Chapter 277. Shareholders’ Meeting (5)

Knock, knock—

Ji-Eun stepped in after a light knock, greeting Eun-Ho briefly before handing over the report. “The inauguration ceremony has been postponed until next week. Here. This is the updated event schedule.”

Revised Inauguration Ceremony Plan

“The schedule got thrown off, so everyone’s probably going through twice the trouble now. Please make sure to reassure them,” Eun-Ho said.

“Hm?Oh, not at all.” She smiled brightly. “They’re actually happy they have more time to prepare.”

“Pardon?”

He had added the comment out of guilt, but Ji-Eun simply beamed and began jotting things down in her notebook. “Whew, I was worried the timeline was too tight, so this is a relief. Don’t you think so?”

“Oh, is that so?” he replied hesitantly.

It was just an event where he would stand on stage and say a few words. What exactly were they preparing that made them react like students who had just been told an exam was postponed?

“What are they even doing?” he muttered.

“Well, with five extra days, we can review more hairstyle and makeup design samples, and also refine the stage setup—oh, Eun-Ho, did you say something?” she asked.

“No, it’s nothing,” he said quickly.

It seems better not to ask...

For some reason, it felt safer that way.

[Special order Hold an Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting has been activated!]

- Send notice of meeting(Complete)

Eun-Ho glancing at the trial status. “More importantly, what’s the situation with the shareholders?”

As if on cue, Ji-Eun handed him a second report. “If you look at the financial statements from the accounting team, you’ll see that the investment amounts are quite significant.”

He read between the lines and the investments weren’t just significant. “They’re large enough to influence a change in leadership, aren’t they?”

Her fingers tightened around the edge of the report. “In theory, yes.”

It was clear she resented the sudden appearance of these shareholders, trying to meddle in a company he had risked his life to claim.

“In principle, changing the company’s representative requires a resolution from the shareholders’ meeting,” she added.

That meant Eun-Ho required their approval.

“And the former chairman didn’t have to deal with that, since he was the largest shareholder himself,” Eun-Ho said.

But I’m not.

In other words, he was currently a representative who hadn’t gone through proper procedures.

“What are the conditions for the resolution?”

Ji-Eun flipped through the report. “Well, according to the documents...”

The requirements were straightforward. To officially take the chairman’s position, more than half of the shareholders present at the meeting had to agree, and at least one-quarter of the total voting rights had to be in favor.

“I guess the conditions themselves aren’t particularly difficult,” Eun-Ho said.

“No, but if they’re coming out this confidently—”

“Then they’ve already come to an agreement among themselves.”

She bit her lower lip. “Why would they even do such a thing?” 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

They had stayed silent all this time, only to show up and demand a qualification review. There had to be a reason. Either they had someone else in mind to install in his place, or demand something in exchange for allowing him to take the position.

Neither is going to happen.

“First, we need to assess the situation,” Eun-Ho said calmly. “What about the shareholder list?”

“Oh, just a moment.” Matching his composure, she steadied herself and handed over another document. “Here. This is the shareholder registry, along with a summary based on the meeting notices.”

“Let’s see. The largest shareholder is...”

At the very top of the list was a name he knew all too well.

1. The Undying - 51.9%

“The former chairman?” Eun-Ho said.

“Yeah, just like you predicted,” Ji-Eun replied quietly. “It seems he’s not dead after all.”

“I suspected as much.”

After the dragon’s corpse had disappeared, some employees had reported seeing red smoke rising from the ground. Because of that, they had sealed the area with specially treated cement and placed it under constant surveillance, twenty-four hours a day.

So he neither escaped, revived, or truly died?

At that point, the name the Undying felt less like a title and more like a curse.

“The former chairman holds over fifty percent of the voting shares,” Ji-Eun said.

“If we can transfer those shares, it’s over,” Eun-Ho replied.

The chairman’s shares alone would resolve everything at the shareholders’ meeting.

“Have you confirmed the transfer procedure?”

“I did and it’s possible, but we need a transfer agreement and the stock certificate. ” Ji-Eun nodded, hesitating. She frowned slightly, her expression troubled as she explained carefully, “The agreement itself, we can probably manage by having the operations director act as a proxy, but the certificate is the problem.”

“You mean a physical certificate?”

“Yes. Apparently, it’s an actual paper document.”

After the rebellion, they had thoroughly searched the chairman’s office, but nothing like a stock certificate had turned up.

“Should we break the cement again?” Ji-Eun asked cautiously.

She meant digging up the former chairman and forcing the answer out of him.

“He won’t help us,” Eun-Ho said flatly.

“I thought so. And if we bring him out, he might just escape.”

“We’ll keep that as a last resort.”

She frowned slightly, but nodded in agreement.

“What about the rest?” he asked.

“There are ten major shareholders holding at least one percent each. Excluding the former chairman, that makes nine.”

She handed over the list.

2. Ruler of the Western Heavens - 11.5%

3. Master of the Snowy Mountains - 10.8%

4. Black Fan Martial Emperor - 6.0%

5. Crescent Scythe - 5.2%

...

10. King of the Underworld - 1.0%

“I’ve listed their locations below,” Ji-Eun said.

“Good work. So, to summarize...”

They had two options. Either find the chairman’s stock certificate and transfer the shares, or track down the shareholders and persuade them.

“The first option would be cleaner,” he said.

“Exactly,” Ji-Eun agreed.

If the shareholders kept interfering every time something important happened, it would become a constant headache.

“The problem is where to find it,” Eun-Ho muttered.

They had already searched the chairman’s office thoroughly while moving everything out, but there had been nothing.

“Do you have any idea where it might be?” Ji-Eun asked.

If not, then there was only one place left.

“I’ll go take another look,” he said.

“Right now? Ah, okay!” she replied quickly.

Leaving urgent tasks in Ji-Eun’s hands, Eun-Ho returned to the treasure vault.

[Moving to the Primordial Vault!]

Eun-Ho went through everything, including every drawer and every piece of furniture. He even pried up the wooden floorboards in case something had been hidden beneath.

Nothing.

He combed through the final hut, the one that had contained the chairman’s diary, more thoroughly than anywhere else. Still, there wasn’t even a single document, let alone a certificate.

If it wasn’t in the chairman’s office or here, the only option left was to tear apart the entire company grounds.

This is tricky.

If brute force would solve it, he would have already done so. However, this didn’t feel like something he could find by searching blindly.

As he stood there, deep in thought, a long-awaited message arrived.

Ayasa: I’ll be there in two hours.

Ayasa: When should we meet?

Eun-Ho had sent Ayasa and the Crow out on a separate task. It seemed they had only just completed it and were returning.

Lee Eun-Ho: I’m a bit busy right now.

He paused mid-typing. Instead of brushing them off, he changed his message.

Lee Eun-Ho: There’s something else I’d like you to look into.

Ayasa: What is it?

If there are no teeth, you chew with your gums.

If Eun-Ho couldn’t secure the shares, then he would deal with the shareholders themselves.

***

It was 7:00 PM, and the reunited trio hadn’t changed at all.

“Hey my friend! So you really pulled it off!” the crow cawed excitedly.

“Yeah, I did.” Eun-Ho smirked. “But you look like you’ve lost some feathers. Rough trip?”

“Ahem! What nonsense! A true warrior wouldn’t tire from something like that! And my feathers are in perfect condition! What are you talking about?”

Eun-Ho pointed at the bird. “Really? Looks a bit thin here... and here... and here.”

Crow squawked indignantly, flapping its wings. “T-that’s impossible! My friend, you’ve gotten quite the sense of humor since I last saw you!”

“Ah. I might’ve plucked a few while riding it. Sorry,” Ayasa said casually.

“Ayasa, you wretch!” screeched the crow.

“Maybe if you flew properly, I wouldn’t have had to. You were shaking so much. What, you expected me not to grab something?”

“What are you saying?! My flying skills are unmatched in the entire universe!”

Ayasa, as always, lit up a cigarette. “Ugh, this guy’s the reason we’re late. Every time he enlarged himself, he made a whole scene about it.”

“A scene? A scene?!”

“It’s fine,” Eun-Ho cut in with a small laugh. “The fight ended well.”

“Yeah, though I didn’t expect you to charge in like a lunatic right away,” said Ayasa.

“The situation called for it.”

The constant stream of smoke made his throat itch, but he wasn’t in any position to complain.

“I owe a lot to those cigarettes,” he admitted.

“Good quality, right? Handmade,” Ayasa said proudly.

“They were definitely effective.”

Without them, Eun-Ho would never have been able to finish off the former chairman, who kept regenerating endlessly.

At his acknowledgment, Ayasa’s eyes lit up with curiosity, asking rapidly, “How was the duration? The effects? Any side effects?”

Is she collecting data or something?

She really was like a researcher.

“If you give me a few more, I can gather detailed data under different conditions,” Eun-Ho said.

“Are you trying to scam me?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he replied smoothly.

“You’re going to make a great chairman. You’ve got the perfect personality for it,” she said dryly.

“Thank you.”

Ayasa clicked her tongue but still opened her pouch. She handed over two more sticks of Vitality Tobacco, and only then did they move on to the main topic.

“Just like you said. The shareholders have started moving,” said Ayasa.

Eun-Ho had asked her to check on them while she was on her way back.

“They’re holding a strategy meeting tonight at nine. The major shareholders only.”

“Who’s leading it?” Eun-Ho asked.

“Probably one of the top three shareholders.”

“The top three?” he murmured.

The list surfaced in his mind.

1. The Undying - 51.9%

2. Ruler of the Western Heavens - 11.5%

3. Master of the Snowy Mountains - 10.8%

4. Black Fan Martial Emperor - 6.0%

5. Crescent Scythe - 5.2%

...

10. King of the Underworld - 1.0%

According to Ayasa, that figure holding 10.8% was effectively acting as the leader among the shareholders.

“The Master of the Snowy Mountains,” Eun-Ho said quietly.

“I don’t know what they’re planning,” she continued, her tone unusually certain, “but they won’t be easy to persuade.”

“Why do you say that?” Eun-Ho asked.

She hesitated for a moment before answering, “Shareholders don’t usually step forward like this. It means they had a strong relationship with the former chairman.”

In other words, the ones controlling the company from behind the scenes had been firmly on the former chairman’s side.

“They’ll try to make you dance to their tune,” Ayasa said.

“Or replace me with someone who suits their interests,” Eun-Ho said calmly.

It also meant something else. The shareholders bore a large share of the blame regarding the current state of the company. In that case, they were bound to clash again and again. After all, the company Eun-Ho intended to build would never align with the likes of them.

In the end, I need to secure the shares myself.

Simply passing the candidate verification and becoming chairman was no longer the finish line.

“How dare they target my friend!” the Crow cried out.

While Eun-Ho sank into thought, the bird flew circles under the lights, screeching nonstop.

“In all my years, I’ve never seen shareholders step forward like this!” the Crow shouted.

“Hey, calm down! You’re shedding feathers everywhere!” Ayasa snapped.

“And now they dare try to replace my friend?!”

“Hey!”

At one point, loose feathers drifted into Ayasa’s cigarette and began to smolder, releasing thin trails of smoke.

Eun-Ho quickly stepped in. “Did you bring the materials I asked for?”

With an annoyed expression, Ayasa flicked a black feather off her shoulder, and handed over a document. “Here.”

The title was blank, but he already knew what it was.

“It’s information on the arena. And you were right. The arena was built by the chairman himself. Looks like he put a lot of effort into it.”

“I thought so,” Eun-Ho said quietly.

The arena had supposedly been created and managed by the personnel director. However, its scale had always been far too large to be just one executive’s private scheme.

“It was originally built a long time ago. Then during the personnel director’s time, they remodeled a whole planet and expanded it into a business.”

A single planet was repurposed and tens of thousands of spectators gathered at once. Of course the chairman had been involved.

“You were planning to use this against him, weren’t you?” Ayasa asked.

“I was,” Eun-Ho replied.

If the chairman hadn’t suddenly suspended him, this would have been his go-to. He had intended to sway public opinion with titles like “The Reality of the Arena” or “Where Those Who Defied the Chairman Disappeared.”

“But now it’s useless, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I thought too,” Eun-Ho said.

But it’s not.

“I need to find the certificate the former chairman hid,” he added.

Ayasa scoffed. “What is that? You sound like some private investigator.”

“Then at least call me a detective,” he replied lightly.

Eun-Ho flipped through the document. The first page showed a scene he had already witnessed before. It was a colosseum-like arena, with countless floating Eyes in the sky and spectators cheering wildly as people tore each other apart.

“It’s a land that was abandoned long ago,” Ayasa explained.

“Abandoned?”

“The only living beings there are the arena’s slaves, the administrators, and the spectators.”

“So abandoned people, gathering in an abandoned land, forced to fight.”

It fit perfectly. It was a desolate land covered in dry, crumbling red sand, with not a trace of moisture. Remnants of dried-up rivers, broken ruins of buildings littered the place, as if civilization had once existed there. The entire place resembled a dead world, like a ruined Mars.

The soil being red probably makes it feel that way even more... Wait. Red soil?

Eun-Ho had heard that phrase somewhere before. At that moment, a series of lines flashed through his mind.

The Crow fluttered over and landed against him. “What is it, my friend?”

Without answering, Eun-Ho gently stroked its feathers. As the uneven plumage slowly settled under his touch, his thoughts began to organize themselves as well.

“Well, Detective? Did something click?” Ayasa asked.

The puzzle pieces began falling into place. Every clue pointed to a single location.

“I know where the certificate is,” Eun-Ho said at last.