Chapter 20: The Unseen Alliance
Chapter 20: The Unseen Alliance
The success in Paris triggered an immediate expansion. The foundation received over a hundred applications from European agricultural cooperatives wanting to integrate into the Brooks-Kang safety network. However, rapid growth brought a new set of challenges to their doorstep.
Back in Seoul, Audrey uncovered an anomaly in their domestic distribution branches. A sudden, massive influx of anonymous capital was buying up the land adjacent to their primary partner farms in the northern valley.
"Someone is trying to hem us in," Audrey explained during a strategy meeting. "They aren't attacking our foundation directly anymore. Instead, they are buying the surrounding agricultural land to cut off our physical expansion and contaminate our water tables with industrial pesticide runoff from neighboring fields."
Jae-min’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the land registry map. "It’s a corporate strangulation tactic. If our partner farms are surrounded by chemically treated soil, our organic certification will be compromised by environmental drift."
"Who is funding the land acquisitions?" Naomi asked, her voice calm but dangerously sharp.
Audrey pulled up a complex corporate tree. "The funds are coming through a newly formed domestic consortium called Nova Harvest. But look at the legal council representing them."
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Naomi looked at the screen. The name printed at the bottom of the legal brief was a ghost from her past: the law firm formerly retained by Helen Park.
"The empire is dead, but the vultures are still hungry," Naomi murmured. "They think they can starve us out from the edges."
