The Scandal-Proof Producer

The parliamentary hearing on corruption in the media and entertainment industries was the biggest political theater in Seoul. It was broadcast live on every major news network, a national spectacle of accusation and defense. The hearing had been triggered by the prosecutor's ever-widening investigation, and today, they had called their star witness.

Kang Min-hyuk walked into the chamber not as the powerful, arrogant 'Demon Producer' of Stellar Entertainment, but as a sober, humbled man in a simple dark suit. He looked older, thinner, but his eyes, for the first time in a long time, were clear and sharp. He was a man with a singular, all-consuming purpose. He had been pulled back from the abyss by Han Yoo-jin, given a new reason to live, and that reason was to burn down the kingdom of the man who had betrayed him.

He took his seat at the witness table, swore his oath, and the questioning began. For the first hour, he calmly and methodically confessed to his own crimes—the tax evasion, the breach of trust, the insider trading. He accepted his guilt without excuse or equivocation. It was a stunning display of contrition that had the entire chamber, and the nation watching at home, completely captivated.

This, however, was just the prelude. The prosecutor leading the inquiry, a sharp-eyed man named Choi Jin-woo, steered the questioning towards the larger issue.

"Director Kang," the prosecutor said, his voice resonating through the chamber. "You have admitted to your own considerable crimes. But your legal counsel has stated that you believe your actions were not an anomaly, but rather part of a much larger, systemic culture of corruption. Is that correct?"

"That is correct," Kang said, his voice steady.

"And who," the prosecutor asked, his voice dropping slightly, "would you say is the primary architect of that culture?"

This was the moment. Kang Min-hyuk looked directly into the main broadcast camera, as if speaking to an audience of one, sitting in a penthouse office miles away.

"My actions, for which I take full responsibility, were committed within a system of influence, pressure, and illicit favors created, perfected, and ruled by one man," he declared, his voice ringing with conviction. "Chairman Choi Jin-hwan of Top Tier Media."

A wave of shocked murmurs rippled through the gallery. It was one thing to have rumors and anonymous accusations. It was another to have a man of Kang Min-hyuk's stature make such a direct, public denunciation under oath.

For the next hour, Kang laid out a damning, detailed account of Chairman Choi's reign. He spoke of slush funds used to bribe politicians for favorable regulations. He spoke of blacklisting artists who refused to play by his rules. He spoke of using the media outlets under Top Tier's control to create and destroy careers at will. It was a breathtaking portrait of a corporate monarch who believed he was above the law.

The lead lawmaker on the committee, a formidable woman with a reputation for toughness, finally cut in. "Director Kang, these are incredibly serious accusations. But as you yourself have admitted, you have no documentary evidence to support these claims. It is, at this point, your word against his."

"You are correct, Assemblywoman," Kang replied calmly. "I do not have the documents myself. Chairman Choi was always far too careful for that." He paused, letting the tension build. "But I know who does."

The chamber fell completely silent.

"I was present at a meeting in the summer of 2022," Kang continued, his memory now crystal clear, enhanced and focused by his sessions with the psychiatrist Yoo-jin had provided. "In that meeting, Chairman Choi openly boasted of his successful blackmail of a certain high-ranking politician. At the time, I paid little attention to the details. But there was someone else in the room. A junior assistant. A ghost. A piece of furniture none of us even noticed."

He looked directly at the committee. "Her name is Kim Soo-yeon. She was the Chairman's executive assistant at the time. I believe she is the one who saw the evidence you are looking for."

This was the name Yoo-jin had extracted from Kang's own memory. This was the result of Yoo-jin's intervention. A grateful Director Oh had used his own considerable resources to fund a quiet, third-party investigation, successfully locating Kim Soo-yeon, who had been living in obscurity in a small coastal town. Yoo-jin's lawyer, Kang Hye-rin, had then approached her, offering her full legal protection and counseling in exchange for her cooperation. The trap had been laid weeks ago.

"The committee calls Kim Soo-yeon to the stand," the lead lawmaker announced, her voice booming.

A nervous, plainly dressed woman in her late twenties was escorted into the chamber. She was terrified, her hands trembling, but as she sat down and swore her oath, her expression hardened with a quiet, steely resolve.

"Ms. Kim," the prosecutor began gently. "Please tell the committee what you witnessed during your time as Chairman Choi's assistant."

In a soft but clear voice, she testified. She spoke of seeing documents she was not meant to see. Of overhearing conversations she was supposed to ignore. She described, with meticulous detail, seeing financial records that detailed massive, undocumented transfers from one of Top Tier's shell companies to a charitable foundation run by a prominent politician's wife.

"Do you have any proof of these claims, Ms. Kim?" the lawmaker asked.

"I do," she replied. She reached into her bag and produced a simple, leather-bound journal. "I was… scared. I knew what I was seeing was wrong. I started keeping a private journal. Every time I saw something I shouldn't have, I wrote it down."

Under the guidance of Kang Hye-rin's legal team, she had prepared copies. They were distributed to the committee members. The journal was a bombshell. It was a contemporaneous, detailed log of dates, names, and the exact amounts of the illicit transfers. It was the hard evidence the prosecutors had been dreaming of, delivered not by a powerful rival, but by a quiet, observant assistant who had been pushed too far.

The fallout was instantaneous and catastrophic. On a screen in the chamber, a live feed of the Korea Exchange showed the stock price of Top Tier Media, which had been stable all morning, suddenly nosediving. It was a vertical, blood-red line, wiping out billions of won in market value in a matter of minutes.

News alerts began flashing on every phone in the gallery. CHAIRMAN CHOI JIN-HWAN IMPLICATED IN MASSIVE POLITICAL CORRUPTION SCANDAL. TOP TIER STOCK IN FREEFALL.

The Chairman's powerful political allies, the ones he had bought and paid for, began issuing frantic statements, distancing themselves from him, denying any knowledge of his activities. The board of directors of Top Tier Media, seeing their personal fortunes evaporating, called an emergency meeting to demand his immediate resignation. The empire he had built over thirty years of ruthless ambition was crumbling in a single afternoon.

In his penthouse office, the man himself, Chairman Choi Jin-hwan, watched the live broadcast on his massive wall of screens. He watched as Kim Soo-yeon, the quiet girl he barely remembered, calmly detailed the architecture of his crimes. He watched as his company's stock ticker turned into a waterfall of red. His face, usually a mask of controlled, arrogant power, was now a twisted visage of pure, unrestrained fury.

With a primal roar of rage, he seized a heavy crystal decanter from his bar and hurled it with all his strength at the central screen. The image of Kim Soo-yeon's face shattered into a million glittering pieces, the sound of breaking glass echoing in the silent, opulent room. His reign was over.

In his own quiet office, Han Yoo-jin watched the same news report, his expression calm and unreadable. He felt a quiet, grim sense of victory. He had defeated his first great enemy. But he had not done it with a direct, personal attack. He had done it by empowering his victims—by saving Kang Min-hyuk from the abyss and giving him a target, by finding Kim Soo-yeon and giving her a voice. He had let the truth do the work.

But as he looked at the chaos he had unleashed, at the power vacuum he had just created at the very top of the industry, he knew this was not the end. The fall of a king only creates an opportunity for a new, and perhaps even more dangerous, power to rise and fill the void. The game hadn't ended. It had just been reset with a whole new set of players.