31. The Expected Outcome
'I took a photo with Yeon-woo and my illness was cured.'
Jong-woo and CEO Im had read the post too. Jong-woo muttered, embarrassed for no good reason.
"Looks like one of Yeon-woo's fans made it up."
CEO Im nodded. "Probably."
"There was that woman a while back who said her illness got better after she started stanning Yeon-woo. You think someone saw her post and copied it?"
"Who knows."
CEO Im let out a long sigh. And Jong-woo wasn't the only one thinking along those lines.
When the post first went up — the story of how a photo with Yeon-woo had cured someone's illness — ninety-nine out of a hundred readers dismissed it as obvious bait. But once the interview with the woman who claimed she'd been healed through her devotion to Yeon-woo got dragged back into the light, sentiment was shifting toward 'this reads like a fan-made plant.' It had gotten to the point where people were calling it a clumsy image-building scheme cooked up by his agency.
The sad part was that, from the perspective of everyone actually involved, it looked exactly like that too.
The original poster, apparently furious, had been fighting back hard. Every time someone dropped a malicious comment, she fired back with a rebuttal, even uploading her medical diagnosis and the photo as proof. But it didn't seem to be doing much good.
"What should we do? Should we ask the site to take the post down?"
"Take it down? How? It's not slander — it's praise."
CEO Im clicked his tongue. "And if we respond with some 'false information' statement and it turns out the kid really did cure her illness, we've just blown the whole thing up for nothing. Even if Yeon-woo didn't actually treat her, the fact that she got better might be real, you know?"
"Yes, sir."
"Just... go leave a few supportive comments or something."
"Yes, sir."
Power Idol and Music Is Coming each held their final broadcasts on Saturday and Sunday, and then Monday arrived. Rembrary and Cathy stopped by the shop before heading to the designated studio to hear the results of the second round of the competition.
Even though they'd arrived early, several people were already there. Among them, he spotted Sunwoo Sil and Yuli O.
"Hello."
"Oh, there you are." Sunwoo Sil waved like they were old friends now as Rembrary greeted the room.
Cathy, timing his greeting to Yuli with practiced casualness, stumbled mid-step when Jong-woo yanked him back by the collar of his jacket. Yuli O, who had clearly also been read the riot act by her company, turned her head away the moment she saw him — without so much as a flicker of acknowledgment.
But Rembrary was fairly certain the two of them hadn't actually broken up. Just last night, he'd caught Cathy sitting on the sofa on his way back from the bathroom, snickering into his phone mid-call.
Before long the other contestants trickled in one by one, greetings ringing out here and there across the room. Then it was back to the waiting room, where they sat through another long, interminable wait, same as last week. After that came C2 Studio, where everyone filed onto the same stage as before and settled into the chairs marked with their names.
So the seating order follows last round's rankings. Rembrary took the very first chair and shot a sidelong glance at Oh Jung-shin across from him. Oh Jung-shin, dead last last round, was chatting away amicably with the partner he'd performed with this time.
Sunwoo Sil — last round's runner-up and Rembrary's partner this time — sat beside him. When Rembrary glanced at Oh Jung-shin again, Sunwoo Sil advised him without barely moving his lips.
"Don't look at that guy. At all."
"Pardon?"
"If you look at him smiling, they'll edit it like you're mocking him. If you look at him blank-faced, they'll edit it like you hate Oh Jung-shin. If you frown at him, they'll edit it like you're furious at Oh Jung-shin."
At that, Rembrary turned to stare at him, and Sunwoo Sil, wearing a flawless commercial-grade smile, patted his shoulder for no particular reason.
"And when you win first place later, act surprised and smile."
Meanwhile, PD Kim Moo-rok ascended the center of the stage, and the lights burst to life just as they had before.
"Welcome to the 100% real, genuinely authentic survival program — Sing Survival!"
At the familiar spiel, the contestants began applauding all on their own, even before the AD gave the signal. PD Kim Moo-rok feigned brief surprise, then broke into a hearty laugh.
"Last week you all just sat there until our AD gave the clap signal — and now you're handling it yourselves, huh?"
A ripple of laughter ran through the contestants. Kim Moo-rok tossed out a few more pleasantries and jokes, then turned to the matter at hand.
"This round was a team competition, so there are only ten places — first through tenth. We'll be skipping the middle rankings and announcing only the bottom three teams and the top three."
PD Kim Moo-rok glanced down at the large square sheet of paper in his hand, then called out the names without a beat of hesitation.
"In third place — the team of Beta and Queen's!"
"In second place — wow, clawing their way all the way up from dead last! The team of Oh Jung-shin and Ma Boo-young!"
"And in first place — the senior-junior duo everyone's been talking about! The team of Sunwoo Sil and Woo Yeon-woo!"
The moment PD Kim Moo-rok shouted it, Sunwoo Sil sprang to his feet and crushed Rembrary in a bear hug. Then he put on a face that said he'd never dreamed of taking first place.
Despite having said, mere minutes ago, 'act surprised and smile when you win first.'
Next came the announcement of last place, and once again, it deviated not one inch from expectation.
"This week's last-place team is Yuli O and Cathy."
The instant PD Kim Moo-rok finished, an almost oppressive number of cameras swiveled onto the two of them at once. Cathy gave a strained smile, while Yuli O scratched her forehead and muttered, "Ah, what a shame."
But unlike the other teams, who exchanged hugs and handshakes regardless of their rankings, the two of them didn't so much as make eye contact.
Doesn't standing like that just make them even more conspicuous?
Once the requisite beat of reaction time had passed, the cameras turned away again, and PD Kim Moo-rok raised the microphone he'd begun to lower.
Rembrary assumed the next competitive mission was about to be announced. What PD Kim Moo-rok said, however, was entirely unexpected.
"Those of you who watched the broadcast will know this, and I'm sure everyone here does too — all of you from first through seventh place, and Mr. Oh Jung-shin as well."
"?"
"We introduced the slavery system as a penalty rule. And not a single person has used it."
Rembrary recalled Jong-woo's warning and thought, Right. Having come from a caste-bound society, Rembrary knew full well how actual slaves were treated. Running errands for drinks? Not a chance. Slaves could not so much as meet their master's eyes properly. The temple had been relatively generous to its slaves — even admitting those with talent into the priesthood — but the hierarchy in how they were used was unmistakable.
And here? All Jong-woo had done was leap up in a panic because someone had asked Oh Jung-shin to fetch a drink once — and that was the official penalty slave. Rembrary could see at a glance how the others must have been tiptoeing around him.
"And that's just boring, isn't it? A penalty that never gets enforced isn't a penalty. Because all of you have been busy protecting your precious images, the survival in Sing Survival has gotten sanded right off."
Well, well.
"So this time, the production team has decided to step in and make absolutely sure you feel, in your bones, that the slavery system is a punishment."
Rembrary gave a small, absent nod — then froze and jerked his head up to stare at PD Kim Moo-rok. The other contestants' eyes had gone round as saucers too. Cathy and Yuli O, this week's designated slaves, looked positively stricken.
PD Kim Moo-rok grinned and looked back and forth between Cathy and Sunwoo Sil.
"Cathy, for the next three hours, you are Sunwoo Sil's slave. And Cathy — for your master Sunwoo Sil, you will perform three hours of street busking! In a crowded area, of course. Singing love songs!"
A low curse escaped from nearby. Rembrary stole a glance — Sunwoo Sil's expression was curdling fast.
"How is that my penalty?" someone muttered under their breath.
But Rembrary realized this was no time to worry about Sunwoo Sil. If Cathy was Sunwoo Sil's slave, then Yuli O was...
"Yuli O, you'll be Woo Yeon-woo's slave."
Oh no. Rembrary clicked his tongue inwardly. Was Yuli O going to have to sing love songs on the street too?
But the mission assigned to Yuli O and Rembrary was even worse.
"Yuli O and Woo Yeon-woo — you will go to a set lot and retrieve one item."
An item?
"Ah, but that set lot has been sitting completely unused since it was shut down fifteen years ago. There are even rumors that a ghost haunts the place."
Rembrary looked at Yuli O. Her soul appeared to have hovered halfway out the top of her head.
"One more thing. When you enter the set lot, the slave — Yuli O — must absolutely go in first, leading the way. You have to protect your master, Woo Yeon-woo, don't you?"
Only after PD Kim Moo-rok had meticulously laid out tomorrow's and the day after's penalties as well did he finally announce the third round's mission.
"The third round mission is — performing a dance track!"
The words were barely out of his mouth before Jong-woo's hand flew reflexively to his forehead in despair. Rembrary stared blankly at PD Kim Moo-rok, mouth agape.
Rembrary was, by now, well aware of the fact that he couldn't dance. And they wanted him to sing a dance track?
"You can take a dance song and rearrange it into a ballad, or sing a dance track without dancing — no, none of that counts. A performance is mandatory, and the dancing must be genuine. Those are the conditions."
Jong-woo couldn't shake the feeling that everything — the penalty assignments, the competition theme — had been aimed squarely at Yeon-woo. He was half right and half wrong.
It was true that PD Kim Moo-rok had chosen a dance track for the next round partly to target Yeon-woo — but also to target the other vocalists who had held the top ranks throughout. He wanted a dramatic shakeup in the standings, at least once, for the sake of the drama.
BUT pairing Yuli O with Yeon-woo for the penalty and sending them into a haunted set lot — that had been deliberate, down to the letter.
Officially, the results would be tallied from digital sales and YouTube reactions, but in truth, the second round's outcome had been decided long before the broadcast. Naturally, PD Kim Moo-rok had known who would take first and who would land dead last. Yuli O and Cathy's dating scandal had been the talk of the week — of course he'd known.
And so Kim Moo-rok had set his scheme in motion.
After sending the two first-place winners and the two last-place losers off to the waiting room, Kim Moo-rok walked into the control room and asked his staff.
"The traps inside the set lot? You've got them set up properly?"
"Yes."
"The cameras? All installed?"
"Yes. Wherever they go, they'll be filming."
"And the people playing the ghosts?"
"All on standby."
Kim Moo-rok set down the script he'd been holding, grinning ear to ear. "Just give Yuli and Yeon-woo the tiniest pretext, and they'll look like they've gotten close. Then the love triangle blows up in earnest."
If Woo Yeon-woo had a thick, devoted fanbase, fans might have demanded an explanation for why the first-place winner had to enter a haunted house in the first place. But while Yeon-woo's fans were growing, they still numbered barely a handful. On top of that, his name recognition was high but his likability was low. Kim Moo-rok was counting on exactly that to push hard.
"But if it looks too obviously staged, won't Yuli O's fans throw a fit?"
"That's fine. If they riot, the ratings climb even higher."
Two weeks ago, the three penalty hours had drifted by in a vague haze of idling next to Oh Jung-shin. Jong-woo had expected much the same this time, and since he'd predicted Cathy would come in last and Yeon-woo first, he'd already cleared the penalty hours from their schedule too.
He just hadn't imagined they'd be split apart this brazenly.
At a loss, Jong-woo looked back and forth between Cathy and Yeon-woo. Rembrary, catching the worry on his face, pointed at Cathy with his eyes.
"Follow that one."
"You want me to leave you and follow him?"
"Was it not a set lot — a haunted house, or some such? You couldn't tag along inside even if you wished to."
"That's true, but..."
Jong-woo clutched his head with both hands. "That set lot — there are actual rumors that a real ghost shows up there. That's why they shut it down, and even then they haven't been able to demolish it."