Translator: SourKimchi
Ji-hun spoke up right away.
"Next up, agei. Hop on Discord."
The chat was still buzzing about Lunabel, but Park Ji-hun paid it no mind.
Just as he called up agei, the next person in the reservation queue.
[Nathan nim has gifted 10,000 Water Drops.]
-Nathan : read me first
The chat flipped instantly.
-SpaceClassroom : dropped another one lol
-Kkoka : did he just drop 10k again
-TunaTuna : how much money does this guy have damn
-Soljji : whats with nathan's obsession
-agei : c'mon do me first :(
Before the donation alert even faded, Park Ji-hun tossed out a flat reply.
"I told you to wait your turn."
Short and low.
The chat surged harder.
-Ajukara : rejected again lol
-Kaet : this is hilarious fr
-Neutralize : even rich guys gotta wait in line damn
-dwm9911 : so even the chairman has to line up
-SilentRoom : this guy's ice cold lol
[Nathan nim has gifted 20,000 Water Drops.]
-Nathan : even now?
Instead of answering, Park Ji-hun pulled up the reservation window.
The waiting list scrolled open.
Handle after handle stamped down the list.
Park Ji-hun pointed his cursor at Nathan's handle.
"Take a good look. You're 22nd in line."
The chat exploded again.
-Soljji : look at that queue lol
-Kasungi : five a day so that's five days out lol
-LegendDrumBarrel : something satisfying about making him wait
-SseomyeonMaster : could donate forever and he wouldn't budge lol
Park Ji-hun said nothing more.
"agei. You getting on Discord or not?"
A moment later, the connection tone sounded.
"Ah, sorry I'm late. I was looking for my mic."
Park Ji-hun spoke without even leaning back in his chair.
"Forget it. What do you want to know?"
***
The other man spoke in a trembling voice.
"Stocks."
The chat reacted at once.
-Soljji : oh it's stocks
-TunaTuna : u.s. market? korean market?
-SseomyeonMaster : he reads stocks too? damn
Park Ji-hun asked without a flicker of expression.
"The ticker."
"It's a U.S. biotech, Novagen Therapeutics......"
The chat stirred immediately.
-Kaet : isn't that the one ppl have been talking about lately?
-dwm9911 : wasn't that the one with the phase 3 clinical trial buzz
-Soljji : oh shit I'm in that one too
agei hurried on.
"The trial results are about to drop, and everyone's basically treating it as a sure pass. The vibe's been really good."
"And?"
"I put a pretty heavy position into it."
agei swallowed a bitter laugh, caught his breath, and went on.
"I'm pretty much all-in at this point. I never meant to take it this far, but everyone said this one was a guaranteed payday......"
Park Ji-hun tapped the desk with his fingertips.
[Novagen Therapeutics]
The moment he heard the name, a chill swept through his head.
Just as he closed his eyes and groped for the sensation.
"Everyone says tomorrow's going to be a party. Is it okay to just hold it like this?"
Park Ji-hun didn't answer.
In that instant, one side of his head rang heavy.
Then the smell began.
It wasn't a good smell.
It was like someone had hidden the stench of blood in a sealed room and doused it with cheap perfume.
Park Ji-hun spoke in a low tone.
"Say it again."
"Sorry?"
"The company name."
agei answered carefully.
"Novagen Therapeutics."
That was the moment.
Somewhere inside his head, a door he'd forced shut rattled on its hinges.
***
His vision flipped over at once.
A messy-looking conference room under fluorescent lights.
Coffee gone half cold.
A chair shoved back in a hurry.
Someone sat with their face buried in both hands, head bowed.
Ding.
A notification chimed somewhere.
Once. Then again.
Amid the relentless buzzing, someone spat out English in a panic.
He could hear the voice, but the meaning wouldn't come clear.
The mood, though, was unmistakable.
This place was a funeral.
Park Ji-hun's brow creased.
People laughing and chattering under bright studio lights.
Green lights shooting up across the chart window.
Cheers, anticipation, certainty.
But the stage they stood on had already rotted through.
A castle built on sand.
-TunaTuna : he's really seeing something
-Soljji : why's he dragging it out like this
-Kaet : the vibe's kinda off
agei asked again, his voice uneasy.
"Um......what's wrong?"
Park Ji-hun answered a beat late.
"Don't hold on to it."
For a moment, the other end of the Discord went quiet.
"Sorry?"
A flustered tone.
Park Ji-hun went on without hesitation.
"Dump it."
The chat flipped instantly.
-Soljji : huh? sell?? wtf
-TunaTuna : what did he see
-SseomyeonMaster : sell now?? what if it pops tomorrow
agei poured out his words in a rush.
"No, wait. Everyone said it's pretty much locked in......they said it'd be weird if it didn't pass this time."
Park Ji-hun cut him off.
"Everyone's swarming because they smell money, right?"
His voice turned cold.
"All I smell is a rotting corpse."
Park Ji-hun added,
"I told you what I see. The choice is yours."
"O-okay, but still. You're saying sell right now? And what if the main session opens and it climbs?"
Park Ji-hun closed his eyes slowly.
"It'll smell like flowers for a little while......"
agei asked quickly,
"But......?"
Park Ji-hun murmured,
"Because this isn't a game that ends in joy."
***
A suffocating silence flowed across the Discord.
For a while, agei couldn't say anything.
Only ragged breathing leaked faintly over the mic.
The chat was already half in chaos.
-Soljji : wow he really told him to sell
-TunaTuna : isn't he being too harsh?
-Miter : gonna seriously regret it if it pops tomorrow
-SilentRoom : but he's not the type to make a call like this lightly
agei finally opened his mouth.
"......PerpetualJobSeeker nim."
His voice was even more strained than before.
"Should I really sell?"
Park Ji-hun answered curtly.
"You decide."
agei swallowed dry.
After a struggle, he made his decision.
"Got it. I'll sell later."
The chat split.
-Soljji : insane he's actually gonna sell??
-TunaTuna : no way I could sell that lol
-Neutralize : go big or go home with this kinda thing
-SseomyeonMaster : if it pops tomorrow his mental's gonna be wrecked damn
Park Ji-hun spoke calmly.
"Once you dump it, don't look back."
"......Yes."
Park Ji-hun said nothing more.
He'd already said all there was to say.
That was when it happened.
A short line surfaced through the crowded chat.
-Nathan : Novagen Therapeutics?
Park Ji-hun's gaze lingered on that message for a moment.
Then another line.
-Nathan : why the hell would you sell that
The chat latched on right away.
-Soljji : huh?
-TunaTuna : wait does he know something?
-dwm9911 : why's he saying not to sell
Park Ji-hun ignored the chat and spoke up.
"Next."
Even then, the chat kept churning.
-SseomyeonMaster : so whose call is right
-LegendDrumBarrel : why's he saying don't sell?
-Nathan : if you don't know anything just sit down
[Nathan nim has gifted 1,818 Water Drops.] [TL Note: "18" (sip-pal) sounds like a Korean swear word; donating 1818 reads as a repeated "f-you."]
-Nathan : you're wrong this time
***
Kim Tae-jun looked down at the chat and let out a dry laugh.
"This is a joke."
Novagen Therapeutics.
The name had been familiar from the moment it first came up.
"Familiar" didn't even cover it.
Tae-jun had his own money in that company right now.
To be precise, his brother's fund had bought in first, and Tae-jun had piled in after.
There wasn't much to think about.
This one was a payday.
The mood had been different for at least a month.
With the Phase 3 Clinical Trial announcement looming, word had slowly begun to leak, and around then Tae-jun had heard it straight from a guy who'd shared a few drinks with Novagen's CFO.
Said it was as good as done.
The numbers weren't bad, the internal mood was good, all that was left was the announcement, that was the story.
Of course, there was no such thing as 100 percent in this business.
Tae-jun wasn't someone who didn't know that.
Still, this much was enough.
Other people scrounged up tip sheets, but Tae-jun got to hear the stage before the tip sheet was even written.
And yet.
'A rotting corpse?'
Kim Tae-jun snorted.
His expectations had been high, and they curdled into disappointment fast.
'Why the hell would you sell that.'
Leaning against the armrest of the sofa, Tae-jun swiped across his phone screen.
Novagen's return on his brokerage app was still climbing.
Once tomorrow's announcement dropped, it was set to jump even higher.
"Chicken out and you lose."
Tae-jun muttered it, then lifted his glass and tossed back the last of his drink.
Maybe this Park Ji-hun guy had a real gift when it came to people's lives.
But numbers were a different matter.
This time, he was the one who was right.
At least, that was what Kim Tae-jun believed.
***
The moment the U.S. market opened, Novagen shot up.
The numbers ticked up a notch, then another, and the gains widened fast.
The community heated up right away.
Anticipation over the trial announcement, tip sheets calling it a lock, talk that this time it was the real deal, it all poured in real time.
Kim Tae-jun lounged sideways on the sofa, looking down at his phone screen.
Novagen's chart was stretching cleanly upward.
Just then, messages came up in the chat.
-agei : this is jumping way too much?
-agei : did I sell for nothing fk
-SilentRoom : ay he told you not to look back
-agei : ugh but still
-SseomyeonMaster : can't tell til the main session closes
Kim Tae-jun smirked.
"That's what you get for chickening out and dumping it."
He swiped up the screen once with his thumb.
Novagen was still strong.
The market, the mood, the numbers, all of it was on his side.
The words Park Ji-hun had said on the stream a little earlier flickered through his mind.
"All I smell is a rotting corpse."
Tae-jun sneered and sniffed at the air.
All he could smell was the thick scent of money.
"That's all you've got?"
***
It was late morning.
Kim Tae-jun tossed his stiff, sluggish body around before finally cracking his eyes open.
Last night's liquor hadn't fully worn off, and his head throbbed dully.
He reached out and picked up his phone.
The second the lock screen lit up, his brow tightened.
Several missed calls were logged.
All from the same number.
[Uncle]
Below them, texts had come in too.
[Tae-jun, you need to dump Novagen right now.]
[You're not still holding it, are you?]
[Pick up the phone. Hurry!]
Kim Tae-jun frowned.
"What's this."
With sleep-clumsy hands, he opened the brokerage app.
And froze.
Novagen Therapeutics.
The graph that had been climbing just yesterday was slammed down to the floor.
The numbers were so brutal he couldn't take them in all at once.
This wasn't cut in half.
It had turned to scrap paper.
Kim Tae-jun slowly sat up.
"......What the hell."
He opened the news app right away.
Breaking headlines were stacked one after another.
-[Breaking] Novagen Therapeutics fails Phase 3 Clinical Trial.
-Novagen Therapeutics: signs of falsified key data come to light.
In that instant, his mind went cold.
His brother's fund had bought in first.
There'd been word straight from the CFO line.
They'd said the numbers were fine, that only the announcement was left.
And yet.
It was all wrong.
No.
It wasn't that he'd been wrong, he'd been conned.
Kim Tae-jun stared down at the screen for a long while.
What surfaced before the losses was a different face.
An expressionless face.
A low, dry voice.
"All I smell is a rotting corpse."
"Because this isn't a game that ends in joy."
Kim Tae-jun muttered to himself.
"......My God."
He swiped the news window away and opened the streaming app again.
PerpetualJobSeeker's stream had ended long ago.
Kim Tae-jun gazed down at the screen for a long moment, then murmured.
"My turn was......five days out, wasn't it?"