Seeing Chung-seop sitting there open-mouthed, Seong-ho smiled and said, "What do you think, Assistant Manager Jo? Doesn't 50 billion seem about right?"

Chung-seop hurriedly gathered himself and answered. "50 billion is just right. Anything bigger than that runs a high chance of being hard to move. I'll divide it up sensibly and sell it off well."

Seong-ho smiled at Chung-seop, who'd caught his meaning.

He really does read between the lines.

When Seong-ho asked whether it was "about right," what he meant was whether Chung-seop could unwind it cleanly to hit the target. Fifty billion couldn't be liquidated all at once; it had to be broken across dates and matched to the bid prices, which meant clearing the whole position took anywhere from dozens to, at the high end, thousands of trades. Chung-seop had grasped that at once and answered that he'd handle the unwinding himself.

Around this time was when he left the company, wasn't it?

Seong-ho recalled the Chung-seop of that former life. After resigning from Ilhyeon Securities, Chung-seop had, with the help of a client he'd met while working there, founded an asset-management firm that posted high returns and rode word of mouth to become, in no time, one of the industry's most prominent. Having established himself that way, Chung-seop then acquired a securities firm that had come up for sale, setting foot into the very core of the establishment. Even after the acquisition his rise didn't stop; as the funds he launched posted high returns one after another, capital in the market came pouring rapidly into his firm, and Chung-seop, making good use of that concentration of money, drove his firm's ranking up fast in a short span.

The prodigy of the securities world.

For always producing outstanding returns through unfailingly accurate judgment in a stock market that could turn from moment to moment, people called Chung-seop the prodigy of the securities world.

Recalling Chung-seop's path in that former life, Seong-ho put a proposal to him. "Assistant Manager Jo."

"Yes, Director."

Still marveling open-mouthed, Chung-seop hurriedly answered the call.

In that former life Chung-seop had been…