Chapter 139: Collaborator (3)

On a weekday afternoon, Ji Kang-Hye headed to a certain western cuisine restaurant with a mask and sunglasses to hide her face. A young female employee bowed and greeted her.

“Welcome. Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes.”

“May I have your name?”

“Yoo Bok-Hye.”

It was neither Ji Kang-Hye’s real name nor the name of the acquaintance that she would be meeting today. She had used a name that had absolutely no relation to herself to make sure that there would be no traces of her visit to this restaurant.

The female employee nodded and guided Kang-Hye with a smile.

“I will take you to Room 11. Please follow me.”

“...”

Kang-Hye followed the female employee without a word. All that could be heard was the sound of her clicking heels. It was still too early for dinner, so there weren’t many customers. This was good for Kang-Hye, since the less customers there were, the lower her chances of getting recognized.

Once she entered Room 11, a man who had been waiting for her inside greeted her.

“You’re quite early. You said you’d be a little late.”

“My recording ended earlier than I’d expected.”

Once Kang-Hye took a seat, the female employee left the room and closed the door behind her to leave the two alone. Kim Chi-Yeol, the man who had made plans to meet with Kang-Hye today, extended his hand as she took off her coat.

“Give it to me. I will hang it for you.”

“Thank you.”

Chi-Yeol hung the coat on the coat rack for her.

“I ordered a special course for two. The food will arrive one by one as we talk,” he stated.

“About my meeting with you here, Minister Kim...”

“You don’t have to worry. My acquaintance runs this restaurant. The news of our meeting here will never see the light of day, so you can be at ease. And it’s not like our meeting is anything worthy of suspicion, is it? There’s no problem with two friends having a meal together.”

Chi-Yeol was not wrong, but Kang-Hye did not want to brag about the fact that she had a connection to Minister Kim, because of her guilty conscience.

“Like I’d said during the Film Awards, I have no excuse regarding what happened. I wanted to have you win the Grand Prize, but...” Chi-Yeol slurred.

“It couldn’t be helped. More importantly, have you still not discovered who had spread that rumor?”

“Yes, not yet. We’re sure it hadn’t been from an outsider, so I’m sure it will be discovered soon enough.”

Kang-Hye did not show it, but she had still not forgotten the indignity that she had felt from getting last year’s Grand Prize stolen from right under her nose.

Chi-Yeol mentioned to lessen her worries, “The more traces there are, the more likely it is for the culprit to be caught. All you have to do is to wait patiently. More importantly...”

Chi-Yeol had wanted to see Kang-Hye for a different reason.

“...About Isborn Entertainment.”

It was the talent agency that Kang-Hye had been planning on setting up. Chi-Yeol was also deeply involved in the company.

“Have you recruited many celebrities?” Chi-Yeol asked.

“Yes. There are a few that you know among them, so I’m sure it will create a large stir in the beginning.”

“That’s a relief.”

“It’s all thanks to you, Minister. I wouldn’t have been able to gather this many people if it hadn’t been for your full support.”

Since Chi-Yeol had deep connections in the financial world, he was able to prepare as much money as he wanted. In exchange, the fact that the two of them had partnered up to set up something huge in the entertainment industry was to be kept classified, since this was far bigger an issue than their attempt to fix the winner of the latest Grand Prize.

Kang-Hye smiled meaningfully at Chi-Yeol. “Anyway, it seems there are many people with great interest in the entertainment industry. You included, Minister Kim.”

“That’s just how humans are. Once we obtain money, fame, and power, we naturally search for the next best thing.”

Kang-Hye giggled in response. “Then I guess that means you’re true to your instincts, Minister.”

“The problem is that I’m too true to them. Okay then, about the launch of Isborn Entertainment—”

Slide.

Just when they were about to talk about something more important, the female employee who had guided Kang-Hye to the room showed up.

“Here are your side dishes.”

“...”

“...”

Awkwardness filled the room due to the female employee’s impeccable timing. Chi-Yeol continued as soon as the female employee left.

“I think it’d be best to hire some reporters to let it be known that it was you who had set up Isborn Entertainment. Next—”

“Excuse me. Here is your salad and soup.”

As Chi-Yeol was about to talk about the next item on the agenda, he had been interrupted once again by the female employee.

Kang-Hye gave Chi-Yeol a look.

“Ahem!” Chi-Yeol coughed and called the female employee over. “Could you give us the meal all at once instead of all separately like this?”

“Would you like me to serve you everything when the steak is ready?”

“Yes, that sounds good. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t come into the room until then.”

“I understand,” the female employee nodded and left the room again.

Kang-Hye said in complete dissatisfaction, “That girl can’t seem to take a hint.”

“I’ll say,” Chi-Yeol agreed.

It was almost as if she had purposefully interrupted them to make them angry.

***

Kang Ra-Eun had been on break ever since the new year. She had been repeating the cycle of going to the fitness center in the morning and going back home to rest like a homebody. Seo Yi-Seo couldn’t help but be amazed by her.

“Don’t you feel stifled from staying home all day?” she asked.

Ra-Eun had thought about going on a trip since she had gotten a long-awaited break, but she had been staying at home most of the day. However, she had a reason to do so.

“I have something to think about,” Ra-Eun mentioned.

“Think?”

“Yeah, about something very important,” she answered as she went back to her room with the coffee that Yi-Seo had bought her in hand.

The first thing that came into her view as she entered her room was the several post-it notes that were stuck on her wall. Ra-Eun also knew that Chi-Yeol had vast influence in the Korean entertainment industry, but she had come to realize after working in the industry herself that her knowledge had been nothing but the tip of the iceberg.

Chi-Yeol had embedded his roots far deeper into the industry than Ra-Eun had expected. She decided to use all the information of the future that she remembered to figure out how deep his roots went. It started from Cha Byun-Soo who had worked with Chi-Yeol to attempt to become a film director, all the way to Isborn Entertainment and Ji Kang-Hye, which she had only recently found out.

“This son of a bitch Kim Chi-Yeol... Is he slacking off work to go around meeting people in the entertainment industry?”

It was also possible that he had filled their pockets with taxpayer money. Embezzlement, corruption, rigging, and possibly even involvement in sexual bribery.

“What hasn’t he done?”

There were a few cases which Ra-Eun firmly believed Chi-Yeol to be involved in, but...

“I have no evidence.”

It was her job now to find those pieces of evidence. Chi-Yeol was deeply rooted in the cases of the entertainment industry.

“I might be able to end his career beyond recovery if I play my cards right.”

Chi-Yeol could be considered Kim Han-Gyo’s right arm. To take revenge against Kim Han-Gyo, Ra-Eun first needed to take down the miniboss Kim Chi-Yeol. If she didn’t, it was obvious that Han-Gyo would simply sacrifice him like a lizard detaching its tail to run away, just like he had done with Ra-Eun.

Han-Gyo was wretched enough to even abandon his own son for the sake of his own benefit. That was why Ra-Eun was planning on carrying through with her plan in order, one portion at a time.

“Ra-Eun.”

As she was making preparations to expose the Kim Chi-Yeol case, Yi-Seo knocked on Ra-Eun’s door.

“You have a guest.”

“Who is it?” Ra-Eun asked.

There was no one who would visit her at this time of day. She opened her room door to see who it was for herself. She expressed her delight as soon as she saw who it was.

“Are you done already?” she asked.

Ma Yeong-Jun, the guest, nodded slightly. However, he was hesitant to enter Ra-Eun’s home.

“Am I allowed to come in?” he asked.

“Why ask something like that out of the blue?”

“I’ve heard places like this were off-limits to men.”

Women were bound to be sensitive about letting a man into their home, but Ra-Eun answered as if she didn’t care.

“Don’t worry about that and just come in. But who’s the lady behind you?”

A young woman who Ra-Eun had never seen before followed behind Yeong-Jun. She looked to be around her mid-twenties, and she was considerably beautiful.

“Could she be... this?” Ra-Eun asked as she straightened her pinky finger.

Yeong-Jun smiled bitterly. “She’s a subordinate who’s been working under me since last year.”

“What? You had someone this pretty among your subordinates, mister?’

Ra-Eun was curious about who the woman was. Yeong-Jun gestured at the woman to introduce herself.

“My name is Kim Tae-Seon. It’s nice to meet you.” n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Same here. You look like a normal girl, so why are you working for a guy like this?”

Ra-Eun was the type to ask if she was curious.

Tae-Seon answered, “There was a president of a shady company who used to harass my father, but hyung-nim here took care of him. That’s why I started working under him to repay the debt.”

“What the hell, mister? Since when did you do good deeds like that?” Ra-Eun asked.

Yeong-Jun denied her question while shaking his head. “It wasn’t a good deed. It was just a coincidence. I didn’t take care of that president to help this girl’s dad.”

“But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re our family’s benefactor, hyung-nim.”

Ra-Eun was envious of Tae-Seon calling Yeong-Jun ‘hyung-nim’ despite being a woman.

‘I also should’ve just used hyung instead of oppa.’

She had gotten off the wrong foot from the very beginning of her return to the past.

While Yi-Seo had gone off to prepare some snacks for the guests, Ra-Eun asked Yeong-Jun about why he had come all the way to her house.

“Are you here because of what I asked you to do last time?”

She had been dead-on.

“Yeah. Tae-Seon got us something huge.”

“How?”

“She was at the place where Ji Kang-Hye and Kim Chi-Yeol had a meeting.”

Tae-Seon had disguised herself as the female employee that the two had met at the western cuisine restaurant.

She lowered her voice. “I have the evidence that you’ve been looking for, Miss Kang.”

1. A pinky finger symbolizes a man’s wife, girlfriend or mistress in Korea.

2. ’Hyung-nim’ is a formal way of saying ‘hyung.’