Chapter 195

Chapter 195. Yesterday’s Enemy Is Today’s Ally

There was a reason Kim Gyu-bong had taken the position of chairman of the Olympic bid committee.

Hadn't the heads of major corporations been criticized endlessly for decades?

There was also a widespread prejudice that since they only picked businesses that made money, they must be squeezing ordinary people dry.

Kim Gyu-bong said he'd accepted the Olympic bid committee position specifically to break that stereotype.

Apparently, he planned to remain chairman until he successfully brought the Olympics to Korea.

In other words, even if they failed this time, he intended to keep trying.

"Pyeongchang succeeded on its third attempt. Most cities win their bids that way. But this is Seoul's first attempt."

Kim Gyu-bong explained.

"And while cities like Tokyo, Paris, and LA have hosted the Olympics twice, there aren't many examples. You can count them on one hand. The city we want is Seoul, and Seoul already hosted once in 1988."

Holding the Seoul Olympics again would be a historic event.

It could also give the public a great deal of joy.

Anyway, for that very reason, Kim Gyu-bong himself didn't believe Seoul would win immediately.

He agreed to some extent with predictions that Washington would be chosen instead.

"What if a large number of university athletics coaches in Washington were involved in admissions corruption?"

Kim Gyu-bong's eyes widened.

There was no need to hide my cards like usual and reveal only a little.

All I needed was for Sarah Pullen to go down.

Here, I could simply help Kim Gyu-bong wholeheartedly and steer him toward the actions I wanted.

Actions that would tear apart the Washington universities.

"What exactly do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. I don't know whether that alone would be enough to make Washington lose the Olympic bid, but if the host city is decided through voting, then you need to move people's hearts, don't you? If you want to pull those hearts away from Washington, a corruption scandal like that would probably have a massive effect."

Kim Gyu-bong asked where I'd heard it.

"I just heard it somewhere. I have shamanic intuition, you know."

His expression became serious at my answer.

He was genuinely considering the university corruption issue.

I had no evidence I could show him, so I resorted to talking about supernatural intuition.

Still, that was enough.

If I'd intended to immediately blast the news that Washington universities were corrupt, I would've done that myself.

The spam said it would happen, so there was no reason to think the information was false.

And if I'd simply wanted an article published immediately, I wouldn't have come to Kim Gyu-bong in the first place.

I was telling him that there were suspicions and asking him to investigate.

Then Kim Gyu-bong could investigate.

After thinking for a while, Kim Gyu-bong smiled.

"You want to protect the person who gave you the information. As expected, you're someone who knows how to take care of people. So, CEO Do, what do you want?"

"Nothing in particular. Just investigate it and successfully bring the Seoul Olympics here. If you're going to do that, public opinion and intelligence warfare inside the United States will be vital."

Kim Gyu-bong exhaled as though he still found my words suspicious.

Had I made myself sound too selfless?

A conglomerate chairman would be rational to the bone.

It might be better if I also explained what I stood to gain.

"Anna is about to enter an American Dizn animation as a voice actress, and one of the other performers involved is connected to this college-admissions scandal. I want her gone before she ruins Anna's acting debut."

"I see."

Kim Gyu-bong nodded coolly.

"Understood. Then I should immediately send someone capable of working in the United States."

I boarded a flight to America with Serin and Anna.

Anna was going for her Dizn recording.

Serin was going for her Broadway audition.

I'd already found an audition for Serin.

It was a musical called 〈King of the Savannah〉, based on a fairly famous novel of the same name.

The musical had already been staged many times around the world.

This time, I truly hadn't used any tricks.

If she failed, I was worried she'd become too discouraged, so I deliberately looked for a major A-list musical.

We applied for the audition.

And they told her to come.

Apparently, this was the kind of opportunity where it was normally difficult even to receive an audition.

I had gotten some help from Choi Gyu-sik in that regard.

While filming 〈The Stranger〉, Choi Gyu-sik had registered Serin with an American actors' association.

Without that membership, it would've been difficult to even get an audition.

That was technically help.

But what else was I supposed to do?

Withdraw her from the actors' association and then apply?

If association membership was necessary, we'd have found a way to register her anyway.

So it was practically no help at all.

"We'll stay in America for around two weeks, then go back and immediately record the new songs. The dubbing won't take that long anyway, and even if Serin passes the audition, rehearsals won't start right away."

"Yes."

Serin and Anna answered together.

Also, 〈King of the Savannah〉 had absolutely nothing to do with Sarah Pullen.

It wasn't like I was predicting Sarah's withdrawal and trying to slide Serin into her place.

I had to protect the sincerity of Serin's challenge.

"Break through that fking idol-actress image. If you come back after doing a musical in America too, that's seriously the Yeo Eun-joo route."**

Anna said to Serin.

The two of them had been talking about Serin's audition challenge for a while now.

She'd only told me that she lacked confidence.

Apparently, she'd opened up to Anna in more detail.

Serin believed her acting ability was being overrated because she was an idol.

But unlike Anna, she'd never really been criticized solely for being an idol.

That was just how the conversation had ended up phrased.

In the end, both Serin and Anna simply wanted to grow.

Anna said that she'd broken through the prejudice of being an idol rapper through 〈K-Hip-Hop Star〉, but that didn't mean she'd already achieved everything there was to achieve as a rapper.

Serin said she was only good for an idol and wasn't especially outstanding compared to ordinary actors.

That wasn't true at all.

Both of them were good no matter who you compared them to.

I couldn't agree with that assessment.

Still, wanting to grow further was an excellent attitude.

Lee Nam-ho had once been a successful executive at NK Group in Korea.

Now he wandered around American cities gathering news as a reporter.

Of course, his current life wasn't particularly terrible.

He spoke English.

He had a job.

He was simply a little worse off financially than he had been in Korea.

And even though this was already his second year living in America, some things still felt unfamiliar.

He'd been driven not only out of NK but effectively out of Korea because he'd foolishly challenged NK's chairman.

It hadn't been as simple as talking back to the chairman.

Lee Nam-ho had been expelled right around the time NK's chairman quietly began transferring his wealth to his heirs.

Naturally, there had been tax evasion involved.

Lee Nam-ho had held shares in the company, but none of the other shareholders protested the chairman's corruption.

No one except Lee Nam-ho.

He began collecting evidence related to inheritance schemes and embezzlement involving the chairman's family.

The company had even created a company-controlled union to pressure presidents and shareholders outside the family.

There had been so much evidence from so many angles that Lee Nam-ho had filed suit immediately.

The court ruled not guilty.

When NK's chairman returned to the company, the first thing he did was throw Lee Nam-ho out.

He even threatened to make sure Lee Nam-ho would never be able to open his mouth in Korea again.

If Lee Nam-ho had been single, he probably wouldn't have been particularly scared.

But he had a family.

So he moved to America.

Two years had already passed since then.

After finishing an on-site report, he stopped by a café on the way back to the office and sat down for a moment.

He'd only planned to catch his breath for ten minutes.

But New York felt busy no matter where you went.

He sat drinking coffee and idly watching people pass by when his phone rang.

It was Sriver Chairman Kim Gyu-bong.

"Lee Nam-ho speaking."

"Have you been well?"

He wasn't particularly close with Kim Gyu-bong.

If anything, Kim Gyu-bong was probably closer to NK's chairman than to Lee Nam-ho.

People who had money tended to be friends only with other people who had money.

NK and Sriver were indeed fairly close.

So Kim Gyu-bong probably hadn't viewed Lee Nam-ho favorably either.

Lee Nam-ho had met Kim Gyu-bong while NK's chairman was imprisoned.

At the time, Kim Gyu-bong had seemed almost relieved that someone like Lee Nam-ho wasn't a shareholder in Sriver.

Now that Lee Nam-ho had been driven to America, Kim Gyu-bong could contact him lightly like this.

If Lee Nam-ho were still in Korea, both Kim Gyu-bong and NK's chairman would've been keeping him in check.

"What is it?"

"I've got another useful piece of news in America. I'll send you an email. Check it and make good use of it."

Kim Gyu-bong's words stirred his interest.

From time to time, he'd received story leads from Kim Gyu-bong like this.

Thanks to them, Lee Nam-ho had been able to maintain a fairly stable position at an American newspaper.

He had no idea how an old man living in Korea kept obtaining information like this.

But useful information was useful, so he'd accepted it until now.

Still, after watching the pattern for a while, most of the information had turned out to involve Kim Gyu-bong's competitors in Korea.

In other words, Lee Nam-ho wasn't simply receiving help.

He was doing things that benefited Kim Gyu-bong.

"I'm not interested in writing articles just to curse people and ruin them anymore. It's not even fashionable these days. Chairman, you should start living a little more kindly too."

"Is that so?"

Kim Gyu-bong paused for about five seconds.

"Mr. Nam-ho, you seem to believe you were some uniquely special person at NK, but you weren't. Our company has countless people with just as much sense of justice as you. So why have I never gone to prison even once?"

"How should I know? Maybe your lawyers are better."

"Because I haven't committed any crimes. People think the richer someone is, the more crimes they must commit. Nonsense. People with a lot to lose don't commit crimes. Of all the information I've ever given you, have I ever tried to destroy someone innocent?"

Lee Nam-ho thought carefully.

No.

There hadn't been anything like that.

Lee Nam-ho had always investigated further himself, and the people exposed through those stories really had been guilty.

"This case is the same. Of course I gain something if you publish the article. So what? Is that wrong? If there's something I want exposed, I'm allowed to tip off a capable journalist."

That wasn't wrong.

Apparently, becoming a conglomerate chairman required being good with words too.

"So what's this about?"

Lee Nam-ho asked.

Kim Gyu-bong began talking about a musical titled 〈Geronimo〉.

Geronimo.

Lee Nam-ho had seen posters for it on Times Square displays while passing by.

He wasn't interested in musicals or performances, so he'd assumed it was already running.

Apparently, it was still only in the preparation stage and hadn't even fully begun performances yet.

For something being promoted this heavily before opening, it must be a massive production.

"There's a woman in that musical named Sarah Pullen. We've confirmed that she paid money to multiple universities in Washington to get her son admitted. Obviously, she didn't personally carry bundles of cash onto campuses. There's a broker named William Rick who handles college admissions for the children of Sarah Pullen and many other wealthy families."

"William Rick?"

"Yes. Officially, he's a college admissions consultant. Obviously, that's only a cover."

Lee Nam-ho asked where the information came from.

"One day, I visited a very accurate shaman and had my fortune read. That's what they told me."

So he didn't want to reveal his source.

"Anyway, don't worry about the source. Just know that it's someone with enormous influence and reach. Investigate it further yourself and grow it into something solid enough to completely take them down."

"I haven't said I'll do it yet."

"From this moment on, your name isn't Lee Nam-ho. It's David Lee. Your son's name is Jimmy Lee. He should arrive in about... three minutes. I need to hang up now."

Then Kim Gyu-bong ended the call.

Why was he calling Lee Nam-ho David Lee?

And why was his son suddenly Jimmy Lee?

Lee Nam-ho checked the evidence Kim Gyu-bong had sent.

He couldn't imagine where the man had obtained material like this.

Then...

"Nice to meet you, David! It's an honor to meet you. I'm Rick, the college admissions consultant."

"...Excuse me?"

"You contacted me about admissions counseling for your son, didn't you?"

A blond man in his forties with a broad jaw stood in front of him.

William Rick.

Throwing work at him this urgently was one thing.

Couldn't Kim Gyu-bong at least give him a script first?

"That's right. My son Jimmy Lee is just about ready for college. I've heard a lot about you, Mr. William."