Thank You, Friend.
Robert Sterling's campaign headquarters. A conference room reserved for the innermost circle of advisors.
Under a heavy weight of tension, the staff sat before thick folders of documents, steeling themselves for the final battle. The emergency meeting had been called moments earlier at Donovan's request.
They already knew his next target: Marcus Wright, Richard Vance's second-in-command.
Even extracting an internal whistleblower from Kevin Miller — a mid-level manager in the opposing camp — had taken considerable time and an intricate judicial deal. Toppling Marcus Wright, Vance's perfect right hand of ten years, was an entirely different order of magnitude.
The staff fully expected Donovan to demand their total support and a vast amount of time. Determined to finally be of real use to the "miracle kingmaker," the legal and strategy teams had stayed up all night perfecting every negotiation card and legal pressure tactic they could muster.
Creak—
The tightly shut conference room door opened, and Donovan strolled in at an unhurried pace. The staff waited for his request for support.
Thud.
Without so much as a greeting, Donovan pulled a small USB drive and a bundle of documents from his pocket and set them on the long table.
"Marcus flipped. He said everything important is on there. Take a look."
"…"
The air in the room froze solid.
The chief strategy advisor, still gripping the folders he had prepared with such grim resolve, stared blankly down at the USB on the table and let out a dazed sound.
"…What?"
"Marcus… flipped?"
Deep bewilderment spread across every face in the room. No matter how exceptional Donovan's abilities were, this made no sense.
Marcus was Vance's second-in-command of ten years. On top of that, the Vance camp was barreling toward a landslide victory with a ten-point lead in the polls. The core advisor of a first-place campaign defecting in a race they had already won? There was no motive. No one walked away from a winning hand of their own free will.
Unable to believe it, the strategy advisor snatched up the documents from the table and flipped them open.
A clear signature stamped across the first page. Richard Vance's own handwritten authorization, personally approving and directing money laundering through a paper company.
"…It's real. This is real."
At that murmur, every eye in the room locked onto Donovan at the far end of the table. He had worked another miracle.
While everyone sat frozen in shock, Sterling, seated at the head of the table, closed the documents and issued a firm order.
"Send this material to the federal prosecutor's office. Immediately."
After a long fight, they finally had the angle to cut Vance's lifeline.
The next morning.
Richard Vance's lavish campaign headquarters.
BANG—!
The sealed glass doors were flung open hard enough to shatter, and investigators from the New York U.S. Attorney's Office poured in.
"Federal prosecutors! Everyone stop what you're doing and step away from your computers! We are executing a search and seizure warrant!"
"Wh-what is this?! Who do you think you are, barging in here—!"
Campaign staffers recoiled in horror and tried to block them, but the investigators pushed straight into the heart of the headquarters without hesitation.
And at that same hour, Vance's camp was not the only place the prosecutors hit.
The complete lobbying roster and fund-flow records Donovan had handed over. On the strength of that ironclad evidence, simultaneous search warrants dropped on the headquarters of New York's major media outlets and large-scale polling firms.
News desks listed on the roster were hauled one after another onto the photo line and summoned for questioning. The giant media companies that had been taking Vance's money plunged into panic. Stay silent, and they would be chained up as accomplices themselves. The only way to survive was to cut the tail and bite the master.
And so the media's merciless betrayal began.
News channels and front-page headlines that had been praising Vance just yesterday were suddenly plastered with exclusive stories tearing him apart.
Completely isolated overnight, Richard Vance's final thrashing was an emergency press conference.
"This is not true! This is all a conspiracy! A cheap political smear — a plot!"
Under a barrage of camera flashes, the elegant, noble mask of the aristocrat was nowhere to be found. Pale-faced, Vance clutched the microphone, veins bulging in his neck, before breaking down into tears and snot, pleading his innocence.
"Hic, huuh… People of New York… please, believe me…!"
The most pathetic, squalid groveling in the world. And that delicious moment of collapse was immediately preserved as Shorts and TikTok clips, spreading as a global mockery meme.
Mockery and contempt blanketed New York. Unable to withstand the crushing investigative pressure and nationwide humiliation, Richard Vance lasted only a few days before raising the white flag.
A sudden withdrawal from the race.
The vacuum left by the fallen giant was immediately filled by explosive fervor. The same media outlets that had cut Vance's tail to save themselves now scrambled to churn out glowing praise for Sterling, pivoting with ferocious speed.
These were the same news channels that, mere days ago, had been catering to Vance and turning their backs on Sterling. Now they were desperate to package him as a warrior who had defeated corruption — a hero of New York.
The public's reaction went even further. The betrayal of having been deceived by manipulated polls and media control fused into a blind, overwhelming wave of support for Sterling.
The votes of the withdrawn Vance did not scatter into the void. Angry undecided voters and betrayed supporters from the opposing camp — every scrap of public sentiment surged toward the Sterling camp like a tsunami.
The newly released poll numbers: a staggering 78%.
Robert Sterling's mayoral victory was, for all practical purposes, locked in.
A few days later, right after the polls closed.
Across the screens of every major outlet — CNN, the NYT, and the rest — a red banner flashed in unison.
A private room at campaign headquarters.
Outside the door, supporters' cheers roared like an earthquake, loud enough to blow the roof off the building. But the air inside the room was calm.
Sterling adjusted his tie in the mirror, then quietly gazed at the empty sofa. The man who had flipped the entire board was already gone — vanished at the very moment the spotlight was about to pour down, as if his work here was finished.
Staring at that silent absence, Sterling traced the path he had clawed his way along to reach this place.
When he first decided to run, he had thought it a fight worth fighting. Even when money and the media pushed him back, he refused to give up. But when he hit that despairing wall of twenty percent, he had reached out to that man, hoping for a miracle.
That miracle had shaken a mid-level manager in the opposing camp and slashed the yawning twenty-point gap down to ten in a single stroke. Then it had made the enemy's second-in-command of ten years walk over of his own free will, exposing even that remaining ten percent as a fabricated illusion. And just like that, he had completely overturned a hopeless twenty-percent approval rating.
When people witness the impossible, they call it a miracle. By that measure, that man was a real one. And all that miracle had asked of him was to be his friend.
Sterling murmured softly into the empty room.
"A miracle for a friend."
An endlessly reliable, deeply cherished friend.
A deep smile was spreading across Sterling's lips when the tightly shut door burst open.
"It's time, Mr. Mayor!"
Sterling straightened his collar and stepped out of the room.
Click—
The main hall doors opened, and a blinding barrage of camera flashes poured over him. Through confetti raining down from the ceiling like mad, thousands of people roared his name.
"WAAAAAH!!"
"Sterling!! Sterling!!"
He climbed onto the stage through the cheers, and hundreds of reporters thrust microphones at him.
"Mayor Sterling! You've been elected with an overwhelming share of the vote!"
"Having toppled a corrupt cartel — what is your first message to the people of New York?"
Before the chaotic clatter of camera shutters, Sterling took the microphone and spoke in a deep, resonant voice.
"This is the great victory of New Yorkers who refused to look away from the truth. The age of a corrupt privileged class ends today. Starting tomorrow, New York will be made entirely new."
Applause and cheers erupted, loud enough to tear the hall apart. Sterling looked past the ecstatic crowd and stared straight into the countless camera lenses — through them, toward the one person somewhere out there watching this broadcast.
"And finally."
At those words, the hall fell quiet for a moment.
"I want to leave this behind."
With a face full of certainty, Sterling lifted the corner of his mouth and poured his heart into the words.
The heart of Times Square.
The one-dollar fortune shop, Zen Psychic.
Donovan, who had been watching Sterling's victory speech on a tablet, let out a short snort of laughter and switched off the screen.
"I should be the one thanking you."
A mayor who would one day become president had become his friend. If anything, he was the one who should feel grateful.
As he sat there with the tablet, the shop door chimed.
Jingle—.
A thick cloud of perfume drifted in, followed by a woman in her twenties — a white woman in a dazzling silk dress — who walked through the door.
"The sign outside says one dollar, right? I've got about twenty minutes until my appointment, so I figured I'd kill some time."
She approached with light steps and dropped a one-dollar bill onto the wooden desk. Then, without preamble, she thrust her smartphone screen right in front of Donovan's face.
"I'm going on a first date today with a guy I met on Tinder? His profile pic is like Ben Affleck-level Hollywood actor material, but do you think it's a stolen photo? What do you think, mister?"
A classic Times Square walk-in — a casual tourist who had wandered into a one-dollar fortune shop because she was curious about the looks of a man she was meeting in twenty minutes.
Donovan glanced at the phone screen, then pushed it away with a fingertip.
"I don't read photos."
"Aww, come on. For a dollar? At least read my love fortune, then."
She pouted and shoved her face toward him. Donovan propped his chin on his hand and ran an indifferent eye over her features.
…Huh?
The palace of romantic bonds at the outer corner of the eyes — the seat of ties with the opposite sex. Not a single drop of pink peach-blossom energy or affection lingered there. Instead, a black aura like rotting mud filled the space completely. Worse, that darkness climbed all the way up to the Indang between her brows, coiling around her life line like a noose.
What the hell is this?
This was exactly why he could never quit physiognomy.