Chapter 60

Chapter 60. The Black Cloud Strikes Back

"After the drinking party, Turb's CEO saw Ha-do hyung's sports car and said he wanted to drive it. Ha-do said they'd been drinking and should call a designated driver. The CEO immediately slapped him."

So Kang Ha-do sat in the passenger seat.

Turb's CEO sat behind the wheel.

Just like Lee Jeong-yeol, Turb's CEO began speeding recklessly.

And it wasn't an ordinary car.

It was a sports car.

He was drunk too.

Naturally, he probably wanted to enjoy the speed.

"Then they hit someone. After hitting the person, he completely crashed the car into a ditch beside the road. They got out and immediately confirmed the person was dead... According to my brother, the CEO moved unbelievably fast. He pulled the front dashcam memory card out right away, burned it with a lighter, and said this: if my brother claimed he had been driving, then once he got out of prison, the CEO would definitely set up a music label for both of us. Naturally, he'd also pay the car-repair costs."

But wasn't Sang-do currently paying those car costs himself?

I decided to listen to the entire story first.

They removed the dashcam device itself.

Then they claimed the car was new and hadn't yet had a dashcam installed.

Ha-do was sentenced to eight years.

The victim's family protested that the punishment was far too light.

After appeal, the sentence only increased to ten years.

A promise to create a label ten years later was basically no promise at all.

Later, Lee Jeong-yeol was the one who told Sang-do he'd create his own label after three more years.

"My brother still doesn't know I'm the one paying the car loan. He probably believes I'm building my career. I couldn't bring myself to tell him that I have no savings because of the debt and no real composer career either. I was scared he'd feel betrayed, reveal everything now, and then there really would be no label for us."

He was an unbelievable pushover.

I didn't know what additional punishment Ha-do might face for helping fabricate evidence.

But surely a judge would consider the circumstances.

If he'd gotten out earlier and the two talented brothers had started working together, would they really have struggled to earn the value of one sports car?

"Why tell me now? What if I expose everything?"

"You can. That's why I'm telling you. Just keep my name anonymous."

"Then what happens to your label?"

Sang-do said movement inside Turb Entertainment's Artist Division 4 had recently become suspicious.

Seo Hae-won from MoCube was apparently causing too many problems.

The staff members who'd already exposed workplace abuse were preparing to completely destroy her reputation.

Even if I failed to prove her school violence, their workplace-abuse accusations alone might be enough to end her.

"There aren't any female staff in that division. Apparently, they thought she might treat male employees less badly."

"And?"

"Either way, Division 4 is collapsing. But Division 4's main group was actually planned and launched by our studio. You could almost call MoCube 'Fever Girls.' Turb and Fever usually help each other that way. Nobody said it openly, but 〈Homesick Girl〉 had already been unofficially reserved for Division 4. That was decided between Turb's CEO and Jeong-yeol hyung."

But now that project was in danger.

Turb's CEO visited Jeong-yeol.

He demanded that if everything collapsed, Fever Music should cover the financial loss.

Hadn't Fever Music earned plenty of money thanks to Turb over the years?

Until now, they had cooperated under the banner of brotherhood.

Now Turb's CEO was suddenly talking about money.

Jeong-yeol was offended by the shamelessness.

"Don't tell me... Lee Jeong-yeol is thinking about betraying Turb because he doesn't want to pay?"

"No. Jeong-yeol hyung knows they're too connected to fully separate, so he was only irritated. But I want to make it look like he betrayed them. That's why I'm telling you this. Only four people know what actually happened. Turb's CEO, Jeong-yeol hyung, Ha-do hyung, and me. If my brother and I still want our future label, we have no motive to expose it."

Wow.

He was much smarter than he looked.

If the truth appeared publicly, Turb's CEO would suspect Jeong-yeol first.

Jeong-yeol had an obvious financial motive to betray Turb.

That would protect Sang-do and Ha-do from suspicion.

And it would destroy the brotherhood between Fever and Turb.

Naturally, Turb would take a massive hit too.

Of course, the bond between Lee Jeong-yeol and the Kang brothers would also collapse.

MoCube would explode just from this.

Without MoCube, Seo Hae-won would be like a candle in the wind.

A low-level damage dealer with no tank.

She would lose the protection of Turb's fandom.

All she'd have left would be a few hundred personal fans who had only just appeared and might disappear anytime.

"Understood. But you don't gain much personally from doing this, do you?"

"No."

"Then why do it?"

Sang-do answered.

"Once this explodes, I'll go to Turb and demand money. I'll say that because of them, I lost what I was promised, so they need to establish my label immediately."

"You think they'll agree?"

"I'm saying I've started thinking it might be better to reveal everything anyway. If I don't have a reason to do something and I don't have a reason not to do it, shouldn't I choose the right thing? Like you said, this isn't a case without a victim."

For a moment, I imagined being Turb's CEO.

What a headache.

How many blows could one man endure?

Fans would attack him.

His trusted younger brother would expose the hit-and-run.

How sad.

I couldn't bear imagining his suffering.

So I decided to finish his punishment as quickly as possible.

I called the correctional authorities to arrange a meeting with Kang Ha-do.

Just as Sang-do predicted, Turb Entertainment gradually became noisy.

At first, angry fans seemed to direct most of their attacks toward me.

From their perspective, I was confidently talking about facts I couldn't even fully prove.

Naturally, they disliked me.

But they had no evidence that I was lying.

So my personal safety wasn't especially threatened.

The decisive factor was testimony from Turb's Division 4 staff.

Some of them even visited Universe in person and offered to appear as witnesses during my livestream.

Turb eventually began protesting directly to me.

They complained about my suspicion that Seo Hae-won had spread the rumor about Serin extorting tuition money.

They complained about the workplace-abuse allegations too.

Those two issues were becoming critical hits.

Turb was finally panicking.

They demanded that I apologize and stop the livestreams immediately.

I told them to keep doing what they'd been doing.

Hide until the storm passed.

Because I was already sharing every credible tip publicly, there wasn't much need to meet journalists.

The moment my livestream started, entertainment-news reporters frantically wrote everything down anyway.

Still, Reporter Shin sent me donations.

Then the date arrived for my prison visit with Kang Ha-do.

We'd scheduled it through the correctional facility.

Ha-do looked much more muscular than Sang-do.

Apparently, he spent every free moment exercising inside.

"Who are you? Why did you come to see me?"

Ha-do asked.

I thought prisoners could at least see newspapers.

When I introduced myself as Do Jun-hyeok from Universe, currently suffering through a school-bullying scandal, his eyes gradually became cautious.

Apparently, he knew the conflict had effectively become Universe versus Turb.

"I don't know what rumor you heard, but if you're here searching for dirt on Turb Entertainment, you should leave."

"I heard you're in prison because you took the blame for a drunk-driving switch. Is there bigger dirt than that?"

Ha-do looked shocked.

He immediately asked who told me.

Obviously, Sang-do.

I told him I intended to reveal the truth about the drunk-driving switch.

Naturally, Lee Jeong-yeol would take suspicion as the source.

Turb's image would take far more than a minor hit.

"But this is your story too, so I thought I should at least notify you. If you have even bigger information, I'll listen to that too."

"Sang-do wasn't even there that day. What switch? That idiot thinks I'm way too good a person. Don't spread false information and get sued."

This was the story Ha-do himself had apparently confessed to Sang-do.

Yet now he was pretending nothing happened.

Still, I'd come prepared.

"That's unfortunate. Personally, I'd rather leave everything alone too. If I attack Turb and destroy their relationship with Fever, the label promised to you two might disappear."

"..."

"It's not courtroom evidence, so it won't get you released either. Your younger brother will just keep suffering. Seems he still hasn't finished paying the car loan."

Ha-do panicked.

He had clearly believed Turb's CEO had already paid both the car financing and insurance.

He probably thought Sang-do had simply handled the payments.

But Ha-do had already been imprisoned for years.

His younger brother had secretly suffered this entire time, paying that debt himself.

"He never said anything! Are you lying just to provoke me?"

"I'll prove it."

I immediately called Sang-do.

Then I put the phone on speaker.

"This is Do Jun-hyeok. I've been thinking about that car loan and insurance money. How much is still unpaid? I'd like to help if I can."

"You don't need to pity me. I've already paid half."

I ended the call.

Ha-do sat there in shock for a long time.

"I heard the car cost a little over three hundred million won. If they won't even cover that, you really think they'll build you a label? People like that don't keep promises they don't need to keep."

Ha-do held his head for a long time.

Then he asked,

"If this damages them, will Sang-do and I be safe? Turb's CEO won't retaliate?"

"They won't know the information came from you. Of course I can't guarantee he'll go to prison immediately, but he has no reason to suspect either of you."

Ha-do had asked the question himself.

Yet he barely seemed to listen to my answer.

Instead, he pulled a tissue from the box beside him and wrote an address on it.

"This is the studio apartment where I used to live. Go inside. Open the second compartment of the cabinet. There should be a phone there. Turn it on and check an app called 'Black Cloud.'"

"What? What is Black Cloud?"

"You'll understand once you check."

That was all he said.

Then Ha-do left the meeting room looking exhausted.

From his tone, there had to be some additional scandalous information inside that phone.

It was almost one month since I began the livestream campaign.

I needed to end everything soon.

The moment I left the prison, I went to the address Ha-do gave me.

Inside an old studio apartment, I found the phone.

The battery was completely dead.

I bought the correct charging cable from a convenience store and returned to the office.

After charging it for a while, Dae-hun noticed.

"You finally changed your phone?"

My own phone was newer than this.

"Then what's that phone?"

"There's something extremely shocking inside."

Then again, who worked inside a corrupt community purely because of friendship?

If Ha-do knew more illegal secrets besides drunk driving, keeping a private record would've been completely reasonable.

He had probably given me the phone specifically because he wanted Turb's CEO to suspect Lee Jeong-yeol instead of the Kang brothers.

"If we use this to destroy Turb and completely crush Seo Hae-won and her fandom's morale, the game is over."

Once the battery reached about five percent, I turned the phone on.

The carrier logo appeared.

Then the wallpaper showed a woman wearing nothing but a bikini.

"His tastes are impressively consistent."

"Right? You can tell he used to be a little punk."

We stared for about three seconds.

Then I searched for the Black Cloud app.

Its icon was a black circle with only the word:

[CLOUD]

There was no way to know what it did from the design.

Not until I opened it and saw the message.

[The black box in the palm of your hand, BLACK CLOUD.]

[Real-time vehicle-status monitoring, automatic recording upload, and up to 200GB of free cloud storage!]