"Welcome. I'm Yoon Tae-young, Chairman of Samho Group."
The moment the chairman opened his mouth, thunderous applause erupted across the auditorium.
Aside from the thirty new hires seated up front, the rest were executives and department heads.
From their warm, confident gazes, Tae-young could tell—this applause was genuine trust, not obligation.
"Samho Group operates in electronics, capital, trading, apparel, chemicals, and finance.For the past five years, we've recruited new employees through a unified, group-wide process and assigned them to each division. Our previous intakes have shown top performance across all fields. I've been told this 30th class of new hires is even more exceptional. The competition ratio was seventeen to one."
The faces of the new employees in the front row brightened with pride.
"However, Samho Group's internship program is famously harsh."
It was true.
The near-zero turnover rate applied only to those who survived the internship.
Each year, ten to twenty percent dropped out before completion—and only the ones who endured became official Samho employees.
Once regularized, promotions and rewards were purely performance-based.
As a result, Samho was known for having numerous team leaders in their mid-thirties—young, yet proven capable.
"This year's 30th class will be placed in pairs. You'll be assigned to divisions with the heaviest workloads and the most complex tasks—departments that constantly face staff shortages. Be prepared for unplanned overtime and intense workloads."
The new hires' faces hardened with silent determination.
"You are our elite. To be worthy of that, you must withstand stress, deliver results under pressure, and grow from students into teammates who move toward shared goals within this organization. This will be a valuable experience in that transformation."
Tae-young looked down at the new hires staring up at him with tense lips and smiled faintly—an unreadable smile.
"And with that in mind…"
He drew in a deep breath, filling his diaphragm, and suddenly shouted:
"Hel-lo, hel-lo, hellooo!"
Cheers and applause exploded across the hall.
"17th class intake! Yoon! Tae! Young! Who am I?"
His voice, drawn from deep within his chest, reverberated through the auditorium.In response, the executives and department heads shouted back at full volume:
"Yoon! Tae! Young!"
Hearing his own name roar across the hall, he answered in kind, his voice booming from his core.
"My name is Yoon! Tae! Young! Chairman of Samho Group!"
The audience burst into laughter at the way he tacked on his title so dramatically.
"I'm honored to greet you all!"
The chairman's introduction felt like a tiger had seized the center of the stage with a single roar—utterly different from HR Manager Kim Junho's earlier attempt.
From the front row, Yoojin's heart pounded.
Could she truly leave behind the darkness of her past life and be reborn here as a new employee of Samho Group?
If that was what this ritual meant, she could shout that greeting ten times over.
Then a crooked voice slid into her ear.
"What the hell is this supposed to be?"
Startled, Yoojin turned.
Dongha was leaning back in his chair, his gaze rebellious, fixed on the chairman.
The sight made her uneasy.
They hadn't even made it through half a day of the official program, and he was already reacting negatively to company culture.
Is he just… bad at group life? Maybe too used to living as a dancer, without much social experience?
Yoojin didn't know that Dongha had completed his military service, led his own dance crew, and successfully collaborated with Samho Entertainment on multiple projects.
From her perspective, he was just her onboarding partner picking a fight with authority from day one.
Her palms began to sweat.
As his old middle school friend, Yoojin quietly decided to help guide him through the internship—keep him out of trouble.
"Wow! Chairman!"
To roaring applause, Chairman Yoon Tae-young stepped down from the stage.Watching him go, Yoojin leaned toward Dongha and whispered.
"Chairman Yoon really is amazing. So talented, so charismatic, and he actually seems kind, too. Don't you think?"
"So… that's your type?"
Dongha tilted his chin slightly, unimpressed.
Maybe he hated that whole shouty introduction.
But if this was part of company culture, then she figured, as long as they'd joined, they had to accept it.
"Yeah, I thought it was cool that he introduced himself personally. Totally my style."
"Ha."
Dongha met her gaze with disbelief and pressed his lips shut.
Counting both her past and present lives, Yoojin had already lived well over thirty-six years.
Dongha, on the other hand, was only twenty-one.
She'd been battered by countless disappointments and learned that sometimes it was easier to let things slide.
Maybe that was why his sharp edges seemed to her like those of a younger, naive kid—almost endearing.
After the chairman's speech, HR Manager Kim Junho announced that in the afternoon, each pair would tackle a problem-solving challenge.
Their performance would determine which affiliate or department drafted them.The lights dimmed, and a corporate history video began.
Watching it, Yoojin quietly reaffirmed her desire to join Samho Apparel.
The first chairman, the late Yoon Ho-seung, had been a fabric merchant who fled south during the Korean War.
He established a spinning mill in the Gyeongnam region and later founded Samho Apparel, which became a cornerstone of the group's growth.
The work would be tough, but Yoojin wanted to start from Samho's roots.
The thirty-minute video traced the company's rise through its three generations of leadership—founder Yoon Ho-seung, the late second chairman Yoon Jae-sang, and current chairman Yoon Tae-young.
It showed how Tae-young had used internal venture projects to test new businesses, then promoted the project leaders directly to team managers once their ideas proved viable.
Electronics, finance, trading, apparel, chemicals, credit cards—and now telecommunications, defense, space, and agriculture.
There was no field left untouched by Samho's reach.
Watching this relentless drive for innovation, Yoojin suddenly thought of Gangrim Group's heir, Choi Hyun-oh.
He had promised to give her five years.
Nearly six had passed, and he still hadn't appeared.
In her previous life, around this time, Choi Hyun-oh had been a fixture of the entertainment pages—a glamorous third-generation chaebol prince of Korea's cultural scene.
But in this life, he had left no trace at all.
Three years from now, his father, Chairman Choi Seung-jae, would die, and his mother, Hong In-hee, would inherit control.
With the memories of their past lives, how was Hyun-oh preparing for what was to come?
The thought of him sent a chill down Yoojin's spine.
Her body trembled before she could stop it.
Sensing the subtle movement, Dongha's gaze shifted naturally toward her.
In the end, Yoojin and Dongha were assigned as a team.
Her best friend from college, Jang Seohee, ended up paired with the man Dongha had silently forced out of the seat beside Yoojin earlier.
The pairs walked toward the cafeteria with awkward smiles, while the executives and team leaders watched from their seats, curiosity gleaming in their eyes.
Most of them were affiliate executives, department heads, or team managers.
Naturally, their attention gravitated toward the striking pair: Han Yoojin and Yoon Dongha.
Yoojin wore a relaxed-cut jacket and slacks, but her fine facial features, slender neck, and graceful proportions couldn't be hidden.
When she tucked her hair back and tied it low, the simple gesture radiated calm elegance—enough to make onlookers smile without realizing.
Dongha, with his sharply defined features and imposing frame, drew every gaze in the room like gravity.
"Damn, this year's intake is insane."
"Are they even real people?"
"They'd make perfect models for our PR campaign."
Yoojin was used to such attention.
She told herself it would fade and pretended not to notice.
Dongha, however, instinctively moved to walk ahead of her—blocking the line of sight from others.
"Pro Yoon Dongha."
A short man called out from afar, hurrying over.
"Oh, Director."
Still standing protectively in front of Yoojin, Dongha greeted him with a sheepish smile.The round-faced man looked up at him with pride.
"You nailed one idol project after another for Samho Entertainment, and now you've joined through open recruitment. Knew you were the real deal."
Yoojin's ears perked up.
She peeked around Dongha's back to see the man more clearly—short, chubby, and quick-tongued.
He was Director Jo Tae-jin from Spring Entertainment, the same man who had once tried to scout her near campus.
He blinked in surprise and pointed at her.
"Oh! You're that student from the other day!"
Only then did Yoojin realize—Spring Entertainment was a label under Samho Entertainment.
It wasn't unusual for a conglomerate to invest in smaller entertainment agencies as satellite labels, expanding their reach.
Spring Entertainment was one of those cases.