Gathering was nothing particularly unusual in Korean culture. It was a tradition that had rooted itself among the common people through the Three Kingdoms period, Goryeo, and Joseon.
In modern times, gye gatherings had evolved into a kind of private financing system.
A structure where multiple members pooled money together each month so one person could receive a lump sum payment — essentially a form of rotating savings.
But the article alleging that politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, and even legal officials had used a secret gye gathering to create their own exclusive network where they supported and protected one another was more than enough to capture public attention.
The constitutional amendment card President Yoon Changho had thrown onto the table was instantly overshadowed by the secret gye gathering scandal.
“Does anyone know anything?”
Centrist Party headquarters.
Everyone attending the meeting wore grim expressions.
Lee Jeongho knew absolutely nothing about Byun Heebong’s secret gye gathering. He had a connection to Choi Hyuk, but he had never met Byun Heebong personally.
Cheon Suin nervously gnawed at his fingernails.
“Supreme Councilor Cheon.”
“Huh? Ah, yes.”
Lost in his own thoughts, Cheon Suin raised his head at Lee Jeongho’s call.
“You know anything?”
“No. I don’t know anything.”
“Really? You sure?”
“Yes. Why? Did you hear something?”
At Cheon Suin’s sharp reaction, Lee Jeongho thought to himself,
‘He’s definitely tied up in this somehow.’
At that moment, the door to the party leader’s office opened and Lee Myungsoo walked in.
Everyone’s eyes turned toward him.
“Oh. Looks like everyone’s already gathered.”
Lee Jeongho frowned at Myungsoo’s calm reaction.
“What took you so long, Floor Leader Lee?”
“I had a few urgent things to organize. But Party Leader, clear everyone out and let me speak with you privately.”
“What? Privately?”
“Yes. Is there really going to be any answer if we all sit around whispering among ourselves? Everyone gathered because of this scandal article anyway, didn’t they?”
There was a newspaper in Lee Myungsoo’s hand.
“Do you know something, Floor Leader Lee?”
“Well. I’d prefer to share it with only the Party Leader first.”
Cheon Suin immediately protested at that answer.
“Floor Leader Lee. What are you talking about? Everyone here should know together.”
“I believe fewer people knowing is better.”
“What? You don’t trust us?”
“That’s for the Party Leader to decide. Party Leader, what will you do?”
Reading the look in Lee Myungsoo’s eyes, Lee Jeongho spoke to the other Supreme Council members.
“We’ll reconvene later.”
“Party Leader!”
“Just leave for now!”
The Supreme Council members from Myungsoo’s faction stood up without hesitation.
“Then we’ll see you again later. Floor Leader Lee, see you afterward.”
Several of them patted Myungsoo on the shoulder before leaving first.
But Cheon Suin stubbornly remained seated until the very end.
“Leave, Supreme Councilor Cheon.”
“Party Leader......”
“Or is there something you’re guilty about?”
“What? Of course not.”
“Then leave. I’ll hear him out and make my judgment.”
After repeated pressure from Lee Jeongho, Cheon Suin reluctantly stood up.
Still, he didn’t forget to glare at Lee Myungsoo on his way out.
Cheon Suin closed the door behind him and walked away.
Lee Myungsoo sat down on the sofa.
“You gathered because of the secret gye gathering, right?”
Lee Jeongho nodded.
“You know something about it?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Is all this true?”
Lee Jeongho slammed the newspaper on the table as he asked.
“Yes. Most of it. It’s a gye gathering that’s existed for over ten years. Though calling it a gye gathering is just a formality. It’s really a secret organization created so they could do favors for one another.”
“Ha......”
Lee Jeongho pressed a hand against his forehead.
“Are there people from our party involved too?”
“Yes.”
“This... don’t tell me this is a planned investigation?”
Lee Myungsoo nodded.
“It started from the Joongwon Development project.”
Mixing half-truths and half-lies, Lee Myungsoo explained the outline of the incident.
By the time he finished listening, all the color had drained from Lee Jeongho’s face.
“P-President Choi Hyuk?”
“He already left Korea. In the end, Choi Hyuk is just the tail. Are you worried the sparks might fly toward you, Party Leader?”
Unable to hide his discomfort, Lee Jeongho coughed awkwardly.
“I know you accepted money from Byun Heebong, Party Leader. The prosecution knows too.”
“What?”
“But your name wasn’t on the gye gathering list.”
“I only had a very brief relationship with Chairman Byun. Yes, just something minor...... Don’t tell me this whole thing is meant to take me down?”
To think they would blow the entire board up just to catch one Lee Jeongho.
Did he seriously believe that?
Watching Lee Jeongho overestimate his own importance to this degree, Lee Myungsoo mocked him inwardly.
“Of course not. You won’t suffer any real damage from this incident, Party Leader.”
“R-Really? You mean that?”
Lee Jeongho still looked unconvinced.
“Yes. But I think you’ll have to give up on Supreme Councilor Cheon Suin. His name is on the list.”
“What? Supreme Councilor Cheon?”
“Yes. And not just him......”
Lee Myungsoo began listing the lawmakers named in the documents.
Including two lawmakers close to Lee Myungsoo himself, there were six in total.
“That many?”
“Yes. The gye gathering existed even before the Centrist Party was formed. I think these six will have to be abandoned.”
“......”
Lee Jeongho pressed his hand against his forehead in despair.
If a scandal involving six lawmakers from the party exploded, criticism would pour down endlessly, and as party leader, he would be the one forced to bear responsibility.
“H-How about the opposition?”
“There are people there too. Even more than on our side.”
“Right. Of course there are.”
If more people from the opposition were implicated—
“I already arranged a meeting with the opposition party leader tonight.”
“A mutual sacrifice, then?”
Lee Myungsoo nodded.
But Lee Jeongho still looked uneasy.
“Will they accept? They’ll scream political revenge and all sorts of nonsense.”
“You know this already, Party Leader, but the person recently elected as leader of the Progressive Party... isn’t part of the mainstream faction.”
“That’s true. He’s not even from the activist faction. Just some lousy human rights lawyer.”
“They won’t be able to reject our proposal. The people implicated in this case are members of the Progressive Party’s mainstream faction.”
Only then did Lee Jeongho understand what Myungsoo meant.
“I’m definitely staying out of this, right?”
“Yes. We’ve already aligned our stories to some degree. The prosecution also seems to think investigating the ruling party’s leader would be excessive.”
Relieved inside, Lee Jeongho asked,
“But maybe I’m imagining things. Still... it feels like this entire situation was scripted by you, Floor Leader Lee.”
At that, Lee Myungsoo answered with a faint smile.
“It’s not a feeling. It’s the truth. The outcome was decided from the beginning.”
A chill ran down Lee Jeongho’s spine.
Suddenly, Kim Muhyuk’s phone call came back to him. That cold voice warning him not to do anything.
‘Was this all decided by that young man?’
If so, then everything made sense.
Koryeo Daily aggressively raising the suspicions first, and the prosecution immediately announcing an investigation as if they had been waiting for it.
“A-At least minimize the damage to the party......”
“I know. But rotten flesh has to be cut out eventually. We warned them repeatedly not to accept bribes or favors. And yet this still happened. Let’s clean house this time.”
Lee Jeongho had no choice but to agree.
If he refused here, his own name might end up on that list too.
“What about the President? Did you get the President’s permission?”
“Not me. Someone else will handle that.”
Even without saying it outright, Lee Jeongho already knew that “someone else” meant Kim Muhyuk.
* * *
After finishing all the preparations, I headed to the Blue House.
“It’s good to see you again, Mr. President.”
As if he had been waiting for me, a newspaper sat in front of Yoon Changho.
After returning my greeting, Yoon Changho nodded.
“Sit.”
His face was heavy with worry.
“This was your plan, President Kim, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. That’s why I came to speak with you. Things are probably about to get pretty loud.”
“Tsk.”
Yoon Changho clicked his tongue and frowned.
“So Byun Heebong is behind Joongwon Development, and Byun Heebong himself is your target?”
The President had already grasped everything.
“Everything’s fine, but did you really have to make things this noisy? This doesn’t seem like your style.”
He was right.
I wasn’t the type to deliberately blow situations up.
Taking away the business rights Byun Heebong held would have been easy enough. Just like before, I could have crushed him through force alone.
But this case was a little different.
“You know why. Since I already decided to reveal myself fully anyway, I might as well build a good public image too.”
“Your image is already good enough after establishing the scholarship foundation.”
“That’s one thing and this is another. The reason I chose the Kowloon Village redevelopment project as my first business is because it’s a project people actually care about.”
People didn’t pay much attention when someone invested in stocks or made enormous profits through corporate investments.
Maybe people on Wall Street or in Yeouido cared, but ordinary citizens didn’t remember things like that.
“But Dreamhigh investing alongside Korean construction firms to redevelop the Kowloon Village project, a project stained with every kind of corruption imaginable? That’s more than enough to attract public interest.”
“And for that, you plan to turn the entire country upside down? Hah......”
“It’s not a bad idea to clean things out properly while we have the chance. Honestly, it irritates me that people like this were building their own little kingdom somewhere without my knowledge.”
I had only happened to visit Kowloon Village.
Only happened to become interested in it.
And because of that, Byun Heebong resurfaced in my mind.
Normally, I wouldn’t have cared what they did. They weren’t harming me.
“So since I was cleaning things out anyway, I decided to make things a little bigger. Want me to stop?”
“If I tell you to stop, will you?”
At Yoon Changho’s probing question, I smiled.
“If that’s what you want. But wouldn’t distracting people elsewhere help more with what you’re trying to accomplish?”
“You understand well. The constitutional amendment card alone wasn’t enough.”
Unless someone was deeply involved in politics, constitutional reform simply wasn’t an issue that held public attention.
Politicians might argue endlessly among themselves, but realistically, it wasn’t enough to keep the public focused for long.
But a massive gate scandal like this?
That was more than enough to keep everyone’s attention locked in place.
“Take this opportunity to push through everything you’ve been planning. I’ll make things as loud as possible for you.”
Yoon Changho burst into loud laughter.
“President Kim always knows exactly where to scratch my itch.”
“I just happened to help.”
“And you even moved Prosecutor Oh to suppress backlash from that side as much as possible.”
“Well... because this is something you want to accomplish too, Mr. President. You’ve always granted every favor I asked for, haven’t you?”
“Even so, that wasn’t easy.”
Yoon Changho already knew exactly what I had done and how I had done it.
His instincts really were sharp.
“So that’s why you asked for Prosecutor Oh to be reassigned to the Special Investigation Division. Once I realized that, everything made sense.”
“The scale of this operation depends entirely on how many pieces can be moved.”
“There are people loyal to Chairman Byun inside the prosecution too, aren’t there?”
“Yes. Two at the prosecutor-general level. If you include everyone below them, probably several dozen.”
“You plan to clean them all out?”
“Well. Prosecutor Oh said he’d personally choose the sacrificial lambs within the prosecution. So I agreed.”
As I shrugged, Yoon Changho asked with visible interest,
“Prosecutor Oh himself?”
“Yes. And Myungsoo said he’d personally persuade the political side. If this escalates into a massive factional war, nobody benefits.”
Yoon Changho nodded as if satisfied.
“Do as you wish. But may I use this incident myself?”
“You’re planning to use it as a bargaining chip for pension reform?”
“That’s right. Everyone keeps doing nothing but opposing it.”
So that was why his complexion looked so dark.
I nodded easily.
“Do whatever you want. If you ask Myungsoo for the documents, you’ll be able to identify most of the people involved.”
“Thank you. I’m always the one receiving help from you.”
That day, Yoon Changho and I talked for a long time.
A storm was approaching.
