Chapter 76 of 111

Chapter 76

Chapter 76. The Apgujeong Pizza Restaurant Murder Case

"Hey, Dae-hun. What are you doing?"

"What do you think I'm doing? While you're off vacationing in Namhae, I'm stuck taking care of 〈Rebooting〉."

I called Dae-hun while heading back to Seoul after meeting Lee Ho-seong.

He said he wasn't too busy, so I asked him for a small favor.

"You know that case connected to 〈Good Pro〉 that's blowing up right now? There's a guy named Jo Jin-young who was cleared of the charges and released after being falsely accused. If you go to the Seocho District Prosecutors' Office, you should be able to find him. Follow him for me."

"Why is it another murder case this time... Seocho Prosecutors' Office?"

After seeing Lee Ho-seong's note, there was no way I could head to the Geochang Branch Office without first looking into Park Gwang-cheol.

Talent Holdings was so enormous that it barely even bothered competing in the Korean market.

It was strange enough that Jo Jin-young's younger sister, who lived far away in the countryside, had attended such an expensive academy.

But learning that Park Gwang-cheol was the son of Talent Holdings' chairman was even more shocking.

That probably explained how he had been able to open a huge practical-music academy near the Cheongdam apartment complexes.

Either way, I'd received a spam mission connected to Talent Holdings.

Since it was only a mission, I had no idea how much benefit I'd gain aside from the upgrade itself.

While I investigated Park Gwang-cheol, it would be useful to keep track of Jo Jin-young's movements too.

If I had two bodies, I'd happily do both myself.

Unfortunately, I didn't.

"Fine. But don't make me send you another taxi this time."

I heard Dae-hun gathering his things before he hung up.

In movies, rich people could spend money and make even real crimes disappear.

So it was strange that Park Gwang-cheol, who was supposedly innocent, had quietly ended up behind bars.

What the hell had happened?

First, I needed to meet him myself.

A few days later, I applied for a visitation.

When the scheduled date arrived, I went to see him.

"Who are you...?"

Park Gwang-cheol asked with a sigh as he sat across from me in the visitation room.

He was younger than I'd expected.

I explained the situation so far, then asked,

"Why exactly are you being held here? What evidence played the biggest role in getting you arrested...?"

"That's a strange question."

Of course he'd find it strange.

But from my perspective, it was the best question I could ask.

What I really wanted to say was:

Are you guilty or innocent?

But if I asked that, I wouldn't get any useful details.

Everyone claimed they were innocent.

"So you're saying you want to prove I'm innocent?"

"Yes."

"...I don't know. Things just happened, and somehow I became a murderer. I was at the pizza restaurant where Jin-a died too."

Jo Jin-a, Jo Jin-young's younger sister, had been brutally murdered in the restroom of a pizza restaurant in Cheongdam called Bistro the Boys.

The killer opened a door leading directly outside from the restroom and calmly disappeared.

At the time, the media deliberately left the word Cheongdam out of the name and called it the Apgujeong Pizza Restaurant Murder Case.

At the same time, Park Gwang-cheol had been on the second floor of Bistro the Boys, browsing whiskey and cigars at a liquor shop.

He was close with the shop owner and had spent quite a while there.

They had ordered pizza to eat together, so Park Gwang-cheol went downstairs to pick it up.

That was when he discovered Jin-a's body.

"It's an upscale pizza place where most customers drink alcohol too. It isn't somewhere a twelve-year-old girl would normally go. But Jin-a went there. That's why they seem to think I forced her to come."

"But that isn't what happened. Is that what you're saying?"

"...What does it matter now? I'll be transferred to prison soon anyway."

Park Gwang-cheol looked like he'd given up on everything.

Was Lee Eun-bit really that capable?

If he wouldn't even tell me information I already knew, then I'd have to throw something out and see how he reacted.

"You must feel pretty wronged. All because you were born into the wrong family."

"..."

The most unusual point about Park Gwang-cheol was still his family situation.

After looking into it for several days, I learned that Park Jong-moon had started searching for a successor after his health deteriorated.

Yet for some reason, he had never officially chosen one.

That situation continued for quite some time.

Then, only after Park Gwang-cheol was arrested, the handover process to Vice Chairman Park Gwang-ho began.

Entertainment news was full of speculation about how the chairmanships of Talent Holdings' dozens of subsidiaries would change.

"I think I know what you're imagining. You think my older brother deliberately set this up to get rid of me, don't you?"

"That's probably what happened."

"There's no reason for him to do that. I've never had any interest in Talent Holdings in the first place. There's absolutely no way he would've considered me a rival."

Park Jong-moon, whose health was poor, had delayed choosing a successor for some unknown reason.

Then Park Gwang-cheol ended up in detention.

Only after that did Park Gwang-ho become the official successor.

It was hard to see it as anything other than Park Jong-moon being torn between the two brothers until Park Gwang-cheol became unusable.

Then my phone rang.

It was Dae-hun.

"Yeah. I'm in the middle of a visitation, so I don't have time to talk."

"I have an interim report. Should I call again later?"

An interim report?

It had to be about the job I'd given him following Jo Jin-young.

Any additional information could help me draw something out of Park Gwang-cheol.

"No. Tell me now."

I excused myself to Park Gwang-cheol and took the call.

"You know Attorney Lee Eun-bit, right? I think she and Jo Jin-young might be... involved."

What the hell was he suddenly talking about?

Dae-hun had probably seen Jo Jin-young acting like an obsessive ex-boyfriend and drawn the obvious conclusion.

If I'd watched Jo Jin-young without knowing anything, I probably would've thought the same thing.

So I let him continue.

"Jo Jin-young visits Lee Eun-bit's house almost every day. Sometimes they argue too. I hadn't found anything useful, so I kept watching them. But I just overheard a conversation."

"What did they say?"

"Lee Eun-bit told him that if he kept acting like this, they'd both end up in danger. Jo Jin-young replied that even if things became dangerous, it was still better than before she'd met him."

That was a strange conversation.

"And what did Lee Eun-bit say?"

"She seemed to agree. Like he wasn't exactly wrong."

If you keep acting like this, we'll both be in danger.

Even if we are, it's better than before you met me.

First, "acting like this" probably meant continuing to stalk her.

In Go Won-hee's script, the stalking was what eventually exposed him as the real murderer.

If even that part followed the script, Jo Jin-young really was the culprit.

Was this some fantasy novel?

How could reality keep following a screenplay?

Even without considering the script, their conversation was suspicious.

Things could become dangerous, but they were still better off than before Jo Jin-young met her.

Did that mean she'd become a famous lawyer because she defended him successfully?

If that was what he meant, Lee Eun-bit would've immediately rejected it.

Her success would've come from her own skill as a lawyer, not because Jo Jin-young happened to be innocent.

But what if Jo Jin-young really was the culprit?

What if she received a huge payment from Park Gwang-ho in exchange for making Jo Jin-young look like the real victim and destroying Park Gwang-cheol, the second son?

What if that money allowed a newly independent lawyer to open a luxurious office in prime real estate?

Just as Lee Ho-seong had said, it wasn't conclusive evidence.

But it created an extremely strong suspicion.

"Attorney Lee Eun-bit... seems to be on your brother's side."

I lowered the phone and said that to Park Gwang-cheol.

At those words, Park Gwang-cheol shut his eyes tightly with a complicated expression.

Shock at learning something he hadn't known.

And the resignation of someone thinking, Of course.

Both emotions were mixed together.

"Writer Go Won-hee! Let's talk about the script for a moment."

After finishing the visitation and thinking about it for several days, I went to Go Won-hee's studio before it was too late.

Now I understood why Go Tae-seok had once barged in on Go Won-hee and demanded a script change so recklessly.

Park Gwang-cheol might have given up now, but until recently, he'd done everything he possibly could to prove his innocence.

No matter how much I tried to persuade him, the only thing he could give me was a detailed alibi.

I eventually left the detention center after promising that I would definitely clear his name.

Lee Ho-seong had already lost once.

He'd told me to come see him at the Geochang Branch Office, but even if I went, he probably wouldn't have anything decisive.

I could likely get more information from him than from Park Gwang-cheol.

But all it would really do was strengthen my personal conviction.

What I needed to give Lee Ho-seong was better evidence.

If I had nothing to give him, meeting him would be a waste of time.

And I'd have to travel all the way to Geochang too.

Anyway, just as the spam message had told me, Park Gwang-cheol wasn't the real culprit.

The spam had clearly said he was being wronged.

As far as I knew, the only thing Park Gwang-cheol could possibly be wronged over was the murder charge.

And he seemed extremely capable.

He didn't look like someone so uncultured that he'd murder a person either.

The real culprit was probably Jo Jin-young.

Looking back, every case the spam had directed me toward had eventually benefited me or Blue Moon.

And if Jo Jin-young really was the culprit, there was no doubt that it would help the terrestrial version of 〈Good Pro〉.

That left Lee Eun-bit.

She had already washed her hands of Jo Jin-young's case.

Even if it was only because she was exhausted by his stalking, technically, proving him guilty later wouldn't damage the fact that she'd won the original trial, would it?

She had to suspect that something had gone wrong too.

She just couldn't bring herself to act on it.

"A script revision? What do you mean...? Which episode are you talking about?"

"Technically, I'm talking about canceling the revision. Let's go back to the version where Serin gets kidnapped."

Originally, I'd intended to first persuade Lee Eun-bit somehow, expose the case as manipulated, and only then convince Go Won-hee.

If 〈Good Pro〉 predicted the case correctly one more time, it would become an enormous topic.

But we didn't have enough time.

We needed to revise the script and change the filming schedule immediately.

So I decided to place my hopes on the fact that Lee Eun-bit was watching the drama.

If the public was already identifying the lawyer character in the story with Lee Eun-bit, then Lee Eun-bit herself probably wasn't watching that character with ordinary eyes either.

Maybe we could put some kind of powerful monologue into the drama that would move her and stir up her sense of justice.

Since the truth would eventually come out anyway...

Even if the drama received some criticism for a while, if it later persuaded Lee Eun-bit to reveal the truth, the impact would become even greater.

"There's actually a reason we were changing this storyline. You know the Cheongdam Pizza Restaurant Murder Case, right? During that case, the prosecution detained the wrong person, and people started saying it was almost identical to the movie version of 〈Good Pro〉. If we suddenly rewrite that character as the real murderer, we'll get absolutely destroyed by public opinion."

I already knew all of that from Serin.

"Right. But Jo Jin-young might actually be exposed as the real culprit after all."

"What? Why?"

I told her everything.

Lee Ho-seong preparing an appeal.

Park Gwang-cheol's succession issue.

Lee Eun-bit having suspicious amounts of money for a newly established lawyer.

The relationship between Jo Jin-young and Lee Eun-bit.

The part I emphasized most was that Lee Eun-bit was no longer representing Jo Jin-young in the next proceeding.

I had no idea how much that would actually matter in court.

But doesn't it somehow make you feel like he's more likely to lose next time?

"You don't know for certain what will happen, right?"

"Of course not. Even the people directly involved probably don't know. But if nobody knows how the lawsuit will end anyway, then I thought we might as well choose the direction that makes the drama more interesting."

Go Won-hee fell into deep thought.

This adaptation would make several episodes significantly more serious.

Like many romance dramas that began as light romantic comedies before gradually becoming less fun once heavy conflicts took over.

And because 〈Good Pro〉 already began with the female lead lawyer being falsely accused, even its early episodes weren't exactly lighthearted.

If possible, the lawyer needed to be endangered by the real murderer and dramatically rescued by the male prosecutor.

"Ah... Still, if we just follow the original, we'd at least be halfway safe."

Go Won-hee sounded troubled.

If they followed the original, they'd minimize criticism.

They could always say, That's how the original story went too, and viewers would at least take that into account.

But sometimes in life, you had to gamble.

If I was holding a king-high straight flush, was I really going to refuse to go all-in because I was afraid someone might have a royal flush?

Just like I'd gambled by shouting Erguotou during the previous upgrade mission, I needed to gamble again this time.