Chapter 61: The Villa Incident

As dawn broke, Qi Huai sped all the way back to the film set.

Given his identity and current situation, it was not appropriate for him to appear at the police station. So he had specifically asked Dr. Choi to take a lawyer to the station to see Go Eun-hee. He needed to know if her loss of control was really due to other reasons.

Unraveling the cocoon, everything seemed to be becoming clear, yet new mysteries continued to pile up.

Just now, Nam-hyuk had sent him a message, saying that his sister-in-law, with whom he didn’t have a good relationship, had suddenly brought him a bowl of chicken soup in Yoon Tae-min’s name after he had left.

Could there be a problem with this soup?

Assistant Yoo said that there were too few cars on the street at this time, so they couldn’t follow too closely. But for now, it seemed that Yoon Tae-min and Yoon Nam-woo were heading in the same direction.

Who were they going to see?

Everything seemed strange, everything was suspect. In this mess of people and events, was there anything he had missed?

Most importantly, in the original comic’s plot, who was most likely to target Nam-hyuk or Ms. Hyun?

[From the characters who have appeared so far, besides Yoon Tae-min, the Kim family, and Eun Chul-woo, there shouldn’t be any other possibilities, right?] The System said, counting on its fingers.

Yoon Tae-min?

No. He did have reasons to target Nam-hyuk and Ms. Hyun, but bringing up the Go Eun-bin matter was of no benefit to him.

The Yoon family’s matters should be resolved within the family. Now that Ms. Hyun was dead, Woosan would be surnamed Yoon no matter what, and Nam-hyuk was his biological son. If he just wanted to strip Nam-hyuk of his management rights, there was no need to go to such great lengths.

The Kim family.

Kim Min-kyung and the Kim family were interdependent. To say that the Kim family knew nothing about Kim Min-kyung’s actions would be to underestimate the power of the prosecution system.

In the kitchen that day, Kim Min-kyung had personally mentioned, “I’ve done so much for you all these years,” and “I’ve never pried into your secrets”… If so, perhaps Kim Min-kyung was just an accomplice?

Then the last question arose: why was Eun Chul-woo targeting Yoon Nam-hyuk? What were his secrets? Was it just the cross-dressing fetish and the perverted adoptive father?

After hearing the argument between Kim Min-kyung and Eun Chul-woo, Qi Huai had always felt that something was wrong. He had asked someone to investigate Eun Chul-woo’s background, but unfortunately, before the information came out, all this had happened.

Assistant Xiao said Eun Chul-woo had gone to see him. Was it for a real matter, or was it to test if he was on set? If everything was Eun Chul-woo’s doing, what would his next move be?

Maybe when I get back to the set, I should just tie that guy up and interrogate him…

Beep, beep—!

Assistant Xiao’s urgent message came again: 「Qi Huai-hyung, where are you? They’re asking again. I can’t hold them off much longer!」

Qi Huai quickly replied, 「Almost there.」

The hotel was almost fully booked by the film crew. Fortunately, work hadn’t started yet at this time, and the underground garage was even quieter. Qi Huai parked his car, took the fire escape stairs three steps at a time to his room door.

With a swipe of the key card, the door opened.

Qi Huai entered and closed the door. “I’m back.”

No one answered him.

Qi Huai was stunned. Where’s Assistant Xiao? Wasn’t he just texting me? To deal with any emergencies, he couldn’t have left this room. Where is he?

His eyes quickly scanned the room. Just as he felt something was wrong and was about to turn and leave, he saw a pair of legs under the bed—it was Xiao Shi-yu’s shoes!

“Xiao Shi-yu!”

Qi Huai lunged forward and saw Assistant Xiao lying by the bed, his forehead bleeding, his eyes tightly closed. He had clearly been knocked out. He took out his phone to call an ambulance, but found that the signal showed 0 bars.

A signal jammer?

The next second, a huge bang suddenly came from the wardrobe by the door! The sound of the explosion and the smoke from some unknown substance triggered the hotel’s fire alarm. In an instant, the entire hotel was filled with the shrill ringing of the alarm, urgently spurring all the guests to flee for their lives!

Flames, thick smoke, sprinklers, alarms.

If I had been a little slower in rushing to Assistant Xiao just now, Qi Huai thought, I might have been blown away by the explosives in the wardrobe. Even if I hadn’t died on the spot, I would probably have been knocked unconscious like him.

Were the explosives and smoke-making equipment stolen from the props department? To be able to do this on the set, Qi Huai could think of no one else but Eun Chul-woo and Kim Min-kyung.

There was no signal on his phone, the phone line was cut, the explosion was near the main door, the flames were spreading rapidly to the ceiling, and even the windows were sealed. At a time like this, no one would hear him even if he called for help.

Qi Huai swung a chair and smashed it against the balcony’s French windows. Fortunately, the chair was made of solid wood, and Qi Huai was strong. After a few hits, the windows cracked and shattered.

Downstairs was already filled with police, firefighters, and ambulances. Qi Huai carried Assistant Xiao on his shoulder, climbed to the next balcony, and handed the unconscious assistant to the firefighters who had come to put out the fire in the smoke.

He had escaped death.

Qi Huai leaned against the wall and coughed a few times, then took out his phone to send a message to Yoon Nam-hyuk to let him know he was safe. After all, Director Baek’s new film had the whole internet’s attention. He was afraid the media would report the news of the explosion on set and scare Yoon Nam-hyuk.

However, before he could click on Yoon Nam-hyuk’s chat box, beep, beep! An email he had been waiting for for days popped up at that exact moment. It was Eun Chul-woo’s background information.

Eun Chul-woo
29 years old
From Cherish Welfare Center
Adopted by a wealthy British man
…
Returned to Korea after growing up and founded RC Entertainment, while also taking over as the director of Cherish Welfare Center.

What surprised Qi Huai the most was the record of donors to Cherish Welfare Center. Nearly thirty years ago, Ms. Hyun had donated a considerable sum of money to this welfare center.

Eun Chul-woo, Ms. Hyun.

Two people he and Nam-hyuk had never thought had any connection had now been linked…

Although Woosan Entertainment did charity work every year, and Nam-hyuk said it was a tradition left by his mother, whether it was donations or volunteer activities, it was always done in the name of the company. Did Ms. Hyun have a special reason to donate in her personal name? If she didn’t want to be discovered, why did she leave her name?

Nam-hyuk had said that Ms. Hyun’s original words were:

“I wanted a bad person to get his retribution, and in doing so, I implicated an innocent person. I wanted to make it up to him but didn’t know where he had gone. I’ve lived with this guilt ever since.”

If these words were related to the donation, who was the bad person in Ms. Hyun’s heart? Yoon Tae-min? Or the person who had caused President Hyun to commit suicide? And who was the innocent person? Eun Chul-woo? Or the wealthy British man who had adopted him?

The overarching mystery seemed to be gradually taking shape. In any case, this matter was inextricably linked to Eun Chul-woo.

Should I use the System? How should I use this wish to maximize its usefulness?

“Excuse me, are you Mr. Qi Huai?”

Three police officers suddenly appeared, approaching step by step. “We received a report suspecting you of being involved in the hotel explosion. Please come with us.”

The next moment, Qi Huai only had time to delete the email related to Eun Chul-woo’s identity before his phone was confiscated.

---

At the same time.

The Yoon residence.

Yoon Nam-hyuk was awakened by the shrill ringing of the doorbell. His limbs were heavy, the wound in his abdomen still ached dully, and his temples throbbed from lack of rest.

Suddenly, he heard the footsteps of more than one person outside the door, followed by Goo Ah-ra’s frantic pounding. “Little brother-in-law! Nam-hyuk!”

The knocking was incessant. Yoon Nam-hyuk felt inexplicably anxious and restless. It took him a long time to get up and open the door.

Outside was Goo Ah-ra’s panicked and terrified face. “Little brother-in-law, it’s… it’s the police. They said Father… Father is dead!”

Yoon Nam-hyuk froze.

His mind went blank.

Dead?

Who’s dead?

The lead police officer showed his credentials, his tone cold. “Mr. Yoon Nam-hyuk, we suspect you are involved in the death of Mr. Yoon Tae-min. Please come with us to assist in our investigation.”

And so, Yoon Nam-hyuk was taken away. Goo Ah-ra had no choice but to go with them to give a statement.

The woman’s face was pale, her hands and feet weak. She sat in the police car, her mind racing…

Dead? Yoon Tae-min is dead? How did he die?

This can’t be related to Yoon Nam-hyuk, right? He clearly drank her soup last night and was sleeping soundly. Could it be… omo! Omo, omo! Could it be my husband who killed him?!

My husband followed Father out last night! And he was so secretive about it, telling me not to tell anyone! Could it really be that he followed Father and killed him?!

No, no, no…

That’s not right. How could my husband have the guts? He usually complains that raw chicken is gross because it’s all red and white when we’re making chicken soup at home. How could he kill someone?

Could it be the person who made the anonymous phone call?

“Offi… officer, excuse me, can I call my husband?” Goo Ah-ra asked in a panic.

The police officer glanced at her. “No need. Mr. Yoon Nam-woo has already been taken to the police station.”

Goo Ah-ra immediately shut up, feeling as if her soul was about to leave her body.

---

Police interrogation room.

Yoon Nam-woo, who had been urgently stopped on his way home, was playing a video on his phone, arguing his case.

In the video, Yoon Tae-min’s angry voice echoed in the interrogation room: 「The heir of the Yoon family cannot be a homosexual! If you want to be with him, don’t even think about inheriting the Yoon Group, unless I’m dead!」

“Officers! You have to believe me—aigoo, ow, ow, ow!” Yoon Nam-woo urgently tried to get up to prove his point, but was pushed back down by the police officer next to him.

He could only squeeze out a sad expression and continue, “Officers, you must have seen the news, right? The heir of the Yoon family is being intimate with a man. My father was so angry he almost died. And then there’s that Go Eun-bin suicide thing these past few days. It’s caused such a stir, and the stock price has plummeted! Father had no choice but to take away his management rights. Sigh… he managed a perfectly good company into this state. Father had several heart attacks from anger!”

The police officer stared at him. “Are you saying that Yoon Nam-hyuk murdered Yoon Tae-min over the inheritance?”

“Ah… that, I didn’t say that.” Yoon Nam-woo shook his head repeatedly. “That’s clearly your speculation!”

The police officer: “What were you doing following Yoon Tae-min last night?”

“Well, this matter is not as complicated as everyone thinks,” Yoon Nam-woo said, his voice softening, trying to be persuasive. “Didn’t I just say? My father had several heart attacks because of that guy Nam-hyuk. The Go Eun-bin news just broke during the day. My father was furious, and he rushed out at night. How could I, as his son, not be worried? I was clearly afraid something would happen to him, so I followed him!”

The police officer was expressionless. “If so, why didn’t you call your father? Why did you have to follow him secretly?”

Yoon Nam-woo: “Aish, you—aigoo, my dear officer, of course I didn’t dare. Think about it, in a family like ours, the father is exceptionally authoritative. Before he left, he said not to follow him. As his sons, we were worried, but we were also afraid he would be unhappy. So of course, we could only follow him secretly.”

The police officer: “Is that all?”

Yoon Nam-woo was furious. “Shibal! Don’t you guys have fathers? Huh?”

The police officer: “Mr. Yoon Nam-woo, please watch your attitude.”

Yoon Nam-woo’s lips trembled, and he suddenly burst into a piercing wail. “Please have some consideration for someone who has been struck by the death of his father. I didn’t expect to see my father’s body there either. I’m already forcing myself to endure my grief to answer your questions. You can’t just assume I’m the murderer because I followed my father there, can you?”

The interrogating officer cleaned his ear. Yoon Nam-woo continued, “I know! This must be a trap set for me. It might be Yoon Nam-hyuk. He was afraid of losing his inheritance, so he killed our father and framed me as the murderer, so he, as the non-eldest son, could immediately inherit the conglomerate! Although I’m an illegitimate son, Father has always doted on me the most! This is something everyone knows. You can find out if you just investigate. What reason do I have to kill my father? Am I not living a good enough life? Isn’t the guy who argued with my father and just had his management rights taken away more suspicious?”

The police officer: “Why didn’t you call the police when you found the body?”

Yoon Nam-woo: “I was terrified! In that situation, I was afraid I would be identified as the murderer, so I could only run away in a panic. But, but I was going to call the police. You just found me first.”

The police officer: “What about the memory card from your dashcam?”

Yoon Nam-woo stammered, “The driver is usually responsible for that kind of thing. How would I remember clearly…”

The police officer: “In any case, you were filmed following Yoon Tae-min’s car to the villa. If you want to prove your innocence, you need to provide evidence, like the memory card from your dashcam, or just tell us where the murder weapon is. Understand? The sooner you confess, the lighter your sentence will be. In the time you have left, please think about it.”

There were no CCTVs near the villa or inside it. What the police needed to do now was to find the murder weapon. If they couldn’t find it within 24 hours, and there was no strong evidence to prove Yoon Nam-woo was the murderer, they would have to release him.

Yoon Nam-woo knew this, of course, so he insisted he didn’t know where the memory card was.

After saying this, the police officers left. They could see that Yoon Nam-woo was very nervous, and even a bit strange when they mentioned the memory card. But they needed evidence.

Only Yoon Nam-woo was left in the room. But he knew that there might be law enforcement officers watching him in secret, so he didn’t dare to relax for a moment, diligently playing the role of a son grieving for his deceased father.

It’s over…

Yoon Nam-woo thought, I haven’t had time to deal with the memory card yet. The police might find it. If there’s other evidence, my identity as the murderer will be exposed.

I didn’t want to. I really didn’t want to. It was Father who was too much. It was Father who forced me to do this!

At that time, when he entered the villa, his father had already arrived. It wasn’t Uncle Kim’s house. Yoon Nam-woo didn’t even know whose house it was.

It was in the middle of nowhere, a deserted place. But the more so, the more eerie he felt, so he trembled and followed him unconsciously.

The whole villa was empty, covered in dust. He tiptoed in and found his father with his back to him, reading a stack of paper documents.

Yoon Nam-woo had never liked studying, so his eyesight was quite good. He could tell at a glance that what Yoon Tae-min was holding was the paternity test he was unusually familiar with, and the adoption record he had stolen from Cherish Welfare Center that night!

H-how is that possible!

Yoon Nam-woo was shaken to the core. Didn’t I already destroy that record? he thought.

Shibal! Could it be… could the one I destroyed have been fake?!

While he was in a daze, not knowing what to do, the computer screen next to him suddenly turned on automatically and began to play a surveillance recording.

Shibal! Aish! That surveillance footage was a complete record of him sneaking into the welfare center to steal the file!

The person who had recorded the video was very sadistic. They had placed cameras near the bookshelf where the file was, so that night, Yoon Nam-woo’s extremely shocked expression was captured from all angles, clearer than a movie star’s!

Not only that.

At the end of the video, there was a montage of someone holding up a video clip. The person recording didn’t say a word, and their face wasn’t shown. They just scanned the wall of the welfare center’s archives room with their phone.

Ms. Hyun, donated one billion won on X month X day, XX year.

At this moment, Yoon Nam-woo’s hands and feet were cold, his head was buzzing, and his vision was blurry. He didn’t see Ms. Hyun’s name clearly, and he certainly didn’t know what this scene meant.

But Yoon Tae-min did.

Yoon Tae-min was an old fox. You could say he had a bad temper, abused his own son, and had a low character. But you had to admit, he was a smart man.

The adoption certificate, the paternity test, the record of Hyun Si-young’s donation to the welfare center—was there any doubt?

Hahaha, Hyun Si-young! Hyun Si-young!

That damned woman!

It was her! So it was her!

Yoon Tae-min’s hands trembled with anger, his breathing rapid. This sudden, explosive news made it impossible for him to calm down!

That woman was dissatisfied with him having an illegitimate son, dissatisfied with his cold indifference to her back then, so she had actually swapped his biological son! And, and she had even given him a mentally disabled child to raise!

No wonder! You son of a bitch! Bastard! Even if his son, Yoon Tae-min’s son, couldn’t get into a top university, even if he couldn’t run a business well, he shouldn’t just know how to eat, eat, eat, eat, eat—!

Dizzy, Yoon Tae-min grabbed the table to support his almost-falling body. Thanks to that bitch Hyun Si-young, he thought, this bastard from God knows where! Not only did he replace his biological son’s position, but he also enjoyed his doting for almost 30 years!

Even so, this bastard even went behind his back to start a company with someone else to undermine the Yoon family’s industry, created so much unsightly public opinion to smear the Yoon family, and even the Go Eun-bin matter—!

Ahhh!

You son of a bitch!

You damned retard!

Yoon Tae-min’s anger and hatred were almost palpable. Yoon Nam-woo, already in a panic, backed away guiltily. He had wanted to run away secretly, but a flowerpot somewhere suddenly made a sound.

The sound was unusually loud in the empty villa. Yoon Tae-min suddenly turned his head, his sharp gaze meeting Yoon Nam-woo’s.

The anger that had been building up for a long time seemed to have finally found an outlet. Yoon Tae-min’s eyes were bloodshot. “You bastard! You damned thing, living off the Yoon family for thirty years! And you still want to touch our family’s fortune! You ungrateful wolf!”

Bastard? Ungrateful wolf?

Our Yoon family?

Yoon Nam-woo was furious. “You old thing! So a son with blood ties is a son, and one without is a bastard! Doesn’t all these years of raising mean anything for a father-son bond? In your eyes, is it only about money and benefits?”

Yoon Tae-min cursed, “Do you have any?! If you had even a shred of gratitude for the Yoon family, a shred of respect for me as your adoptive father, would you do this?!”

The folder was slammed in front of Yoon Nam-woo. The evidence of his plot against the Yoon family’s industry was all there.

Yoon Nam-woo jumped up and down frantically. “Isn’t it because you, you old bastard, are biased! Yoon Nam-hyuk can get Woosan with just a few beatings! And I get nothing!”

Yoon Tae-min had been about to shout, The two billion won a quarter in allowance is not enough for you, what more do you want? But before the words could come out, a sharp pain in his heart spread throughout his body.

A heart attack. He was in extreme pain, unable to breathe. He collapsed to the ground with a thud, his trembling hands fumbling at his chest, where he kept his heart medication.

“Fa… Father?”

Yoon Nam-woo was terrified. As someone who was used to being a good son, he rushed over to help him take out the pill bottle, frantically pouring out a few pills as the doctor had instructed in the past.

Yoon Tae-min opened his mouth wide, his eyes filled with a desperate desire to live. But just as the pills were about to be put into his mouth, Yoon Nam-woo suddenly stopped.

What good would it do him to save this old man?

A heartless old man. A son he had raised for almost thirty years, he was going to abandon because they had no blood ties, and even called him a bastard.

Now this guy knows everything. He’s seen his adoption file and the paternity test. Most importantly, he knows he’s conspiring with someone else outside.

In any case, the Go Eun-bin news was indeed their doing. This old man wouldn’t really push him out to take the blame, would he?

If someone has to take the blame, why should it be me? Shouldn’t this be done by an old man who’s already on his deathbed?

Yoon Nam-woo dazedly looked around. It was a dark and windy night, and there was no one around. An old man having a heart attack, desperate for his medicine, if he suddenly found that his medicine was gone… it seemed reasonable.

Yoon Nam-woo took back the pills.

Yoon Tae-min looked at him in disbelief, gurgling in his throat, making gasping sounds.

“Father, at your age, you should have enjoyed enough. Leave the rest to us young people to handle.”

Yoon Nam-woo had never felt his mind so calm. As he spoke, he poured the pills from the bottle into his pocket, then wiped his fingerprints from the bottle with his sleeve, put it in Yoon Tae-min’s hand, and helped him clench it.

After doing all this, he immediately stood up. He no longer paid any attention to any sound Yoon Tae-min made. He first smashed the computer, stomped on it until it was broken, then stuffed the paper documents into his shirt.

He turned and left.

The heartless back of his eldest son… no, his adoptive son, was reflected in Yoon Tae-min’s desperate and unwilling eyes. These desperate eyes were also like a knife chasing after Yoon Nam-woo, urging him to flee quickly.

And so, Yoon Nam-woo drove away in a panic, not even daring to go back the way he came. On the run, he found a secret, deserted place and burned all the documents and pills to ashes, then scattered them into the sea, completely erasing all traces.

But a blockhead is a blockhead. On his way back to Seoul, Yoon Nam-woo remembered the dashcam. He had planned to deal with the memory card inside it after he got home.

Unexpectedly, the sound of police sirens suddenly appeared nearby, so he only had time to throw the memory card into some unknown crevice before he was taken away by the police.

If the memory card is found, it should have recorded me leaving the villa in a panic, right? And the process of burning the documents and pills! Shibal… these are crucial pieces of evidence. I will definitely be convicted! How could…

Huh?

That’s not right.

Yoon Nam-woo, who was lamenting his tragic fate, suddenly paused. His dull mind had a rare flash of insight.

A murder weapon?

Why would there be a murder weapon?

Didn’t Father die of a heart attack?