pappabearbooks Chapter 358 : The Goose That Lays Golden Eggs (16)
Chapter 358 : The Goose That Lays Golden Eggs (16)
“Choose one of the two options.................”
The corner of the CRISPR Medical CEO’s eye twitched.
He clearly didn’t want to go head-to-head with me.
However, he couldn’t just hear this and immediately say, “Understood, we’ll do as you say,” and lower his tail.
If he were the kind of CEO who collapsed at a single threat, he wouldn’t be in that position to begin with.
So while the CEO went silent for a moment, searching for a breakthrough—
Pierce cut in.
“You say you can guarantee the outcome....... How?”
It was an obvious attempt to buy time.
Anyone could see he was trying to give the CEO a moment to breathe.
Taking advantage of that window, the CEO responded quickly.
“You know why we’re aiming for December, don’t you?”
“Because of the opposition forces, I assume.”
“That’s right. We’re waiting for the moment the backlash temporarily quiets down............. but you’re saying you’ll move before then? The backlash will be at its peak.”
“That’s correct.”
“From a common-sense standpoint, this doesn’t make any sense............. Do you have a way to silence them? How exactly—”
“I’ll use money to bulldoze through.”
“Money?”
A strained smile passed across the CEO’s lips.
His expression made it clear he firmly believed anti-gene-editing groups would never be swayed by money.
“Forgive me, but that doesn’t sound like a legitimate method.”
“There’s nothing money can’t do. And if it doesn’t work, then either it was used the wrong way, or there wasn’t enough of it.”
His expression was still filled with doubt.
So I spelled it out again.
“Have you forgotten how I’ve won up until now?”
Looking at my track record answers everything.
The Ackman War, the China War, the AI War.
Every one of them was overturned using money in ways no one else had ever imagined.
This would be no different — that was the implication.
Only then did the faces of the two men turn pale as my words sank in.
“Well? What do you think?”
I pressed the CEO again.
He deliberated briefly, then shook his head.
“But...... this isn’t something I can decide alone. And besides, you’re asking us to abandon the safe route and choose a risky one without even knowing the details. That’s far too dangerous—”
“The safe route is already gone.”
Their plan to strike quietly in December.
If they refused to listen, I would expose everything — what “safe route” could possibly remain?
However.
Even after hearing that, the CEO still looked unconvinced.
“If you do that, won’t you be harmed too?”
He continued cautiously.
“If we falter, then the very goal you want to achieve through us will falter too.”
He wasn’t wrong.
My objective was to run the Castleman clinical trial through CRISPR Medical.
If they became the target of public outrage, the fire would inevitably spread to the Castleman trial they were conducting.
“If the goose that lays golden eggs refuses to listen, isn’t cutting it open the same as killing it?”
There was now a hint of confidence returning to the CEO’s tone.
He was sure no one would ever slit open a goose that laid golden eggs — and was trying to reopen negotiations from that assumption.
I smiled.
“Well, in Korea, there’s a saying. ‘If you can’t eat the persimmon, at least poke holes in it.’ There are people who, if they can’t have something themselves, will make it useless so no one else can have it either.”
If I can’t have it anyway, then no one else should have it.
A very reasonable and clever approach, wouldn’t you say?
A fine moment for the wisdom of our ancestors.
I looked straight at the CEO and said:
“Make your decision.”
“Right now...?”
“Yes. I don’t have the luxury of waiting any longer.”
If I left things alone, he’d just crawl back into his shell and drag his feet again.
I had to nail this down first.
“Whichever you choose, I’ll respect it. But I don’t make empty threats. If you choose not to cooperate, I will really proceed with the 13D filing.”
I made it clear once more that I genuinely meant it.
Yet despite all that, the CEO said this:
“I understand your position. But regarding this matter, we need to go back and discuss it first—”
This man thought I was bluffing.
He believed that even if he stalled for time, I would never actually cut open the goose.
People are like this.
Even when you tell them the truth, they don’t believe it.
Fine — then I’d just have to show him.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
I apologized to Taylor and picked up my phone.
Then I called Dobby.
“Execute.”
My ownership of CRISPR Medical was at 4.9%.
Filling the remaining 0.1% wasn’t hard.
The float wasn’t large, so the price would be a bit high — but it wasn’t as if I didn’t have money.
I smiled at the CEO.
“Well then, see you soon.”
And the next day—
Cure Fund’s 13D filing was released.
***
A 13D filing is accompanied by an open letter.
It’s a document where a major shareholder — one capable of influencing management — explains their plans and vision.
But in a control dispute, that letter is essentially a declaration of war and the first move in a public-opinion battle.
The framing Ha Si-heon designed went like this:
[Cure Fund believes CRISPR Medical’s current management is letting the greatest genomic revolution of our lifetime rot through incompetence. In an industry where first-mover advantage determines corporate value, the board’s silence is burning shareholder value.]
[While Editors and Intelligentia are sprinting at full speed, CRISPR Medical is floundering in the swamp of rotten bureaucracy, issuing meaningless press releases. While competitors write history, these people are busy drafting excuses.]
It was a direct strike at CRISPR Medical’s sluggish performance.
But the tone was noticeably harsh.
Cutting criticism.
His letter intentionally used words like “incompetent,” “rotten,” and “floundering.”
It was a dual strategy — provoking the management's pride to make them slip, while triggering anxiety among shareholders.
Ha Si-heon went even further, attacking their regional limitations.
[CRISPR Medical is excessively dependent on the European market and is missing global opportunities. While gene-therapy markets explode in the U.S. and Asia, they remain trapped in Europe’s regulatory maze.]
[Innovation suffocates in continents addicted to self-censorship. Management must choose — will you lead the future of medicine, or become a footnote in medical history?]
Every line was laced with venom.
But this was also a tactic beloved by famous activist investors.
Provocative language attracts attention — and attention wins public-opinion battles.
Ha Si-heon didn’t stop there.
He went on various broadcasts delivering even stronger lines.
[I’m not here to watch fake innovators put on a play. I’m here to pull CRISPR — a Nobel-worthy discovery — out of the grave dug by an incompetent board.]
[I will not stand by while the future of medicine rots in a waiting room full of cowards. I’ll break the door down myself and drag it out.]
The effect was immediate.
The media went wild.
His remarks dominated headlines.
Inside CRISPR Medical’s boardroom, chaos erupted.
“He really filed it.”
“H-He’s insane. I didn’t think he’d actually do it.”
Their feet were now on fire.
Their plans for quiet, covert movement had been completely overturned.
But at the same time—
There was a sense of relief.
“At least he didn’t touch the December plan.”
“Guess he doesn’t have the guts to go that far after all.”
The threat was just a threat — he didn’t have the courage to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
“What if he’s saving it to drop later? As a last resort...?”
“No. Ha Si-heon isn’t the type to hide a winning card. It’s more likely he didn’t mention it because he lacked the evidence to support it.”
The December clinical-trial plan—
Ha Si-heon had a pretty good idea where that information had come from.
The supplier network.
But if Ha Si-heon, who was a board member of that supplier, were to expose it? Then the label of “internal leak” would be branded on him.
It would be a fatal blow to his credibility.
And once branded that way, who would ever want to do business with him again?
That was why he clearly couldn’t speak up.
“Our plan hasn’t been exposed yet. We can still proceed. No—now that things have come to this, the best move is to end the fight quickly.”
Their calculation was to bury everything before December.
They couldn’t avoid the storm anyway.
But if the storm passed quickly?
There was a chance people might loosen up instead.
Then they could announce the clinical trial when no one was expecting it.
“There’s only one thing for us to do. Put out this fire as quickly as possible.”
The management launched an immediate counterattack.
They began firing back at Ha Si-heon.
[CRISPR Medical has been dedicated to the responsible development of gene therapies. The potential of this technology requires careful scientific validation and ethical consideration. It is not a tool for satisfying Wall Street’s short-term desires.]
[We are building the future of medicine. Ha Si-heon is nothing more than a speculator chasing money.]
The key point was that Ha Si-heon was a “finance guy.”
Not a scientific expert—just a profit-driven gambler.
CRISPR Medical branded him with that label and went further, questioning his motives.
[We acknowledge Mr. Ha Si-heon’s interest in rare diseases. However, it troubles us that it stems from deeply personal emotions.]
[His relationship with Talia seems to have created an irrational obsession with Castleman disease. While his passion is understandable, corporate management is not a vehicle for emotional healing.]
They portrayed him as someone ruled by emotion.
Someone who irresponsibly wastes investors’ money out of personal desire.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they whispered a far more explicit message to key shareholders.
“Ha Si-heon doesn’t care about science or profits. All he wants is to leave his name behind. And if not that, he wants to build a memorial for a dead child.”
“Do you know what proves he’s completely lost objectivity? He isn’t even considering profitability.”
For shareholders, the most important thing was ultimately money.
And Ha Si-heon didn’t seem to care about profit at all.
Management presented what they claimed was evidence.
They rolled out every statistic available, emphasizing the rarity of Castleman disease and the lack of a market.
They repeatedly hammered on numbers showing negative returns.
“The development cost per patient for Castleman is astronomical. And there’s zero chance of insurance reimbursement.”
“Helping rare-disease patients is admirable, but we’re supposed to work for ten million people, not a thousand. Our job is to create real medicine, not PR projects.”
Profitability was Ha Si-heon’s Achilles’ heel.
But then—he launched an unexpected counterattack.
[Saying Castleman isn’t profitable is short-sighted. In terms of immediate revenue, perhaps. But technically, it will be the most profitable proof-of-concept imaginable.]
[Single-target CRISPR has obvious limits. Every new mutation requires a new therapy. But Castleman is different. It’s a model for network-level immune regulation.]
[What happens if we succeed once? We can apply cytokine-interaction editing to autoimmune diseases like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and Crohn’s. We can control CAR-T side effects or cytokine storms. We can even modulate the tumor microenvironment.]
[This is true platform technology. Castleman disease isn’t the end—it’s the beginning.]
In other words, “create a whole family of Netflix shows from one hit.”
One technology that could become a master key for all inflammatory diseases. A market worth trillions.
Ha Si-heon continued highlighting Castleman’s advantages.
[The biggest bottleneck in clinical trials is patient recruitment. But Castleman is different. Despite being rare, the patient network is strong and well organized. This means we can start the trial immediately.]
Patient recruitment was the hardest part of clinical trials.
But David’s Castleman foundation already had patients lined up.
Time and cost would be drastically reduced.
And if this technology applied to inflammatory diseases across the board?
[If you broaden your perspective, the picture changes completely. It’s the management—too afraid to even try—that is destroying CRISPR Medical.]
In response, the original inventor of CRISPR stepped forward.
[The “system conquest” Ha Si-heon speaks of is fantasy. A storm does not stop just because you slice off one cloud.]
[Using CRISPR on Castleman is applying an unproven tool to a disease so rare that statistical validation isn’t even possible. CRISPR should be the last resort, not the first option.]
[We created CRISPR to read and repair genetic sentences. Not to rewrite the entire grammar of the immune system.]
Once the debate moved into technical territory, shareholders had no way to judge the arguments. In such cases, people default to authority.
A Nobel Prize frontrunner vs. a finance guy.
The outcome was obvious.
The battle was fierce, but momentum was shifting.
And around that time—
At the Pareto Innovation office, Ha Si-heon hummed to himself as he rolled a die between his fingers.
It was finally time to make his next move.