」 「Hong Kong Corporation AK」
Especially around the words emphasized with thick markers, there were traces of erasing that overlapped here and there.
It clearly showed how many trials and errors he and the IR team members had repeated.
They hadn't moved a single step from where they were on the first day.
"He's going to make a fuss……."
Scott muttered in a low voice.
In his head, CEO Elon's sharp voice was already echoing.
Elon was always emotional when issues related to equity arose.
Especially if there were traces connected to short-selling forces that Elon hated so much?
Scott shook his head and rubbed his forehead with his fingers.
Elon's animosity toward short-selling forces was already well known throughout the company.
He had called them parasites and publicly fought with them on Twitter more than once.
After those days, the company was always on thin ice.
Scott, who knew Musk's personality, knew that this incident was not something to be taken lightly.
In particular, this time, a large-scale single purchase was executed as if intentionally showing off.
‘Elon won't stay still.’
Nuances that numbers and data couldn't tell.
Movements as if someone was intentionally sending a signal.
It was clear that it would be a major stimulus for Elon.
If he didn't find something, the day Elon came into this room himself was not far off.
Then the office door opened.
Scott's head turned quickly. Fortunately, it wasn't Elon, but a team member who had been sent to analyze the Securities and Exchange Commission's data.
"Team Leader."
The team member placed a thick file on the table and said.
"I rechecked the data. I analyzed the flow of funds from Barclays and Hong Kong Corporation AK in more detail."
Scott frowned slightly and looked at him.
"So?"
The team member opened the file and pushed a sheet of paper in front of Scott.
"As we feared, it wasn't a short-selling force or an aggressive move."
He carefully continued his explanation.
"AK conducted all purchases from a single account through Barclays. There were no complex fund flows or connections with other brokers. They just… simply bought our stock. It looks like it's for investment purposes."
The wrinkles on Scott's forehead slowly smoothed out.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. There are no suspicious movements in the flow of funds or trading patterns. Barclays provided the loan, and AK simply used those funds to buy our stock."
Scott repeated those words, placing his hand on the table. He absentmindedly rubbed the edge of the file with his fingertips.
The words that it wasn't a short-selling force.
Those words alone were slowly relieving the tension that had been tormenting him for the past few days.
A large influx of buying wasn't necessarily a positive sign.
Scott recalled the strategies used by sophisticated short-selling forces in his head.
Just because there was a large influx of buying didn't mean it was all a positive sign. Sophisticated short-selling forces often used strategies that raised stock prices, contrary to their positions.
"Investment… so it's not a short-selling force?"
Scott looked at the team member with a slightly relieved expression.
"Good."
The team member was finally able to smile a little.
"Yes. As far as we've confirmed, there were no movements to worry about. Should we track AK a little more?"
Scott asked the team member with a sneer.
"Do you think that's possible?"
The team member's smile disappeared slightly, and the end of his words became a little heavier.
"Hong Kong Corporation AK is a paper company."
Meaning that it is basically a nominal company without a legal entity.
To track down the owner or management information, they would have to go beyond the financial regulations of Hong Kong or tax havens, which was realistically impossible with their authority.
In fact.
The fact that the entity that bought Tesla stock through Barclays was a Hong Kong corporation called AK was also found out with difficulty through unofficial routes.
When they tracked the exchange data and requested it from Nasdaq, only Barclays was initially revealed as the entity.
Scott recalled that time.
When the name Barclays appeared, the entire team sighed. Because there was no way that a large broker like Barclays would disclose customer information.
But Scott and his IR team didn't back down and mobilized all the networks they could use.
And the name that came out was Hong Kong Corporation, AK.
Scott was convinced of this.
Even if they miraculously received approval from the Hong Kong authorities and were able to look inside AK,
At the end of that, there would only be new puzzles left to solve.
Because many hedge funds designed multi-layered structures to hide their identities.
AK's parent company would be in a tax haven like the Cayman Islands or Luxembourg, and that parent company's other parent company would be in another tax haven, and that parent company's other parent company would be…….
In the process, ownership would be dispersed several times, and an anonymous trust account would eventually appear, preventing further tracking.
So that they could completely hide their identity.
Scott knew this complex structure very well.
In the past, he and the Tesla IR team had been frustrated several times when trying to track investment movements that used multi-layered structures.
‘It won't be any different this time either.’
However, the fact that this was not caused by short-selling forces is very positive.
"Should we track AK more?"
When the team member asked again, Scott shook his head.
"No, it'll be difficult to go any further. What we already know is probably all there is. Anyway, I don't know how Elon will take this, but we can breathe a sigh of relief. Let's go home. I'm going to die."
Even so, the inevitable question arose in Scott's head.
Where on earth is AK?
‘Where on earth…….’
In the midst of the unprecedented crisis of Corona.
‘What conviction do they have in this Tesla to bet such a large sum of money, $1 billion?’
It was a bold bet that even Scott, the IR team leader who knew Tesla better than anyone else, couldn't understand.