Chapter 146: Gift
Chapter 146: Gift
A hidden reward.
What would it be?
My heart thumped with anticipation.
Right in front of me, the status window began spinning in a complicated pattern.
At first, the words 【Random Rank-Up Ticket】 appeared.
But soon, the text was erased, and a vivid red line of text flashed into view.
【Hidden Reward Granted!】
【S-Rank Rank-Up Ticket】
Not a random pull that depended on probability, but a guaranteed S-Rank Rank-Up Ticket.
The reward I had wanted so badly.
Good.
At that moment, Director Chae Wongi must have misread my expression, because he chuckled and said, “Well, look at that. Even Actor Ryu, who looked like a living Buddha, must be happy about the 50% ratings! Your mouth corners are lifting a little!”
He wasn’t wrong.
I got this reward because we hit 50% in the final episode.
As for which stat to raise to S-rank—Looks or Physical Acting—I would think it through slowly later when I was alone.
There was no need to make a rushed decision in a crowded place like this.
“Director! We hit 50% ratings too, so shouldn’t we take it out now?”
“Ah, right.”
Director Chae Wongi opened his bag with a solemn face, then rummaged around and pulled out something wrapped tightly in newspaper.
“Alright! I brought this with great resolve—fifteen-year-aged wild-cultivated ginseng liquor!”
Thud—
A liquor bottle was set on the table.
But compared to how dramatic he sounded, the bottle size was pathetically small.
At most, it was about the size of a 500 ml bottled water.
“Huh?”
“Whose nose are we supposed to stick that on?”
“If everyone at this table takes one shot each, it’ll be gone.”
“Are we supposed to just smell it?”
The staff jeered.
Director Chae Wongi panicked and hugged the bottle to his chest.
“You brats! Do you drink this precious liquor to get drunk? I brought it so you could just taste it! If you don’t want it, I’ll take it back!”
“Come on, you took it out—how can you put it back? Stingy.”
“Stingy?”
“But Director, for your size, the jar is definitely small. Right?”
“What, even Writer Park is doing this to me?”
It sounded like he’d been boasting hard beforehand.
Everyone was disappointed at the “result” he actually showed them.
But the mood was still cheerful.
Ah, right.
Because of Director Chae Wongi, I remembered something I’d forgotten.
I quietly stood and went to find Team Leader Jo Sehun.
“You mean we should take it out now, right? Okay. The timing is perfect.”
I went out with Team Leader Jo Sehun and the rest of the team, including Road Manager Jeong Daeyeop, and brought in the gifts we had filled the car trunk with.
When I stepped into the restaurant carrying boxes in both arms, everyone’s eyes gathered on me.
“What is it? Those boxes?”
“Wrap-party gifts.”
“All of this?”
The staff’s eyes went wide.
“Here! Sunho brought gifts for us!”
“Excuse me? You even brought gifts?”
“For us? For the staff?”
I gave headsets to all the drama staff.
Given the nature of the job—with a lot of waiting and travel time—I chose the most useful thing.
“Waaah! This is insane! I really wanted one of these!”
“This is really expensive! Isn’t it over 700,000 won?”
“Eek! Then how much is all this? There are over a hundred staff members!”
“Wow… you must’ve spent a ton. This is crazy.”
But if I only handed out off-the-shelf products, it would look like I had no sincerity.
So I prepared one more thing.
I wrote a short letter addressed to each staff member by name and put one inside each box.
Honestly, calling it a “letter” was embarrassing.
It was more like copywriting—using their names to make a two-line acrostic.
But the staff looked genuinely moved by it.
“Wow… you remembered every single one of our names? Even the youngest staff member’s name?”
“I’ve never even gotten a letter like this while dating… I’m seriously so touched.”
“I’m going to keep this forever!”
They were busy taking photos of the letter made with their own name.
A few wiped at their eyes, emotions rising too high.
“Haehju, you’re crying?”
“No… look at what it says. How can you not cry?”
A lighting team staff member received the letter and read it slowly.
[In a time when there was so much we had to get done,]
[Because you did more than what you were given, we were able to see the brightest light. Thank you.]
The crying spread quickly.
“Seriously… when did you even think of this and write it, when you’re so busy…”
“Ugh… I don’t even know how many times I’ve cried today. But this is honestly the biggest emotion of all. Sunho, thank you so much…!”
I was a little flustered at the intense reaction.
Back when I worked at an ad agency in my previous life, it was just a small event I sometimes did for teammates who worked hard after a project ended.
Still, seeing the staff who struggled alongside me get comforted and happy made me satisfied too.
Meanwhile, Director Chae Wongi, looking awkward, was quietly hiding the wild ginseng liquor behind his back.
“Honestly, you just want to take that back so you can drink it yourself, right?”
“Shut up…! Don’t ruin the mood…!”
“Tch, Actor Ryu Sunho really is different from you, Director. Even his heart is on a different level!”
“Fine, fine! I’ll pay for round two! Happy now?!”
The restaurant filled with laughter.
It was the best ending, fitting for the best drama.
The wrap party ended as a single day of joy, but the record “Doctor Princess” set kept getting talked about online.
[“Doctor Princess,” final-episode ratings 51.7%… crowned a “national drama”]
[The textbook case of a strong start and a strong finish… viewers praise the perfect ending]
[Goodbye Han Jusin… Ryu Sunho breaks his career-best character and delivers a dazzling finale]
Viewers’ reactions were extremely positive too.
It had been a long time since a work wrapped things up this cleanly.
This is seriously the drama of my life..
You’ll give us Season 2, right? I believe… Joo-men…
Perfect to the end..
└ For real, no forced melodrama, no frustration bait, and a tightly closed happy ending, so it was amazing
Every time Han Jusin dropped that Black Flame Dragon line my whole body curled up in embarrassment, but even that is going to be missed..
└ I can’t lose God Jusin..!
Writer Joo Hanbit was wobbling from exhaustion after staying up until morning, but she couldn’t put her phone down.
Whenever she saw comments comparing her to Choi Jeongin, she lit up as always and tapped “like” one by one.
Honestly, Writer Joo Hanbit succeeded after breaking away from Choi Jeongin
└ Yeah, if she stayed under Choi Jeongin, she would’ve only learned to bloat pointless screen time and wouldn’t have succeeded
└ “Doctor Princess” is honestly a drama written with the guts of a rookie writer
└ Even if you didn’t know the two were connected, the win–loss is obviousㅋㅋ Survival Love is old, while “Doctor Princess” was trendy but still had depth
Meanwhile, Han Seungwoo was also in his office, looking through the reactions with his mouth corners raised in a relaxed smile.
What he mostly checked wasn’t the public reaction, but experts’ evaluations.
“This year’s true hero is ‘Doctor Princess.’ Both the ratings and the buzz were all-time level. In particular, what makes ‘Doctor Princess’ remarkable is that it gained popularity across all age groups, regardless of gender…”
The head of a buzz-research institution poured out admiration and praise.
“‘Doctor Princess’ is a strong work that combines the familiar medical genre with fresh character settings, twisting what we often expect from K-dramas and approaching it in a new way. While fully maintaining the tension of a medical drama, the balance of comedy and romance created by lively characters was exquisite. And…”
Even foreign media continued to praise it.
Calling it a perfect success still wouldn’t be enough.
He had pushed forward with a rookie writer’s script that everyone worried about, and it produced a historic result.
Naturally, his standing inside the company became even more solid.
“Executive Director really has a different eye… how did you feel certain about a rookie writer’s work?”
“Honestly, at first I was half in doubt, but now I have to believe unconditionally. He’s not the old bulldozer anymore…”
“If the movie blows up too, aren’t you going to take the CEO seat…?”
The only people smiling weren’t the drama staff.
Singgeut headquarters was also screaming in happiness.
More precisely, the Singgeut Ice Cream Business Team was in a festival mood.
“We got another request from the convenience store headquarters to adjust Only One’s order volume…!”
“How much?”
“They’re asking for a 300% increase compared to before!”
“Run the factory at full capacity!”
That wasn’t all.
“We’re getting a flood of inquiries from overseas branches too. Orders are surging, especially from the UK and Southeast Asia.”
They were briefly stunned by the unexpected overseas reaction.
But after the Singgeut Strategic Planning Team analyzed it, it was revealed to be thanks to Ryu Sunho’s “chili oil ice cream” content.
Princess Shupi’s participation became the trigger, and it spread into a global challenge.
Because of that, Only One’s sales jumped significantly, and the social buzz volume skyrocketed, making it undeniably the hottest ice cream right now.
The brand aging Singgeut had worried about so much looked substantially resolved.
As a result, Singgeut’s overall ice cream sales rose, and Singgeut’s stock price was hitting new highs day after day.
“Kwahahahaha!”
Singgeut’s executive director, just back from reporting to the chairman, laughed loudly.
He looked even happier than when the merger and acquisition with Haechi Ice Cream was decided.
And for good reason—this performance had driven the final nail into his claim for the next CEO position.
Not only did he bring back Only One—one of the Singgeut Chairman’s pet development products—into its prime, he also opened the gateway to expanding into the global market, which had long been a cherished ambition.
The Singgeut Chairman’s face—giving him a thumbs-up and sparing no praise—was still vivid before his eyes.
“Hiring Ryu Sunho as our model was the best choice. It was a god-tier move.”
At his words, Seo Dongju nodded along.
“That’s right. Your eye elevated Singgeut’s quality by one level.”
“Exactly. What did I say? The most expensive player is actually the cheapest player. That applies perfectly to Ryu Sunho!”
“An absolutely correct statement. To get this kind of effect from just one SNS content piece… it almost feels like we brought him in for pennies.”
“That’s what I’m saying. If a ‘taste test’ ad blew up this hard, I’m already excited to see how hard the full summer season campaign is going to explode.”
The executive director’s eyes filled with expectation.
“If Ryu Sunho brings something he wants to do, approve anything and support it fully so it goes forward!”
Around the same time.
Sejong Special Self-Governing City.
Minister of Health and Welfare office, Sejong Government Complex.
The air here was heavy and still.
Only the white steam blowing from the humidifier stood in for the silence.
“Minister, this is the performance report for the organ donation campaign.”
The Minister of Health and Welfare carefully scanned the report.
After turning pages for a long time, the minister’s hand stopped.
His gaze locked on a particular graph.
A red line rising steeply, drawing an upward slope.
“…Ha!”
The minister lifted his head with a disbelieving chuckle.
Across from him, the PR team leader standing at attention swallowed dryly.
“This figure—this isn’t a typo, right?”
“No, it isn’t. We confirmed the count through the system network and completed cross-verification. It’s an accurate figure.”
“A twelve-hundred percent increase over the same period last year… I’ve never seen a graph like this in all my time in public service.”
The minister took off his glasses and set them on the desk.
His tired eyes curved pleasantly.
“It’s the highest number ever. And by an overwhelming margin.”
In truth, an organ donation campaign was one of the hardest problems even for the government.
Even after pouring tens of billions of won into it every year, people’s awareness didn’t change easily.
The negative perception—fearful, unsettling—ran deep.
But in just a few months, that solid wall had collapsed.
“The drama’s success and the campaign timing meshed exquisitely, and the synergy effect exploded. People have begun accepting organ donation itself as ‘noble and beautiful.’”
At the PR team leader’s report, the minister nodded.
“It wasn’t simply luck that the drama did well, was it? The key was how you integrated the message into the drama. If it had been forced, wouldn’t it have backfired?”
“That’s right. And in that aspect, PR Ambassador Ryu Sunho’s idea was decisive.”
As if he’d been waiting for it, the PR team leader brought up Ryu Sunho.
“Usually, PR ambassadors only cooperate with an appointment ceremony photo and maybe a poster shoot… but PR Ambassador Ryu Sunho proposed ideas himself and persuaded the writer and production staff to integrate it naturally into the drama.”
The minister stroked his chin, sinking into thought.
A young actor who didn’t simply chase popularity, but thought about social influence and acted on it.
“Commendable” wasn’t enough.
“He’s a kid with real style.”
The minister closed the report with a satisfied smile.
“At this point, shouldn’t we give him some kind of award? A simple plaque of appreciation is too weak. We should at least give something like a minister’s commendation.”
“Understood. I’ll push it immediately.”
“Then check his schedule and set a date. A schedule where I can personally present the minister’s commendation.”