NETIZEN

VULTURES

WARNING: DO NOT SKIP THE FLASHBACK CHAPTERS, THEY ARE NOT FILLERS.

Three years ago, Samseong-dong.

The events in this chapter follow the prologue.

After collapsing in front of the whole of South Korea, Hye Mi woke up in a hospital. The woman who paced in her room wasn't her mother, yet she recognized her. Injured Hye Mi sat up on the bed; she realized the woman was Ahn Hee-Jin, a former news anchor. The reporter stopped her frenetic steps as she saw the girl move and rushed to Hye Mi's side.

"I truly believed you were dead, and those people should be ashamed of themselves. Throwing a heel at your head and a cheap one at that."

The sentences the journalist pronounced were the most comforting words Hye Mi had heard in days.

The woman was nice.

"My name is Ahn Hee-Jin. If you feel better, I'd like an exclusive, my cameraman, and I saved you from the vigilantes."

Not so nice.

"Appa, where's my father?"

"He is dead, honey, there is no more Appa, but if you want justice, then you will have to talk. Tell the Koreans your father's side of the story.

Hye Mi was 14 and knew nothing about her father's business.

In the last five days, the adolescent found herself begging and asking her father's acquaintances for help. She and her mother had nowhere to go. When people recognized their faces, the spare rooms in hotels were taken, or their price tripled. Some shopkeepers and street vendors even refused to sell them food. Hye Mi felt like having been warped back in time in the Joseon era and branded as a traitor's daughter and outcast. The scandal touched the population's morals, and everyone empathized with the plaintiff. Who they imagined as their daughters or sisters, the Seos were demons in every citizen's eye.

Hye Mi went to the Kang's residence; she rang the bell till one of the house's employee's chased her away. The teen even tried to speak to Han Song Hi. The idol told Hye Mi to show her face in front of her again after throwing her verbal spite. She then added if Hye Mi attempted to speak to her, she would ask for a restraining order. Hye Mi was shocked by the singer's words.

The remaining Seos had nothing left. Hye Mi's mother sold almost everything to pay rent. Sometimes for not even eighty percent of the products' value as buyers refused to buy things from people as filthy as them.

"Hye-Mi-ah, you loved your father. Tell the world what a wonderful man he was. Trust me; It's for you. I'm doing this. I'm trying to help you change the public's opinion."

Hye Mi remembered what her father said when the scandal hit Ahn Hee-Jin. "Don't believe everything the media says. I know this woman; she studied hard to get where she is. All of this is nonsense. It's the fruit of jealousy, without forgetting some people don't like an anchor who tries to dig up the truth.".

Her father's words contributed to the trust she accorded to the journalist who showed sympathy.

"You'll get to the bottom of things right; you'll discover the truth, right?"

" 약속해요 [Yagsoghaeyo=I promise] Hye Mi." The journalist assured, gently tapping on Hye Mi's hands in a sympathetic gesture.

The interview was her last chance, Hye Mi spoke.

"My father is a family man; this company is part of it. Every employee of Satellite is his child. I'm jealous of all the time he invests in his trainees.