CHAPTER 183: CHAPTER 182. PREY AFTER PREY

"S-Sarah?" Henry almost dropped his phone in fright. "W-what do you mean?"

[Don’t play dumb!] the voice--or rather the scream--came out in a mix of anger and fear. [It’s everywhere on the news!]

"A-aah...that!" Henry swiped his hair back nervously, shaking eyes darting around. The Daesung executive flailed his hands as a signal, telling Henry to just make up some shit. "T-that’s just someone trying to sabotage us! It’s an edit, an edit--y-you know...that AI stuff!"

But the panicking girl wasn’t one to be soothed easily. [I don’t care about sabotage or whatever! My lawyer said the project might be over!]

"W-what?! That is not true!" Henry screamed--more to convince himself than Sarah. "Why would it be over just because of something like this? Don’t worry, Sarah...I told you everything will be fine."

[Are you sure? You have to promise me] the girl said sharply--but at least, she was no longer screaming into the speaker. [I put all of my money there, you know!]

"Of course, I’m sure! Something like this is, uhh, normal in this kind of thing," Henry replied, back to his pacing around because he was too stressed out and his nails were already a mess. "Maybe you don’t know because you’ve never worked on this kind of project."

[But my lawyer said--]

"Don’t listen to your lawyer!" Henry blurted out harshly.

[What?]

Henry pressed his lips and groaned silently while clutching his head. He had to remind himself that Sarah was no longer his date, but the investor to his big, important project that was currently facing danger.

"I...I mean..." he took a deep breath, ignoring the glare from the Daesung executive. "You know how they tend to scare their clients so they won’t be blamed if things go bad, right?"

[I...don’t know about that] Sarah sounded hesitant, and definitely calmer.

"Anyway, just trust me," Henry exhaled in relief, adding in a haughty tone he used during their first blind date. "I have more experience than you in this kind of thing."

There was a considerable pause from the other side which got Henry pacing around anxiously again. He could hear whispers and footsteps, even a clanking sound of what seemed to be ice cubes against a glass. Whatever Sarah did, Henry hoped she did not talk to that darn lawyer again.

It wasn’t like Sarah could pull out her investment, since she had already given them all the money up front. But Henry certainly didn’t want the lawyer to give her naive little head any idea about declaring the project a failure and demanded the collateral to be paid.

[Ugh--fine!] finally, just when Henry started to get frustrated, Sarah returned to the phone. [But make sure you take care of this! I bet on you to make me lots of money, you know!]

And just like that, the phone was ended harshly. If they were using those old cord phones, Henry was pretty sure Sarah would have slammed the phone down.

"Ugh, this woman!" he almost slammed his phone in irritation too. "She doesn’t even work, and yet..."

"That’s why you shouldn’t get with a headstrong woman," the Daesung executive scoffed.

Or rather, he shouldn’t get with a woman who liked to play around with handsome subordinates when he aimed to have a submissive wife.

"Why do you think I stopped seeing her?" Henry rolled his eyes. "Ah, fuck--what if the other investors also..."

Before Henry could even worry about the other investors’ reaction, the door to the office opened harshly. "Sir!"

Henry almost had a heart attack when he saw the assistant’s pale face. "What now?!"

The assistant panted and pointed at his phone. "Someone from the legal team called, Sir..."

"Is this about the protest?" Henry widened his eyes, hope shimmering behind them. "Had they found a way to silence those people?"

"N-no," the assistant replied with a wry tone. "They said...someone from the prosecution office called."

This time, the executive also stood up in agitation. "What?! This is just a rumor. How could--"

The assistant shook his head "It’s not about the burial site, Sir..."

"Then what?!"

"It seems like...one of the original owners of the lands showed up to protest because they never permitted this construction," the assistant replied with a grimace. "So...we are under scrutiny for forging documents."

Henry parted his mouth, but there was nothing he could say. Nothing he could use to express how flabbergasted he was. How dumbfounded. How screwed.

"...fuck!"

* * *

"You’re good," Sol chuckled when Sarah threw her phone to Hajin.

"Angry acting is the easiest," Sarah shrugged, sinking to the couch in Sol’s office. It was easy, but also tiring. She turned her head to another person staying in the office. "Right?"

The woman who was sitting on the chair in front of Sol’s desk smiled in return. She looked like she could either be an elegant madam or the nastiest auntie on the block depending on her facial expression. At that moment, however, she just looked like someone enjoying their well-deserved award-winning wine after a good performance.

And a good performance she must have done if the prosecutor’s office worked this quickly. The day before, as soon as the news became massive, this woman--Gina--came to the city council with a land deed in hand, questioning why someone was building something on her land when she had never agreed to anything. Hell--no one had even come to her to buy the land!

Of course, the officials did not believe her instantly. They had to check if the deed was real, and whether this woman had the right to the deed. Well...Gina was just a substitute, but it wasn’t difficult for Sol to turn her into the aunt Sarah never had: the unknown daughter of Sarah’s paternal grandparents. It wasn’t difficult for Little Bird to create a whole new history for a temporary identity.

But the land deed was very much real, and that was the most important thing. It looked preserved, but also old; the kind that had existed before the society was integrated digitally. Even if they called an expert, no one could say the land deed was a forgery--unlike the one provided by Daesung and bypassed by the bribed official.

Naturally, Gina was not just protesting peacefully. She came with a lawyer--another one in Yonghwa’s vault--and some reporters--who were under Mirae. Her complaint was fiery, but without any harsh or dirty words, so no one could twist the story and bring up stuff like rude behavior to bury the real matter.

The news about the land dispute had not yet to be up, but Sarah had told them to release the articles once the prosecutor’s office made their move. In a while, the land dispute case would pile up above the historical burial case. Sooner or later, people with the real land deeds, who had never sold their lands and perhaps had forgotten they even had them, would come out too and add more cases to Daesung and Henry’s company.

"When it rains, it pours," Sarah smiled in satisfaction as she recalled how Henry sounded on the phone just then. It was clear that he was panicking. "And at the end, we’ll send a flood."

Yeah, this would not be the last attack. But even for now, the attacks have already piled up high. The videos were being scrutinized by experts to see whether or not they had been tampered with or done by AI. Once it was established as real, with hard push from wealthy conservationists and legal complaints from land owners, there was no other choice but to do an investigation.

The two companies would be in a frenzy to defend themselves. There was no easy way to erase the evidence because the hill’s surroundings were being watched by locals and activists. They couldn’t win against the real land deeds, so the only thing they could do to salvage the situation was to convince the owners to agree to a settlement and not bring the matter to court.

Naturally, Sarah had told Gina to never settle--or at least stretched it out as long as she could. The longer they were tied in a dispute, the better.

To make it worse--for them, of course--Sarah had told Daniel not to engage with Henry or Daesung, or anyone they sent. She expected them to try appealing to Mirae because Daniel was also investing, and people normally thought an investor would try to save their investment. Certainly, Mirae did have the power to control the media, and to some extent...well, the law itself.

But Daniel cheerfully told her that he would be away during the winter to look for the sun around the equator, so no one would be able to contact him through his work phone anyway.

"With this, they won’t have the time to take care of anything else, including catering to Uncle Hyun or Director Seo," Sarah curled her lips in satisfaction when the news of the land dispute finally hit the public.

The puppy’s grey eyes flashed. "Does that mean we can start hunting for the snake?"

Sarah nodded. "Once the net is ready."