Before the article about the Kowloon Village favoritism scandal went out, I called Choi Hyuk in again.

“President Choi Hyuk. Soon, an article exposing suspicions surrounding Joongwon Development will be published. Once that happens, you’ll also end up under investigation.”

Whether he was just a front man or not, Choi Hyuk, the president of Joongwon, would naturally become the top investigation target.

“I promised you, so I’ll help you leave the country. Did you bring the corporate bankbooks and all the related documents?”

Choi Hyuk nodded and pulled out the corporate bankbooks, seal stamps, and related documents from his bag.

I gave Chief Ma a look. He gathered up the bankbooks, seals, and documents.

“It’ll take a few days. We’ll have to route things around through several channels, so the fees will be high too. Keep that in mind.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“And also......”

Chief Ma pulled a card and a plane ticket from inside his jacket.

“There’s one million dollars loaded onto this card. Use it for now. Don’t waste time cleaning things up around you. Leave the country today.”

“You mean... leave today?”

“Yes. By tomorrow, all of Joongwon’s real estate assets will be transferred over to Haedong. Once that happens, surviving safely won’t be easy for you, President Choi.”

Right now was the perfect timing, while Lee Jongseong still had no room to pay attention to Joongwon at all.

The person he trusted, Ha Eunbin, had been removed from her position as chief secretary, and contact with her had been cut off afterward.

Since then, Lee Jongseong had been desperately trying to meet with other politicians he still had connections to.

But the politicians had already sensed something was wrong and were refusing his requests.

“You’ll only be safe if you leave immediately. If you refuse that, there’s nothing more I can do for you. I can only guarantee your safety if you follow my instructions.”

Choi Hyuk wasn’t stupid. The moment the truth became public, Byun Heebong and Lee Jongseong could have him quietly killed without leaving a trace.

“What will you do? Will you leave immediately?”

“Yes. I’ll leave the country right away.”

“When you arrive at the airport, someone will be waiting for you. Follow him. Hide in the Philippines for the time being, and once things quiet down a little, I’ll send you to Europe.”

As Choi Hyuk nodded, he asked uneasily,

“......Won’t I end up on a wanted list?”

“I’ll handle that. It may take some time, but I’ll make sure you can eventually return to Korea.”

“That’s possible?”

“Time solves everything. People aren’t that curious about President Choi Hyuk. You’re just a tool. The people are interested in the ones wielding the tool.”

It was a deeply insulting way to put it, but it was true.

Ironically, the fact that he was only a tool also meant he could escape much more easily.

Maybe he understood that, because Choi Hyuk’s face stiffened.

“Everything you’ll need has already been prepared in the Philippines. You can get up and head straight to the airport now.”

I called out to Chief Ma, who was standing beside us.

“Chief. Assign someone to escort him to the airport. Make sure they confirm the plane has taken off before returning.”

“Yes, Boss. President Choi, please stand. I’ll escort you.”

Choi Hyuk stood up with the card and ticket in hand.

Just as he was about to leave, he hesitated, then pulled a small memo sheet from inside his jacket.

After checking it, Chief Ma handed it over to me.

Written on the memo were an address, the number “1027,” and an eight-digit password.

“There’s a company that specializes in renting private vaults. The kind that can only be opened with numbers and a password.”

“Oh?”

The idea of a secret vault company immediately piqued my interest.

I’d heard rumors of places like that before.

Companies that never asked about the identity of the people depositing items and simply stored the goods, no questions asked.

And if he was handing this over now, then clearly there was something interesting hidden inside.

“Yes. Inside are all the materials I’ve collected so far on Chairman Byun Heebong and Lee Jongseong. I couldn’t gather that much because my abilities were limited, but with your capabilities, Branch Manager, even small clues should be enough to uncover something bigger.”

“Good. I’ll make good use of it.”

“Then I’ll take my leave.”

Choi Hyuk left with Chief Ma, and I absentmindedly turned the memo over in my fingers, lost in thought.

A little while later, Chief Ma returned after escorting Choi Hyuk out.

“You heard him too, right? Retrieve the materials.”

“Understood.”

“And find out who owns that vault company while you’re at it.”

Chief Ma nodded and left.

Several hours later, he returned carrying a document envelope.

I opened it, pulled out the papers inside, and slowly read through them.

“Hm. He said he didn’t gather much, but these are pretty detailed.”

The documents meticulously recorded who Lee Jongseong ordered entertained, where, and when.

“Are they?”

“Take a look yourself, Chief, and investigate further based on this. At this level, if we dig just a little deeper, we should be able to secure meaningful evidence.”

“Understood.”

“And contact Chunha Group. Tell them to raid this room salon.”

The address of the secret room salon Byun Heebong had established to entertain political and business elites was also listed in the documents.

Things like this were much easier to clean up through Chunha Group rather than handling them personally ourselves.

“Tell them to strip the place clean. Ledgers, CCTV footage, everything.”

“Yes. I’ll send someone to take care of it.”

This was satisfying enough for me.

I slowly curled the corners of my mouth upward.

* * *

Several days later, I heard that Byun Heebong had collapsed.

“Isn’t this some kind of stunt?”

We hadn’t even properly started yet, and he was already clutching the back of his neck and collapsing?

“I don’t think so. Lee Jongseong urgently called an ambulance and took him to the hospital. He regained consciousness after one day.”

“And this is only the beginning. Can he really afford to fall apart already?”

“What should we do? Continue?”

“Of course. We tear into him. Release the follow-up article.”

Whether Byun Heebong clutched the back of his neck or not had nothing to do with me. I just needed to do my job.

I opened the drawer beside me, pulled out several documents, and handed them to Chief Ma.

After confirming he had taken them, I stood up.

“Then let’s move too.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Chief Ma and I headed toward the meeting place.

“Hey, Muhyuk. About time.”

“What took you so long?”

Inside the secret bar, Myungsoo and Oh Hyunwoo were already waiting.

I checked my watch and grumbled.

“What are you talking about? There’s still thirty minutes left before we were supposed to meet. Why are you guys making such a fuss?”

“Tsk! People should arrive early. Everyone here is busy, you know.”

Myungsoo scolded me anyway, and I eventually burst out laughing.

“You’re late, so drink first.”

The moment I sat down, I emptied the glass Myungsoo poured for me in one shot.

After that, we traded drinks and chatted idly for a while. Even the pointless conversation was entertaining.

About an hour passed before I finally brought up the main topic.

“Should we get to business now? Everyone’s busy, so I’ll get straight to the point.”

Myungsoo and Oh Hyunwoo nodded.

I pushed the bottles on the table aside slightly and placed several documents from my briefcase onto the table.

“Take a look. These are the politicians and government officials I confirmed were connected to Byun Heebong.”

Oh Hyunwoo and Lee Myungsoo split the stack in half and started reviewing the documents.

Afterward, they exchanged the files, checked the lists again, and set them down.

“Damn. This isn’t just some ordinary scandal.”

“No kidding. It’s literally a hornet’s nest.”

Even they couldn’t hide their shock at the scale of it.

“Right? Even I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”

The Byun Heebong Gate.

Originally, it was something that wouldn’t have exploded for another ten years, but thanks to my intervention, the timing had been pulled forward.

And compared to my previous life, the scale was much larger.

Honestly, I suspected that back then they probably removed everyone they possibly could and only left behind the people who absolutely couldn’t be excluded.

“At this rate, even we might take damage. I seriously don’t understand it. It’s not like these people were short on money.”

Myungsoo clicked his tongue irritably while shaking his head.

The list included the newly elected mayors of Seoul and Busan from the local elections.

Since two major Centrist Party metropolitan leaders were implicated, the party that would take the biggest hit was naturally the Centrist Party itself.

“Remove the Seoul mayor. I already reached an agreement with him.”

“That’s okay?”

“Yeah. Instead, use it as a negotiation card yourself later. That’s enough. If he starts getting greedy and dreaming about a presidential run or something unnecessary, you can use it to pressure him.”

“Thanks. Then let’s remove these people too.”

Myungsoo selected about half of the Centrist Party politicians and suggested removing them from the list.

Most were either close to him or openly supported him.

“Will that really be okay?”

If only the politicians connected to Myungsoo disappeared from the investigation, the ones who got caught might accuse him of political manipulation.

“What’s not okay about it? Did I take bribes? No, they’re the ones who stuffed themselves. I warned them over and over to be careful, but they let greed take over. Besides... I left two people close to me on the list too.”

I glanced over the names Myungsoo pointed at.

One reelected lawmaker and one freshman lawmaker.

Just those two.

“I was planning not to nominate them in the next general election anyway, so I might as well cut them off now. Oh, and we can’t arrest everyone from the opposition party either.”

“I know that.”

“I’ll meet with the leader of their party and sort things out. Since we’re offering up an arm, they can offer up at least one leg.”

“Then you can handle that side yourself. Keep the ones worth keeping and remove the ones worth removing.”

After finishing, I turned toward Oh Hyunwoo.

He looked even more shocked than Myungsoo.

“......This senior actually covered for Byun Heebong?”

Oh Hyunwoo’s eyes refused to leave the prosecution-related documents.

“Why? Someone you know well?”

“He’s a senior my grandfather valued highly. He always said the man was upright. Said he was someone who could someday even become Prosecutor General.”

“Really? The Chief Justice isn’t the type to hand out praise like that easily.”

“Ha......”

“Now you understand why I asked for you to be assigned to the Special Investigation Division, right?”

Oh Hyunwoo sighed again and slowly nodded.

This was a case where prosecutors would have to investigate their own people.

Without someone with Hyunwoo’s level of influence, it would have been absolutely impossible.

“I’m planning to blow this entire board wide open. That’ll make it easier for me to take over the businesses Byun Heebong’s involved in. I’m going to leak to the press that Dreamhigh will step in and continue the projects left stranded on the verge of collapse.”

Frowning deeply, Oh Hyunwoo rubbed his forehead.

“You can’t do it?”

“No. Doing it isn’t the problem. But if this happens, the authority of the prosecution will collapse. If even prosecutor-general-level officials get implicated like this......”

Oh Hyunwoo was also someone who valued the prestige of the prosecution.

“Still, this man absolutely has to stay in. He’s the core of this whole affair.”

I intended to take not only Kowloon Village but also every business Byun Heebong was pushing in Busan.

After hesitating for a moment, Oh Hyunwoo carefully spoke.

“I’ll sort through the prosecution side myself and narrow down the list. Is that okay, Muhyuk?”

“Fine. I trust you to handle it properly, Hyunwoo.”

After that, we discussed how to cook this entire case.

Around the time we finished organizing the list, I pulled out another set of documents and showed them to the two of them.

“And this gye gathering absolutely has to be destroyed. Because this place is Byun Heebong’s Achilles’ heel.”

Byun Heebong’s rise had started from this secret gye gathering.

* * *

[The Shadow of a Secret Gye Gathering Behind the Kowloon Village Favoritism Scandal and Joongwon Development]

A real estate development company has recently become embroiled in suspicions of favoritism regarding the Kowloon Village redevelopment project.

At the same time, growing attention is being directed toward its ties to a secretive gye gathering involving not only figures from the political and business worlds but also high-ranking bureaucrats and members of the legal community.

This hidden gathering is reportedly attended by influential members of society’s elite, raising serious concerns about the impact their decisions may have on the nation’s economy and broader social structure.

The connection between Joongwon Development and this secret gathering only deepens the controversy, bringing issues of fairness and transparency sharply into focus.

The allegations raise troubling questions over whether Joongwon Development’s activities extend far beyond ordinary business operations and into the realm of influence exercised through close relationships with the upper class of society.

At present, Joongwon Development has yet to provide a clear official statement regarding the accusations, further intensifying public demands for accountability and transparency.

A thorough investigation into the true relationship between the secret gathering and Joongwon Development — as well as the extent of their influence — is now urgently needed.

Clear answers are also being demanded regarding whether gatherings of society’s elite truly exist to serve the public interest, or merely the interests of a select few.

The Kowloon Village favoritism scandal may only be the beginning, and the questions and concerns it raises across society are expected to continue growing.

It was an exclusive feature article published by Koryeo Daily.

And because of it, all of South Korea was thrown into complete chaos.