You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 125

You’ve Been Defended – Episode 125

6:30 PM.

Everyone was putting on their coats, ready to leave for the day.

I was intermittently checking my phone, waiting for Choi Jong-hyun’s call.

This morning, Choi Jong-hyun had informed me that as soon as he arrived at work, he posted the video and text message history on the company’s anonymous bulletin board, revealing all the facts.

I still don’t know how the situation has unfolded since then.

“Attorney.”

I was looking at Secretary Oh, who was locking the office as we left together, when he suddenly called out to me.

“Yes?”

“Don’t come to work tomorrow, just rest. You’ve looked very tired these past two days. Anyway, Kang and I can cover for you for a day or so.”

Kang also agreed with Secretary Oh’s words.

“That’s right. You’ve looked really tired since Monday. I wonder if it’s because last week wasn’t a long weekend.”

I had barely slept during the weekend while monitoring Kim Jung-woo, and I had been involved in the will forgery case until dawn, so I was indeed very tired.

I managed to stay awake by drinking coffee, but it seems like it was obvious.

“I’m fine since I’ve been leaving work early these days.”

Since the Jung Young-joon case, the office had been busier than ever, but there weren’t many cases that required a lot of investigation.

I headed to the elevator with them.

We pressed the button and chatted for a while, and Secretary Oh reacted as soon as the elevator doors opened.

“Reporter Choi?”

“Oh, Section Chief Oh?”

It was Choi Jong-hyun who appeared from the elevator.

Secretary Oh seemed flustered by his sudden appearance, and Choi Jong-hyun seemed surprised to see him here when he should have been at the prosecutor’s office.

“Looks like you were on your way home,” Choi Jong-hyun asked, looking at us.

“It’s okay. Let’s go inside and talk. You two go home,” I said, looking at Secretary Oh and Kang Min-jae.

They seemed puzzled for a moment, but soon nodded and got on the elevator.

I reopened the office door with Choi Jong-hyun and went inside.

“Attorney Cha, you look tired. Should we have talked tomorrow?” Choi Jong-hyun looked at me awkwardly as I opened the locked door.

“No, I was waiting for your call anyway.”

I didn’t expect him to come right away, though.

Well, it’s better to talk in person than over the phone.

“To get straight to the point, the company has decided to hold a disciplinary committee. Oh, it was a complete mess.”

Choi Jong-hyun fixed his gaze on the air as if recalling what had happened earlier.

He explained to me what had happened from the afternoon, when he didn’t contact me, until now.

Thankfully, there were reporters who agreed with his opinion, and they all stormed into the director’s office, demanding an explanation.

Choi Jong-hyun said that if it weren’t for the video, it would have been useless even if he had posted the exposé.

If we were to reward those who contributed to this, the National Intelligence Service [NIS; South Korea’s primary intelligence agency] would have to be the first.

Because he was able to secure the video thanks to the spyware that the NIS created to record the laptop camera and screen.

Choi Jong-hyun downloaded the program created by the NIS onto Kim Jung-woo’s laptop as soon as he got to work, and as a result, the director wrote the will on that laptop without suspicion.

The National Intelligence Service is useful in many ways.

It has the fatal flaw of being very greedy for money, but it doesn’t matter as long as it does its job properly.

“Oh, the director seemed to have received instructions from higher-ups. When we stormed in, he tried to say something, saying he didn’t want to do this either, but in the end, he kept his mouth shut. The Deputy Director of the Culture Department felt the same way as me. There’s no way that director could have plotted such a thing on his own.”

I agree as well.

Every time Choi Jong-hyun handed over a manuscript that critically covered Wooshin [a fictional company] and Lee Jung-chan, the director would have become increasingly annoyed with him.

Then, he must have reported Choi Jong-hyun to someone higher up.

The person who received the report would have naturally issued instructions to restrain Choi Jong-hyun.

Although the director would have specifically designed how to pressure Choi Jong-hyun, the will itself would not have been his alone.

And it was obvious who that higher-up was.

“That’s probably right. It’s probably Park Hyo-sung, the chief editor.”

“Park Hyo-sung?”

Chief Editor Park Hyo-sung is the pillar and face of Iljung Daily [a fictional newspaper].

Everyone knew that the editorial direction of Iljung Daily went back and forth with his every word.

He once fought as a democratic activist with today’s influential politicians and was imprisoned after suffering severe torture.

Because he was a prominent figure in the student movement, Park Hyo-sung himself was famous even before he became a successful journalist.

However, the 20 years he spent at Iljung Daily had changed him, and there was no need to explain how.

In my previous life, I learned this fact much later, but he was very close to Chairman Ko Sang-joon of Wooshin.

I heard they called each other brothers in private.

‘Perhaps Choi Jong-hyun’s name was directly conveyed to Ko Sang-joon.’

I swallowed hard.

Choi Jong-hyun was blatantly poking at Wooshin’s sore spots, so thinking he was safe was actually a serious act of optimism.

Now that Choi Jong-hyun has confessed that Iljung Daily was hindering the investigation into Wooshin and Lee Jung-chan, it will become even worse.

After some time passes and this incident is forgotten, Iljung Daily will likely exclude him openly.

“If Chief Editor Park Hyo-sung is also involved, then he can’t escape moral responsibility either. But I don’t think he would have openly ordered the will to be forged. It’s too narrow-minded and vicious for his methods.”

As the focus shifted from the editor-in-chief to Park Hyo-sung, Choi Jong-hyun frowned.

Park Hyo-sung is a person respected by many journalists.

Of course, to Choi Jong-hyun, who had decided to walk a path completely opposite to the editorial direction of Iljung Daily, he was a kind of traitor.

Nevertheless, Choi Jong-hyun had greatly respected Chief Editor Park Hyo-sung.

In my previous life, even when I spoke negatively about Chief Editor Park Hyo-sung, Choi Jong-hyun showed some restraint.

Well, it’s all a thing of the past.

“It becomes narrow-minded and vicious because it failed. If it had succeeded, it would have been different.”

He was willing to admit that Park Hyo-sung had blocked his coverage or tried to extract information, but he didn’t want to think he would go as far as forging a will.

I should stop talking about Park Hyo-sung at this point.

“But even if Park Hyo-sung is involved in this, it’s impossible to touch him, right? It’s not certain either.”

It would be nice if we could uproot him all at once, but Park Hyo-sung was not someone who could be brought down by touching him like this.

“…That’s right. Anyway, the editor-in-chief’s atrocities have been revealed, and the company has clearly expressed its intention to discipline him, so he probably won’t be able to control the reporters one by one like this for a while.”

“Has the direction of the discipline been decided?”

“Won’t it be decided by the disciplinary committee?”

For a case of this magnitude, a dismissal should be issued, but this world does not work the way I think it should.

The editor-in-chief must be completely excluded this time.

If this incident hadn’t happened, he would have become the chief editorial writer in a few years, just like in my previous life.

When I think about how he was so eager to trample on me under Park Hyo-sung at that time, I can’t help but feel resentful.

Well, all the media outlets were eager to kill me back then.

“The case is a bit ambiguous. If Jung-woo had really died and the forged will had been discovered, he wouldn’t have been able to avoid dismissal. But as a result, Jung-woo didn’t die, and the will didn’t cause any major damage.”

That’s not wrong.

If Choi Jong-hyun had been unfairly fired because of that will, or had been investigated by the police, or had his reputation greatly damaged, it would be a different story.

Right now, we moved quickly before such problems arose, so there was a high possibility that the editor-in-chief’s level of discipline would be lowered.

“If we appease the angry reporters properly, we might end up with just a reassignment. Then the possibility of him coming back later opens up. I don’t like that.”

“That won’t do.”

I said firmly.

“Let’s make the situation a bit bigger. It’s already as big as it can get inside Iljung Daily. This time, externally.”

“Externally? Ha, it would be nice if we could, but first of all, we won’t be able to publish a single article about this incident through Iljung Daily. I can talk to reporters from other companies I know, but I wonder if it will have any impact…”

“We need to send it to a place with good impact.”

“Is there a way?”

I had been thinking about it from the beginning.

I opened my business card holder and showed it to him.

“…Jin Hye-kyung? Is this the business card of Jin Hye-kyung, the anchor of News 9?”

I nodded.

Jin Hye-kyung will definitely report it on the news.

She is a person with a strong desire for scoops.

Yoon Se-yeon, who nags at me whenever she has a chance, is cute compared to her.

Jin Hye-kyung started her journalism career as an SBC reporter, became an anchor after gaining fame, and had great ambition.

She wanted her position in the broadcasting station to be more solid than anyone else.

The reason she went to the Blue House [South Korean presidential residence] at the call of the next administration was because she felt her limitations within the broadcasting station.

As long as her partner anchor, Kim Woo-jin, was holding on, she could never become the number one, no matter how hard she tried.

Above all, she felt insecure about her position as talented female announcers continued to rise.

She is a person who feels a lot of thirst.

“It’s not like I’m asking for biased reporting, and I’m providing all the sources, so why would Anchor Jin refuse?”

Of course, persuading the PD [Producer] and the director is her responsibility, but she will do well.

I brought my phone to my ear.

-Yes, this is Jin Hye-kyung. Long time no see, Attorney Cha.

The connection tone did not last long.

I thought she might not answer the phone since it was two hours before the live news broadcast.

“It’s been a while. How have you been?”

-I’ve been well. I gave you my business card, but I didn’t expect you to contact me like this?

Curiosity was evident in Jin Hye-kyung’s voice.

“I have a tip to give you.”

-You’re giving me a tip? That’s quite surprising. But if you’re telling the main news anchor directly, it must not be a small case, right?

It was a subtle answer that she would refuse if it was a small, insignificant matter.

“Surely you don’t think I would contact you with something insignificant.”

-I don’t know what the case is, but it seems like a sensitive issue. Is that right?

“It probably is.”

-It would be best to meet as soon as possible. I also need time to persuade the director. Of course, that’s if the source is good. If we’re meeting today, it’s only possible after the news ends. I think I’ll be free around 11:30 to 12. Is that okay with you then?

“Yes, that’s fine.”

-Um, looking at your business card, it seems like your office is in Seocho-dong. My house is also in that area. I’ll decide on a meeting place around there and contact you.

She kept drawing a line, saying it was only if the source was good, but no journalist would judge this source to be bad.

The problem is that the higher-ups might be offended.

I hung up the phone and pointed to the News 9 logo.

Choi Jong-hyun looked at me, a little surprised.

As if to ask if that was really possible.

But I could say with certainty.

“News 9 will cover this case.”