Peninsula: The young master is poor and doesn't want to date.

Chapter 16 Jisoo, Wake Up!

When Ding Wulang called, Li Zhengyi had just dropped Kim Jisoo off at YG.

At that time, the YG building was still the old-fashioned, square office building.

It was so simple that I thought I had stumbled upon a county town hotel from the 90s.

"Third Young Master, there's movement."

Lee Jung took the phone with one hand and waved goodbye to Jisoo with the other.

"explain."

"Kim Tae-ah. I've been keeping an eye on her as you instructed, and she went to the Yongsan Police Station this afternoon."

"Police station?"

"Yes. She was only there for fifteen minutes, and when she came out she didn't look well. According to my old classmate who works in an office at the police station, she went to ask about the thugs who were arrested."

"She wants to get them out?"

"It should be. But it didn't work out. Because Choi Kyung-ho had a lawyer following up, the withdrawal application was rejected. So she now knows that her first plan has failed."

"Anything else?"

"After she left the police station, she went back to her car and made a few phone calls. I used a directional microphone, but the car windows were too soundproof, so I couldn't catch much, but the last sentence was very clear."

Ding Wulang imitated Jin Taiya's tone:

"Then use that, drag the women around him into it too."

Li Zhengyi stopped what he was doing.

woman.

Bae Joo-hyun.

Has she already uncovered Bae Joo-hyun's connection?

It moved faster than he expected.

"Understood. Keep an eye on it. There's one more thing; I need you to find out her channels first. How did she get my information?"

"clear."

After hanging up the phone, Li Zhengyi took a deep breath.

noon the next day.

Kim Jisoo brought food again.

Today's dish is spicy pork rice bowl.

The sauce soaked into the rice, and the pork was so tender it seemed to melt on your tongue.

While watching Li Zhengyi eat, she kept talking about the class reunion.

"Oppa, Jenny agreed to go, along with some classmates from Daegu. We haven't seen them in ages..."

Li Zhengyi ate his meal in silence.

"Oppa, are you even listening to me?"

"have."

"So what did I say?"

"The catfish spirit is going too."

"Oppa!"

As I was finishing the last bite of my meal, my phone rang.

Ding Wulang.

Li Zhengyi answered the call.

"Third Young Master, there has been a breakthrough."

"I'll be there in half an hour."

He hung up the phone, put the empty lunchbox on the table, and stood up to put on his coat.

"Where are you going? I'll go with you!"

Kim Jisoo also stood up.

"Don't follow me, little brat."

"I'm not young anymore! I'm already..."

"I'm nineteen, nineteen years old, according to the traditional Chinese age reckoning."

Li Zheng picked up his phone without turning his head.

"Leave the boxed lunch on the table; I'll wash it when I get back."

Kim Jisoo stood there, watching his retreating figure as he went downstairs, and angrily kicked the stair railing.

Then I took out my phone and sent a message to Jenny:

Oppa ran off alone again. He's definitely hiding something from me.

Jenny replied instantly:

[Jisoo, is your oppa really okay? You don't even know what he's doing right now.]

Kim Jisoo stared at the screen for a long time before typing out a line:

I know he's a good person.

send.

Then she put away her phone, walked to the table, and put the lunchboxes into a bag one by one.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the drawer was half-open.

She didn't mean to, but out of the corner of her eye she caught something in the gap of the open drawer.

It's a photograph.

Not from a girl group, not a classmate.

is her.

A photo taken three years ago.

She was wearing her junior high school uniform, with her hair in pigtails, and making a peace sign at the camera.

Li Zhengyi stood next to her, unusually without showing any impatience; the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned.

She remembers this photo.

It was in 2011, when she was still in junior high school, that Li Zhengyi returned from university.

She always thought that she was the only one who had kept the photo.

It turns out he kept one too.

Kim Jisoo stared at that photo for a long time.

Then she suddenly covered her face.

"...Aish, don't flatter yourself, Kim Jisoo."

She pushed the drawer back forcefully and ran out the door.

But he still has photos of me from junior high school.

He doesn't like taking pictures.

So... he kept this photo himself?

He took my photos himself.

He kept it for himself.

Ah, good.

Kim Jisoo stood at the entrance of the second-floor corridor, patting her burning cheeks with both hands, muttering "Wake up, wake up," but she couldn't suppress the smile on her face.

"No... why did he keep my photos...?"

"I was only in my third year of junior high school back then..."

"That idiot... if you're going to keep something, keep the one you have now... you hadn't even started skincare back then..."

"So... he doesn't actually dislike me?"

"I always thought he found me annoying..."

"He always tells me to leave, but then he always opens the door for me..."

"They always complain that I talk too much, but they always finish all the food I cook..."

"He's so fierce..."

"But they saved my photos..."

Kim Jisoo squatted down at the top of the stairs, buried her face in her knees, and made muffled sounds:

"Ah... really... what should I do..."

This was exactly one week after she told Jenny, "We're just friends."

Two o'clock in the afternoon.

Ding Wulang's Office.

Li Zhengyi sat in a chair.

Ding Lilan stood beside him.

Ding Wulang pushed an A4 sheet of paper in front of Li Zhengyi.

"A partial screenshot of SM Entertainment's internal employee contact list. Take a look at this."

He poked at a name circled in red with his finger.

Logistics Department: Li Guanyu.

"Who is this person?"

"On the surface, he's in SM's logistics department. But his real identity is a liaison planted by CJ Entertainment within SM. He's responsible for providing Lee Woo-bin with Bae Joo-hyun's schedule information."

Li Zhengyi stared at the name without saying a word.

Ding Wulang continued.

"We've found out about Kim Tae-ah's methods. She accessed your call logs and Kakao Talk's recent contacts list through Kakao's carrier cooperation department under the guise of 'internal security audit'."

"Then she saw Bae Joo-hyun."

"However, your chat content is encrypted. The operator can only see who you contacted, when, and how often you contacted them, as well as the specific text content."

"How did she get the content?"

"She couldn't get it. But she got it from Bae Joo-hyun."

Li Zheng looked up: "What do you mean?"

"Within SM Entertainment. Lee Woo-bin arranged for Lee Kwan-woo. Kim Tae-ah somehow got in touch with Lee Kwan-woo and used his access privileges to access Bae Joo-hyun's work phone cloud backup."

Does Lee Woo-bin know about this?

"I don't know. Kim Tae-ah did it around him. She just wanted to use this card to attack you, and incidentally kick this 'female idol who got to the top by her looks' that she didn't like."

Li Zheng understood in a second.

She discriminates against all women who are uglier than her, and is jealous of all women who are prettier than her.

Ding Wulang slammed the second piece of paper on the table.

"Kim Tae-ah's plan has been uncovered."

"First, she selected the most ambiguous parts of your chat history with Bae Joo-hyun and compiled them into a curated collection of screenshots."

"Secondly, the screenshots will be released three days later through a gossip media outlet called 'Star News Chase'."

"Third, the documents were also sent to SM executives, CJ Entertainment's public relations department, and Lee Woo-bin himself."

The office was silent for several seconds.

The old-fashioned fax machine on the wall spit out another sheet of paper.

Li Zheng glanced at it.

It is an intercepted copy of Kim Tae-ah's encrypted email.

The title is:

[Exclusive Scoop: Bae Joo-hyun Confesses to Mysterious Poor Guy Late at Night, Chat Logs Exposed]

The accompanying preview image is a selfie of the two of them on Bae Joo-hyun's phone.

It's the one we took while pretending to be a couple.

Anyone who doesn't know the reason would instinctively think this is a couple just by looking at this photo.

Otherwise, how could Bae Joo-hyun smile so sweetly in a man's arms?

"This woman has absolutely no sense of security when it comes to her phone information."