Chapter 71

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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As graphics card production delays due to semiconductor shortages grew longer, significant impact fell on all companies making products with TSNC semiconductors, starting with graphics card companies.

Already Ampl and Quincom hurriedly ran to Kangsung Electronics and reached settlement through agreements, but Amvidia and AMC haven’t reached an agreement point yet.

And AMC, which was already staggering both inside and outside the company, went to the brink of delisting crisis as its stock price fell below $1.

“Thank you once again for rescuing our AMC, President.”

AMC, which was torn apart in all directions without overwhelming controlling shares, had 51% management rights taken by our Gwangwoon Group at bargain prices.

As the stock price really pierced the bottom and descended underground, we were able to completely control AMC with merely 500 billion won.

“Going forward, we’ll show everyone here what innovations our AMC will achieve through change.”

AMC’s CEO Lisa Su and all executives came to Korea.

They were essentially meeting the person holding their lives.

They seemed worried whether everyone’s heads would fly off like this.

“…”

But I had no such intention.

Especially CEO Lisa Su’s halo shone dazzlingly from her profile photo, didn’t it?

Meeting her directly, that radiance was tremendous.

‘..But not everyone is like that.’

The problem wasn’t Lisa Su, but the other executives.

Some executives showed good colors without major problems, but others had thick darkness draped over them. Quite seriously so.

‘Plus the businesses they’re trying to do are also half-mixed.’

They flew to Korea mainly to preserve their positions.

When the owner changes, it means the employees below get replaced.

They tried to show AMC’s vision to survive there.

But my intuition was telling me.

Except for a few businesses, the rest would be wasting money.

“Thank you for the long presentation.”

After obtaining information through AMC executives’ submitted proposals and presentations, I circled only what my intuition hit.

I also finished organizing the executives list.

I marked X on all executives whose facial features I couldn’t properly recognize due to darkness draped over them from earlier.

But I couldn’t reveal this where everyone is.

“Could only Representative Su stay and everyone else please step out briefly? I want to talk alone.”

As soon as those words fell, everyone left the meeting room.

Representative Lisa Su opened her mouth first with a somewhat tense face.

“Um.. President. I know well that I haven’t had notable achievements while holding the representative position for 3 years. But if you just trust me once, I’ll definitely show good results.”

She probably thought I was going to fire her.

“I trust you, Representative. You’ll definitely do well. So please continue to guard that position well going forward.”

“..!”

“I left only you because I wanted to give you this.”

It was the proposal and executives list I marked earlier.

After receiving it, Lisa Su’s pupils shook.

“Please focus only on the businesses I checked. And also please clean up the executives well, Representative.”

“Ah, yes. But the investment amount here..”

“First, the initial investment is $1 billion as written there. If you need additional funds, please tell me separately. I’ll support you after review.”

“No, no. This is plenty! You’re giving us 10 times the amount we wrote down.”

The $1 billion also wasn’t actually decided by me arbitrarily.

I just wrote down the amount my intuition hit.

“I look forward to working with you going forward, Representative.”

“Yes. I’ll do my very best to definitely bring this company back to normal.”

I shook hands with Representative Lisa Su.

The halo that sparkled behind her became even brighter, to the degree of being hard to open my eyes.

***

“…”

On the plane returning to headquarters, Lisa Su looked once more at the file Jeong Jin-ho handed over.

Exquisite.

So he was someone who knows this industry well.

Honestly, she was doubtful about the story that Gwangwoon Group would suddenly acquire AMC.

Why would a company completely unrelated to computers acquire AMC that’s all collapsing?

But after meeting President Jeong Jin-ho, that doubt was resolved.

She could tell just from looking at how he selected and included the businesses in the proposal.

New graphics card and CPU development, and technological cooperation with other companies.

Especially technological cooperation was the top priority task.

She heard Gwangwoon has a friendly relationship with Kangsung.

Perhaps she can expect technological cooperation with that Kangsung?

“Even $1 billion..”

Lisa Su had set the minimum investment.

Exactly $100 million.

Because if she asked for more, it seemed Gwangwoon’s side would refuse.

But it was needless worry.

President Jeong Jin-ho offered $1 billion, 10 times that amount, without questioning or investigating.

What exactly did he see in Lisa Su, what possibility did he see in AMC, to spend $1 billion?

“If there’s exactly one thing that bothers me, it’s this.”

She must fire all executives marked with X.

That was Jeong Jin-ho’s will.

The problem is among them are people playing key roles at AMC.

But she couldn’t oppose this.

How to say it.

President Jeong Jin-ho looks very gentle outwardly, but he had strong conviction in speaking or giving instructions.

And she felt she absolutely mustn’t try to break that.

That’s probably the charisma of an outstanding leader.

“I’ll be extremely busy as soon as I arrive.”

She has to cut people, and start business according to the proposal.

It seemed like it would be the most exciting days since becoming AMC’s CEO.

***

“What? All of them?”

“Yes. After returning from Korea, all the people we spread on our side got fired.”

Didn’t they say know your enemy and know yourself, then you can win a hundred battles?

To do that, you must fill the enemy camp with your people.

It was so before, now, and going forward there will be no better military strategy than this.

So even now many companies are spreading their people into enemy camps.

Amvidia was the same.

Planting people at the biggest competitor to monitor or interfere with what they’re plotting while protecting the company.

But all the people spread at AMC got fired on the same day at the same time.

“Where did the information leak from? Isn’t it strange that only our side’s people got fired without a single exception?”

Unless information leaks internally, it’s impossible to select and fire only Amvidia people.

Tony Huang questioned the executives, but even questioning them for a hundred days wouldn’t produce answers.

“Let’s talk about that again later.. So, when exactly will things normalize? If goods still haven’t gone over, when are we supposed to make graphics cards?”

Tony Huang banged the table and yelled at executives.

Normally he tries not to get angry, but now he absolutely couldn’t help it.

The AMC matter was also infuriating, and now logistics problems overlapped.

“Yes. The entire system is paralyzed so ships can’t move. Starting from raw materials we tried to send on our side, to goods received from other customers. Because all computer systems got tied up, Rusk also can’t do anything either way.”

They just needed to send logistics to Taiwan through Rusk company.

But right before that, a large-scale cyber attack exploded.

Moreover, among companies receiving cyber attacks, the place receiving the biggest damage happened to be Rusk.

“Can’t they just launch the ship? What exactly is the problem?”

“Because the computer system isn’t working, they can’t know whose goods should go where, or whose ownership it is, etc. So even trying to ship raw materials to Taiwan, they don’t know what should be delivered.”

Now modern society has everything set up as computer systems.

Because of this, when the central system gets hacked, even simple work can’t proceed.

“Then tell them to hurry and unlock it! I heard if they send a certain amount of money to those hackers in Bitcoin, they’ll unlock it?”

“Yes. Rusk’s side already gave all the money asked because they’re desperate. The problem is even after sending money, the hackers aren’t unlocking it.”

Actually various ransomware and viruses exist in the world.

But ransomware attacking simultaneously and on a large scale like this was the first time.

Plus there was a reason once caught by ransomware, it can’t be unlocked.

That’s exactly because this virus was developed by America’s National Security Agency, NSA.

“Is the US government sane? How can they let such dangerous things leak!”

NSA didn’t directly spread ransomware.

Some hacker organization attacked NSA and stole several tools inside, and one of them became exactly the core tool for this WannaCry ransomware.

Originally it was a weapon to be used in national warfare, but after passing to hackers’ hands, indiscriminate bombardment to the entire world started.

“It’s an attack tool exploiting Windows’ weakness, so prevention would’ve been possible if they consistently did security patches, but Rusk didn’t. Aren’t there many companies still using old Windows? Because they think just running is fine without caring much about security patches.”

The US government gave warnings that ransomware might leak and cause attacks.

Of course, they didn’t know it would become a large-scale attack to this degree either.

IT companies like Amvidia receive new security updates without fail whenever they come. Thanks to that, even when attacked, they didn’t suffer big damage.

However, old companies like Rusk are insensitive to security patches.

Because they’d never experienced large-scale attacks like this.

“Rusk can’t even estimate how much damage now. We should see at least billions of dollars flew away.”

If goods don’t arrive within promised time, they must pay penalty fees accordingly.

Though it’s damage from hacking, if they had done security updates well, damage wouldn’t have grown this large.

“Could Rusk possibly go bankrupt like this?”

“Yes. They tried to take pie from Gwangwoon Shipping, so they contracted various things somewhat recklessly. But now all that is about to be overturned, so just the penalty fees from that won’t be bearable.”

“Then what about raw materials? We should send them through another company, shouldn’t we?”

“That’s also not easy. China and Gwangwoon are dominating all major ports going to Taiwan, aren’t they? The problem is they’re demanding additional costs for shipping lines entering Taiwan. They pile on up to 5 to 10 times, or completely block entry to ports, so shipping companies also have no answer.”

How is such thuggish behavior possible?

China already obtained port business rights for major routes for the Belt and Road project.

The problem is Gwangwoon is mixed in here.

Also, China is frontally condemning Taiwan’s new regime and using all means to check Taiwan.

There shipping companies’ shrimp backs are bursting.

“Then there’s absolutely no way to send raw materials to Taiwan?”

“If it’s not raw materials entering TSNC, it’s possible. But if it’s raw materials entering TSNC, you’d have to pay 10 times or more the current transportation cost. Even then, because Rusk is the second largest in the world, enduring was possible, but other shipping companies absolutely can’t..”

The last hope, Rusk, collapsed.

Tony Huang’s eyes squeezed shut.

“This ransomware incident. Didn’t Gwangwoon and Kangsung conspire together?”

“Those two companies will probably refute saying absolutely not, but circumstantially it’s very suspicious. This happened right before loading raw materials fully onto Rusk’s side to send to Taiwan. Plus Gwangwoon opened a Bitcoin exchange too, didn’t they? Coincidentally the money hackers receive is Bitcoin.”

These crazy bastards.

You launched large-scale cyber terror so raw materials can’t cross to Taiwan?

While causing indiscriminate infection for smokescreen, they concentrated attacks on Rusk to completely paralyze the system.

“Since when did they prepare all this?”

Shipping market monopoly.

Port business rights domination through Belt and Road project with China.

It’s absolutely not something you can conceive in a day or two.

They worked on it slowly from the very bottom.

Without whales in the IT market including Tony Huang noticing at all.

Gwangwoon.

Those bastards designed and executed all this long ago.

Even to reorganize the semiconductor market!

As a result, production at numerous companies depending on TSNC including Amvidia already stopped.

Most terrifying is not knowing until when this chaos will continue.

“If it continues like this..”

Tony Huang rubbed his chilled nape.

He began feeling the blade someone was wielding had approached right before his nose.

***

Today was a historic day for Enflix.

“Wow. 100 million. Really tremendous. That so many people would use Enflix..”

Enflix subscribers breaking 100 million.

Even when hitting first jackpot with Strange Tales, the problem raised was exactly sustainability.

Because it’s a system where subscriptions renew once a month, there was concern that customers who finished watching Strange Tales would all leave as is.

So there was also quickly entering Strange Tales Season 2 production, but something to hold out before that completed was needed.

“That was exactly Paper Tower. I also never watched foreign dramas unless English, but this time even though it’s Spanish, I watched all night?”

Paper Tower, which hit another jackpot following Strange Tales.

Despite the limitation of being a non-English drama, it became a case proving that if the drama is just fun, language isn’t a problem.

“President. Enflix sent various goods from this time’s Strange Tales and Paper Tower. Also made and sent a trophy commemorating 100 million breakthrough.”

“…”

“Don’t tell me, President, you still haven’t watched those two..”

“I haven’t watched them.”

“Gasp.”

Is it that fun?

I really should set aside a day and watch sometime.

“Actually it seems sending these was an excuse. The real reason is probably this.”

Sure enough.

What Enflix sent was a list currently being filmed or in candidates.

“This time they wrote the list quite diversely. Since non-English dramas succeeded greatly, they wrote many drama lists related to that.”

Honestly finding good dramas by reading synopses is more bothersome work than expected, but when I see Enflix stock price rising sharply and dividends sent to our side, such thoughts completely disappear.

What might there be this time?

The moment I received the list Manager Seo handed over.

“..?!”

At the strong intuition hitting my entire body, I dropped the file.

“Oh. Sorry. My hand must have slipped.”

“Ah, no. I dropped it, why..”

Until now I’ve received various reports including Enflix, but this was the first time intuition hit to the degree bones shake like this.

Plus even after picking up the file again, my hands keep trembling enough to feel numb, driving me crazy.

What on earth is inside there?

“…”

I kept receiving the feeling of being electrocuted while barely turning the file pages.

Actually finding the guy wasn’t that difficult.

“..Mugunghwa Game?”

It was even a Korean drama.

“Our Gwangwoon is Enflix’s largest shareholder, isn’t it? So they seem to want to invest more in Korean dramas too. Looking at Mugunghwa Game, it’s been looking for investors since 2008. This received investment several times, and actually entered production then got overturned multiple times. Isn’t there a reason for such things?”

A so-called wandering work.

‘Estimated investment 30 billion won. Estimated production period 2-3 years.’

I tried lightly placing my hand on the work name Mugunghwa Game, which was shining to the degree the name wasn’t properly visible.

“!?”

Then at the dopamine storm hitting my entire body, I almost lost consciousness.