Abnormal Signs
“Hah, hah... You're saying there's an abnormal sign?”
The moment I flung open the car door, I blurted it out at Jung Tae-sung. I'd sprinted at full speed from the school's rear gate, and my breath came out ragged and raw.
“Catch your breath first, Director.”
Jung Tae-sung said it calmly, watching me through the rearview mirror.
I nodded and leaned back against the seat. The car pulled away in smooth silence.
Once my breathing had steadied, he passed a document envelope back from the passenger seat.
“As per your instructions, Director, I assembled a trading team and have been acquiring Sunjin Sangsa shares.”
I pulled out the documents and spread them open.
It was a daily trading volume and buy-order analysis table.
“Exactly as you ordered, we've been purchasing very slowly, in tranches, so as not to shock the market... but the price kept climbing. So we searched for anyone else accumulating alongside us.”
“There's foreign buying.”
My gaze locked onto the window for BNP, a foreign brokerage.
“Yes. We don't know exactly how large their position is, but it seems that for every share we pick up, they pick up two. Very aggressive.”
This was no ordinary move to defend the price or keep us in check.
Their accumulation window had coincided with ours, uncannily so. And they were sweeping up shares indiscriminately, heedless of cost.
“Thanks to them, the stock is up more than 6% from yesterday's close. It's a thinly traded name, so the swings are wide.”
“How's the market reading it?”
“The consensus attributes it to expectations that Sunjin Sangsa's recent acquisition of new vessels will show up in this quarter's earnings. Our team's assessment differs.”
Jung Tae-sung met my eyes through the mirror.
“Someone appears to be deliberately accumulating Sunjin Sangsa shares.”
I nodded in silence.
Sunjin Sangsa.
This was no mere trading company.
The central link in the circular shareholding structure.
The Sunjin Group stake my mother held, inherited from my father, came to 91%.
But the combined Sunjin Sangsa shares held by the group, my mother, me, and Seon-ah totaled a mere 18.75%.
With that precarious number, we were holding on to majority control of Sunjin Sangsa.
Sangsa owned more than 40% of the logistics, resort, department store, and sports subsidiaries — and the resort, in turn, held 5% of the group. A perfect circular structure.
In practice, whoever held Sangsa took everything else with it.
It's vulnerable.
In my previous life, this fragile ownership structure had left us under constant attack.
Father should have untangled it while he was alive, but his sudden accident left us exposed and defenseless.
“How much of the stake have we accumulated so far?”
I asked calmly.
“2.48% as of now. Fast for a quiet accumulation... but.”
Too slow.
The enemy was already scaling the castle walls. There was no time to keep stacking stones.
I made my decision.
“Director Jung.”
“Yes.”
“When the market opens tomorrow, ignore the price. Hit the 4.95% target no matter what it takes.”
Jung Tae-sung's eyes widened.
“I'm sorry — sweep the market at any price? That will drive our average purchase cost far too high.”
“It doesn't matter. Starting tomorrow, the stock will hit its daily limit.”
“...The limit up?”
Jung Tae-sung wore an expression of pure disbelief. A heavy, boring holding company with no good news whatsoever, hitting the daily ceiling?
But I knew.
Delving into my memories of my previous life, the moment those people's attack began, Sunjin Sangsa shares had hit the limit up two days running — a gap-up straight to the ceiling from the opening bell.
I have to gather what I can before that happens.
I had neither the time to persuade Jung Tae-sung nor the patience to contrive a logical explanation.
In moments like these, there was only one option: press down on him with the authority of an owner.
“Do as I've instructed. It is non-negotiable, and it must be done before tomorrow's close.”
At the iron in my voice, Jung Tae-sung offered no further objection.
“Understood. I'll put the trading team on emergency standby.”
“Good.”
I exhaled and changed the subject.
“And what happened with that man, Manager Choi?”
“You mean Manager Choi Sung-hoon. He's decided to serve us — to serve you, Director.”
What a relief.
The finest information broker in the business, the very man Kim Jong-soo had cast aside. With him on board, it was as if I'd gained ten thousand reinforcements.
“Bring Manager Choi with you tomorrow. I'll greet him properly, and there are things we need to discuss together.”
“Understood. Shall I take you home for now, then?”
I considered it briefly, then shook my head.
“No. Seongbuk-dong, please.”
“Managing Director Kim Seok-jun's residence?”
“Yes. I need to share this situation with him as well.”
The study of Kim Seok-jun's home, Seongbuk-dong.
I spread out before him everything Jung Tae-sung had reported, along with the trading team's analysis.
As Kim Seok-jun paged through the documents, his eyes sharpened.
“So... you believe this is your relatives at work?”
“Yes. Nothing else explains why anyone would move this fast and pay this much of a premium.”
The buying was far too rough and relentless to pass for a simple momentum play.
This was the prelude to a management dispute.
Kim Seok-jun adjusted his glasses.
“But why through a foreign brokerage, of all things? If it's one of your relatives, they could simply use domestic nominee accounts. Why go out of their way to route through an expensive foreign house?”
“Because they'll need a pretext.”
At my unhesitating answer, Kim Seok-jun looked up.
“A pretext?”
“Yes. Suppose they suddenly attack Sunjin Sangsa out of nowhere, with no justification at all. They'd lose the public-relations war before it even begins. The frame would write itself — ungrateful relatives scheming to seize the company their aunt-by-marriage runs. In a chaebol family, public opinion is not a factor you can ignore. In a management dispute especially, moral standing becomes a critical point of attack.”
“And what does that have to do with using a foreign brokerage?”
“It lets them appear as the white knight.”
At my words, Kim Seok-jun's brow furrowed deep. He thought for a moment — then his knee connected sharply with the table as he sat bolt upright.
“You don't mean...”
“Yes. The scenario writes itself.”
I held up my fingers and counted them off.
“Stage one: unidentified foreign speculative capital launches a hostile takeover attempt on Sunjin Sangsa, whipping up an atmosphere of panic.”
“...”
“Stage two: they play the press — the company is in danger of falling into foreign hands, they'll cry, all while spotlighting the incompetence of the current management, Chairwoman Kim Ja-young.”
Kim Seok-jun's face hardened.
“So they secure shares through a foreign window, dress that accumulation up as a foreign assault, and then... ride in as the white knight?”
“That's exactly it.”
It was the very method they had chosen in my previous life.
The country was then fresh off the IMF crisis, with popular resentment toward foreign capital at its absolute peak. They had exploited that sentiment with ruthless cunning.
“Ha.”
Kim Seok-jun let out a hollow laugh, half in disbelief.
“After that, they'll swap hands. They'll declare — 'As an elder of this family, I cannot stand by and watch the company fall to foreign speculators. So I stepped in as the white knight and negotiated with the foreigners to take the shares off their hands.'”
Acquiring shares disguised as foreign money, then transferring them back into their own grasp.
A so-called parking trade — textbook wash trading.
“Once they've taken over the shares that way, manufacturing a mandate becomes even easier.”
“Precisely.”
“'I tried to hold the line, but the current leadership is simply too shaky. The bloodline must defend the family ourselves' — that's how it lands.”
“Yes. My thoughts exactly.”
Roundabout and expensive as it was, it was the most reliable play available to them.
In the eyes of the public, there was no rebuttal — 'Well, of course the family elders should protect it rather than the daughter-in-law.'
And my mother was a female owner. In the conservative climate of the business world and public opinion alike, such an attack would land twice as hard.
“Insidious bastards...”
Kim Seok-jun clicked his tongue.
He fell silent for a moment, then looked at me.
“So — when do you think I should step out into the open?”
“Not yet.”
I shook my head.
“Our side is still working on its own share acquisition, so there's no need to lay our cards down prematurely. For now, work quietly to gather supporters around Chairwoman Kim Ja-young.”
“Supporters, you say...”
“What my mother lacks most right now is people to fight the legitimacy battle for her. The founding elders led by you, Director — the veterans who once moved the whole of Sunjin Group. Nothing will carry more weight than those old guard executives standing behind her.”
The elders who had built Sunjin alongside Chairman Kang Man-ho.
Though long retired from the front lines, their symbolic stature and internal influence remained formidable.
If they spoke with one voice that Kim Ja-young was the rightful leader, the relatives' justification for attack would be cut in half.
“All right. I'll go win them over.”
Kim Seok-jun nodded gravely. But a shadow had settled over his face.
“That said, it won't be easy. As you well know, those old men spent their entire careers grinding under Kang Man-ho — a rough, drill-sergeant of a chairman.”
“...”
“They balk instinctively at the idea of a woman taking the chairman's seat. Persuading them will be no small feat.”
The task I'd assigned Kim Seok-jun was anything but a light one.
Yet the only person capable of pulling it off was Kim Seok-jun himself — the man who had fought beside them on those battlefields.
“It still has to be done. And you're the only one who can do it.”
“Understood. I'll bend those old-timers' stubbornness one way or another.”
Kim Seok-jun gave a wry smile and studied me for a long moment.
“It's a heavy burden you carry, isn't it.”
There was real weight in those few words — pity and pride entwined, aimed at a boy who had to fight this war in a high schooler's body.
I answered with a crooked grin.
“If it's something I have to face anyway, I'd rather not run from it. I'll enjoy it.”
“Hah. That audacity of yours — I truly do love it. Whatever you need from me, just say the word.”
“Thank you. I'll head out first, then.”
After my private talk with Kim Seok-jun ended, I stepped out of his house and hardened a final resolve deep in my chest.
“One thing is certain — they're aiming to secure more than 40% of the shares.”
Back home, I sat straight down at my desk and started running the ownership math.
“All we hold is 18.75%.”
On shares alone, this was a fight we were guaranteed to lose. In my previous life, my mother had won it only by bringing in foreign capital as a white knight.
Sunjin Sangsa's treasury shares were swapped for equity in a foreign trading giant — and that time, the gambit held the line.
But years later, that very foreign partner turned around and attacked Sangsa itself.
Not this time. Not in this life. So — SJ Holdings buys up to 4.95%.
Combined, that brought us to 23.70%.
I need to buy more myself.
I had to move too — but buying under my own name would raise problems, so once again I would set my Cayman Islands paper company in motion.
Mind made up, I picked up the phone and dialed the familiar number.
“This is Jung Tae-sung.”
“Sorry to call so late, Director. When the market opens tomorrow morning, please liquidate the Reborn Capital account's stock holdings in the Cayman Islands.”
Once sold, the cash would come to roughly 40 billion won. I would be sitting in a classroom during tomorrow's trading session — I needed hands to act in my place.
“And use those funds to simultaneously acquire Sunjin Sangsa shares. Spend every last won of it. And...”
I steadied my breath before continuing.
“From here on, this is a race against the clock. Don't think about cost or efficiency. Just buy the shares.”
“I will execute your instructions as given.”
I hung up and returned to my desk. It promised to be a very long night.