Chapter 221: 221

What people needed most to understand others was empathy and information.

In that sense, Kang Hye-Min did not understand Park Eun-Soo. How could she live such a peaceful and carefree life?

These worthless and brutish people were yapping all kinds of falsitudes to ruin her life, but Park Eun-Soo couldn’t even see that and continued living carefreely.

In Park Eun-Soo’s defense, Kang Hye-Min had also led a peaceful life until she was attacked. Moreover, when she herself thought she was safe, the warnings and advice of the people around her fell on deaf ears. Kang Hye-Min simply dismissed them as the useless worries of oversensitive people.

However, after suffering and learning more about the truth, Kang Hye-Min could only watch over the situation surrounding Park Eun-Soo with frustrations and restlessness.

Thus, she gave up on trying to persuade or understand Park Eun-Soo and put all her energy into dealing with Kim Hye-Ryeong.

Kang Hye-Min’s specialty was collecting information and using it to understand the situation and predicting outcomes.

She had discovered this new talent of hers after the divorce, which led to her making her own achievements.

Through this, she had been trying to get back her precious son by rising the ranks, but unfortunately, he was no longer in this world.

Truthfully, even if her son were alive, Kang Hye-Min wouldn’t have been able to get him out of that household. Although she had been dreaming of an impossible future and hadn’t been acknowledging reality, she was happy back then since she had hope of living with her son.

But now, her hope was gone and all that was left was boiling vengeance.

Despite her personal success and growth which she was proud of, it was not enough to destroy that family’s huge fortress. All she could do was to slowly carve a hole in the sturdy wall and continuously throw eggs at the fortress meaninglessly to vent her anger. Kang Hye-Min realized what it meant for someone to wake up day after day, unable to kill herself, and continued to live her days lifelessly.

Then one day, she met Park Eun-Soo. Since then, her life started changing little by little.

When she saw Park Eun-Soo living happily unlike herself, Kang Hye-Min was envious, but at the same time she felt relieved more than anything else. She was also relieved that she still had the emotional capacity to feel vicariously satisfied through another person’s happiness rather than feeling envious.

Kang Hye-Min vowed time and time again to herself that she could not become a monster to fight against the monsters. Now, her only dream was to go to heaven where her son would surely be. So, she hated the idea of becoming a monster and having to lose hope all over again.

It wasn’t so bad to watch over another family living their happy lives from a distance. Kang Hye-Min would deal with Kim Hye-Ryeong herself, so Park Eun-Soo could just continue living happily.

However, the more information about Park Eun-Soo’s family and Kim Hye-Ryeong she gathered, the more worried and anxious Kang Hye-Min became.

When she found out what Kim Hye-Ryeong had attempted to do to Chae Woo-Jin a few years ago, Kang Hye-Min’s anxiety began to spike.

That was also the day her nightmares began to change.

At some point, the face of her son lying in the coffin had changed into Chae Woo-Jin’s face. Although she cursed the distastefulness of her nightmares, Kang Hye-Min was worried it might be a premonitory dream.

She then reiterated and struggled to control her emotions, telling herself that she didn’t have such an ability. Even on the night before her son’s death, she had had a very happy dream. Thus, she didn’t believe in her damned dreams anymore as they made reality worse.

Her nightmares were nothing more than an excuse for her to reignite her will to live in the mornings and to remind herself of her goals.

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But she couldn’t ignore her heart that was growing increasingly anxious. Kang Hye-Min started buying TM’s stocks as a means to attack Kim Hye-Ryeong, which made the news and rumors in the entertainment industry more accessible to her. Thus, she naturally ended up hearing news on Chae Woo-Jin on a daily basis.

Considering that he was her son’s older brother, it was only natural for her to feel attached to him despite them being basically strangers. As her emotions intensified by the day, her nightmares kept feeling more and more like premonitory dreams.

Thereafter, she changed her tactic from just keeping an eye on Kim Hye-Ryeong’s surroundings to actively monitoring her. Kang Hye-Min kept a close watch on where the woman went, who she met, and what they talked about.

And today, she finally found the answer to the question that had been constantly bugging her.

“So this is what she’s been up to?”

Kim Hye-Ryeong met people to formulate her schemes at a limited number of places. Garam Hotel or the building she owned had good security, but those places were too crowded and far too conspicuous.

Thus, Kim Hye-Ryeong aimed for reliable and secure places that were remote with not many people around.

Unfortunately for her, most of those places already belonged to Kang Hye-Min.

In fact, Kang Hye-Min had bought a certain restaurant a year ago. It was the same restaurant where Kim Hye-Ryeong and the reporter Hwang Joon-Hee met today.

Even though she bought the entire building alongside the restaurant, she deliberately had the previous owner’s name used as the surrogate owner. Since the restaurant owner’s name hadn’t changed, Kim Hye-Ryeong continued using the facility with her guard down. Therefore, Kang Hye-Min was able to watch and listen in on the woman’s conversations even while she was in the private rooms.

Today, Kang Hye-Min was watching Kim Hye-Ryeong like any other day with the secret camera in the room and was listening to their conversation in real time.

But she ended up intervening and causing a mess because she couldn’t hold back her anger.

She should have stayed patient and held back to continue her preparations for the future, but she couldn’t do so.

But at the very least, she felt refreshed and enjoyed her time in the room.

To Kang Hye-Min, Kim Hye-Ryeong was a subject of fear. Just by standing in front of her, she would cower and lose her spirit. Even at her son’s funeral, all she could do was to shout at her and glare.

If she had ripped off some of the woman’s hair or slapped her across the face like she did today, then the resentment in her heart would’ve been alleviated a little bit.

“I should’ve done this way earlier.”

Kim Hye-Ryeong was just a human made of flesh and blood after all. Getting hit hurt and they both bled when injured, so Kang Hye-Min wondered what she had been so afraid of until now.

To be honest, the opponent she feared most was actually Chae Mu-Seok. His shadow was always cast on Kim Hye-Ryeong, making it seem like she was the giant monster in the darkness.

“Then I should get rid of the shadow first.”

It was only after the divorce that Kang Hye-Min finally realized what kind of person Chae Mu-Seok was. She also realized that Kim Hye-Ryeong was not a threat if she was separated from Chae Mu-Seok.

The problem was if it was feasible. But now, the clues were starting to show themselves little by little. Even though there was such a big incident today, Chae Mu-Seok kept silent and wasn’t making a move.

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Under normal circumstances, Chae Mu-Seok wouldn’t have let Kang Hye-Min go unpunished for her actions today. He would’ve given her a warning, and perhaps gone even further, attacking Kim Hye-Ryeong. It would be done not out of love or affection for his third wife, but because his pride was injured and the displeasure arising from Kang Hye-Min attacking one of his people.

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But now, no matter what happened to Kim Hye-Ryeong, Chae Mu-Seok didn’t care anymore.

“Like what you said, it’s my fault that I couldn’t protect my son. I’ll admit it. But that doesn’t make your sins disappear.”

Kang Hye-Min muttered as she looked at the wall covered in photos and documents about Kim Hye-Ryeong which she had obtained during her investigations.

“I’ll gladly pay for my sins, so you should also pay for yours.”

If Kang Hye-Min was at fault for being unable to protect her son, then she just had to do it properly this time around. There was no need to make the same mistake a second time, once was more than enough.

Till now, she had only thought of destroying her enemies, and never once had she thought of protecting someone. Now that such an idea sprouted in her mind, Kang Hye-Min started having hope again.

She wouldn’t change her behavior, but her mindset and outlook on the world had changed as her self-confidence increased.

Her clock—which had stayed frozen for years—finally started to move again as the seconds ticked by.

Kang Hye-Min smiled softly as she looked at the photo of Kim Hye-Ryeoung with a certain young lady. She had a lot of work to do from now on. The first thing on her to-do-list was to prevent the reporter whom Kim Hye-Ryeong had met today from writing an article on Woo-Jin.

She was certain that she now had more power than Kim Hye-Ryeong.

***

CEO Jang Soo-Hwan felt a special affection towards DSTV and DS Café.

That’s because he saw it as a means for artists to communicate with their fans, to feel comfortable around them, and empathize with the public.

People in the same industry often criticized Jang Soo-Hwan for selfishly pursuing his own ideologies with DS. They interpreted his effort to not infringe on his artist's creativity as an expensive hobby that was a waste of money.

They often spoke loudly behind his back, saying things like ‘won’t you affect our image by acting like that?’

Management and administration was not all about making profits, but it was also where one’s ideals differed from the outcomes. Jang Soo-Hwan had no intention of persuading people whose ideals were different from his own.

But he didn’t want the general public to have the same misunderstanding and have a bad bias towards the artists of DS.

Jang Soo-Hwan thought that it was his duty and mission to make happy artists who were close with both their fans and the public. Allowing the artists to receive their love, instead of remaining as artists who satisfied Jang Soo-Hwan and his ideals only.

So his method of allowing his artists to reach out to the public was DSTV and DS Café.

The artists were also happy to interact freely and directly with the public outside of the existing media. Although they were grateful for CEO Jang Soo-Hwan’s overprotection so far, it had honestly been quite frustrating and suffocating. Thus, this was a welcome change.

However, that didn’t mean the artists liked all the shows on DSTV.

Charge! Open the door was the most popular show on DSTV, but it was also the most hated show by the artists which they were reluctant to take part in.

The show was about the hosts picking a random artist affiliated with DS—whether through a lottery or spinning a wheel or any other method—and rashly going to the house of whoever was picked with a camera filming live.

Whenever the show airs, they would broadcast for a few minutes the selection process that was filmed beforehand, then change the scene to a live camera where the MC presses the doorbell to the lucky(?) winner’s house. From then on, the broadcast is continuously filmed in real time.

Thus, on the days the show aired, the viewers didn’t know who the episode’s protagonist was until 10:05 PM.

The selection process of the protagonist had to be recorded in advance, but the artists affiliated with DS disliked the show because it was carried out in secrecy until the film crew had reached the protagonist’s home.

Some artists wore their makeup in advance on the day's which Charge! Open the door aired just in case they got selected. But the selection process was so random that sometimes, the artists who were chosen the previous week got selected again and ended up being taken by surprise as they had their guards down. Thus, the show earned a lot of resentment from the artists.

But since the show was run by the company, they couldn’t refuse the film crew and it was no use complaining to the producers.

Fortunately for them, the show only aired once or twice a month as it was an internet broadcast and was different from regular TV broadcasts. Most of all, the fans loved the show so much that the artists couldn’t voice their complaints.

“Please let us in. We’re going live very soon.”

One of the hosts of Charge! Open the door—Oh Young-Hee—begged the security guards who were blocking them at the lobby with a cutesy voice. But they remained stone-faced without any reaction, so she turned her head and pouted.

“Please come over here so that we don’t get in their way.”

After hearing the film crew’s story, an employee from the management office guided them towards the elevator dedicated to the penthouses. There were very few people that ever came this way, so the commotion wouldn’t bother anyone.

“This is a program that is managed by Mr. Chae Woo-Jin’s agency, so there won’t be any problems if you let us inside.”

Kim Hak-Cheon, another host of the show, spoke in place of Oh Young-Hee and tried to persuade the staff member with a gentle smile.

Although he has yet to become a nation-wide popular MC, Kim Hak-Cheon was famous enough that most people recognized him.

Whenever he appears somewhere with a camera, he usually gets a free pass as most people would let him in. This was the first time in a long time where Kim Hak-Cheon was nervous about entering a building and had to beg people for the broadcast.

“I’m sorry, but if you are a visitor, you cannot use the elevator without the resident’s permission. You should contact Mr. Chae Woo-Jin directly rather than asking me to let you in.”

The staff didn’t even know about Charge! Open the door let alone DSTV, so this situation was equally awkward and problematic for him.

Kim Hak-Cheon and Oh Young-Hee were both popular MCs that he liked. But following the company rules was far more important than this broadcast for the employee.

Unfortunately, Kim Hak-Cheon had his own share of rules to follow as well.

“This is a surprise broadcast, so we can’t let Mr. Chae Woo-Jin know we’re coming even if it’s a few minutes in advance. The highlight of this show is when we press the doorbell and the artist is forced to open the door in a panic.”

The goal of this broadcast was to capture the artist’s panicked expression on camera. Even if they didn’t open the door immediately, the bewildered voice and panicky atmosphere through the intercom was still the highlight of the show.

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They couldn’t contact Chae Woo-Jin in advance to give him time to prepare. Thus, they had to find another way to get on the elevator without notifying the actor.

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