The university library was a sanctuary of silence, a labyrinth of towering wooden shelves that smelled of decaying paper, floor wax, and the quiet desperation of a thousand students. In 2004, the internet was a slow, sputtering tool, and the true secrets of power were still buried in the physical pages of heavy, leather-bound volumes. I found a desk in the deepest corner of the third floor, tucked away in the shadows where the light from the narrow windows barely reached the floor.
I wasn't here to study for the upcoming midterms. I was here to map out the legal architecture of a ghost.
My fingers traced the spine of a thick volume on international maritime trade and offshore jurisdictions. To build an empire that could survive the coming storms, I couldn't simply be a student with a lucky brokerage account. I needed a shield. A shell company—an entity that existed in the digital ether of Singapore or the Cayman Islands—that could hold my assets while my physical self remained a penniless student living in a three-square-meter room.
I was deep into a chapter on the "Double Irish" tax loophole when a shadow fell across my desk. I didn't look up immediately. I knew the scent—a faint, crisp note of citrus and expensive floral soap that didn't belong in this dusty tomb of books.
"You're the talk of the faculty lounge, you know," a cool, melodic voice said.
I finally looked up. Choi Yuna was standing there, her arms crossed over a stack of high-level law journals. In my past life, she had been a sun I couldn't even look at—the daughter of a legendary legal dynasty, a woman destined for the Blue House. Now, seeing her through the eyes of a man who had already seen her future success, she just looked like a brilliant, lonely girl searching for a challenge.
"Professor Lee doesn't like being told how to manage his portfolio in front of a hundred students," she continued, her sharp eyes scanning the titles of the books scattered across my desk. Her brow furrowed as she read the spines: Offshore Holding Structures, Capital Gains Mitigation, Singaporean Corporate Law. "Freshmen usually struggle with basic supply and demand. You're researching how to hide money you don't even have yet, Han Jiwoo. Why?"
"Preparation is half the battle," I replied, my voice flat. I didn't want to be rude, but I couldn't afford her curiosity. Not yet. "If you wait until you have the money to learn how to keep it, you've already lost it."
Yuna pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down without an invitation. She watched me with a gaze that felt like a surgical laser. "You're different from the others. Most of the boys in the Economics Club are busy trying to look like their fathers. You look like a man who has already lost everything and decided he didn't like the feeling."
I felt a brief, sharp pang in my chest—a phantom echo of the rooftop wind. "Maybe I just have a vivid imagination."
"I don't think so," she whispered, leaning forward. "I saw your eyes in that lecture. You weren't predicting the market. You were remembering it."
I froze for a heartbeat, then slowly closed my book. I reached into the stack of journals she had brought and pulled out a thin, blue volume on 1998 Supreme Court precedents. I slid it across the table toward her.
"You're looking for the dissenting opinion on the Hanjin embezzlement case for your seminar paper, aren't you?" I asked. "It's on page 412. The majority ruling is standard, but the dissent outlines the exact loophole the chaebols used to restructure their debt during the IMF crisis. That's what your professor is actually looking for."
Yuna stared at the book, then at me. Her mouth opened slightly, but no words came out. I hadn't just given her the answer; I had given her the key to a door she hadn't even found yet.
"How did you—"
"I told you before, Yuna. I don't believe in luck," I said, standing up and sliding my chair back silently. I packed my bag, my movements methodical and cold. "And don't look too closely at me. You'll only find things that will make your life much more complicated than it needs to be."
I walked away, the sound of my footsteps echoing through the hollow aisles of the library. I could feel her gaze burning into my back, a mixture of fascination and fear. I needed a legal mind like hers for what was coming, but I couldn't let her in—not until I had enough armor to protect the secret of who I really was.
As I stepped out of the library and into the humid afternoon air, my flip-phone vibrated. A new alert from the brokerage. Samsung was up another two percent. The seed was growing, but the ground was already starting to shake. I headed toward the subway, my mind already drifting toward the next move on the board: the systematic isolation of Park Dohyeon.