The Proactive Actress (1)
Even if it wasn’t Jang Gang-tae, there were plenty of people in the JB Group whose faces and names came to mind. Jang Iksu, Jang Gang-tae’s father and the current chairman of JB Group, and Jang Jitae, his second son who was currently competing with Jang Gang-tae. But none of them gave off the same clear signal as Jang Gang-tae. Maybe they simply lacked the motive to target QS Group with such a reckless scheme?
While I was lost in thought, my eyes landed on Go Mi-jin fiddling with the handle of her teacup. Right. There was no need for me to puzzle over the identity of the mastermind alone when the actual perpetrator was sitting right in front of me. I smoothly steered the conversation toward extracting information about the person who had incited her false accusation.
“Do you still keep in touch with the person who told you to post that article?”
Go Mi-jin let out a heavy sigh and shook her head.
“Honestly, if things had gone well with that person, I wouldn’t be here right now. I never expected the situation to blow up this much, but they just kept telling me to wait. When I got your call, I came here feeling like I was grasping at straws.”
It seemed Go Mi-jin had been nothing more than a disposable card to the mastermind I needed to identify.
“You have their number, right?”
“Yes. Would you like it?”
I received the mastermind’s number from Go Mi-jin and ran a basic background check, but it was a number I didn’t recognize, and there was no useful information on any SNS or messenger apps. No photos, no workplace details—nothing substantial had been recorded. The only thing I could confirm was the name: Kim Young-woo.
Both the surname and given name were common, so a simple search wasn’t enough to continue the investigation. Since the surname wasn’t Jang, there was little point in re-examining the JB Group family tree either. Then, unexpectedly, a clue about the mastermind surfaced from an entirely different angle.
I had just begun shifting the focus of my questions when I asked, “You must have suspected that spreading false information was illegal. Did the person who ordered you offer something in return? Money, perhaps?”
It was a question I thought I already knew the answer to. The future judgment document had clearly stated that Go Mi-jin had received “monetary gain.” Yet Go Mi-jin firmly shook her head.
“It wasn’t money.”
What? Even though there were still blurry parts, the future judgment document had never fed me false information before. Did that mean Go Mi-jin was lying?
“If it wasn’t money, then what was it?”
At my follow-up question, Go Mi-jin wore an expression of complete resignation and reached for the bag she had placed beside her.
“Just a moment.”
“Of course.”
After rummaging through her bag with a troubled look, Go Mi-jin pulled out a bundle of papers and placed them on the table between us.
“It was this.”
Jangbaek Corporation Co., Ltd.
Representative Director: Jang Iksu
The moment I saw the paper—similar in size and function to banknotes, yet clearly not money—my questions fell into place like dominoes.
“M Mart gift certificates?”
“Yes.”
If these were treated like cash by Korea’s largest retail conglomerate, it made perfect sense that the judgment document had recorded them as “monetary gain.” Moreover, M Mart was undeniably a subsidiary of the JB Group. This reinforced my hypothesis that someone from the JB Group was behind the incident. Anyone affiliated with JB Group would have preferred giving M Mart gift certificates over cash for several reasons: no bank transfer records, and the ability to track the certificates themselves through serial numbers.
And when I thought of M Mart, one person immediately came to mind—Jang Mi-ye, the CEO who had suffered a crushing defeat in her divorce case against me. She undoubtedly held a grudge against both QS Group and me personally after that incident. If it was Jang Mi-ye, she had more than enough motive to orchestrate the false school violence accusation against Park Da-hyun from behind the scenes.
I pulled out my phone and searched for Jang Mi-ye. The top result was an article featuring her photo—she was holding a press conference to issue a public apology regarding the M Mart employee suicide case I had exposed. I quickly showed the photo to Go Mi-jin.
“Was this the person who gave you these gift certificates and told you to post the article targeting Park Da-hyun?”
Go Mi-jin shook her head once again.
“No. The person who gave me the gift certificates was a man.”
Right. That was why I hadn’t immediately thought of Jang Mi-ye. When I had shown her Jang Gang-tae’s photo earlier, her wording had suggested the mastermind was male. Just then, Go Mi-jin’s eyes widened for a split second before she added, “Oh, it’s not this woman. It’s the man wearing glasses sitting behind her. He must be an M Mart employee as well.”
Go Mi-jin turned the phone toward me and pointed at a man in the photo seated behind Jang Mi-ye during the press conference. So this was Kim Young-woo. If he was attending press conferences with her, he wasn’t just an ordinary employee—he had to be one of Jang Mi-ye’s closest aides.
A quiet chuckle escaped me. With this, every piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. In this false school violence accusation against Park Da-hyun, the person I needed to deal with was Jang Mi-ye. Last time, I had only lightly emptied her bank account. This time, I would run her soul through the threshing machine.
“Thank you for telling me.”
Having obtained what I needed, I was about to wrap up the conversation when Go Mi-jin asked one more question.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No. This has already been a tremendous help.”
“Then, about what you said earlier…”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
Go Mi-jin let out another deep sigh before finally speaking.
“So… can I trust that you’ll help keep me out of prison?”
Well, for her, this was probably the most important issue in the world right now.
“Yes. As your attorney, I’ll do everything I can to ensure you receive a fine instead of a prison sentence. The fine might be quite substantial, but I’ll cover that for you.”
“Thank you. And I’m really sorry to ask this, but…”
“Yes?”
“You mentioned that if Park Da-hyun files a damages claim, the amount would be enormous. Is there any way to avoid that?”
“If it’s a financial matter, I could provide additional support. For now, I’ll discuss it with Park Da-hyun’s agency on behalf of QS Group. In the meantime, please prepare a sincere apology for Park Da-hyun as well.”
Go Mi-jin’s head drooped helplessly toward the floor.
“Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m truly sorry for being so rude when we first met. I’ll never do anything like this again. I’ll live honestly from now on.”
Well, I wasn’t particularly interested in whether she lived honestly or not, but that kind of mindset would certainly help reduce her sentence. Since I had already agreed to assist with her criminal case, there was one more thing I needed to confirm.
“Legally speaking, possessing these gift certificates puts you at a significant disadvantage. Would you mind entrusting them to me for now?”
“I’ve been carrying them around and it’s only made me more anxious. I’d be grateful if you took them.”
After receiving her confirmation, I picked up the gift certificates from the table and counted them.
“Nineteen 100,000-won M Mart gift certificates. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
It was a routine question for the formal entrustment process, but something felt off once I said it aloud.
“Why nineteen? Why not twenty?”
“Ah, I used one. When I received them, there was a piece of clothing I’d been wanting that happened to be on sale at M Mart…”
I nearly burst out laughing right in front of her. So she had received twenty certificates, used one, and then carried the remaining nineteen around in her bag because she felt guilty about spending them. Good grief, this foolish girl. This wouldn’t help her case at all. She should have either gone on a lavish two-million-won shopping spree at M Mart or not used a single one. Because she used that one certificate, she could no longer claim in court that she had no intention of profiting from the illegal act. Jang Mi-ye’s side had probably decided to cut her loose so easily precisely because of this kind of sloppy behavior.
Still, I intended to keep my promise to help Go Mi-jin avoid prison. According to the future judgment document, her sentence was a fine of eight million won, not imprisonment. I had held back from raising her expectations, but there was actually a way for her to avoid punishment entirely. Since defamation was a crime that required the victim’s consent to prosecute, if she reached a smooth agreement with Park Da-hyun, Go Mi-jin could avoid having a criminal record.
* * *
The morning after my meeting with Go Mi-jin—a meeting that had yielded both results and a fair amount of amusement—the situation was unfolding exactly as I had initially predicted: far too easily. Simply having Go Mi-jin post a clarification stating that the school violence accusation was false would resolve the immediate problems facing QS Group and Park Da-hyun. But I had no intention of letting it end so anticlimactically. If that had been my goal, there would have been no need for me to take on this case despite my busy schedule, nor would I have worked so hard to uncover the mastermind when I met Go Mi-jin.
My true objective was to recruit Chae Hee-geon, the PR Team Leader of the Central Management Division. To do that, I needed to demonstrate my ability to strike a blow against Jang Mi-ye and the rest of the JB Group. And I had already prepared the method for that the moment I first suspected the JB Group’s involvement. Now that I knew from my meeting with Go Mi-jin that I could deliver a precision strike against Jang Mi-ye, there was no way my plan would fail.
Instead of heading to QS Tower, I went to the offices of Law Firm Seungbaek and opened the mail I had received a few days earlier. At the very top of the letter were the words:
Regular General Meeting of Shareholders Convocation Notice
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary letter any corporate executive might receive. But the real highlight was at the bottom:
Jangbaek Corporation Co., Ltd.
Representative Director: Jang Iksu
In other words, this was the convocation notice for the general shareholders’ meeting of Jangbaek Corporation—the holding company that controlled the entire JB Group. The reason this letter was now in my hands was because I had previously obtained one share of Jangbaek Corporation from Jang Mi-ye. With this long-dormant card, I would reduce Jang Mi-ye’s soul to dust. The fact that I was using the very card I had taken from her to strike back at her made the whole thing rather amusing. I wondered what kind of expression she would make when the card she had once held was turned against her.
To execute this delightful plan, I needed one actress. And speak of the devil—there she was, walking in right on cue.
“Good morning, Attorney. You’re in early today.”
“Yes. Ye-na, come have a seat. You said you majored in theater and film, didn’t you?”
Cha Ye-na, my secretary at Law Firm Seungbaek—the very person I had marked as the lead actress for resolving this case.