Chapter 103. Everywhere at Once
Inside the president's office sat a slim blond man.
If it came down to a one-on-one fight, I might have had a chance.
But remembering the giant guarding the door, it was still too early to relax.
The moment I mentioned the name No Ji-hye, this bastard let me inside.
That meant he was definitely connected to her.
Since she was a gambling addict, it wouldn't be surprising if she'd drifted into a place like this and borrowed money.
But even if that were true, what did it have to do with me?
"Come to think of it, your voice sounds kind of familiar. Have we met somewhere before?"
The president asked.
"I'm the guy who called you pretending to be PD Do Hoe-dong from KBN."
The president looked flustered for a moment.
Then he burst out laughing.
"Wow... Hahahaha! Wow, you're insane. First you're a PD, then you're a prosecutor. What are you now? A detective? I really hope not."
"Right now, I'm Do Jun-hyeok, CEO of Universe Entertainment."
I placed my business card on the table in front of him.
The moment he saw it, his expression stiffened slightly.
That's right.
The person you should be more afraid of than a detective right now is me, punk.
"So what do you want? You came all the way here to tell us to stop the imitation performances?"
"Yes."
"If the law says no and you're telling us to stop, then I guess we don't have a choice. But what are those girls supposed to live on? We pay them pretty well. Two hundred thousand won per gig. Two hundred thousand. That's top-tier money in this industry."
Was he trying to dump the guilt on me now?
There really wasn't much I could do about that.
It wasn't like we could take responsibility for supporting them.
"Either way, you can't do it. That's your problem."
"Yes, yes. Understood."
Then just do it without getting caught.
"Anyway, that's not all, is it? Kaiser. No Ji-hye. What did you do to Ms. No Ji-hye?"
"What did we do to her?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about! You're still going to pretend you don't?"
The president had looked slightly unsettled before.
Now the smile slowly returned to his face.
The problem was that I didn't actually know what No Ji-hye had done here.
His voice was light and chatty enough.
Why couldn't he just spill everything?
"Do I really have to start treating you like an economic criminal before you'll talk?"
Illegal lending was the most likely possibility.
But I wasn't sure, so I phrased it vaguely.
It worked immediately.
"Economic criminal? What are you talking about? Are you saying we're some kind of loan shark? And even if we were, would that really make us economic criminals?"
"Then what's that 'Loans' sign outside?"
I pointed toward the reversed letters visible through the window.
"Since you know so much, Mr. President, why don't you explain it yourself? What exactly did you do?"
"Do what? Ugh... I can't play along with this anymore. Hey, Dong-sik. Escort our guest out."
"Yes, hyung."
The huge guy, Dong-sik, started coming in.
I hurriedly locked the door.
"How much would it cost if he broke this door?"
The president sighed deeply at my question.
"...If we repair it, maybe a hundred thousand won?"
"Then let's save a hundred thousand won. That's enough for some beef. To be completely honest, I don't actually know what Ms. No Ji-hye did here. I won't report you to the police, so let's just talk openly."
If this still didn't work, emotional manipulation was my final weapon.
"Mr... Do Jun-hyeok. I don't know how knowledgeable you are, but when it comes to this line of work, we know the law better than anyone. You can report us if you want. Nothing much will happen."
He suddenly stopped using his dialect.
"Then there's no reason you can't tell me."
"That's what I'm trying to do right now! Damn, why do you keep interrupting me?"
Sorry.
Please continue.
"Ms. No Ji-hye is one of our regulars. I don't know exactly what she does outside, but I assume she gambles or something. As for that 'Loans' sign, we just broker loans and take a commission. Running an actual private lending business would be obviously illegal, so we couldn't exactly operate an office like this."
"Right, right."
"So she's not one of our loan clients. She trades music copyrights with us. You know, the beatboxing stuff."
Beatboxing was boom-chicka-boom.
No Ji-hye was a rapper.
Anyway, to summarize what the president explained...
Apparently, singers who fell deeply into debt or whose lives completely collapsed sometimes came to places like this and sold the copyrights to their songs for a lump-sum payment.
Then the president would circulate the rights and squeeze out as much royalty income as possible.
"Do a lot of people come here?"
"Of course. Tons. You know Sea Girls? Sea Girls? We've got copyrights to a few of their songs too. Like 〈Walking〉."
〈Walking〉?
Sea Girls' 〈Walking〉?
Sea Girls were a first-generation four-member girl group that had exploded into popularity back when even the concept of a girl group was still unfamiliar.
〈Walking〉 in particular had been released in the late nineties.
It hadn't been their biggest hit, but I personally loved that song.
I'd even used it as my CyLand background music.
And now that masterpiece had ended up sitting in some miserable backroom like this?
"How could... You own the copyright to 〈Walking〉? Then what about Kaiser's songs?"
"Kaiser? Ah... You mean these?"
Was it just my imagination?
The president sounded slightly smug.
Whatever my instincts said, he typed something into his computer, then showed me an Excel file.
Four songs appeared in the search results.
One of them was titled 〈Killing Life〉.
"No way... 〈Killing Life〉 ended up in a place like this."
Even among Kaiser's songs, 〈Killing Life〉 was considered the verse of her life.
The exact song I'd loved in the past.
She sold that?
She must've been desperate.
Desperate enough that she needed even a small amount of cash immediately.
But whether she owned 〈Killing Life〉 or not, Kaiser was still one of the top rappers.
If she got her head straight and kept working, she could earn plenty of money again.
"I paid a lot for that one. So every time that woman performs this song, she has to pay me."
The president burst out laughing.
Then he even told me that if I ever needed emergency cash, I should sell him some Blue Moon songs.
He said we could probably make decent money just running imitation acts too.
I vigorously raised my middle finger and stormed out of the president's office.
Then I passed the giant guy.
And abruptly stopped.
"Did you leave something behind?"
He asked when I suddenly halted.
Even after arriving at Serin and Min-jun's audition, I still felt distracted thinking about Sea Girls' 〈Walking〉 and Kaiser's 〈Killing Life〉.
The old monitor in that office even had dried bibim-noodle sauce stuck to the screen.
How desperate did someone have to be to sell their songs for next to nothing?
Was that song really worth next to nothing now?
No way.
Wasn't it one of those songs Seo Hoe-dong always said survived in the low-speed lanes of the charts?
Maybe buying it from that guy now wouldn't be such a bad idea...
Or was that just my affection for 〈Walking〉 clouding my judgment?
Either way, I impulsively bought No Ji-hye's 〈Killing Life〉.
Along with two of her other signature songs.
Three tracks in total.
Meaning the copyright holder was now Universe.
The price was enough to make my back bend.
But if I calculated it coldly, it wasn't actually a loss.
If I dangled those songs in front of No Ji-hye like bait, the chances of stopping her from gambling would rise significantly.
That would probably work better than simply slapping her across the face and ordering her to get her act together.
And if I promised to return the songs as long as she stopped gambling and kept working properly...
Depending on how well I talked, I might actually be able to convince her.
"CEO, you look really nervous... I'll do well! Do you want some calming medicine?"
Serin, sitting beside me, asked with concern.
"Leave him alone. He went all the way to Masan late last night. Apparently he didn't sleep at all."
"What? Why Masan? Did something happen?"
"How should I know? He said he doesn't want to talk about it."
Right.
I was a little unsettled.
But this wasn't the time to sit around like this.
At least I now knew what was happening with Kaiser, No Ji-hye.
She was gambling so badly that she'd sold her own songs.
I still had no idea why it had to be me, but apparently I needed to clean up the aftermath somehow, then stop her from lifting her casino ban.
For now, I decided to leave that irritating president alone.
The exchange needed to stay open in case something unexpected happened later and I needed to rescue Sea Girls' 〈Walking〉 too.
After that, I planned to contact Lee Ho-seong immediately and have him investigate exactly how many imitation groups they were operating, then tear the whole operation apart.
Arrogant bastard.
I cleared my head and looked around the actors' waiting room.
Even the actors who had already been cast were quietly sitting there practicing the script.
Choi Gyu-sik was simply too great a director to cut ties with just because they felt offended.
Serin might've felt intimidated.
But there was no need.
Choi Gyu-sik had every right to overturn everything, not just the actors.
The previously cast actors, new applicants, and representatives from major investment companies were gathered around whispering about the audition.
"He's the kind of director who won't even cast someone as a token. He only looks at ability. So don't worry about anyone else. Just show him what you can do."
"Okay."
After reassuring her, we waited until the scheduled audition time.
Choi Gyu-sik stepped forward and greeted everyone.
"The director has changed, so all of you have to audition again. But if you have the skill, there's no reason to be nervous, right? Show me your ability with everything you've got. I'll evaluate you with the same sincerity. Serin, you're first."
"Yes!"
Serin grabbed the script and quickly ran onto the stage.
"Then let's begin."
Standing there, Serin checked the script one last time before placing it on the floor.
The other actors, who had been reading their own scripts, all focused on her.
She wore jeans and a hoodie.
That was what the character wore through most of the scenes while traveling around America.
It was an ordinary outfit.
But because Serin was wearing it, I felt like I was standing outside the display window of some absurdly expensive clothing boutique.
There had never been a hoodie that beautiful in this world.
"You never shut up about hip-hop, but when someone actually gives you a beat, you can't spit a single line. Bunch of mufkin' losers who only perform when cameras are rolling, laughing at my beat like you matter. You said rappers just need money, right? I bow once on New Year's and I'm still on top! So I prove it like your st, the second I pull mine out, everybody freaks. If you get hungry later, call me. Your little sis can buy you a meal."
And so December 4 arrived.
The day Kaiser was supposed to enter Jeongseon Casino Land again.
Episodes 2 and 3 had aired.
Anna and Kaiser's stage was being praised as one of the greatest performances in hip-hop competition history.
Personally, I thought Anna was much better.
But if everyone else said that was the evaluation, then there wasn't much I could do.
Some people said Kaiser had specifically mocked Anna over her beat, only to get properly educated with a Revick beat.
Kaiser's fans pushed back hard against that.
Eventually, it even turned into an emotional fan war.
It looked more like a fight between Kaiser fans and Kaiser antis than anything involving us, so I didn't pay much attention.
MC Maralak.
The idol rapper supported by Revick.
The sight of Anna quietly pretending to shrink back while listening to Kaiser's rap, then firing back like a machine gun, had earned her an enormous number of fans.
The response seemed even bigger than when Serin's acting in 〈Good Pro〉 had first been revealed.
Apparently people liked seeing her refuse to be intimidated by a senior.
The diss battles continued for two weeks.
By the fourth week of filming, it looked like they had moved into some kind of "get closer to each other" segment.
While driving down to Masan, I'd asked Anna over the phone what her relationship with Kaiser was like.
Anna said they weren't particularly close, but they weren't exactly on bad terms either.
There were few things more awkward than deliberately setting up a situation where people who weren't close were ordered to become friends.
Maybe that was why this shoot involved alcohol.
They divided the rappers into several groups and gathered them around tables in a set decorated like a real bar.
Kim Gyu-sam probably couldn't resist the entertainment value.
Naturally, Anna and Kaiser were seated at the same table.
"Kaiser unni, your life is pretty successful now, right? When was your prime? I guess it's now?"
The rappers had already spent a while talking about how hard rap was, how poor they'd been, and crying over their struggles.
Then someone passed the microphone to Kaiser, who had mostly been drinking in silence.
Apparently, only Kaiser herself and I knew the truth about her situation.
They were giving her free alcohol.
Honestly, it was impressive she wasn't swallowing it down like someone hiding food from a crab.
"When I was a trainee."
"What kind of trainee?"
"When I was an idol trainee at Turb. That was the best time."
The entire filming set went cold.
There was one taboo subject surrounding Kaiser, the queen of underground hip-hop who had recently been mowing down idol rappers left and right.
Her past as an idol trainee.
Everyone avoided bringing it up as much as possible.
And now Kaiser herself had said it.
"Ah, hahaha. Really? Why?"
"Back then, I didn't have to sell my soul. I didn't even need to rap well. But that's not how it is now."
"Ah~."
Anna, who had been listening, asked,
"Then what do you mean by not having to sell your soul? Selling your soul?"
"..."
At Anna's question, Kaiser turned toward her.
But every other rapper stared at Kaiser too.
They wanted to hear the answer.
"If people knew how, everyone would try to sell theirs. Why? You interested too? Want me to teach you?"
"Ah... You mean because you're so good at rap, you sold your soul to the devil or something. Right?"
Anna looked around for agreement.
The other rappers immediately clapped and raised the mood again.
Selling her soul.
If she cared enough about her songs to call them her soul, why did she sell them?
If that was the first thing coming out of her mouth once alcohol went in, then it meant she'd been thinking about it a lot even while sober.
It must've been eating her alive.
And yet she was still circling Jeongseon Casino Land?
The shoot eventually ended, and the rappers headed home one by one.
It was six in the evening.
Tiny grains of snow were falling.
Oddly, the weather was warmer than yesterday.
"CEO, I think I'm a little drunk. Hehe."
"Really? Then want to get some air? Want to go look at the mountains in Gangwon Province?"
"Yeees~ Gangwon-do st~."**
Anna bounced her shoulders to an imaginary beat and climbed into the passenger seat.
From this point onward, I was going to follow Kaiser.
All the way to Hongcheon, where Jeongseon Casino Land was located.
