Chapter 196
Chapter 196
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 196
Chapter Title: A Flower Blooms on the Ashes
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A flower blooms on the ashes.
In a world of pure "white" nothingness, Cheon Heyeon slowly opened her eyes.
All-white bedding, white wallpaper, white curtains pouring in the blinding morning sunlight.
It felt just like a dream devoid of any sense of reality.
A familiar cigarette scent wafted to her nose.
As her mind cleared, sensations in her body belatedly awakened.
A dull ache throbbing in her lower abdomen.
Her thighs trembling faintly, beyond her control.
A lingering, languid heat still enveloped her entire body.
In her hazy vision, she saw the sturdy back of a man standing by the window.
"......Why... did you come?"
Her voice, hoarse from sleep, slipped out weakly.
The man turned slowly.
"Oh? You're awake?"
Kim Cheolsu.
That bastard.
His voice was so calm, so utterly mundane.
"Why... did you come here."
Cheon Heyeon asked again.
The man who had shown up out of nowhere at her mansion in the Philippines.
His face as he demanded sex from her, acting like it was the most natural thing in the world, like a king on his throne.
And... the memory of her own body accepting him without a single word of protest.
Kim Cheolsu stubbed out the cigarette in his hand in the ashtray and answered softly.
"To keep my promise."
'Promise.'
At that single word, Cheon Heyeon's body—sprawled elegantly yet vulgarly on the white bed—slowly propped itself up on her elbows.
Her disheveled, lush hair cascaded down past her shoulders.
She felt the sticky remnants all over her body and the "evidence" leaking from within, soaking the sheets, but she forced herself to ignore it.
Without hesitation, she pulled a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand and put it between her lips.
"Didn't you quit smoking?"
Kim Cheolsu lit his lighter and held the flame to the tip of her cigarette as he asked.
A sharp click sounded, and a red flame flickered to life.
Cheon Heyeon inhaled deeply, exhaled a plume of white smoke, and murmured softly.
"Thanks to who, did I pick it up again?"
At her barbed response, Kim Cheolsu furrowed his brow slightly.
He snatched the cigarette she'd just lit from her hand and ground it out in the ashtray.
"Quit it."
"......."
"And no more birth control pills from now on."
".........."
A man with a wife, father to two children, demanding "pregnancy" as if it were the most obvious thing.
That bastard.
Cheon Heyeon's eyes trembled with rage. In a quivering voice, she asked for confirmation.
"You... came here to keep that 'promise'?"
"I promised you Taesung, didn't I?"
Kim Cheolsu replied casually, as if he'd promised to buy her a loaf of bread from the shop next door.
"Ah... right, that 'deal'..."
A bitter laugh escaped Cheon Heyeon's lips.
The horrific yet sweet promise: bear his child, become the world's finger-pointed "concubine" or "second wife," and he'd hand over her father's entire kingdom.
As if reading her mind, Kim Cheolsu grinned.
"Most people don't believe me... but surprisingly, I keep my promises."
At his arrogant words, Cheon Heyeon stared him down and let out a mocking scoff.
"You ran straight to my father to tattle the second we made the deal?"
Undaunted by her provocation, Kim Cheolsu shot back.
"I never promised not to tattle."
"You bastard."
"Pfft, guilty as charged."
Kim Cheolsu burst into short laughter.
He stepped closer, lifted her chin, and locked eyes with her.
"So, you don't want Taesung?"
"........."
Cheon Heyeon said nothing, just met his gaze.
Reading the burning ambition in her eyes, Kim Cheolsu delivered the final blow.
"Well, I'll smash it all to pieces anyway, so it'll tank to the bottom of the rankings... but you still want it, right?"
".....Yes."
Finally, a short surrender slipped from her lips.
Ashes or not, her father's throne had to be hers.
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In the familiar "white" world, Cheon Heyeon opened her eyes.
The hotel suite room gleamed entirely white.
A familiar yet incongruous voice reached her ear.
"You're awake?"
Han Yura.
That bitch.
"......Water."
Her exhausted, cracked voice barely formed the word.
Without a reply, Han Yura fetched a bottle of mineral water from the suite's fridge and handed it to her from beside the bed.
Cheon Heyeon slowly sat up.
Stark naked, without a stitch on.
Kim Cheolsu's traces were vividly marked across her body in red.
She blankly stared at Han Yura's back, focused on the laptop screen at the table.
Then she pressed the cold water bottle to her still-flushed cheek.
The chill seemed to sharpen her mind a bit.
Cheon Heyeon quenched her parched throat with the cool water.
"Now that you're compos mentis, shall we talk business?"
Han Yura said businesslike, eyes fixed on the laptop.
Her voice held no emotion whatsoever.
Cheon Heyeon swallowed, hesitating before asking.
"...Director Han, are you okay?"
As if not grasping the intent, Han Yura turned her head briefly.
"With what?"
"......"
Cheon Heyeon couldn't continue.
The storm that had ravaged this room. The intense hours that shattered everything and devoured it all.
Not just her— that woman had been right in the eye of it too.
Finally catching on, a faint smirk crossed Han Yura's lips.
"Ah, Executive Director Cheon... you'll get used to it soon enough. Surprisingly, you have a... talent for the back door?"
'Talent.'
At that word, something surged up from Cheon Heyeon's gut.
Her self, stripped of reason and shame, crumbling to pleasure.
That woman's cruelty in calling it "talent."
She roughly rubbed her dry face, trying to erase the branded memory.
Then Han Yura approached the bed with the laptop.
She wore only a thin silk robe. Even she bore no exception to that beast's marks.
"Well, your body might feel heavy today."
Han Yura lay down beside Cheon Heyeon as if it were nothing and opened the laptop.
"But we need to stay sharp. The stage won't wait."
The laptop's cold glow illuminated the faces of the two women scarred by the storm, side by side.
On the screen was the final script for tomorrow's press conference.
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As Park Sunwoo's anguished confession ended, the press room fell into a momentary hush before erupting into chaos like a kicked beehive.
He bowed his head deeply to stifle his bursting sobs.
His shoulders trembled faintly.
Watching him, Cheon Heyeon quietly stepped to his side.
She gently placed her hand on her bowed brother's back, then gripped the central microphone.
Hundreds of camera flashes turned on her in unison.
Unlike Park Sunwoo's, her voice held not a tremor.
"Everyone, the man beside me is my one and only brother, Taesung's hidden eldest son, Professor Park Sunwoo."
She first announced their relationship to the world.
"My brother has just bravely confessed the shameful roots of our family and vowed atonement. Today, I stand here to testify how that legacy of the past turned Taesung into the monster it is now."
Cheon Heyeon paused for breath.
Her icy gaze swept over every reporter in the room.
"The 'pro-Japanese' legacy that birthed Taesung didn't vanish after liberation. Those funds were laundered through shell companies, seed money to snap up nationalized assets at fire-sale prices. And that history of 'dirty tricks' is still deeply embedded in every aspect of Taesung Group's business today."
She continued her exposé in a calm, textbook-like tone—but with the irrefutable voice of an insider.
"Slush funds managed through dozens of anonymous accounts, shell subsidiaries funneling work at cut rates for the family owners' personal gain, and... the list of politicians those black funds flowed to."
"!!!"
Gasps of shock erupted from the press seats.
"I intend to right all these wrongs. No longer will the Taesung name be a tool to sate one man's greed—my father, Chairman Cheon Myeonghwan. This is not destruction, but the first step toward reform."
She embraced Park Sunwoo's bowed shoulders and declared to the cameras.
"My brother and I stand here today as Taesung's greatest victims—and its most desperate reformers."
The moment her words ended, the press room descended into utter mayhem.
Hundreds of questions and shouts, flashes exploding to devour everything.
Amid that dazzling spotlight,
preparing for flowers to bloom gloriously on the ashes,
it finally sprouted.
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In the shattered silence of the office, TV news noise blared nonstop since morning.
The screen repeatedly showed highlights from yesterday's press conference that rocked Korea.
Park Sunwoo and Cheon Heyeon standing side by side at the podium.
The son's agonized confession, the daughter's cold exposé.
Cheon Myeonghwan said nothing.
He merely rolled a heavy go stone bowl, carved from ancient wood decades old, slowly in his palm.
Then, on screen, Cheon Heyeon embraced her bowed brother's shoulders and declared boldly to the camera.
'My brother and I are Taesung's greatest victims...'
Crack—!
Suddenly, the go stone bowl flew from Cheon Myeonghwan's hand in an arc, smashing dead center into the massive wall-mounted TV.
The priceless screen spiderwebbed with ugly cracks and went black.
The old fox.
The strategist lying in wait was gone.
Now just a greedy geezer losing his mind at the starting point of his downfall—position crumbling, kingdom collapsing—Cheon Myeonghwan spat ragged breaths through bloodshot eyes.
"Kim Cheolsu. Kim Cheolsu. Kim Cheolsu. Kim Cheolsu..."
Only a curse-like name spilled repeatedly from his lips.
A predator hunting prey?
Kim Cheolsu wasn't that type.
Predators stop when they're full.
But that guy wasn't hunting to fill his belly.
He was the madman bent on burning the entire jungle to the ground.