AOA 148

The area around Baek Jinseok was as crowded as always. Baek Jaehan and Im Songyoon stayed by Baek Jinseok’s side. Baek Sujin and her eldest son sat with them.

Finally, Baek Yeongseop also wandered around the banquet hall. He had caused a scandal last spring and was sent away to Tongyeong, but he still showed his face at family events from time to time.

Baek Mugyeong scanned the hall and found reporters scattered everywhere. The annual charity concert wasn’t major news. But they invited a couple of broadcast stations to publicize Daesong Group’s charity work.

He also saw Congressman Go Haseong from Jongno talking with his party’s proportional representative. Go Haseong, a three-term lawmaker with a legal background, had close ties with the chairman of K One, who used to be Baek Yeongseop’s father-in-law.

They had been high school classmates, and Go Haseong had received support from the K One chairman since his days as a judge. People said the K One chairman actively backed him when he ran for office.

The K One chairman’s only daughter had committed suicide after an unhappy marriage with Baek Yeongseop, and that case had become famous. Since then, the K One chairman had come to regard Baek Jinseok and the Daesong people as enemies. He avoided events hosted by Daesong Group and did everything he could to make sure they never crossed paths.

People around the K One chairman behaved cautiously. But politicians were different. They cared about appearing and being known, no matter where they were.

The point was that Go Haseong belonged to the K One chairman’s circle.

After checking that every important figure was in one place, Baek Mugyeong waited calmly.

The party proceeded according to schedule. After commemorative speeches and a behind-the-scenes video of the concert, the charity auction was about to begin.

The giant screen at the front of the banquet hall changed without warning. The blue background image of the Cheongam Art Center disappeared, and a living room with a black leather sofa appeared on the screen.

“Die! Die!”

“Ugh, ah… save me…”

People who looked confused by the sudden scene murmured at the sound from the speakers. Some spotted a man sitting with his back to the camera on one side of the screen and pointed at him.

By the time the event staff, pale with shock, started to move, the man in the video stood up. The man who had shown his back swept his hair and turned toward the camera.

“Fuck, he really died.”

The video quality was clear, and the screen was huge, so people could tell the panting man was Baek Yeongseop.

Shocked gazes turned to Baek Yeongseop in an instant. Baek Mugyeong also turned his head to him. Baek Yeongseop’s face was not just white, it was sickly pale.

“What is this? Why is that here… No! It’s not me!”

Realizing what had happened, Baek Yeongseop shouted loudly. But the man on the screen looked unmistakably like him.

Event staff ran around frantically, but the screen did not turn off. Meanwhile, the Baek Yeongseop in the video moved at a sped-up pace and soon appeared holding a long scarf.

A voice cursed the deceased for causing trouble even after death and expressed irritation, and the banquet hall fell silent.

Even people who did not know Baek Yeongseop could tell what was happening in the video. The attendees moved away from him as if they had seen a demon.

Standing at a distance, Baek Mugyeong watched quietly as the area around Baek Yeongseop emptied in an instant.

Finding the video Baek Yeongseop had filmed in the Philippines had been a tricky task. He had confirmed the existence of secret safe at the man’s private villa and getaway house, but he had not opened it.

As a last resort, he considered stealing the safe, and during that discussion Jeong Minchae had told him the password.

The videotape Baek Mugyeong sought turned out to be at the private villa, not the getaway house. There he found an unexpected item. He found an external storage device for CCTV footage.

The expert they hired to break into the safe had a keen eye. Seeing the tape and the external storage together, the expert guessed there would be something, and he was right.

The CCTV installed to monitor who entered Baek Yeongseop’s newlywed home had captured the moment the husband killed his wife.

After confirming that, Baek Mugyeong deliberated how to finish Baek Yeongseop. He could hand the file to the K One chairman, but he judged that making a public spectacle would be more effective, and he made a plan.

Many media reporters attended the Cheongam Charity Concert. There was no live broadcast, but this was enough for internet breaking news and soon national news coverage.

Some reporters were already filming the screen with their cameras. Some people spoke urgently into phones, claiming a scoop. A few attendees began to record with their phones.

It was an incident beyond comparison to the Alpha hazard that had occurred at the art museum last time. Back then, they had erased all footage using security, but this time, there were too many people.

Above all, there was no way the K One chairman, who had learned that his daughter had been murdered, would stay quiet.

Go Haseong, seated on one side of the banquet hall, did nothing, but the man beside him, who seemed to be his aide, was filming the screen with his phone.

A person didn’t have to stop breathing to die. Once it became known that a third-generation chaebol had committed murder, and that the victim was his wife, it would be a social death.

With a powerful law firm, the sentence could be drastically reduced, but the successor position in Daesong Group would be out of reach. Baek Jinseok, who wanted an outstanding heir, would never choose a murderer as his successor.

Even today, the seat beside Baek Jinseok belonged not to Baek Yeongseop but to Baek Sujin’s eldest son, Baek Unhyeon. He was an Alpha, a normal grandson without scandals or mental problems.

Even so, for the sake of the family’s honor, Baek Jinseok would use every means possible to claim Baek Yeongseop’s innocence.

In truth, there were plenty of excuses they could make up.

“It’s not me! Damn it! That, that’s fake! It’s deepfake! Deepfake!”

Hearing Baek Yeongseop shouting frantically, Baek Mugyeong clicked his tongue inwardly. It was possible for him to insist the footage was fake. If the original file didn’t exist, it would favor him in court.

But the people present didn’t seem to believe his words, and they stepped further away.

“…fuck.”

Sensing that the atmosphere had turned against him, Baek Yeongseop turned around and ran. No one tried to stop him from leaving the hall.

Once he was gone, the atmosphere inside the banquet hall turned cold. All eyes turned toward Baek Jinseok. As one of the main figures of the day, he said nothing and left the hall surrounded by his security guards. His scattered family members began to move quickly after him.

Baek Mugyeong also started walking toward the opposite exit from where Baek Jinseok had left, making sure not to lag behind. But instead of leaving immediately, he stopped near the entrance and looked at the screen.

There, Baek Jaehan was shouting for the screen to be turned off. The event staff moved frantically, but the footage continued to play.

Watching that scene, Baek Mugyeong swallowed a bitter smile. The key part of today’s revelation was the video itself, and he had taken steps to ensure it wouldn’t stop midway. He had attached a Wi-Fi receiver to the large screen and set it up to stream wirelessly.

He had also prevented the power from being cut. The only effective way would have been to destroy the screen physically, but in their panic, no one thought of that.

Baek Mugyeong knew why Baek Jaehan wasn’t leaving and was instead trying to stop the footage. It was because he appeared in that video too.

After Baek Yeongseop made it look like his wife had committed suicide using the scarf, he brought over a chair and kicked it down beneath her feet. A little later, he realized the living room CCTV existed and slowly approached it.

When the screen wouldn’t turn off no matter how much he tried, Baek Jaehan finally gave up and turned away in haste. But the murmuring around the hall grew louder.

“Damn it. Why is this here?”

On the screen, Baek Yeongseop cursed after checking the CCTV. He scratched his head and anxiously paced back and forth, then picked up his phone. Soon, a particular sentence came from his mouth.

“Father, it’s me. There’s a problem. No, it’s serious.”

That was the point where Baek Mugyeong left the hall. The murmuring of the shocked crowd grew louder behind him. The real drama was just beginning.

*

In the unprecedented chaos, every member of Baek Jinseok’s family gathered in one place. Naturally, Baek Yeongseop wasn’t there, but no one mentioned it.

While everyone wore grim expressions, Baek Jinseok, seated at the head, spoke.

“I’ll take care of everything. So don’t act rashly and stay quiet.”

At Baek Jinseok’s words, everyone nodded and said they understood. There was nothing that one of the country’s most powerful chaebol chairmen couldn’t handle once he decided to act. But this was a murder case, and the crime footage had been made public to the entire world.

Even though they all said they understood, they were feeling restless. The matter was that grave.

After finishing his words, Baek Jinseok kept Baek Jaehan and Im Songyoon behind. The rest offered their farewells and left. Baek Mugyeong was among them.