A Wall Street Genius’s Final Investment Playbook

Chapter 334 : Talia (4)

Our Russian Roulette system runs on strict division of labor.

I handle “treatment development” and “fundraising.”

David and Jesse take care of “patient recruitment” and “hospital network infrastructure.”

And Rachel manages “patient care.”

In this structure, I’m the one who stays behind the scenes.

Meeting patients face-to-face has always been David, Jesse, or Rachel’s role.

So then—why me, of all people?

“She want to talk to me… alone? Why exactly…”

“I’m not sure of the details either…”

David shrugged as he trailed off, and beside him, Jesse spoke up cautiously.

“Well… she says she’s a fan of Sean, at least…”

“!?”

I couldn’t hide my confusion.

At a moment hanging between life and death, that was the last thing I expected to hear.

Then, the middle-aged woman standing next to Jesse joined in.

“It’s not just a fan… she’s an avid fan.”

It was the patient’s mother.

With a sigh, she continued.

“She prints posters of Sean and hangs them in her room. She even watches economic news religiously now—really, the kind she never cared about before…”

Well, I guess it wasn’t impossible.

I’m not a celebrity, but I am well-known.

And there are plenty of memes about me too—apparently I have a decent level of name recognition among teens and people in their early twenties, especially for someone in finance.

But still.

“At a time like this…?”

At a crossroads between life and death, she wouldn’t ask for a private meeting just because she’s a fan… right?

Her mother gave a bittersweet smile and answered the question I didn’t fully voice.

“My daughter… lacks a bit of a sense of reality. You’ll understand once you meet her.”

David and Jesse nodded in agreement.

But—

“No.”

Rachel cut them off firmly.

She met my eyes, serious.

“She has something important to say. Something she can only say to Sean.”

It sounded like Rachel knew the intent behind the request, but didn’t want to reveal it in front of the others.

Either way.

We couldn’t stay standing in the hallway forever.

I stepped forward and entered the room.

Even as I closed the door, something felt strange.

‘Now that I think about it… this is the first time I’m meeting a patient alone.’

I’d met patients before, but always with David or Rachel present.

Without them, it felt like a buffer had suddenly disappeared.

A faint sense of unease settled in—

“Huh—Sean?!”

A young voice gasped.

The girl on the hospital bed shot upright, eyes sparkling as she stared at me.

This must be Talia.

I expected her to look much younger since she’s a minor, but at first glance, she could pass for a college student.

“Oh my gosh, it’s really you! I’m, like, a huge fan!”

She was genuinely thrilled that I had come.

I smiled lightly and walked closer.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Sean.”

“Talia! This is real, right? Not a dream?”

As we exchanged greetings, I discreetly assessed her condition.

I already knew she’d had a seizure and had progressed to kidney failure complications.

And the edema… it was severe.

She was under the blanket so I couldn’t see much, but even her exposed arms showed significant swelling.

She caught me looking and immediately waved her hands defensively.

“Oh—oh! This isn’t because I’m fat! I swear! It’s just swelling from the illness!”

“…?”

“I don’t want you to misunderstand—normally I’m super skinny! I’m serious!”

With that, she grabbed her phone and started furiously scrolling through her gallery, as if presenting evidence.

She clearly wanted to show me how she usually looked.

If I were honest… it took me off guard.

I mean—seventeen is an age where appearance matters…

But in a moment like this, that’s what she’s worried about?

‘Does she not fully grasp that she’s critically ill?’

Well… I did hear her first seizure was only two months ago.

She spent most of her life healthy, so maybe this reaction makes sense.

“See?! I really looked like this until a little while ago!”

She shoved her phone toward me.

In the photo, a pretty girl without edema smiled brightly with her friends.

It looked like a school setting—judging by the people around her, she was probably popular.

Her fashion, accessories, the overall aesthetic—she had style.

“You look like a model.”

“Really?!”

Her face lit up, and words poured out of her like an overflowing fountain.

“I am a model hopeful! My original plan was to go to New York right after graduation! Like a movie, you know? Just one suitcase and boom! I was gonna leave right after the graduation party and—”

Her expression darkened abruptly.

“Then I ended up here instead. Forget New York… I didn’t even get to go to my graduation party. I already had the dress fitted and ready…”

Her disappointment was understandable.

In the U.S., a graduation party isn’t just a party.

It’s a rite of passage.

A symbolic threshold between adolescence and adulthood.

And Talia was robbed of even that—confined here instead of crossing it.

“Right. I heard you wanted to talk to me alone.”

I steered the conversation forward, shifting away from the heavy mood.

It worked.

Talia’s gloom evaporated, eyes sparkling again as she clapped her hands.

“Oh! Right! Actually… I have a favor to ask!”

“A favor?”

“You know… epigenetics? The treatment? I—really want to try it. But my mom is totally against it. And legally, she’s my guardian, so if she says no, I can’t do anything…”

That part I already knew.

But as for how I could possibly help?

I had absolutely no idea.

“Do you want me to convince your mother?”

If that’s the case, David or Rachel would be far better suited than I am.

It would be much more effective for someone who already has a connection with her to do the persuading, rather than me—someone with no relation to the mother—stepping in.

Could Talia really have thought that my fame might make it easier to persuade her mother, and that naive idea led her to ask for a private meeting?

Just as that thought crossed my mind—

“No, it’s not persuasion. I want to become independent.”

An unexpected word escaped her lips.

“Independent?”

“Yeah, legally independent. Then I could make my own decisions, right?”

Legal emancipation.

It’s a system in which a minor, with court approval, is freed from parental custody.

If approved, the minor gains legal authority equal to an adult.

They can sign contracts, manage property.

And they gain the right to make medical decisions.

“But to do that you need a lawyer, and it costs a ton of money, so I was hoping you could help.”

When I had only dealt with this issue by phone and paperwork, the biggest obstacle I’d imagined was parental opposition.

As long as the parent who holds medical decision-making authority refuses, no measure could be taken.

I had vaguely thought we’d have to somehow persuade them... but I hadn’t considered pursuing legal emancipation.

Still, it was the most certain way.

And it was plausible.

There have already been multiple precedents recognizing adolescents’ rights to make medical decisions.

If my memory served, a case even reached the Supreme Court.

It recognized a minor’s right to obtain contraceptives without parental consent.

The important principle was that if a minor possessed sufficient decision-making capacity, they could decide for their own body.

With precedent on our side and a competent lawyer, there was a chance of success.

Yet, when I considered moving forward, I hesitated oddly.

Cold calculation favored Talia trying the treatment.

She wanted it, and it could benefit me too.

But still… something felt off.

Was this truly a decision made with full understanding of the situation?

Talia seemed so inexperienced with the world.

Though she looked mature, her mental age might be far younger than her peers.

Frankly put, she didn’t strike me as particularly sharp.

I wasn’t confident her decision was based on sufficient information.

Above all, I needed to confirm whether she truly understood the treatment’s risks.

“Your mother opposes it for a reason. You know the treatment is risky, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Can you explain why it’s risky?”

“Um… what did she say…? She said it’s like we have tangled wires inside our bodies, and the treatment loosens those wires… and that might fix things, but if you untangle them and then look inside, it could be worse, and maybe they can’t do anything at all…”

Rachel’s ability to explain things was remarkable.

Talia clearly understood the core of this complicated process.

“Right. The bottom line is that effectiveness can’t be guaranteed.”

“But there’s no other treatment to try if we don’t do this, right? So shouldn’t we at least try it?”

“If there were no side effects, sure. But the problem is that attempting this could cause seizures to happen sooner. If a seizure planned for three months from now happens this month—”

It was a cruel statement, but it had to be said.

“You could live three more months, or you could die tomorrow.”

Her answer was simple.

“I know.”

Her willingness to answer so readily felt unsettling.

At that rate, how could I be sure she truly grasped the gravity of the situation?

“Shouldn’t you think this through more carefully? The remaining time you’re given is precious. It could disappear.”

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

Her reply surprised me.

“If I could spend the next three months the way I used to—going out, seeing friends, doing what I want—I wouldn’t choose this either. But I can’t. If I’m just going to be trapped in this room, getting injections and tests every day in pain… would adding three more months really mean that much?”

At first glance it sounded immature.

But in fact, it wasn’t.

When judging a patient’s life, survival time alone can’t be the only criterion.

Quality of life also matters.

It’s not about how much longer you live, but how meaningfully you can spend the remaining time.

From that perspective, Talia’s remaining time could hardly be called high quality.

“And besides, you said this could help other patients, right? Wouldn’t that make it better to try? If I’m going to die anyway, wouldn’t it be more meaningful to die doing something that helps others?”

Her words hit a nerve.

Because I had thought the same.

If you coldly weigh the world’s gains and losses, this seemed preferable to simply dying.

Yet why did I feel so uneasy?

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something felt wrong.

‘Is it because she’s too naive about the world?’

No—that wasn’t it.

She understood the situation.

And this was her decision.

Still…

‘It’s different from Milo.’

Milo had seemed like a child caught up in war—pitiful.

Talia, though, felt more like a brainwashed child soldier heading to the front.

“If you’re dying anyway, doing good things for the world makes it better, right?”

When she repeated what she’d said earlier, I couldn’t help but ask back.

“You’re doing it for other patients? Is someone else more important to you than yourself?”

“Not really, but… it can’t be helped, right?”

Sorry, but I couldn’t help someone for that reason.

I drew a firm line.

“I don’t believe in people helping others by sacrificing themselves. If you’re getting treatment for that reason, I think the motive is wrong.”

That felt right.

As I thought this, Talia muttered something.

“It’s not just for others.”

“What?”

“Actually… it’s for me.”

She bit her lip and continued.

“To be honest, it’s unfair. There are people who live as if they could die any day and don’t care, and some even end their own lives—so why does it have to be me? I still have so many things I want to do… I haven’t even started anything yet…”

Tears welled at the corners of her eyes.

But she held them back and kept talking.

“I know the world won’t care if I say this. I used to be like that too—when I saw sick kids I’d feel sorry and then forget about them. But I don’t want to be remembered that way.”

Talia gripped the blanket with force.

“If I become a hero who stands up for others… more people might cheer for me. They might truly feel sorry, and sympathize with my unfairness…”

She turned to me, eyes full of desperate pleading.

“If I say I’m doing this for such selfish reasons… would that be okay?”