Disciplining the Unfilial Daughter (2)
The next day, when I arrived at the office, the report I had specifically requested from Yeo Eun-ju the day before was waiting on my desk. It contained Yu Ju-yeon's basic personal information.
Let's see.
- Name: Yu Ju-yeon
- Family Relations: Yu Hwan-il (father, lawyer), Chae Jeong-geum (mother, deceased), only child
That much I already knew.
- Occupation: Reporter at Geoseong Ilbo
Oh? So she was a reporter. That explained why the passages she had added to the autobiography had such strong prose. To think she would use the writing skills her father had painstakingly nurtured just to drag his name through the mud.
The report continued with her contact information, previous workplaces, and academic background. Then one line caught my eye.
- Frequent visits to One Two Chicken headquarters in recent months
Got you, you little—
Just as I suspected. There was clearly some kind of backroom deal between Yu Ju-yeon and Kwon Il-gyun. One Two Chicken was none other than the chicken franchise run by Kwon Il-gyun. When I first heard about it, I had wondered what a QS eldest grandson was doing running a chicken shop. According to what Oh Il-mu told me, the story went like this.
Kwon Il-gyun had inherited mostly non-voting preferred shares of QS Electronics. He had gone to Chairman Kwon Byung-do and demanded an exchange—arguing that it made no sense for the eldest grandson of the QS Group to hold only non-voting shares. Naturally, the chairman refused. After that, Kwon Il-gyun, apparently nursing a wounded ego, sold off all his preferred shares and used the money to start the chicken franchise. That was the very One Two Chicken that Yu Ju-yeon had been visiting so often.
The first shareholder was Kwon Il-gyun himself, and the second was his younger brother Kwon I-gyun. They had named the company with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Kwon Il-gyun had filed for a retrial based on the autobiography that Yu Ju-yeon had ghostwritten. If the two of them had been meeting frequently lately, the picture was clear. Yu Ju-yeon, acting on Kwon Il-gyun's orders, had provided the key evidence needed to open the retrial—even at the cost of her own father's honor.
Now all that remained was to crush these two.
My first target was the unfilial daughter, Yu Ju-yeon.
I looked over the contact details in the report that Yeo Eun-ju had prepared. It listed her mobile number, messenger ID, and even her office extension. Which route would be the most entertaining to contact her through first?
Calling her personal phone and revealing that I was Kwon Ho-gyun would deliver the greatest psychological blow and establish immediate dominance. On the other hand, if she panicked and bolted right at the start, that would be a problem. Since she was already caught in my snare, there was no need to give her extra room to struggle. The best scenario was to drive the blade straight into her throat before she even realized what was happening.
So I chose the business email address listed at the end of her articles. Countless tip-off emails arrived at that address, which was deliberately made public along with the reporter's name. I decided to pose as a well-meaning informant who would greatly assist her work.
What I intended to tell Yu Ju-yeon was indeed the massive corporate scandal of Kwon Il-gyun suing Chairman Kwon Byung-do. And if it were reported through Geoseong Ilbo, it would mean exposing that one of their own reporters had stabbed her father with her pen and supplied false evidence for a lawsuit of that scale. How could that not be an exclusive?
Heh.
Not even five minutes after the email was sent, a reply arrived. The mention of an exclusive must have caught her attention.
She was probably using the same excuse to fish for material from other informants. But I had no intention of playing along with such shallow tactics when I had already decided to settle this in one stroke.
- I will explain in person.
The one burning with curiosity about what I would say—and the one desperate for an exclusive—was Yu Ju-yeon, not me. I had already secured all the information and evidence I needed. All that remained was to deliver the finishing blow to her and Kwon Il-gyun.
Cross-checking, my ass.
The reply came back quickly, and this time it was quite polite.
* * *
The time I specified to Yu Ju-yeon was right now, and the place was the underground parking lot of the Geoseong Ilbo building—the very place I was currently entering. I wondered what she must be feeling, having to drop everything and come down immediately. Would she think I was rude?
At first glance, the location might seem considerate of her, but that consideration would soon tighten around her throat.
I parked along the slope and spotted a woman looking around anxiously in the distance. She recognized me and approached. It was Yu Ju-yeon, whom I had first seen in a photo attached to her article. In person, reflected in the side mirror, she looked far more vicious than her picture. Her face was thin and elongated, fox-like, and whether by design or not, her makeup made the corners of her eyes slant sharply upward. I glanced downward just in case, but fortunately, there were no nine tails in sight.
Tap, tap.
When the fox—not a nine-tailed one, just Yu Ju-yeon—reached my car, she bent down to meet my eye level and knocked on the window.
"Reporter Yu Ju-yeon?"
As the window lowered, a business card slid in along with her answer.
"Yes. I'm Yu Ju-yeon from Geoseong Ilbo. You're the one who said you had information regarding a corporate governance dispute, correct?"
"That's right. It looks uncomfortable to keep talking like this. Would you like to get in?"
"Yes. But, um......?"
My face, which had been seeing far more use than business cards lately, must have done its job again. Then again, it would be strange for a reporter not to recognize me after the attention I had received these past few months.
"You'll hurt your back if you keep standing there. Why don't you get in first?"
"Ah, yes."
After taking a short breath, Yu Ju-yeon walked around the car and sat in the passenger seat. The moment she saw my face, whatever she had been about to say died on her lips, and she followed my instructions without resistance. She had conducted her share of interviews, so she must have sensed immediately that control of the conversation had already shifted to me.
Everything was going exactly as I had planned from the very beginning.
And then, before she could speak, I struck first.
"What was it you were about to say earlier?"
"Oh, I was wondering if you were the QS lawyer who handled the QS Electronics dealership abuse case we reported on recently."
Pfft. So the lawyers were calling me the QS lawyer among themselves?
"That's correct. I'm Kwon Ho-gyun, head of the Audit Team at the Central Management Headquarters of the QS Group. No need for a business card, I assume?"
"Ah, yes, of course."
Yu Ju-yeon answered quickly and reached for her notebook and pen even faster. Her eyes sparkled—she was clearly ready to transcribe every single word. She must have realized that a story about corporate governance disputes coming from the third son of the QS Group would be a scoop of the highest order.
"Let's keep the introductions short. Shall I get to the tip?"
"Yes!"
"I'll organize it chronologically."
"Yes, yes!"
Good grief. She was nodding so eagerly, completely unaware that I was about to tear her dirty laundry to shreds.
"It was six months ago. A father and daughter had a major fight over inheritance. The daughter, holding a grudge, tampered with her father's unpublished autobiography manuscript. Three months ago, she added content that had never existed in the original draft and published it."
Yu Ju-yeon's eyes began to tremble uncontrollably. She had finally realized that the story was about her.
"W-wait a moment. You said this was a tip about a corporate governance dispute, didn't you?"
"Don't interrupt. Listen to the end. Because of the content the daughter added, the father's lifelong reputation was destroyed. Then a member of a chaebol family's collateral line filed a lawsuit demanding a share of the company based on that content. The father's name is Yu Hwan-il. The daughter's name is Yu Ju-yeon. And the chaebol collateral is Kwon Il-gyun."
Yu Ju-yeon's head dropped, and the pen she had been holding slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the car floor.
"H-how did you find out about this? And why are you telling me, of all people?"
If she kept acting defiant in front of me, I could make sure she never held a pen as a reporter again.
"How I found out, I'll explain later. The reason I'm telling you first is to give you an opportunity."
"An opportunity?"
"Yes. An opportunity to reflect on your mistakes and apologize to your father."
Yu Ju-yeon's head lifted again. Her sharply upturned eyes widened as if she had resolved to fight back.
"My father is......"
"He's ill. There are many times when his mind isn't clear. And you committed an act beneath human decency against such a person."
"Haah. So what exactly do you want from me?"
"First, feel remorse toward your father."
"Is that all?"
Of course not. I hadn't come all this way just to discipline this dog of a daughter.
"The moment you fabricated and published content that wasn't in Attorney Yu Hwan-il's autobiography, Kwon Il-gyun filed a lawsuit against our QS Group chairman demanding company shares. There's reasonable suspicion that you received something from Kwon Il-gyun in exchange for orchestrating this."
"S-so what?"
"What did you receive?"
"Why should I tell you that? I carved out time to come down here, but I'm busy with work, so I'll be going now."
Click.
Yu Ju-yeon, whose position had flipped from interviewer to suspect under interrogation, pulled the door handle from inside. Of course, I had no intention of letting her use that escape skill.
"If you go up like this, I'll go up with you. And I'll repeat exactly what I just told you to the other reporters. I doubt you're the only journalist in this building looking for a scoop."
This was exactly why I had chosen the Geoseong Ilbo building as the meeting place.