The day after the Foledi bag manipulation incident, the company atmosphere wasn’t too bad, thanks to Yoo Jun’s warning from the previous day having some effect.

Still, it couldn’t be completely buried, and Hae Yeon could feel uncomfortable gazes. As she entered the management support team office, there were a few glancing looks, and she felt the eyes of employees from other departments on her as she walked down the hallway.

At least the faces at the end of those gazes were all people who had been at the scene yesterday.

“No matter how you look at it, Hae Yeon was falsely accused. I can’t explain it one by one!”

So Jung, who always accompanied Hae Yeon as her senior, also noticed the unkind looks and got heated, but as she said, it was clear that trying to explain without any evidence would only backfire, so Hae Yeon restrained herself.

After the morning shift, Hae Yeon had lunch alone with So Jung, who was angrier than the person involved. Joo Ah, who heard the news, seemed to want to come over, but sorry, Hae Yeon had no intention of meeting Joo Ah until this case was resolved.

After lunch, Hae Yeon met separately upon Section Chief Choi’s summons and immediately apologized.

“I heard about what happened at the Seongsu-dong store yesterday.”

“I’m sorry for causing an unpleasant incident at the company.”

Although there was no definite circumstance that Hae Yeon was the culprit, she apologized as she was indeed involved. She had already had several disturbances with other team leaders after joining the company, so she was genuinely sorry.

At the polite apology, Section Chief Choi seemed flustered and waved his hand urgently.

“No, that’s not what I meant by apologizing. I also believe in our team member, Min Hae Yeon. It’s just that there will be some talk at the company, so I called you to say let’s wait with patience.”

“…Thank you so much, Section Chief.”

In fact, Hae Yeon was quite moved inwardly. This attitude from Section Chief Choi and Manager Lee So Jung was not an easy consideration to make.

In a way, Hae Yeon was now a troublesome newcomer who had been involved in incidents that had been erupting since joining the company, rather than helping them. Yet they still believed in her, so how could she not be moved?

Gradually, something changed in her heart. At first, she tried to reveal the truth with the intention of not being manipulated by Lee Soo Rin’s tricks, and that intention had not changed. But there was one more thing added to it.

‘I must reveal the truth, even for the sake of those who believe in me.’

She didn’t want to just wrap it up and back down.

Using the resolution she just made as a foundation, Hae Yeon quickly deduced. The most likely way to find out the winning numbers for the Foledi bag was, as the team 2 employee who made the mistake said, for someone to steal a glance at the data that was left unattended for a brief moment.

That someone was obviously Hae Yeon, who was accused of being the culprit, or another person.

Unfortunately, even if the situation at the time was checked through CCTV, it happened to be a blind spot, so the identity could not be confirmed. So Hae Yeon came up with another method.

The case where the person who knows the winning numbers, that is, the sales team leader who planned the event, was involved.

Surely the culprit of this incident would be Kim Hyun Woo, who took bribes from Lee Soo Rin. However, it would have been difficult for him, a member of the management team, to find out the winning numbers.

But what if there was one more person involved in the manipulation?

Hae Yeon sent a message. To the person who was the team 2 leader at the time and was under Lee Soo Rin’s hand, just like Kim Hyun Woo.

* * *

“Did you find the person you mentioned?”

Do Ha, wearing a navy blue suit with a glossy sheen on his lean physique, asked, and Secretary Kim bowed politely. He was Do Ha’s closest subordinate and secretary-cum-director, like a moving notebook for Do Ha.

“It was Jeon Hee Joo, the eldest daughter of YutiFood, and Lee Ji Na, the wife of the JR Construction CEO.”

“What is their relationship?”

“They were old acquaintances.”

Silence flowed. Do Ha, with a cold face and slightly furrowed brows, remained silent, and Secretary Kim waited nervously for him to open his mouth.

“Thoroughly investigate the office secretary team.”

“Yes, I understand.”

The office team was mainly in charge of Do Ha’s schedule. The art gallery date with Hae Yeon, which had been prepared for several weeks, was also done by their hands. Do Ha’s order to investigate meant that the details of his date had been leaked by someone from the office team.

– I heard the person who put that parachute hire in Dali Coffee was a Dali Coffee executive?

– What was that woman’s husband doing? His wife had been thoroughly disgraced.

– That husband must have known too. Or he made the request himself.

As Hae Yeon feared, Do Ha saw her that day surrounded by some women and being treated rudely. It was natural to feel anger at the two women who were spewing low-level words at his wife, but along with anger, Do Ha felt another emotion.

It was suspicion.

YutiFood and JR Construction were ambiguous companies that didn’t even rank in the top tier of large corporations. In other words, they were at a level where they couldn’t find out the secret information of the business world.

Such people not only found out the news that Hae Yeon was working, which was hidden in secret, but also sneered at her?

‘There is someone behind this.’

A soundless crack formed in his heart. It wasn’t because of the rudeness those two women had committed against Hae Yeon. Because he clearly saw it that day.

Hae Yeon, who was more composed than ever in the sudden situation.

Do Ha, who was looking somewhere beyond Secretary Kim, slowly opened his lips.

“Jeon Hee Joo and Lee Ji Na. Please take care of those two as well.”

“Yes, sir.”

After Secretary Kim left, Do Ha looked at the floor diagonally with his arms crossed. Hae Yeon’s calm attitude at the art gallery slowly traced through his mind. Suddenly, a sense of fear came over him like a wave.

‘No way, it can’t be.’

It has to be that way.

* * *

“Neither the winner nor the informant received the call.”

Hae Yeon nodded her head as if she had expected Yoo Jun’s plain words. The two were now alone in a conference room that no one was using.

Currently, Yoo Jun was cooperating with Hae Yeon to help with the Foledi bag manipulation case, and it was none other than him who first reached out to solve this case.

– We should trust our team members.

That’s how their joint investigation began.

First, they contacted the winner who was said to have been instructed, but there was no way to know their whereabouts, let alone a phone call. The path of the informant was the same. Come to think of it, that young man was rather more suspicious than the winner.

How on earth did he, who was not an insider, find out that there was corruption? Hae Yeon speculated that both of them were hired by Lee Soo Rin. Of course, she hid Lee Soo Rin from Yoo Jun.

“Those two must have been planned from the beginning.”

“Yes. It’s a pity we couldn’t cooperate with the police.”

Yoo Jun expressed regret at the current situation where they couldn’t cooperate with the police. Currently, the head office had not yet reported the incident to the police, trying to postpone it as much as possible until it could be resolved internally.

The attitude of the head office was ambiguous for Hae Yeon, neither good nor bad. Thanks to that, the spread of the incident to the outside was prevented, but on the contrary, the suspicious suspects were let go as there was no justification to catch them.

“It is certain that it was an insider’s doing. We need to focus on that point and search.”

Knowing the winning numbers was impossible without the help of an insider. Listening to Yoo Jun’s words, Hae Yeon made up her mind.

She couldn’t end this matter ambiguously, even for the sake of those who believed in her. Since it was okay to expose Kim Hyun Woo, she didn’t hide the real culprit on purpose.

“Director Yoo. I think this incident is related to Manager Kim Hyun Woo.”

It wasn’t just related, it was certain that he was the culprit, but she deliberately left room. Yoo Jun raised one eyebrow in surprise.

“Is there a reason you think that way?”

Yoo Jun knew why she was saying this. It was considering carefully so that no innocent person would come out, as much as finding the real culprit.

“I saw it a few times. Manager Kim Hyun Woo contacting the resigned team leader Shin Kyu Sik.”

It was a blatant lie, but the fact that Kim Hyun Woo was the culprit was the truth, so Hae Yeon just pushed ahead.

“…Hmm.”

Yoo Jun’s face turned serious. The Foledi bag event was handled by the sales team every year, and this year, team 2 was responsible. Moreover, the winning numbers were not determined the day before the event, but were carefully selected several weeks in advance.

The first prize winning number was not simply random, but was chosen with a special meaning to draw interest inside and out, which was an unchanging historical tradition of Dali Coffee.

Of course, this had been a constant source of controversy as a security issue. However, it did not cause any particular problems and was literally one of the traditions, so it had been continued until now.

‘We were too negligent.’

The problem was that even though the sales team 2 leader in charge of this event was virtually expelled, the company used the winning numbers determined at that time as they were.

When the person in charge had left the company due to an unsavory incident, the numbers naturally should have been changed to new ones, but there was a disruption due to the sudden personnel reorganization, and the sales team 2 also overlooked that part.

“There is no evidence that Mr. Shin Kyu Sik and Manager Kim Hyun Woo contacted each other regarding that incident, but wouldn’t something come out if we dig into the one who quit?”

Hae Yeon said. It was unreasonable to ask him to investigate Kim Hyun Woo right away. There was no physical evidence yet. However, if they dug into Shin Kyu Sik anyway, a connection with Kim Hyun Woo would come out.

It must have been Kim Hyun Woo’s doing to touch the data of the team 2 employee who made the mistake. He probably had two things in mind. To create a circumstance that Min Hae Yeon had touched it, and at the same time, to check if the winning numbers that Shin Kyu Sik, who had quit, had informed him of were still the same.

“Hae Yeon, I understand what you’re saying. I’ll meet Mr. Shin Kyu Sik.”

“No, Director Yoo. I’ll do it. It’s related to me.”

Hae Yeon declined Yoo Jun’s help. It was because he had other important things to do.

“Rather than that. I have a favor to ask.”