Chapter 49

Chapter 49. Finishing Blow (5)

In the end, Yubin let Harok persuade her.

The problem was that the ultimatum she had given Kim Yeonghwan now came back like a boomerang.

“I came on too strong for no reason. I should’ve left myself some room.”

Harok grinned.

“Don’t worry. The culprit will probably contact you tonight or tomorrow morning. They’ll cry their eyes out and cling to your pants.”

“Will they really...?”

“Judging by the leaker’s personality, they’ll definitely go for an emotional appeal. When that happens, act like you’re reluctantly giving in and let it slide.”

“The leaker’s personality? Senior, do you know who leaked it too?”

Harok burst into incredulous laughter.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’ve known for a long time that Senior Chu Jiyeong was acting as a spy.”

“But you’re saying Senior Chu will cry in front of someone as junior as me?”

“I’m sure of it. That’s her style. Besides, leaking an article isn’t some minor issue. It’s one of the worst things that can happen in a newspaper company.”

“As bad as unauthorized transmission?”

Yubin casually brought up Harok’s own recent unauthorized transmission incident.

Harok flinched.

“Are you crazy? Why the hell are you bringing that up now?”

“Hehe. Sorry.”

Bang, bang.

Embarrassed, Harok tapped the desk as if telling her to focus.

“Either way, selling articles to companies will keep happening. You can’t stop it. The advertising department and Industry have revenue tied to it.”

Yubin frowned deeply.

“What a fucking shitty media reality.”

“Yeah. It really is fu...”

Harok paused, startled by the colorful curse that came out of Yubin’s mouth.

Thanks to his younger sister, he was used to hearing women swear.

Still, hearing something like that from the pampered, silver-spoon Yubin felt strangely unfamiliar.

“You swear surprisingly well.”

“Oh my. Are you one of those old-fashioned men who thinks swearing belongs to men?”

“No. My sister swears a lot too.”

The moment she called him old-fashioned, Harok waved both hands and rejected the accusation with his whole body.

“Hehe. Fine. Anyway, if Senior Chu bows low enough, I should forgive her?”

“Don’t give her a definite answer. Leave room to negotiate, then talk to the editor-in-chief again tomorrow.”

“What should I tell him?”

“Give him your demands.”

“My demands...”

Yubin nodded.

“Do you already have some?”

“A few things come to mind, including what you mentioned earlier. I need to settle them before I meet the editor-in-chief tomorrow.”

Harok and Yubin were standing in the corridor outside the newsroom, each holding a cup of instant coffee.

“Can you handle the offshore slush-fund article too? It’s an economic crime, so the laws are complicated and the terminology might be unfamiliar.”

“I majored in business administration. I also attended law school for a year.”

Ah.

Harok nodded as if only now remembering.

“More importantly, you’re going to help me, right?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not going to dump it on me and then sit in the back playing around, are you?”

Wasn’t this even worse than demanding something she had entrusted to him for safekeeping?

“Reporter Seol, it’s been quite a while since you finished your probation. Isn’t it time you learned to stand on your own?”

Yubin shook her head firmly.

“You have to take responsibility for this one until the end.”

“Why?”

“This whole thing started with celebrity drugs. You were the one who tossed that lead to me.”

Thinking about it, that was true.

It had started with the celebrity drug tip Harok heard from Yu Seongun.

In his previous life, it had been a brief issue that ended with a few celebrities getting arrested.

But strangely, once Kwon Jaegwan got tangled up in it, the situation changed completely.

The celebrity drug scandal had already faded from public interest.

Now it had become a full gift set involving Kwon Jaegwan, a worthless third-generation chaebol heir.

Drugs.

Abuse of power.

Assault.

Violations of foreign exchange law.

Kwon Jaegwan had always made his presence known by causing scandals from time to time.

This time, he had finally put the finishing touch on his reputation and become the nation’s number-one bastard.

“There’s an even more important reason.”

“What?”

“Kwon Jaegwan is your archenemy. The same man who handed you that frustration three years ago.”

Yubin was right.

Kwon Jaegwan had been like a tumor stuck inside Harok’s head.

At last, the moment had come to cut it out.

“Fine. Show me the article when you finish.”

“Of course you should. Hehe.”

“Is Executive Director Mun out of his mind?”

Chu Jiyeong snapped angrily.

Choi Minjung didn’t even answer.

He simply rubbed the surface of the table with his finger.

Scrape, scrape.

“Can you stop that? Why are you rubbing the damn table like that?”

Choi Minjung quickly lowered his hand.

“Seol Yubin says she absolutely won’t let this go. What are we supposed to do?”

“Can’t you just call her and apologize?”

Chu Jiyeong stared at him coldly in disbelief.

“You want me to call some junior that far below me and say I’m sorry?”

“Then call Baek Harok and ask him to mediate.”

That was getting worse.

Chu Jiyeong hated the idea of asking Harok for a favor even more than apologizing to Yubin.

Back when Harok was the second-line reporter, Chu Jiyeong had persistently harassed him.

She had issued all kinds of ridiculous instructions that barely qualified as work.

Looking back, it had been bad enough to justify a workplace harassment complaint.

And now she was supposed to ask him for help?

At the time, she had tormented Harok purely because of her ex-boyfriend.

Whenever her relationship went badly, she took it out on her juniors.

The other juniors suffered openly under her behavior.

Harok, however, calmly carried out her absurd instructions with an expression that suggested none of it bothered him.

That annoyed her even more.

The whole point of harassment was seeing the other person struggle.

Harok showed no reaction.

So she became even more irritated.

She sent him on pointless reporting errands.

Yet somehow Harok kept returning with exclusives while following those same ridiculous instructions.

Juniors knew the difference.

They could tell when a senior was pushing them to teach them and when a senior was simply tormenting them.

Chu Jiyeong’s behavior had clearly been the latter.

That was why even after working with Harok as first- and second-line partners for months, they never became close.

Once Harok gained seniority, Chu Jiyeong tried to repair the relationship.

But Harok never gave her an opening.

Chu Jiyeong was a classic egotist who saw everything from her own perspective.

How badly she had tormented Harok wasn’t what mattered to her.

What bothered her was that Harok ignored her attempts to repair the relationship.

That made her dislike him even more.

But right now, there was no other choice.

The only person in the company who could persuade Seol Yubin was Harok.

Chu Jiyeong opened her contacts and stared at the call button for a long time.

Finally, she made up her mind and pressed it.

“Yes, Senior.”

The voice was dry.

It sounded exactly like someone answering a call they had no desire to take.

“Oh, Harok. Can you talk for a moment?”

“Go ahead.”

Chu Jiyeong explained the situation as favorably toward herself as possible and asked Harok to persuade Yubin.

“So... you showed Yubin’s article to Executive Director Mun before publication?”

“Well, basically.”

“Then shouldn’t you call Yubin directly?”

“I thought things would go more smoothly if there were someone mediating.”

“I don’t know if she’ll listen to me.”

“Please, for old times’ sake.”

She shamelessly asked him while ignoring everything she had done to him in the past.

A brief silence came through the receiver.

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Which bastard ran his mouth?”

Kwon Jaegwan had turned his hospital room into a drinking party.

After being bombarded by the media day after day, even someone as shameless as Kwon Jaegwan couldn’t help feeling cornered.

Forced into an unexpected hospital-room exile, he craved alcohol even more.

Despite his secretaries trying to stop him, he insisted on drinking in the room.

“We’re currently trying to identify the person.”

Whoosh!

Smash!

Kwon Jaegwan hurled a glass at Mun Byeonggeol.

Fortunately, Kwon Jaegwan’s aim was terrible.

The glass hit the wall and shattered.

“You knew this article was about to run, so what the hell have you been doing?”

“We’re doing everything possible to stop it.”

“You say you’re doing everything possible, so why the hell are you standing around in my hospital room?”

Who the fuck do you think I’m here because of?

Recently, Mun Byeonggeol had begun experiencing sudden tightness in his chest and bursts of anger for no reason.

When he searched the symptoms online, it looked exactly like hwa-byung.

He wasn’t even a middle-aged woman in her fifties.

And yet he had hwa-byung.

At this rate, he needed to leave the company if he wanted to live a long life.

“The entire PR office is doing everything possible to respond.”

“Everything possible?”

Kwon Jaegwan looked at Mun Byeonggeol with open contempt.

“Hey. If you’re getting paid with someone else’s money, you don’t get credit for effort. You produce results. Anyone can say they tried their best.”

Mun Byeonggeol lowered his head without answering.

“How much money have we poured into advertising all this time? And you’re telling me you can’t even handle one article?”

Then you should’ve caused fewer scandals.

Worse, Kwon Jaegwan had left indisputable evidence on his own phone.

What the hell was Mun Byeonggeol supposed to do?

“Since it’s an actual recording...”

“That’s exactly why we spend tens of billions every year on PR. To deal with things like that.”

“The evidence is too clear. They’re saying they can’t simply ignore it.”

“Then claim the recording was fabricated.”

How could someone be this reckless?

Anyone who heard it would know immediately that it was Kwon Jaegwan’s voice.

Even a forensic voice analysis would come back one hundred percent as Kwon Jaegwan.

“This isn’t something they’ll bury just because we insist.”

“Hey, Team Head Song. Can’t we sue over privacy violations or something? Or claim it was an illegal recording?”

The fire finally spread to Legal Team Head Song Guk.

“We’ve already filed for an injunction, but the report is scheduled for tomorrow. And Korean courts have been broadly protective of press reporting, so it’ll probably be difficult.”

Even while delivering a completely ordinary legal assessment, Song Guk lowered his head.

“And if at least one party to the conversation consented to the recording, we can’t successfully sue over publication of the audio.”

Crash!

The moment Song Guk finished, Kwon Jaegwan flipped over the drinking table.

“Fuck! So you’re telling me to sit here quietly and get arrested?”

From the way he was acting, it seemed he still didn’t know about the overseas assignment.

Mun Byeonggeol found that strange.

What the hell is the chief secretary doing? Shouldn’t he have told him he’s being sent abroad already?

The senior executives all knew Kwon Jaegwan’s personality.

The moment someone told him to go overseas, he would explode.

It was like putting a bell around a cat’s neck.

“Who the hell gave them the recording? If I can at least catch that bastard and crush him, maybe I’ll feel better.”

At that moment, the secretary attending to his drinking took out a tablet and placed it in front of Kwon Jaegwan.

“This is the list of TF members from that time.”

The Safety Management TF had been a large organization of roughly thirty people, led by Executive Director Ahn Changwan.

Only a handful of them would have been able to speak directly with Kwon Jaegwan.

And among those, who could have discussed something as sensitive as the TF budget?

“Department Head Kim Jongseok, currently in Materials Management, is the most likely.”

Secretary Lee Gyuhyeong analyzed the situation logically and quickly identified the likely source.

“You sure?”

“The Audit Office asked him to reverse his testimony regarding Executive Director Ahn’s sexual harassment case. He was supposed to submit the revised statement this morning, but they say they haven’t heard from him.”

“That bastard. It’s him.”

Kwon Jaegwan’s face twisted as though he would beat Kim Jongseok to death if the man were standing beside him.

Mun Byeonggeol quietly studied Lee Gyuhyeong.

Lee Gyuhyeong was only in his mid-thirties, yet had already risen to department head and served as Kwon Jaegwan’s right-hand man.

He handled everything dirty for Kwon Jaegwan.

Booking bars.

Arranging women.

All kinds of unpleasant errands.

Mun Byeonggeol had thought he was just a worthless lackey who knew how to flatter his boss.

Apparently not.

He seemed to serve as Kwon Jaegwan’s brain as well.

“Call his office.”

Lee Gyuhyeong immediately dialed Kim Jongseok’s desk.

“Materials Management.”

“Is Department Head Kim Jongseok there?”

“Department Head Kim? He took a half-day this afternoon.”

“A half-day?”

“Yes. May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Department Head Lee Gyuhyeong from the Vice President’s Office.”

“Ah! Hello, sir.”

The moment the other person heard Lee Gyuhyeong’s name, their entire attitude changed.

“Did he say why he took the half-day?”

“He said he wasn’t feeling well.”

“He’ll be in tomorrow?”

“No. He also filed for a week of leave starting tomorrow. Said he’d be resting for a while.”

“Understood.”

Click.

There was no doubt now.

It was Kim Jongseok.

“Are we really going to just leave him alone?”

“There are too many eyes on us right now...”

“Why do you think the phrase make an example of one to warn a hundred exists? How weak did I look for something like this to happen?”

The atmosphere suggested Kwon Jaegwan was about to cause an even bigger disaster.

Someone needed to stop him.

But Mun Byeonggeol couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth.