CHAPTER 204: CHAPTER 203. THE FINAL HARVEST

There was a reason why Sol and his team were hustling hard to edit the recording, send them out, and pay some gossip-based media to launch article attacks as bait before people even had their morning coffee: the stock market.

The plan was to reveal the participant list with proof before the stock market opened.

As expected, the entertainment companies housing the involved celebrities got hit the hardest. Their stock price was dropping even more severely than HS did when Mason’s case came up, making the boards look like a series of waterfalls. Some other companies also got hit when the children of their CEOs were caught in the bust, throwing the market into temporary chaos.

Unlike the ones that were part of the Circle, these companies did not have enough power to bury the case backed by the Chief Prosecutor or get rid of every circulating video out there. All they could do was try to douse the fire as much as they could by announcing a press conference and making a standard corporate apology statement.

It might work in a few days, but for now, their stock prices were still plummeting.

As someone with insider information, Austin was unethically capitalizing on this by buying some put options on those companies through different channels with different names to make it untraceable. The catch? He had been buying those before Sarah even gave the prosecutor’s name to Sol.

How could people accuse him of cheating--although he technically did--when he already had the option before any bust was even planned by the prosecution office?

Hell--even before the schedule and place were released to the participants?

And so, him dancing his way to the sitting room was understandable. He was even feeling okay about letting Hajin be the one ordering food--yes, even the healthy ones--as if nothing could dampen his mood that day.

Unlike the usual trade he made with Sarah’s money, this time the harvest was purely for himself.

"Got a lot?" Sarah asked while throwing a can of soda from the fridge for Austin. For herself, she made a cup of hot instant coffee that got Hajin grimacing again.

What a dramatic puppy.

"Well, I can’t target everyone involved, so it’s only a select few," Austin said while throwing himself into an armchair in front of Hajin, exhaling slowly in relief for the warm room. "But guess who got hit the hardest?"

"Henry’s parents’ company, right?" Sarah shrugged.

"Tsk," Austin clicked his tongue in disappointment because Sarah answered it correctly. He watched the girl sit beside Hajin--since Austin snatched her armchair--and pursed his lips. "Did you know already?"

Once again, Sarah just shrugged, pulling the blanket on Hajin’s lap to cover herself. Hajin wrapped his arm around her shoulder for added warmth while Austin looked at them with an amused expression.

Maybe he should start looking for a date himself.

"It’s not that hard to guess," Hajin chuckled. "The group providing the drugs is under Daesung, so the celebrities under the partner production company would get referred there if they are looking for some ’advance’ entertainment."

Austin tilted his head. "I thought celebrities usually hide this kind of thing from the company?"

"That’s what most companies and agencies want you to think," Sarah scoffed and added with a bitter, subdued anger. "In truth, they knew; sometimes they pushed the talents to use it to enhance creativity, or just to have some dirt on them. That way, they could control the talents better."

"Including telling them to go satisfy some perverted millionaires and politicians," Hajin added, stroking Sarah’s upper arm to soothe her.

She never forgot the poor rookies forced to entertain Daesung’s CEO inside that club room, and she still regretted the fact that she couldn’t do anything at that moment. Regretfully, she didn’t think anything would change much even after all of this.

Another company, another agency, another person might end up exploiting them again; another group would have a drug party again. These people would just lie low for a while and find a way to make it even more secretive and harder to crack. Hell--they might even try to make the drug-buster prosecutor on their side this time.

As much as she regretted it, however, Sarah knew she wasn’t a hero. She didn’t do it to change the sick system--she didn’t even know how to.

That was the bitter truth.

"How nasty," Austin remarked in disgust before gulping down his soda, as if trying to flush down the revulsion he felt in his body. As someone who had been living on an island far away, he wasn’t well-versed in anything regarding the dark side of showbiz.

"Talents are companies’ product, after all. They don’t want them to leave while the talents are still producing money, and will easily get rid of the talents that do not bring profit," Sarah said numbly. "Drug usage is a debilitating case for a celebrity’s career, after all."

"But at least some of those companies got shot down with this, right?" Austin raised his can. "Getting a whole ass scandal for the entire company after throwing Daesung under the bus...it probably feels like karma, huh?"

"Or they might think Daesung is trying to screw them over as payback," Hajin smirked. "They might be able to cook something in the land case if they’re together, but if they are attacking each other..."

Austin leaned back and spread his arms wide. "Ahh...isn’t it just sweet when our enemies attack each other?" he curled his eyes and smiled mischievously. "To think we get all of this from trying to catch your half-brother."

"Eh, I didn’t really target him in the first place," Sarah shrugged.

"Huh?"

"He’s a minor, so he won’t get anything but a warning. It’s easy for our family to say he was there without knowing what it was for."

"Huh..."

"But Sol told me that the people who enticed Jasper with the drugs were sent by Joseph," Sarah continued.

"Who made a request through a Daesung member," Hajin added.

Austin arched his brow. "So you made the plan because of that?"

"I don’t even have to look for the place myself," Sarah shrugged, smiling deeply. Even if it wasn’t for Andrew, Amber would have to find out where it was to target Jasper.

"Heh," Austin chuckled. Ah, indeed, it was a glorious day; the kind of day to eat a spread of junk food and get drunk.

Unfortunately for him, the one in charge of ordering dinner was Hajin, who was fed up with his princess’s new eating habit while he was grounded from even making his own coffee. Not only that, the bodyguard told him to get the food because he was a ’patient’, apparently--although Austin couldn’t see him in pain or discomfort at all.

But, well...the amount of money he got that day was enough to make him eat vegetables for a change.

Surprisingly, the food wasn’t so bad despite the lack of fried stuff or chilli pepper. Not a bad way to end the night.

"Now, we just wait for Logan’s team to reap your shares, aren’t we?" Austin said before leaving the hotel room to get to his own, leaving Sarah musing in the foyer.

"My shares, huh..."

With this scandal and the land dispute, there was no way the project could be continued. Even if Henry’s company could argue that they knew nothing about the falsified land deeds, the court could use the drug scandal to question the company’s eligibility to maintain their product--including the project they underwent.

But, well...the person Sarah appointed as her proxy already wrapped her finger around the other land owners and persuaded them to only sell the land to someone who could promise that they would turn the hill into a memorial place for the buried soldiers. Since there was no way the entertainment company was willing to do a non-commercial project, the dispute would never be settled.

And with incomplete ownership of the whole hills, they only had two choices: move the project somewhere else, or scrap it altogether.

Could they afford to search for a new site, though? Could they even afford to buy a new land?

"With a third of their talents engulfed in scandal?" Sarah smirked. "No way."

If they hadn’t blown their money to take care of the land dispute, they would have lost it all trying to pay the penalty for all the brand contracts broken due to their celebrities’ drug case.

"Exactly," Logan showed a rare smile while placing the briefcase he brought on the table. "And after the prosecutor found that Daesung was behind the drug party’s host, they had no choice but to give up."

Sarah glanced at the TV screen airing the news about the ongoing investigation into this huge drug case that had been shaking up the whole country. The ambitious prosecutor had found the trail leading to Daesung, as expected.

"With too many wars to fight on, they have to let go of the one they could," Sarah smiled as Hajin opened the briefcase for her to see.

There, finally, was the physical certificate for HS Stone’s shares that Henry’s company held and the ones Joseph entrusted to Daesung. Since they went through legal proceedings, they had been properly signed and registered in her name.

Not only that, Logan also brought another briefcase from Austin, who had been trading HS shares owned by other people with the shares of other companies that Sarah owned.

"They are yours now," Logan said.

"My shares," Sarah smiled and closed the briefcase again. "For now, anyway."