Chapter 77: < Protect – Episode 76 – Fan Meeting [3] >

After Ahn Soo Ho hung up, he took the opportunity to secretly observe the broadcasting company. No one could recognize him once he used his magic to blur any recognition of him. If he could trick the eyes of people, he could trick the camera lens too. Since no one had a reason to trace Ahn Soo Ho and no one else could do so, he was able to go all over the place and listen in on interesting stories.

“Don’t you think Ahn Soo Ho is really c.o.c.ky for something who’s not even forty yet? All he does is manage an entertainment company, but he goes around making new rules in the industry and trying to teach the citizens when he’s not even a politician.”

“I know, right? Even if he has a lot of money, he can’t get anything done without knowing our country’s situation first. How long does he think his connection to the Chinese premier will work in Korea?”

“How dare a leech without any family tree here show up and ruin the entertainment industry?”

“If the upper people have any thoughts, they’ll probably pressure Hosoo Entertainment.”

“That won’t be easy. People are saying he has connections with the president, too.”

“Phew, Daesan is a headache too, but now it’s the Blue House? Who is that Ahn Soo Ho anyway?”

This was pretty minor compared to others.

“Can’t the newsroom help to get rid of Hosoo Entertainment?”

“Hm, I wish…but don’t you know Kim Soo Jung?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I heard she went to the same Naval Academy as Ahn Soo Ho. If we mess with this, we could get into trouble.”

“Was CEO Ahn the source who gave Producer Kim all that insight?”

“I was suspecting that too, but he’s way too strong. If we mess with him, we could get ourselves into a lawsuit. You know what happens when not just a few but countless lawyers get involved.”

“Phew, when will we be able to stop worrying about an entertainment company?”

“Just hang in there. There’s nothing we can do right now. We just have to stay low until the typhoon pa.s.ses.”

He also saw some who were advising others to stay low until it all blew over. But it was something else that got Ahn Soo Ho’s attention.

“What? Did it fall through? What a waste!”

“The a.s.sistant director backed out from helping us.”

“d.a.m.n it! I told you to never trust these broadcasting people.”

“I apologize.”

“What about the medical certificate?”

“I left it in a hospital I’m familiar with.”

“Good. Once that comes out, get a few witnesses together and sue for a.s.sault.”

“Okay. But…”

“What?”

“Will it be okay? I heard he’s close with the president…”

“Why does that matter? That might even help us! This is a law-governed country!”

Listen to these guys. Ahn Soo Ho used his magic to record what he was seeing in front of him as his mouth turned into a grin. The middle-aged man talking to the big manager was JT Entertainment’s president, Hw.a.n.g Min Wook. He went around other broadcasting stations and lobbied, and he used his connections to spread horrible rumors about Hosoo Entertainment.

‘That’s why he started a fight so willingly…’

No matter how bad their relations.h.i.+p was, it wasn’t normal to start a fight out of nowhere. If Ahn Soo Ho wasn’t there, the manager would have s.h.i.+fted the blame. In the Korean law system, self-defense wasn’t really accepted. That was why most fights end up as two-sided or percentages were used like how it works with insurance.

‘Is he trying to pull us into the mud pit?’

The truth wasn’t important.

It seemed like the media had Hosoo Entertainment’s back, but depending on what the public wanted, they could turn their back at them any time. Hw.a.n.g Min Wook kept Seo Joo Kyung’s weakness for all that time so he could use it at a time like this. If she didn’t have Ahn Soo Ho, she would have just surrendered.

‘There were many like Director Seo who had weaknesses used against them.’

Once the big manager left, Hw.a.n.g Min Wook was left in the room alone.

‘He’s too much of a headache to just leave alone.’

Those who had seen the worst didn’t care about what method they use to accomplish their goal. Hw.a.n.g Min Wook was a piece of trash. He was the kind of trash that couldn’t be recycled.

Ahn Soo Ho made a decision.

The schedule said he had a meeting with the director of variety entertainment. He held onto Hw.a.n.g Min Wook’s arms and legs. Hw.a.n.g Min Wook tried to scream out of surprise at something invisible holding on to him, but his voice wouldn’t come out. His eyes were filled with terror. The door opened just in time to the director of variety entertainment coming in.

“President Hw.a.n.g, I’m sorry I kept you waiting…”

As soon as the director started apologizing, Hw.a.n.g Min Wook through himself out the window. Everyone who saw it just watched in surprise. It wasn’t bulletproof gla.s.s, but it was thick enough for people to just bounce off of it, but his body shattered it.

“Agh!”

“Oh my G.o.d!”

A person jumped from the 4th floor. Most people would have just had a broken leg, but he fell onto his head.

“Call 911! Call 911!”

“Agh!”

Ahn Soo Ho left the scene and took out his phone.

“It’s me. Stop what you were doing for Hw.a.n.g Min Wook and rule him as suicide. Yeah, just make it seem like he committed suicide because he was overwhelmed by guilt for the bribery, embezzlement, s.e.x tapes, s.e.xual favors, and threats he made. Okay, good.”

The news channel that was originally talking about the bombing in j.a.pan immediately s.h.i.+fted their focus onto the JT Entertainment president committing suicide. Why did the president of JT Entertainment end his life by throwing his body out the window? The reporters who remembered what recently happened to JT Entertainment focused on Hosoo Entertainment, but what appeared to be Hw.a.n.g Min Wook’s will surfaced on the internet and turned everything around.

The one who spread the s.e.x tape was JT Entertainment’s Hw.a.n.g Min Wook?

The entertainment world is rampant with embezzlement, bribery, and s.e.xual favors? Is that what needs to be done to succeed?

“Don’t forgive me!” What does the will of someone who killed himself mean?

The broadcasting company and producer took it too far when a.s.serting their dominance and asking for too much from entertainment agencies!

The hideous truth is hidden behind all the glamour. Hw.a.n.g Min Wook’s list must be investigated!

Hw.a.n.g Min Wook was immediately taken to the hospital, but he pa.s.sed away. Aside from his death, the will and list he left behind caused quite the stir. Before their reputation could be recovered after the s.e.x tourism incident, the famous politicians, businessmen, professors, and artists had fingers pointed at them all over again.

Hw.a.n.g Min Wook’s list.

The list, which included other entertainment agencies as well, included broadcasting companies, producers, directors, advertisers, film studios, and more. This wasn’t created by Kosino. It was a hand that Hw.a.n.g Min Wook held all along.

Hosoo Entertainment held a press conference and Oh Joo Kyung stepped up to speak.

“We send our sincere condolences to Hw.a.n.g Min Wook’s family and friends.”

She took a step back and then stepped forward again.

“The rumors saying our company had something to do with the s.e.x tapes are under investigation at the moment. Also, there is no basis to the rumors claiming that Hosoo Entertainment is responsible for Hw.a.n.g Min Wook’s death. As the will said, the treatment culture in the entertainment world doesn’t help with the development of this field. To be honest, our company has not once treated anyone with extravagant favors since we were established. As a result, we left a bad impression as well.”

They had never taken out producers, advertisers, or government workers to nice meals and drinks outside of work. To those who believe that treating others in the business was how it should be done, Hosoo Entertainment’s stance seemed rude.

They held back since there wasn’t much they could do with how much power Ahn Soo Ho had, but they were determined to retaliate. Even now, they had a tendency to give Hosoo Entertainment’s celebrities the short straw.

“Celebrities are not objects. What our companies are selling is their charm, not them.”

Reasonable arguments work best at times like this.

It wasn’t just politicians who were strapped by Hw.a.n.g Min Wook’s list. There were many well-off families among people who aspired to become celebrities, so entertainment agencies had a lot of backlash from parents following this incident. It was only Hosoo Entertainment who was avoiding the typhoon.

“Companies value making a profit the most, but there’s something else we must make clear.”

Oh Joo Kyung breathed in and out.

“Let’s protect our duty and loyalty!”

She wanted to hide if she could.

Ahn Soo Ho clapped and laughed his a.s.s off. When the camera focused in on Oh Joo Kyung, she looked like she ate something strange.

“Please stop making fun of me, CEO Ahn.”

“Haha. Oh, sorry.”

Oh Joo Kyung didn’t like how she looked on camera.

“If we stress duty and loyalty, we’ll get a lot of people telling us to make donations.”

“What’s wrong with making some more donations as we did on the Asia tour?”

“I’ll take care of that.”

She gave up on trying to explain that it wasn’t easy to make big donations in Korea. As soon as she left, Logan came in.

“Kosino used multiple accounts to make reports to Chief Superintendent Yoon Chul.”

“What about Soo Jung?”

“She’s fighting with the desk. She said it’ll be hard.”

“It won’t be easy.”

It would have been easier if Kim Soo Jung was a newspaper reporter, but public TV broadcasters couldn’t just do random things due to their impact. And broadcasters that were funded by the government had more strict rules and regulations.

“There’s a meeting for inspectors in four days.”

“Who’s the inspector in charge?”

“A civil lawyer named Jeon Kw.a.n.g Joon.”

The Blue House made the special inspectors sound like a secret weapon, but none of the inspectors had particular strong points. However, the cases that the group voted on were powerful.

‘He used his head.’

It was more possible that it wasn’t the president but his a.s.sistant who came up with the idea. But it was also a skill for a leader to use his underlings properly. The special inspectors who were civil lawyers or conducted citizens’ campaigns didn’t do it for justice, but they did it to attain power.

This was the perfect time to get rid of the silence as Lee Joong Hyun wanted, but on the other hand, he didn’t know how some of the special inspectors would think. They were just national inspectors who spoke in a slick manner.

“What about the bankers?”

“Not yet.”

The black market bankers who were kidnapped a few days ago were in a confusing situation. Who would have to talk? There wasn’t any kind of military organization in the black market, but if a problem occurred, the client could hire mercenaries to take care of it. Ahn Soo Ho’s bankruptcy led to a loss of influence in the mercenary world, and there was no way those in the black market didn’t know about it.

But that didn’t mean he could just send out an SOS. Not following Ahn Soo Ho and being hostile toward him were two different things. They could refuse to agree with Ahn Soo Ho’s opinions, but they couldn’t start a fight with him. No matter how crazy mercenaries were about money, they weren’t crazy enough to walk straight into the afterlife.

A dilemma, they couldn’t do either.

“Hm, is something wrong?”

“We went a little overboard. It doesn’t mean much to be a black market dealer in Korea.”

In comparison to other countries that had weapons and drugs, Korea’s black market centered around secret funds.

“Then we have to change our method.”

This time, instead of kidnapping, he sent an invitation.

The faces that gathered in Seoul Daesan Hotel’s banquet hall weren’t different from before. Seeing how they were minding each other, they weren’t acquaintances despite working in the same black market. Their job was to clean after the mess of powerful men, so they were always worried they were going to get killed once their job was done.

“I will guarantee your safety.”

“I want a notarized doc.u.ment.”

There was no use for papers in the black market, but he had no choice but to agree.

“Sure.”

He should have done this from the start.

“We received all the account information of the clients in China and j.a.pan.”

“How much is it in total?”

“Hm, I’d have to check…but it’s around 80 trillion won.”

“Wow! You’ve hidden a lot of money on such small land.”

The biggest beneficiary of Korea’s democratization was the Chinese and the j.a.panese.

“There’s only one trillion won in cash, and the rest are unregistered bonds. That’s weird. There’s less cash than expected.”

“How is it managed?”

“They’re in safe-deposit boxes of the main banks.”

Ahn Soo Ho obtained 80 trillion won in an instant. It was so easy that if anyone saw it, they would have been dumbfounded.

There was another banquet hall at Daesan Hotel.

As soon as Ahn Soo Ho appeared, everyone got up. They all had different hair color, and how they looked and what they wore was all different, too. There was a braided hippie beside an elder with a long beard, and there was a girl in a school uniform beside a man in leather pants. The most normal looking person was the man in a suit up front.

“Long time no see, Soo Ho.”

“This isn’t a fan meeting, so don’t expect an introduction.”

“I’m sorry for showing up out of the blue.”

“What’s this about?”

The person laughed bitterly in response to his disdainful treatment.

“J-Law and Issac started a full-out war.”

“So?”

“The company mercenaries are on the move, too.”

Ahn Soo Ho smirked.

The ones that were gathered here weren’t company mercenaries, but freelancers. They were free to take on and refuse any project. However, company mercenaries were in master and servant relations.h.i.+ps. Another monster that was created by the capitalist society were global companies with uncertain nationalities and ident.i.ties.

“Are you trying to fight with global companies? Who are you to fight for justice?”

“Well, you abandoned your throne. Soo Ho. They won’t just sit and watch the empty s.p.a.ce you left behind.”

Even amongst global companies, a portion of them found just one country sufficient enough. For over ten years, they were pushed down by Ahn Soo Ho’s authority, but now that they were free of it, they were determined to get ahead in making the most profits possible.

“If you want to commit suicide, there are many other ways.”

“We’re not going to lose easily.”

It was an answer full of determination.

Ahn Soo Ho knew why they came to Korea without them telling him. There was only one way of freelancing mercenaries to overcome their disadvantages. To put weapons in their hands that would prevent the companies from acting harshly.

Ahn Soo Ho took out a small hard case from his jacket.

Dresden File.

That was what it was. It was the secret doc.u.ment of the 20th century that was reformed by k.u.miko. Most of the global companies were formerly in warm criminal companies. Ahn Soo Ho threw the hard case, and the men pounced at it. He carefully put the case in his jacket and talked.

“I received a request when I snuck into Korea. The other guys did, too. Is there no way for you to cancel your retirement, Soo Ho?”

Ahn Soo Ho lifted his middle finger.

“The clients will be very disappointed.”

He didn’t hand them the Dresden file because he liked them. Just like how he realized it in Sao Paulo, the company mercenaries were already prepared for war.

“Tell them to clean after their own c.r.a.p.”

He just wanted to enjoy the show with some popcorn.

< Protect – Episode 76 – Fan Meeting [3] > The end