Genius Manager Who Hears Voices - Chapter 8



Only Noblemtl

Episode 8

The loud music gathered and dispersed, and soon it became quiet.

It was probably a place like a club or karaoke.

Immediately afterwards, the sound of two men talking continued.

[No, so you really sent that email? To Berryday Media’s Kang Jin-ha?]

[Uh. This morning. Kang Jin-ha has been writing a lot of hot articles recently, so his credibility is at an all-time high. If he just puts out one ‘exclusive’ title, the entertainment section will go crazy.]

[Ha, is this really okay? How are you going to handle it if you find out that it was you who sent that email? Not only is the content bad, but Yoo Joo-yeon is also one of the best actresses in the world. If this goes wrong, we could end up closing down the company.]

[Don’t worry, that won’t happen. Since I sent it by someone else, you won’t even know it’s me, and I knew this day would come, so I prepared thoroughly. Yoo Joo-yeon won’t be able to do this or that, and she’ll eventually collapse from exhaustion. When that happens, she’ll have no choice but to come back to me and beg and plead.]

[… … Then, did you know from the beginning that it would turn out like this… …?]

[Of course. Originally, black-haired beasts don’t know gratitude after being raised. They think they’re successful because they’re good. Just wait and see. After the news breaks, a really worthwhile drama will unfold.]

[… … .]

[Keuk. Sooner or later, Yoo Joo-yeon’s life will be completely ruined. No one but me can shield this. Everything that has left my hands so far has followed the same path.]

The sound of the conversation between the two unidentified men stopped and Heeseong heard familiar voices again.

Reporters Yoo Ju-yeon and Ahn Hae-min.

Heeseong immediately looked back.

“… … This man is a key figure in that cult? This man… … .”

“Do you know me? If you’re smiling like this and taking a picture, I don’t think you’re completely unfamiliar.”

Yoo Joo-yeon swept her bangs back, looking confused.

Then he fixed his gaze on the photo on the tablet and answered.

“Yes. I’ve met him a few times. He told me that he was involved in investment-related business. So I think he actually invested in my film.”

“Hmm, then the report isn’t completely untrustworthy.”

“No, no! I just went to a few events with you at your request. This guy is just one of the people I met there. I would have taken pictures like this with anyone else, not just him. He approached me first, saying he was a fan.”

“The representative? If you are the representative, who are you… …?”

“CEO Jang Dong-gyu. The CEO of my former agency. I’ve accompanied him to many events. Not just me, but other actors as well.”

Still unable to erase the suspicious look on his face, Ahn Hae-min looked at the tablet and continued to tap on it.

“Okay. Well, let’s leave the photo aside. Then how can we explain this? The man in the photo is said to have transferred hundreds of millions of won to Yoo Joo-yeon several times over the years. Why would someone who only saw him briefly at an event send such a large sum of money? This part is hard to accept.”

Yoo Joo-yeon immediately questioned Ahn Hae-min’s story.

“What are you talking about? That I received money? That’s completely untrue. Why would I give that much money to someone I don’t even know… .”

“Ms. Lee Hwa-ja, aren’t you Ms. Yoo Ju-yeon’s mother? That’s what it said in the tip-off email we received.”

“My mom… … ? What’s that all of a sudden… … .”

Ahn Hae-min enlarged the photos on the tablet and showed them to Yoo Joo-yeon. Yoo Joo-yeon, who was checking the materials he had presented, soon changed into a look of shock on her face.

“Here, a man named Kim Pil-young transferred hundreds of millions of won to Lee Hwa-ja over a period of about three years. According to the report, Yoo Ju-yeon could not receive it herself, so he sent it to her mother. If this is all true, he could be an accomplice in the fraud case. The source of the money was said to be all from believers.”

“What is that… … . Why did my mother… … ?”

“Well, only Yoo Joo-yeon or her mother would know that.”

As if the shock hadn’t subsided, Yoo Joo-yeon just bent down. Hee-sung, who was watching her, immediately spoke to Ahn Hae-min.

“Excuse me, reporter. Would you like to talk outside for a moment?”

Hee-sung came out and moved to the smoking area with Ahn Hae-min.

Heeseong asked in a low voice to Ahn Haemin, who was lighting a cigarette.

“Do you really think that report is true?”

“Whew, well. I want to believe that it’s not true, but the evidence you sent is so clear. It’s not like the article won’t come out even if we cover it up. It’s a difficult situation, even for us.”

“Shouldn’t we at least conduct an interview with the informant? It seems like it would be too big of a story to just listen to someone we don’t know.”

“Of course, that’s true, but it would be more certain and simpler for Yoo Joo-yeon to present evidence that it’s not true. Then we wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of buying it.”

That’s true. Heeseong wasn’t sure about that either, so he took Ahn Haemin out for now.

Right now, Yoo Joo-yeon is probably talking to her mother in the car.

First of all, we need to check whether it is true that we received the money.

‘If the conversation just now was all true… … .’

Heeseong could understand because he had already experienced it once.

The voices of the two people I heard in the car a little while ago were actually a conversation that had taken place somewhere in reality.

I couldn’t tell who they were all, but I could definitely guess one person.

Jang Dong-gyu, the CEO of Yoo Joo-yeon’s former agency.

Because the existence was revealed without reservation in the conversation.

“If you were to publish the article, when would that be?”

When Heeseong asked, Ahn Haemin answered by stubbing out his cigarette butt.

“It should be tomorrow morning at the earliest. If we determine that there is sufficient credibility based on the circumstances, we should be the first to do so.”

I raised my left wrist and checked the time.

Until tomorrow morning, it was a short time if it was short, and a long time if it was long.

Hee-sung looked at the car Yoo Joo-yeon was riding in for a moment and then spoke to Ahn Hae-min.

“Sir, this could be a bigger story. Would you like to hear my story?”

***

That night, late at night after all filming was finished.

There were four people gathered at Yoo Joo-yeon’s house.

It was Heeseong, Yoo Jooyeon, and Ahn Haemin and Kang Jinha, the managers of Berryday Media.

With four steaming cups of tea in front of him, the first one to speak was Kang Jin.

“I was skeptical, but it was true. I didn’t know people were such piece of trash.”

Kang Jin-ha continued speaking while looking at Hee-sung in front of a table with two laptops and several documents.

“It was exactly as the manager said. It was obvious that they had prepared thoroughly, but from our perspective, there were more than a few sloppy things. We also have a fantastic ‘cross-check’ method here. We could tell right away that there was someone else behind us.”

“Did you confess honestly?”

“No way. I just asked first. Are you doing this at someone else’s behest? Is that person Jang Dong-gyu?”

“So?”

“That’s why his face immediately became flustered, as if he was asking how I knew. He may say no with his mouth, but his eyes never lie.”

At that moment, Ahn Hae-min intervened in the conversation between the two people.

“While the manager was conducting the interview, I looked into the actors under Licore Entertainment as the manager had said. How did they leave the company, what were their future plans? As expected, there were more than a few things that didn’t make sense.”

Yoo Joo-yeon asked with her eyes wide open in surprise.

“Actors from Licore? What are those… … .”

“Oh, didn’t you hear from your manager? If CEO Jang Dong-gyu is involved in this incident, he might not be the first, so I asked you to look into it. Did he get involved in any accidents or incidents after leaving Licore Entertainment? Did his creative work go smoothly? And so on. But that wasn’t the case at all.”

Yoo Joo-yeon opened her eyes wide and looked at Hee-sung.

Yoo Joo-yeon was so nervous and anxious that she didn’t even know how the filming went today.

After I found out that my mother had been receiving huge sums of money, hundreds of millions of won, for several years, I felt helpless.

That fact alone lends considerable credibility to the report.

So I was unable to make a sound judgment, when Hee-sung stepped forward and asked for the entire deposit from his mother.

So, I left my cell phone with Hee-sung along with the deposit details and went to film in the afternoon. When I came back after finishing, I heard the shocking news that Jang Dong-gyu might be behind this incident.

But what was even more surprising to Yoo Joo-yeon was that it was Hee-sung who made that request to the two reporters.

“I couldn’t meet them all one by one, so I conducted phone interviews with a few of them, and they were all in the same situation as Yoo Joo-yeon. Licore wanted to renew the contract, but the artist refused. In all of those cases, there was at least one incident that put a brake on their future activities. And that was not long after the contract was terminated.”

“Did those people know that CEO Jang Dong-gyu was behind it?”

“No, I didn’t know at the time, but as time passed, I thought it could be possible. The controversial incidents were either related to CEO Jang Dong-gyu or were things that only CEO Jang Dong-gyu would know. Well, if you include this incident, it’s just a guess.”

Since it was an expected scenario, Kang Jin-ha nodded obediently and looked at Hee-seong.

“Have you checked the source of the money? Is it true that Yoo Joo-yeon’s mother received a large sum of money from that man? What kind of money it was, and did she know why she was giving it to him?”

After nodding slightly, Heesung displayed several photos on the LCD screen of his cell phone and showed them to the reporters.

“This was also the work of CEO Jang Dong-gyu. My mother said that she only received a call saying that the money would be deposited and didn’t pay attention to the name of the depositor. So, the depositor’s name in the tip-off email and the name of the depositor in my mother’s account were both forged. Different people’s names were written on the depositor’s account and the recipient’s account, respectively.”

Making it so that different names are printed on my account and the recipient’s account.

Although the details in the tip-off email showed that Kim Pil-young had deposited the money to Lee Hwa-ja, in reality, it was Jang Dong-gyu who had deposited it.

In Jang Dong-gyu’s bankbook, it was as if it was the church’s business income, and in Yoo Joo-yeon’s mother’s bankbook, Kim Pil-young’s name was printed.

I reported that information to Berryday Media.

In fact, that money was the running guarantee for the movie that Yoo Joo-yeon made.

An Hae-min opened his mouth as if he was astonished.

“Why on earth would you do something like this? If you dig a little, it’ll be discovered right away. No matter how I think about it, it seems like a very sloppy method.”

“That sloppy method has worked every time so far. They are taking advantage of the psychology of the public and the reporters who focus only on the controversy and the topic itself rather than the truth of the incident. Since the other party doesn’t even have an agency, it’s bound to be difficult to respond.”

Neither Kang Jin-ha nor Ahn Hae-min could refute Hee-sung’s story.

As fellow reporters, they might have made the same mistake if it weren’t for Hee-sung.

Clearly, the information they received was enough bait to turn it into an article with the words “exclusive” and “scoop.”

The reality is that no matter how the truth is revealed, the public doesn’t really care about it.

“Wait, wait a minute… … . What’s going on here… … . So, you two reporters only listened to Hee-sung’s words and conducted all this background investigation today?”

The result was the result, but the process itself was so shocking that Yoo Joo-yeon couldn’t help but be dumbfounded.

Until this morning, Berryday Media was acting like they were going to publish the story right away.

How could he have conducted such a background investigation to directly refute the report based only on what his manager said?

Even Heeseong, today is his first day of work.

I had never met him before.

As someone who knows more about the reporter class than anyone else, she couldn’t understand the current situation even more.

Kang Jin-ha and Ahn Hae-min simultaneously smiled faintly as they looked at Yoo Joo-yeon, whose pupils were shaking.

Then they got up from their seats, picked up their laptops, and opened their mouths.

“‘Code of Ethics for the Press’. Manager Yoo Joo-yeon handed it to us. He said, ‘How about we try to catch a bigger scoop while also fulfilling our duties as reporters and journalists?’ It all started with those words.”

“Haha, that’s a first. Someone who brings up the code of ethics in journalism to a reporter and then steps forward to protect their celebrity. It seems like you have a really great manager, Jooyeon?”

The two briefly locked eyes with warm smiles.

In order to write an article to be uploaded tomorrow, I had to go back to the office and work all night.

After a brief greeting, Ahn Hae-min and Kang Jin-ha left the house, and as soon as the front door closed, Yoo Ju-yeon’s gaze was fixed on Hee-sung.

I felt like I had to hear the truth about it myself.

“Heesung, what are they talking about? How did you know that this would happen…?”

Looking at Yoo Joo-yeon like that, Hee-sung let out a long sigh instead of answering and smiled.

“Should we eat something first? It’s been such a spectacular day, neither of us have eaten anything yet.”

Genius Manager Who Hears Voices