Prologue: Sonyeondeunggwa
All characters, events, organizations, and locations appearing in this work are entirely fictional and bear no relation to any real-life persons or entities.
In the legal world, a person hearing her name for the first time reacted in one of two ways.
“Who is that?”
Or—
“…Ah.”
The first group soon disappeared. The mere fact that they did not know the name proved they were not the sort who could survive long in this arena.
The second group followed that single syllable with a brief silence. They offered no further words. That silence was the most accurate description of her.
Seo Ji-hyun.
Twenty-nine years old. Prosecutor in Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1 at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Her name was invariably followed by the same kind of numbers.
2010. Admission to Daewon Foreign Language High School.
For three straight years, the same two words appeared on her report cards.
First in the entire school.
2013. Graduation from Daewon Foreign Language High School—first in the school.
2013. Seoul National University School of Law—admitted as valedictorian.
2015. 60th Judicial Examination—youngest and top passer.
At the time, Seo Ji-hyun had still been a third-year undergraduate. Barely twenty years old.
That record remains unbroken to this day.
That year the newspapers ran the following headline on their front pages.
People called it a miracle. Seo Ji-hyun herself never once commented on it.
2017. Seoul National University School of Law graduation—valedictorian of the college. Recipient of the Chief Justice Award.
On graduation day, her classmates hurled their mortarboards into the air and laughed brightly.
On the stage, receiving the Chief Justice Award, she never smiled once.
With a pale face devoid of makeup, she simply gazed coolly at the world beyond the camera lenses.
2019. Completion of the 51st Judicial Research and Training Institute—top of the class. Chief Justice Award received for the second time.
Among her peers at the Institute, stories about her split into two versions: those who had studied with her and those who had not. The overwhelming majority belonged to the latter.
“Ji-hyun? I never studied with her.”
“She was in our class.”
“Exactly. We were the ones chasing after her. We never kept up with her.”
2019. Appointed to the Criminal Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Highest score among her cohort. No one was surprised.
First year after appointment.
The cases she was first assigned were the usual ones given to rookie prosecutors. The division chief had distributed them according to standard practice.
Three weeks later, she appeared before the chief.
“These three cases are related.”
“…What?”
“The account traces converge at a single point. I will submit a consolidated indictment.”
It took the chief two full days to verify her claim on the spot. She was correct. The indictments were processed together.
From that day forward, the chief changed the way he assigned cases to her—using entirely different criteria from those applied to other rookies.
Second year after appointment.
Planned real-estate fraud and political-business lobbying gate. Fifteen incumbent National Assembly members arrested and indicted at once. The youngest such record in constitutional history.
Inside the prosecution, the case was called “the 2020 nuclear bomb.” That same year, a commendation from the Minister of Justice—Outstanding Investigator Award.
She was twenty-four years old.
Third year after appointment—selected for Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1. The youngest ever.
Rumor had it that the division chief who approved her appointment saw his hand tremble once before signing. When asked why, he answered:
“…I wasn’t sure I had the authority to approve someone like her.”
Afterward came the arrest and indictment in the Daesan Group third-generation succession corruption case. Participation in the joint task force for overseas fugitive economic criminals. Dispatch to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office special investigation TF for accounting analysis and fund tracing.
And now—the ongoing investigation into the serial tax evasion scheme involving paper companies.
Not a single case she had touched had ever resulted in an acquittal.
Almost as frequently discussed as these records was her family background.
Grandfather, Seo Hak-su. Former Prosecutor General during the military regime.
Father, Seo Tae-jun. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Mother, Kim Hee-won. Managing Partner at Shinhwa Law Firm.
In the Korean legal community, no one was unaware of what the name “Seo Family” signified. Some even called them “the Medicis of the Korean legal world.” Ji-hyun was the eldest daughter of that lineage and its fourth-generation jurist.
Yet there was a more interesting fact.
She had never once used her family’s connections. To be precise, she had avoided them.
During her time at the Judicial Research and Training Institute, rumors spread that her grandfather Seo Hak-su had privately arranged a dinner with the Institute’s director.
Thirty minutes before the meal, Ji-hyun made a single phone call to her grandfather. The conversation ended in forty-seven seconds. The dinner was canceled.
No one knew what the old man had heard that day. Only that afterward the veteran jurist reportedly told his secretary:
“…This is the first time I’ve been afraid of my own granddaughter.”
Inside the prosecution, no one ever described her as “someone who grew up in the shadow of the Seo Family.” Everyone had reached the same conclusion.
She had not grown up in the Seo Family. The Seo Family was following her.
The world, that day and every day before and after, naturally cleared a path before her.
In Seo Ji-hyun’s life, there had never been a single failure or defeat.
The sleek black BMW sedan glided to a stop, slicing through the brilliant morning sunlight with its glossy finish.
The door opened. The first thing to touch the asphalt was a pair of sharp black stiletto heels. Then came the perfectly pressed black suit trousers, not a single wrinkle or speck of dust visible.
Seo Ji-hyun’s closet contained only monochrome pantsuits.
Skirts that revealed her legs, flashy accessories, clothes that deliberately emphasized body lines—everything that highlighted so-called “femininity” was, by common consensus, the object of her visceral disgust.
A vulgar courtship ritual in which the weak relied on the instincts of the “female” to survive.
Someone had overheard her say exactly that to a colleague at a drinking party. After that day, the colleague never sat in the same room with her again.
Behaving cutely with a lisping voice or acting like an immature child—these were the things she despised most in the world.
Those who begged for sympathy with infantile behavior even as adults simply ceased to exist within her field of vision.
Only those who had experienced it knew what kind of punishment that was.
Features so perfect they could stop a person’s breath without any adornment.
Although she possessed a natural beauty whispered about in legal circles as “the most beautiful prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office,” to Seo Ji-hyun that title was nothing more than a useless modifier attached by those of inferior ability who obsessed over appearances.
A white shirt buttoned all the way to the throat and a black suit chosen solely for practicality and intimidation.
That was the sole identity and armor of the human being called Seo Ji-hyun.
The valet parking attendant from the driver’s side hurried over and accepted her car key.
He offered an awkward smile and a short greeting, but Seo Ji-hyun did not even spare him a glance. In all her life, no one had ever taught her that she was supposed to respond to such greetings. There had been no reason to teach her.
Once out of the car, Seo Ji-hyun habitually held a venti-sized iced Americano filled with ice in one hand and slowly lifted her head.
At the end of her gaze rose a massive concrete building.
Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
The place in South Korea that could destroy the greatest number of people in the shortest time. The building where the authority to end a person’s life with a single indictment was concentrated.
Even in this heart of Korean power, Seo Ji-hyun stood alone.
She took a sip of the coffee, ice cubes clinking coldly. Even in the midsummer sunlight, the cup against her fingertips was cool, and that chill was familiar to her.
She was on her way to the pinnacle of this building. More precisely, she was on her way to the day when she herself would become its pinnacle.
The moment Ji-hyun stepped into the first-floor lobby of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, the flow of people heading to work froze for an instant.
Click.
Click.
Every time she walked—white shirt buttoned tightly to the throat, black suit immaculate—investigators and rookie prosecutors ahead of her began to part to both sides like the miracle of Moses.
The buzzing noise poured behind her back, but Ji-hyun did not twitch a single eyebrow.
Her pace remained perfectly even, her gaze fixed only on a single point at the security gate ahead.
The surrounding noise was not inaudible to her; it simply held no value worth hearing.
Beep—
Ji-hyun indifferently swiped her access card at the security gate.
The instant the gate opened, the only thing that flashed with cool silver light in the cold monochrome space was the Jaeger-LeCoultre watch on her wrist.
The elevator doors opened.
Ji-hyun stood without leaning against the rear wall, simply facing forward. The two men already inside—employees from another department—simultaneously fell silent.
One pretended to fiddle with his employee ID; the other flipped the same page of the document file in his hands twice.
Ji-hyun noticed but did not react.
The button for the eighth floor was already pressed. She had not pressed it. Someone had read her movement in advance and pressed it for her. Ji-hyun noticed that too, but it likewise held no value worth reacting to.
The elevator rose smoothly.
As it passed the seventh floor, she glanced at her watch out of habit.
8:11 a.m. Four minutes ahead of schedule.
The corner of Ji-hyun’s mouth moved—very slightly, almost imperceptibly.
It was the kind of movement no one else would call a smile, but she herself knew. She was satisfied.
Today was the day of Assemblyman Kim Tae-hyeong’s attendance investigation. Within the hour she would simultaneously crush both the four-term lawmaker and the former district chief prosecutor turned lawyer. Next week she would move on to the person above him. Next month, the one above that. And above that. And above that.
Until the day she reached the highest floor of this building, her formula would not change.
The elevator doors opened on the eighth floor.
Ji-hyun walked straight forward. The sign for Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1 was visible at the end of the corridor.
Her day was beginning.