The River of Money
The article began circulating at five in the morning.
Photos of the original script, the Myeongjin Research watermark, and Oh Se-heon's real-name interview video.
By dawn, it topped every portal site.
Cheonmyeonghoe's response came within an hour.
It was swift and sophisticated.
"The foretold persecution has begun. False media and traitors stand against the new era. Do not waver. Tonight, at the plaza, the truth will be proven."
Persecution.
That single word turned the article into an attack, and the followers into defenders.
Not a single charter bus was canceled.
If anything, there were more.
Cha Pil-gu muttered as he read the announcement.
"As expected, they had a counter ready. The persecution frame. Textbook stuff."
"The article isn't landing?"
Yuna asked.
"It landed. Just not with the believers. Faith doesn't break with articles."
The veteran reporter leaned back in his chair.
"Faith... only breaks with the mouth that believed it."
Seven p.m. City Hall Plaza.
The estimate of a hundred thousand was wrong.
It was a hundred and twenty thousand.
Sky-blue raincoats blanketed the plaza, making it look like the sky itself from above.
Kim Jeongsang sat in the very front row.
The stage was close enough to touch.
The follower next to him glanced at his ticket and marveled.
"Row one. You must be truly devoted."
"...Yeah, something like that."
Jeonse deposit. Housing lottery account.
He pushed those words from his mind.
New era. Rewards. Front row.
On his lap sat the envelope he'd received at the entrance. "Pledge of Devotion." He hadn't opened it yet.
Ryu Seong-gon took the stage.
Applause shook the plaza.
"Everyone! This morning, they attacked us! Why? Because they're afraid! Afraid of the awakened 120,000!"
Roars erupted.
Kim Jeongsang clapped too.
But as he did, his daughter's face from yesterday kept slipping between the claps.
Dad, can I not go to college?
"Now, welcome the one you all love most! Our guide, Teacher Oh Se-heon!"
The plaza roared like it would burst.
Oh Se-heon ascended the stage. Sky-blue robe. Familiar smile.
He stood at the mic, and the 120,000 fell silent at once.
The script had even taught them how to create that silence.
Oh Se-heon savored the silence for a long moment.
Then he spoke.
"Everyone. Did you see this morning's article?"
Murmurs rose.
The faces in the operations booth stiffened.
This line wasn't in the script.
"The traitor in that article, the source of the fake interview, the vanguard of the persecution."
He drew a breath.
"That's me. I did that interview. Every word is true."
One second. Two seconds.
The plaza couldn't process it.
"All the lectures you heard from me were scripted! They came via email every Monday! Where to cry, where to pause! I know where your jeonse deposits went, your savings, your tuition! Not to the heavens! Not a single won!"
The operations booth stirred.
The sound director cut the mic power.
The voice didn't stop.
Even with the switch flipped, the cord unplugged, Oh Se-heon's voice echoed to the plaza's edge.
The sound director froze, holding the severed cable.
Security rushed the stage.
They slammed into an invisible wall above it, suspended in midair.
Six men dangled, flailing in the sky.
The 120,000 saw it.
The night sky lit up.
"This mouth speaks truth today. It cannot be stopped."
The entire plaza froze.
No grand descent.
But everyone knew. He was here, now.
"You gathered in my name. So I shall answer once."
"I sold you nothing."
"No funds, no badges, no front-row seats, no tickets to the new era. I sold nothing. Others did. I will show you."
Then, the River of Money rose in the sky.
A flowchart of light, filling the night sky over the plaza.
Thin beams from the 120,000 pockets converged into a lake labeled "Cheonmyeonghoe Funds."
From that lake, three thick streams flowed out.
Event agency. Real estate trust.
And the thickest bore a name.
Myeongjin Research.
From there, streams split to seven offshore accounts.
Numbers appeared on each. Total: 420 billion won.
Not just Cheonmyeonghoe funds. Fifty years of Myeongjin's diversions, pooled in the same pond.
"This is the path your devotion took. I showed only facts. Judgment is yours."
In the front row, Kim Jeongsang stared up at the river.
He saw a thin beam starting from his own chest, rising to the sky.
His money. 120 million jeonse. 40 million lottery savings.
He traced it with his eyes: to the lake, from lake to Myeongjin, from Myeongjin to some island account.
The new era was nowhere in that river.
The envelope on his lap caught his eye.
He opened it slowly.
Pledge of Devotion. Power of attorney for asset disposal. Seal stamp area.
His daughter's face flashed by.
His wife's bankbook.
His own voice shouting, Someone has to do it there.
Kim Jeongsang stood.
And before the 120,000 — or rather, unseen by any, but to him like the whole world watching — he tore the power of attorney.
The rip was small.
But the seat next to him echoed it.
Then the next.
From the back rows too.
The sound spread across the plaza.
The tearing of 120,000 sheets of paper swept like waves.
Sky-blue raincoats tore paper amid sobs.
Not anger, but a sacrificial wail.
Toward the time they'd entrusted their fears to merchants.
On stage, Oh Se-heon knelt.
The mic still lived.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, everyone..."
Someone shouted at the stage.
"You were fooled too!"
Another voice followed.
"Come down and tear with us!"
Oh Se-heon came down.
And in the front row, he met a familiar face.
The middle-aged man who'd wept for his autograph.
Kim Jeongsang held out the shreds.
"Teacher... no, wait. You got conned too, right?"
"...I wanted to be conned. You too. Me too."
The two men stood facing each other a long while.
Then Kim Jeongsang extended his hand first.
The plaza's night stretched long.
No dispersal.
Instead, lines formed.
Refund demands queuing before the operations tent.
The executives inside couldn't flee even if they wanted.
An invisible wall ringed the tent within ten meters.
They took refund applications all night. For 120,000 people.
Communications remained cut.
Since the barrier, Korea's signals hadn't leaked a thread outward.
Satellites showed the peninsula as an unchanging postcard.
Cloudless. Eventless. A window showing only what was meant to be seen.
But that night, the window changed.
The River of Money over the plaza beamed into satellite feeds.
No audio, no explanation through severed comms.
But light pierced the wall.
And this time, He let it. As if saying, let the world see sky-impersonators crumble.
A foreign anchor, stunned before the feed, finally managed one line.
"What you just saw... is God doing an audit."
Overseas reaction summed to one line: That country can't even do cults right.
A dispatch: A famous cult leader notified followers that night of "Korea expansion plans canceled."
It topped the preserved gallery's humor section.
Nam Do-yun live-streamed the whole night from the plaza's heart.
When the tearing roared like waves, he stood speechless, camera in hand.
Forty thousand viewers watched the mute feed together.
The quietest forty thousand concurrent viewers in broadcast history.
His first words became the video title.
"...Folks, when paper tears join like this, they become thunder."
Ryu Seong-gon paused at the backstage parking lot, about to enter his car.
No car.
Precisely, the car clung upside-down to the parking lot ceiling.
"Tomorrow, you enter the Zone of Truth. Before the election. That assemblyman was right that day. Truth is needed more before elections."
The sky letters hovered visible only to him.
Ryu Seong-gon collapsed there.
The next day, he truly appeared in the Zone of Truth.
Announced as voluntary, but no one believed the statement.
First question: Did you receive anything from Cheonmyeonghoe?
"Nomination promise... 2 billion in campaign funds. And a post-election legislative list."
"What legislation?"
"Repeal of religious group accounting disclosure mandates. Resolution to halt Zone of Truth operations. And..."
He tried to stop.
His tongue wouldn't.
"...A resolution urging barrier removal. They said they needed a way out."
The interrogation room fell silent.
Seo Ha-jin leaned forward.
Way out.
The shadows sought to escape the barrier. Not hide—flee the country.
"Who are 'they'? Names."
"I don't know. Never seen their faces. Always through lawyers..."
No lie.
Zone of Truth words.
Even Ryu Seong-gon was just a pawn.
Seo Ha-jin set down her pen.
Catch minnows forever, body always one layer back.
But one change from yesterday.
Now she knew where the body fled.
Same time, an unmarked hanjeongsik restaurant.
The private room door opened to emptiness.
Five teacups still warm.
Five presences' lingering heat, then the shadows vanished.
'I'll go ahead. To a place light can't reach.'
Pinned under the head teacup, a single printed line.
Kim Jeongsang returned home at two a.m.
Lights on in the living room.
Wife and daughter on the sofa.
TV replaying the plaza's River of Money.
He stood in the entryway, holding out what he'd brought.
Refund receipt. Shredded power of attorney pieces.
"...Sorry."
That was all.
Rehearsed excuses vanished the moment he opened the door.
His wife took the receipt, studied it long.
Then asked.
"Eat?"
"...No."
"Sit."
She went to the kitchen.
Daughter scooted over, making space.
Kim Jeongsang removed his shoes, then crouched in the entryway, unable to rise for a long time.
Tears are strange—they held at the plaza but burst before a single shoe.
That night, the family of three ate kimchi jjigae at three a.m. at the table.
No word on refund timelines or recoverable jeonse.
Nothing settled.
Still, the next day at school, the daughter told her friend.
"My dad's back."
Dawn at the convenience store.
Jeong Min-ho set down the beverage crate and said.
"It bloomed."
The USB he offered held all of Cheonmyeonghoe's internal ledgers.
Fund ins and outs, transfer orders to Myeongjin, approval chains.
Seven months his junior risked life for.
"Prosecutors? Or Cha reporter?"
"Both. Copy to Han Ga-ram's office too."
"Summon vote day after tomorrow. What if she loses?"
"She won't."
Jeong Min-ho chuckled.
Kim Jeongsang glanced at the USB.
Ledgers, testimonies, evidence, and tomorrow's Myeongjin Research search warrant.
People's hands all in place.
Now for the body. Five shadows fled to lightless places.
"They won't get far."
He murmured.
Beyond the fridge, the first newspaper delivery bike passed on the dawn street.