I Became the Youngest Daughter of a Chaebol Family-Chapter 50: Bubble Collapse (4)

Sunday, January 14th, 1990.

To celebrate the historic collapse of Japan’s bubble economy, I threw myself a modest little party.

“Hehe, making all this money feels great. I can even throw parties now, right? Don’t you think so, nanny?”

The source of this c𝓸ntent is freewebnøvel.coɱ.

My nanny, who still had no clue what kind of shady stuff I’d been up to, just looked at me with that worried gaze of hers. Honestly, if it weren’t for her, I might’ve still been living at Daehwa Securities.

I’d scooped up piles of cash from Japan’s crash, and now I was moving it into Eastern Europe... There was still so much left to do.

“Miss, do you know how much I’ve worried about you lately? You didn’t do anything weird, did you?”

“Nope! Totally, totally legal business, I swear!”

Uh-huh.

Technically, my short selling was all perfectly legal. I mean, sure, I bent a few rules here and there...

“....”

Si-hyun was giving me that look again, like she knew better.

“Hey, Si-hyun, want some cake?”

“...No, I’m fine. You always complain I’ll get fat whenever I eat something, but now, just this once—tch.”

She reluctantly took a bite, then stared longingly at the end of her fork.

– Nom nom.

I grinned and polished off the rest of the cake right in front of her, savoring every bite.

“Ahaha, our dear Si-hyun. You’re almost thirty, right?”

– Grit.

I could hear her teeth grinding.

“I’m still in my twenties...”

“Aw, come on. Nobody stays young forever.”

The nanny, who’d just turned thirty last year (Korean age), tried to comfort her with a smile—but yeah, that backfired.

“...I haven’t even been in a relationship yet. I really don’t want to get older.”

“Don’t worry! I’ll develop reverse aging tech for you someday.”

“Hah, thanks for saying that, at least.”

I was kinda serious, though.

The secret to hiding my immortality? Easy. Just make everyone else immortal too.

I’ll wait until around 2050, see how things go, and if nothing pans out, I’ll just freeze her in cryo-sleep. Anti-aging tech’s gotta be a thing in a hundred years, right?

“Miss, are you going out to work again tomorrow?”

The nanny hugged me from behind, running her fingers through my hair, concern etched in her face. A jolt ran through me.

‘Ugh...’

Seriously, the only person I let touch me like this is the nanny.

Feeling a little guilty, I gave her an awkward smile and nodded.

“Yeah... I guess so. But hey, I’ve been hanging out with Myrian a lot lately! Really, I swear.”

Total lie, obviously. Like I have time to play with Myrian when I’m drowning in work.

Ugh, I still have to do my winter break homework too.

What do I even write in my diary?

[Today I shorted the Nikkei. It was fun.]

...Yeah, maybe not.

***

Anyway, after enjoying the chaos of early January’s market crash, I was back at Daehwa Securities, getting my daily updates.

“How much did Alpha Fund make?”

“We’re at about $50 million now.”

Roughly 50 billion won... Nice.

“Alright, start closing out some of our derivative positions. The Nikkei’s gonna keep falling, so shift to long-term shorts.”

I don’t know when it’ll fall exactly. But I do know how long it’s gonna keep falling.

Which is why I wasn’t going to throw heavy leverage around or dive into complex derivatives. I’d just stick to clean, steady profits from shorting.

Basically, a regular cash machine.

“...What about the finance companies? They’re pretty upset.”

Oh, right. That.

“Give them an out. If they go whining to Uncle Jin-seok, it’ll be a pain. Sure, they’ve already taken losses, but offer them a chance to cut their losses.”

Daehwa Securities is my turf, so Yoo Jin-seok can’t interfere here, but I still need to keep Alpha Fund off his radar as much as possible.

“Doesn’t that go against the original plan?”

“It’s fine. When you offer them a choice... most of the time, they’ll still take the risk.”

See, the losses those finance companies have taken? They’re not even their losses. They’re debts the Japanese securities firms are supposed to pay back.

But if they pull out early, the loss is theirs alone. And from their point of view, they don’t actually believe those massive Japanese firms will collapse. The only risk they think they’re carrying is holding the debt for a bit longer.

Ha Joo-seong slowly nodded, understanding.

“True. It’s hard to imagine the Japanese stock market falling any further. You really are ruthless, ma’am.”

“Well... isn’t this whole game like that?”

I didn’t deny it.

The reason those finance companies would stick with a losing deal was because I ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ designed the contract to trap them like that.

That contract’s a bomb. Not one that explodes now—but one that grows over time, one I can detonate whenever I want.

Honestly, most of my money’s tied up in the U.S. and Europe. If I wanted to control Korean financial companies, this was the only way to do it.

Anyway.

“The more important thing is Eastern Europe. Si-hyun, did we get that company set up in West Germany?”

Turning to Si-hyun, who’d been running herself ragged lately, I asked. I’d been working all over Korea, Japan, the U.S., and Europe, and she’d been just as swamped keeping up with me.

“Oh, yes. We heard back recently. They’re scrambling in Poland to snatch up privatized companies.”

“Bring in some M&A experts under Alpha Fund’s name and have them work out of West Germany. Recruit some kids from Daehwa Investment Bank’s front office to assist. They’re not ready for the big leagues yet, but if they roll around in the mud, they’ll learn something.”

East Germany had merged with the West, so West German firms were swallowing up East German companies first.

To get in on that, we had to set up shop in West Germany early. No matter how much I made, it was just bleeding out again.

Good thing I’d made connections while tearing down the Berlin Wall.

My mind kept spinning, already prepping for the next phase.

“Alright, next up...”

.

.

.

“...So yeah. If you launder the money through Swiss banks, you end up with a squeaky-clean company.”

“Where do you learn this stuff?”

“Huh? Picked it up during that Europe trip. Remember that citizen we hired who could open an account in Switzerland?”

“...That’s what that was? I thought you just wanted to see the Alps...”

“Don’t you know I hate physical stuff? I don’t even like working.”

Si-hyun really doesn’t get it sometimes. That’s why I like her.

Smiling softly, I ran my fingers through her hair. It smelled nice, smooth.

“Which means, now I can finally take a break. Everything’s ready.”

Now...

All the pieces were in place.

All that’s left is to wait.

The money-making machine’s all built. Now I just have to turn it on and sit back.

***

After that,

Japan’s collapse wasn’t just fast—it was long.

What does that mean? Just look at the news.

[Bank of Japan... raises base interest rate to 4.00%]

[Ministry of Finance implements total cap on real estate loans. All new lending banned...]

[Japan raises base interest rate again, now at 4.50%]

[Overvalued Tokyo land prices plummet by nearly 30%... Investor panic spreads]

When an economy tanks hard, usually you can see the bottom at some point—but Japan? The bubble was so bloated, they were basically skydiving.

Without a parachute.

“Man, looking at this now, it’s just pathetic.”

I chuckled at the pile of newspapers. Japan’s government was completely screwing this up.

If the U.S. had copied Japan’s current policies during the subprime crisis—the 2008 global financial meltdown—they might not have just hit a depression or minor collapse. They might’ve gone straight to ruin.

‘Not that it matters. The U.S. learned from Japan’s mess.’

Can’t be helped. Japan was the first to walk a path no one else dared.

The biggest requirement for winning a Nobel in Economics? Not genius. Not achievements. Just a long life.

...Macroeconomics’ laboratory is the world. If I want my theories proven, I just have to wait until some country tries them out for me.

And right now, Japan was throwing its entire fate into being my experimental subject.

‘Ah-ha! When a giant company’s about to go under from too much debt, you have to prop it up, or everyone else collapses too!’

—To realize that, you first need a giant company to actually fail.

‘Sometimes you do need to deliberately slow down the economy to stop bubbles from forming!’

This fact, now common sense in the future, was written in the blood of countless people. And even though the U.S. saw Japan’s downfall, they still didn’t learn, needing to repeat the same lesson again.

By mid-1990...

Alpha Fund was projecting a 47% annual return. Even after funneling half of Japan’s profits into Eastern Europe.

And I? I’d made $150 million.

Not just assets under management—not Alpha Fund’s total profit. Cash. My cash.

Alpha Fund actually pulled in $2 billion, half of which went into Eastern Europe, leaving $1 billion.

Under our 2-20 hedge fund agreement, Ha Yeong-il got $200 million... and per our original deal, handed over three-quarters of that to me.

It was a little less than I’d hoped—but it was fine.

Unlike Black Monday, Japan’s collapse would drag on for years.