“I caught it.”
A man who was leisurely tapping on his computer at the TM security office.
As he muttered, the CCTV cameras that hadn’t been working suddenly came to life.
“Okay, it’s done! It’s restored!”
The employees cheered.
Idiots. The man looked at them with disdain.
This incident could never have happened through simple means.
Someone must have directly installed a backdoor on the central computer in the security office.
In other words, those idiots hadn’t even noticed that an outsider had tampered with the central computer.
But the man didn’t feel the need to mention this fact.
That wasn’t his job.
“By the way, he’s quite an interesting guy.”
Instead, he replayed the earlier fight in his mind.
Though not as skilled as him, the criminal had managed to shut down the CCTV for a little over ten minutes.
Whoever it was, their skills were exceptional.
“Still, he’s below me.”
After restoring the system, the man left work shortly afterward.
A few days later.
The internal crime at TM was exposed.
The media called it a whistleblower case, but the man knew the whistleblower and the CCTV hacker were the same person.
“Haha… Hahahahaha! This was the goal all along…”
The man laughed loudly.
He thought he had won completely, but the real goal was something else.
He was curious about who this person really was.
“Interesting.”
He had a feeling he would meet this person again.
“Ha, huff! It’s done! It’s done, Siyeon!”
Dongsu was panting.
I frowned as I looked over the materials Dongsu had brought.
We had successfully extracted information from the data center.
It contained company messenger logs, evidence of unfair contracts, sponsorships, sexual exploitation of TM’s idols, and lawsuit records with Jeyoung.
The security was pretty high, but once connected directly to the data center, there was no stopping us.
“But wasn’t Chaeyoung also with TM? Was everything okay?”
“Probably, she didn’t start doing this from the beginning. And not all idols went through this. It seems like it was only some female idols they targeted. Only a few within TM probably knew about this.”
“I see… So what will we do now?”
“Well…”
What was left was to expose the truth and revive AS Entertainment.
We had gathered evidence, but that alone wouldn’t solve everything.
The lawsuit between Jeyoung and TM was still recorded as Jeyoung being innocent.
The trial probably continued until the SweetBlack member suicide case blew up and things calmed down.
After a long battle, Jeyoung was found innocent but couldn’t clear his name.
This meant that major media outlets were on TM’s side.
No matter how much Jeyoung tried to speak out, the broadcasters and media didn’t help.
It must have been TM’s doing. They probably bribed them or something.
No individual could defeat such a massive force.
It seemed that throughout both his past life and this world, it was common for individuals to be unjustly oppressed by larger forces.
The society in this country seemed to be even more rotten than I had expected.
“What if we report it to the broadcasters? What do you think, Siyeon?”
“No. The three major broadcasting stations are probably in on it too. TM will probably stop it by any means necessary. Similar things must have happened in the past.”
“So then, what should we do…?”
I think the reason Jeyoung hurried to start his own entertainment company was exactly this.
He couldn’t defeat that massive evil alone.
To grow his own strength.
He created AS Entertainment and nurtured it to strike back.
“We’ll have to find another place.”
“Where?”
“Luckily, there’s a new and helpful channel.”
The corrupted old men were unreliable.
Fortunately, there was a recently emerging multi-channel network that could be of help.
“I’m going to JTAC.”
“Isn’t that a cable channel?”
“Yes, but their organizational strength is comparable to the three major networks. Honestly, I like them more. And…”
“Siyeon, isn’t your fan club president an announcer there?”
JTAC. A new broadcasting station created a few years ago.
Coincidentally, Shin Minjeong, the president of the fan club “Siyeonhada,” had recently transferred to JTAC.
If it were her, she would definitely help.
…But would it really be okay?
Before the news started, Shin Minjeong was worried.
Recently, Siyeon had contacted her unexpectedly. It was good that Siyeon reached out, but the content was quite perplexing.
Siyeon had told Minjeong that there was an internal whistleblower at TM.
The gist of it was that TM was exploiting its idols, and Jeyoung had been falsely accused.
She said she had all the related evidence and would even do an interview.
With her experience in broadcasting, Minjeong immediately understood why Siyeon had sought her out.
If such a big incident had been buried, the three major networks probably already knew about it.
In that case, contacting a new channel like JTAC was the only way to expose it.
But even then, it would be tricky to turn the situation around.
One of the members of SweetBlack had agreed to give an interview.
With this, public opinion would surely change in an instant.
“Kim Jeyoung, the PD, will make a comeback, but SweetBlack’s idol career will be over.”
Revealing sexual exploitation as an idol was a fatal blow.
Minjeong knew that similar things had happened before in the industry.
But even then, the reason why the victimized idols didn’t speak out was because first, no individual could defeat the power of the agencies.
And second, if they did, their idol careers would end.
Idols are supposed to be perfect.
If fans found out their favorite idol was tainted, they would turn away without hesitation.
The victims were the idols, but this was the reality.
Idols were just products.
To continue shining, they had to hide the darkness.
“We’re going on air now.”
Minjeong’s job was just to announce it.
SweetBlack and Siyeon had already made their decisions.
It was just the broadcaster’s job to reveal the truth.
For some reason, the newsroom was tense.
The staff and announcers were all on edge, knowing that they were about to break an exclusive story.
The time came, and the news started airing.
“This is an exclusive report. Recently, Mr. Kim from AS Entertainment…”
The world turned upside down.
“What are you doing, bringing the kids here!”
“Jeyoung PD. You know everything, don’t you? We need to make money.”
“Is this how you’ve been doing things until now?”
“Everyone does it like this… Jeyoung PD knew, so he started the new group, right?”
“No. President…!”
Jeyoung’s face was twisted in a way he had never seen before.
The representative of TM, Lee Taeman, casually swung his golf club.
“Jeyoung PD. What do you think you’re doing, knowing everything? Don’t you know the lifespan of female idols is short? If they’re going to last, they need to be sexy! You’ve got to open up little by little to maintain the fandom, don’t you? But we take good care of the trainees. Is there a place more systematic than ours?”
“That’s not the issue! Even if the concept is like that, this…!”
The reason Jeyoung was so angry with Lee Taeman was simple.
He had found out that TM had been exploiting the female idols he produced through sexual services, sponsorships, and other means.
It hadn’t always been like this from the debut of the groups.
The groups that passed through Jeyoung’s hands, especially after he took charge of SweetBlack, had been exploited in this way as they neared the end of their careers.
And then, even SweetBlack, after years of debut, was forcibly subjected to sexual exploitation.
Jeyoung recently found out about this and was enraged, which led him to confront the representative in his office.
Thwack
Lee Taeman hit the golf ball and put the club down.
Then, he sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“Jeyoung PD. No, Jeyoung… Why are you making a fuss when you know everything? Are we philanthropists? Don’t we need to make money? Is it really wrong to earn as much as we can?”
“That’s not the point! You’re playing with contracts, threatening the kids, forcing them…”
“Heh! Shit! What’s wrong with you, Jeyoung? If you’re going to act like this, leave! This industry is all the same. What, are you going to uphold justice? Go out and shout as much as you want—see who listens to you. If you never want to step foot in this industry again, go out and shout all you want.”
Jeyoung had no choice but to leave the representative’s office after being cursed at by Lee Taeman for a long time.
The painful truth was that everything Lee Taeman said was right.
Leaving behind a major entertainment company, there was nothing he could do alone.
The three major networks were essentially aligned with the major agencies, and once Lee Taeman targeted him, it was clear that Jeyoung would never be able to work in this industry again.
But if he just left this dirty world behind… He couldn’t stop worrying about the SweetBlack kids.
In the end, there was nothing a small individual could do.
Jeyoung helplessly had to continue working as usual.
He forced a smile in front of the SweetBlack kids.
He cared for them, cheered them on, made them laugh, and prepared good performances.
That was all he could do.
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