wavenovel Chapter 31 Deserves a beating
Chapter 31 Deserves a beating
For some people, retribution comes like a package, arriving only after a few days.
Kim Tae-ah's retribution was an express delivery.
On the same morning that Lee Jung-il and Lee Woo-bin rode that old bus towards Seoul, Seoul was already in utter chaos.
Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, Cybercrime Investigation Unit, 9:00 AM.
Officer Kwon Jung-eun.
He's the one who said "the victim is an SM artist" at the press conference in Chapter 17.
He has a daughter, Eunbi, who is also a trainee, so he is particularly concerned about crimes involving the entertainment industry.
He was sitting in the evidence storage room of the Longshan Police Station, facing an uninvited guest.
Kim Tae-ah's lawyer.
The suits were worth about half a street in Kowloon Village; the tie clips were made of real gold; and the smiles were fake.
"Captain Quan, my client wishes to have a brief discussion with you regarding the legality of the evidence's origin. Considering that the case has not yet been formally filed, we believe there may be some procedural misunderstandings."
In layman's terms...
The evidence you have may have been obtained illegally, and we'd like to talk to you about how to actually make it illegal.
Kwon Jung-eun has been a police officer for fifteen years and has met more chaebol lawyers than the chaebols themselves.
They are all the same.
First question the procedure, then question the evidence, and finally question your career.
"Attorney Jin, in addition to the forged chat log sent by your client, the evidence also includes a complete source file tracing path. Our cybersecurity colleagues have already verified the underlying metadata."
Turn to the second page.
The above contains all the detailed data.
The sending IP is an internal VPN of a Kakao subsidiary.
The receiving IP address is the office network of the editorial department of "Star News Chase".
It passes through three jump server servers, but each jump server has a login time, MAC address, and device ID.
He closed the folder and adjusted his glasses.
"Attorney Jin, I've been in this profession for fifteen years. I've seen evidence fabrication, but I've never seen it done so professionally. And I've certainly never seen someone fabricate evidence and then include the author's name in the metadata."
Attorney Kim's lips twitched.
Kwon Jung-eun saw it all.
He stood up and tucked the folder under his arm.
"The person who created this evidence is either a genius or a genius who deliberately left a loophole. Either way, it's legal. The server is located within the country, the evidence collection process was compliant, and the chain of evidence is closed. If you want to challenge the process, please go to court. But until then..."
He walked to the door and turned back.
"I suggest you tell your client that the police have enough evidence to bring charges. Her only remaining option is not whether she can be acquitted, but whether she should plead guilty."
Attorney Kim's smile vanished completely.
Hannam-dong, Kakao headquarters.
A mecca for emerging internet technology companies among young people on the peninsula.
President's office, 10:00 AM on the same day.
Kim Bum-soo has attended countless meetings in his life.
He was never afraid when he founded Kakao, when he was negotiating a partnership with Samsung, or when he was bombarded by members of Congress during a congressional hearing.
But today, he was afraid.
It's not that I'm afraid of competitors, Congress, or a drop in stock price.
He was afraid of himself.
To be precise, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to resist throwing his only daughter out the window.
Kim Tae-ah stood in front of his desk.
I'm dressed very simply today.
Her attire was also very simple.
White shirt, black trousers, hair tied up, and minimal makeup.
It wasn't because she suddenly changed her aesthetic; it was because her lawyer told her, "The more innocent you look, the more likely public opinion will sympathize with you."
But Kim Bum-soo doesn't care about any of that.
He was looking at the screen of the laptop on the table.
Naver's top trending topic: Rumors surrounding Bae Joo-hyun, daughter of Kakao's chairman.
Third on the trending topics list: Kim Tae-ah forged chat logs
Fifth on the trending topics list: Kakao's stock price fell.
Seventh on the trending topics list: SM Entertainment sues Kakao
Every single one of them was like a slap in the face to him.
Each of these posts received over a million clicks.
He spent fifteen years turning Kakao from a startup into a national app on the peninsula.
With 40 million users and a market share exceeding 90%, its market value surpassed that of CJ Group this year.
In terms of market capitalization alone, it already ranks among the top ten conglomerates in the Korean Peninsula.
Everyone says he is the representative of the new economy.
It is a prime example of how technology can change lives.
Now, his only daughter has turned it all into a laughing stock in less than a week.
"Dad, listen to me..."
"Shut up."
Kim Tae-ah's body trembled.
But she didn't close it.
She has never kept quiet since she was a child.
Her father never told her to shut up.
She still remembers the days when she and her father would laugh and eat instant noodles in their rented room when she was a child.
Back then, being able to eat my favorite instant noodles once would make me happy for a long time.
"It was Lee Jung-il who provoked me first. He gave me the middle finger, and that Bae Joo-hyun, a newly debuted idol, what right did she have...?"
Snapped!
The whole floor heard it.
The secretary stood outside the door, head bowed, pretending to organize documents.
The executives in the corridor exchanged glances, then simultaneously found urgent matters completely unrelated to their work and quickly disappeared.
Kim Bum-soo withdrew his hand.
My palms felt like they were on fire and went numb.
Kim Tae-ah's face was slapped to the side.
A clear handprint appeared on her fair cheek.
There was no screaming, no crying; she simply turned her face back slowly, staring at her father with an expression he had never seen before.
Her father had never hit her before.
Her biological mother left when she was very young, and Kim Bum-soo always felt indebted to her, spoiling her endlessly from childhood to adulthood.
For Kim Tae-ah, that slap was like a crack appearing in her world.
"You dare hit me."
"I'd even dare to break your legs."
"You hit me just for something like this?"
"Taeya, do you know how much trouble you've caused me? SM's legal department has officially filed a criminal lawsuit. A criminal lawsuit. Forging other people's chat records, illegally accessing user data using Kakao's internal resources, colluding with gossip media to defame people—any one of these charges is enough to get you in jail for several years."
Kim Tae-ah touched her burning cheeks and shouted, her neck stiff:
"Let them file a lawsuit! You know people in the prosecutor's office. A phone call will suppress it."
"Pressure?"
Kim Bum-soo was so angry he laughed.
"Do you think your father is as powerful as those old tycoons?"
"Do you think Kakao is a behemoth like Samsung, with its reach extending across the entire country?"
"Kakao is just a chat software company. We've just become public enemy number one, and Congress is constantly calling for us to be dismantled."
"I kept explaining at the hearings that Kakao's user data was absolutely secure, and you ended up doing something like directly accessing user chat logs?"
He turned his laptop around so that the screen was facing Kim Tae-ah.
"Look at the stock price. It's dropped 23% since the 13th. That's enough to buy several SM Entertainment companies. Users are uninstalling the app on a massive scale. Three members of Congress have already issued statements calling for an investigation into Kakao's business ethics. The Blue House just announced a few days ago that it would launch a new round of tax investigations into the major conglomerates, and now they've taken the lead."
He took a deep breath.
"Do you think I can solve these things with just one phone call?"
"Do you think your dad has more power than the president of the United States?"