"A bar?"
Lee Hyuk glanced at the team leader of HS Intelligence Team in charge of watching over his children. With six children from three different wives, a lot of problems were bound to arise. It didn't matter if the problem occurred between the children, but if they were causing problems outside, it would be bad for the company's image. Not that he could complain, since he was the biggest problem child for his father.
It was impossible to prevent the children from making problems, so a team was made to make sure whatever problem arose wouldn't blow up into a scandal. Knowing himself in the past, Lee Hyuk wasn't really surprised by the shenanigans his children were involved in--as long as they didn't kill someone.
Compared to all the other troubles, he couldn't understand why someone came to him about his daughter coming to a bar.
"Yes, Chairman. She's also staying at a hotel," the team leader reported.
"So?" the chairman replied dryly. "Isn't it normal for a girl her age to frequent a bar? She's probably staying in the hotel because she's drunk, no?"
The team leader looked awkward. "Well...yes, Sir. But it's weird for the second Miss..."
Except for the car crash ten weeks ago, the second daughter never did anything worthy of reporting. She had always been very quiet and disciplined, so much so that people wondered if she was really a part of a conglomerate family. Perhaps that was why, any deviation looked so big.
"What Mr. Kim wanted to say is that she never shown this kind of behavior before, Chairman," the chief secretary said to add more context.
"I don't understand why is that important," Lee Hyuk narrowed his eyes.
"Indeed, it's not. She's just acting very different than usual, but it's still something that other people do. At least, she's frequenting a high-end establishment--the first Miss seems to visit it often too," the chief secretary threw a sharp glance at the team leader, making the man lower his head shamefully. "It's normal for a young woman like her to go through change after experiencing a great loss."
"Yes, but...her expenses are..."
"Expenses? Are you saying you bring this to me because she has been spending more than usual?" the Chairman snapped coldly. "Are you telling me we should care about the spending of a child born in this household?"
The team leader immediately bowed deeply, groaning and sighing at his foolishness. Ugh--this was because the employee watching over her spending and activity was his niece, who always groaning about how boring her job was. "F-forgive me, Chairman-nim..."
He should have just shoved the report under his desk.
"How ridiculous!" the Chairman scoffed, didn't even spare the man another gaze. "Just let her do whatever she wants and take care of the aftermath as usual."
She was a girl anyway, and not the eldest. No matter what, she wouldn't sit in an important enough position in the company, so it didn't matter if she had one or two scandals. At most, she would have to work with her older sister.
Actually, since she was rather pretty, she'd be more useful to be married off to a politician or other conglomerates.
The team leader nodded, sighing internally. "Very well, Sir."
"Ah, while we're at it," the chief secretary used the chance to ask the chairman since they were talking about the second daughter anyway. "What would you like to do about the university, Sir?"
Lee Hyuk let out an annoyed sigh. "Haa...must I think about that kind of stuff myself?"
"It's hard to enroll her to S-university again because we're under watch from the bribing case for the second young master," another secretary replied.
"Tsk--that useless kid, " Lee Hyuk clicked his tongue and glanced at the chief secretary. "What do you think?"
"It's rather humiliating to enroll her in mediocre ones, but taking a gap year is also..."
While it didn't matter where she would study since she wasn't the successor, it still wouldn't sit well for the family to have the children enrolled in a non-prestigious university. Wasn't that why they went as far as bribing the faculty and professors so the second son could be admitted?
"In that case, why don't we send her abroad, Sir?" the chief secretary said after mulling about it for a minute. "People don't care much about the university rank as long as it's a degree from abroad, and the academic year hasn't started yet--unlike here."
"Then do that."
"Understood."
The chairman waved his hand dismissively, before returning to his phone; any matter regarding his children had already left his mind.
* * *
"Haa..."
Seul-ah let out a long, heavy sigh as her body sunk inside the hot tub. Warm water, almost to the point of scalding, caressed her tired skin, enveloping her exhausted soul as she leaned back and closed her eyes.
It was a truly, truly exhausting day, both physically and mentally. That was why she decided against returning to that mansion, which was nothing more than a hateful prison for her. At least, for one night, Seul-ah wanted a chance to be alone, think everything through, and...well, just relax.
From the outside, it would seem like all she did the whole day was delivering her mother's ashes and having fun in a bar. But before that, she was busy running away and fighting for her life inside a warehouse, before realizing much too late that she had been living like a stupid puppet for years.
And died.
To be fair, she wasn't sure she really died. The pain she felt from the bullet wounds, however, felt too real to be treated as a dream.
And...well--if they failed to kill her after shooting her from a mere arm's length, they better shoot themselves in the head.
Returning to the past...Seul-ah decided to think it was a blessing that her mother provided. It made her feel better thinking that her mother's effort in praying and blessing the jade with 'divinity' worked somehow, even though it seemed very unbelievable. A miracle.
But she needed to believe in that miracle. After all, what she wanted to do going forward would be filled with doing the unbelievable.
"At least...I know for certain now that it wasn't a dream."
A dream couldn't provide something that the dreamer did not know beforehand. If those six years had never happened and only her daydream, she wouldn't know the hidden entrance of Helios, much more the code words for the Colosseum and its true owner. The sheer fact that she managed to go through Helios meant those six years were real.
With this confirmation, she could make her plan better using the knowledge she knew about the future. She couldn't say she knew much, but since she had been taking care of the company's business--only for the siblings to take all the credit--she at least knew some useful things about the company's internal situation and the economic condition for the next six years.
"What I have in Helios's account is just a drop of water in the ocean," Seul-ah raised her hand and let the warm water trickle down her arms. Even if Ryu Hajin kept on winning, people would start betting on him after his second night, and that meant she wouldn't be able to grow the money much. "But I should be able to grow it enough to reach my goal."
Yeah. It would take years. She would have to work patiently, no matter how eager she was to destroy everything that had made her and her mother's life miserable.
"I should only bet until I receive the invitation," Seul-ah tapped on the side of the tub in contemplation. It should be enough as seed money, even without using the shares and the land deed.
No--if anything, she should keep them for the future. She knew enough about which ventures would give her a massive return in less than five years, so winning big for another night would be enough for starting capital. Especially if she could get what she wanted from the owner.
Her biggest problem, however, was making a move without alerting the family. It would be next to impossible once she was back inside that house. Her driving license was suspended after the car crash, and using a taxi would be too noticeable. Accessing the internet from the house meant letting the watchers know what she was up to, so that was also risky.
"I need to get away from that house," Seul-ah bit her lips.
She closed her eyes to recall what happened in the past. Because of her accident, her admittance to her university was suddenly getting canceled. At that time, she had no leeway to think about it out of grief, but she could see how weird it was this time. To cancel someone's academic admittance over an accident, and someone from a conglomerate's family, no less...someone else must have been behind it.
But that wasn't important--she could more or less guess who that was. Since she wanted to get away anyway, it would be better to go somewhere far away from home. She had heard that she was supposed to go abroad, but weirdly, she ended up entering a woman-only university after a gap year. Most of that gap year was filled with months of depression where she slowly but surely succumbed to her brother's sweet tongue.
"Could it be..."
Was it him? Was it he who made the change? Of course--if she was abroad, he wouldn't be able to wrap her around his fingers and...
Seul-ah froze for a few seconds before her stomach recoiled at the memory of what she saw on the screen before her death. She scrambled to the toilet just in time for the contents of her stomach to pour out. Her chest was hurting, and tears kept on falling. Even when nothing came out anymore, she couldn't stop trembling in horror. In disgust.
She must get out. She had to get out.
Thankfully for her, the first son did not live in the mansion. While he had a quarter there, he stayed in his mother's penthouse often because of her demands. If Seul-ah heard that he would come to the mansion, she immediately called for a taxi or asked the house driver to take her to Helios. Even if it wasn't a game night where Hajin played, she would just use one of the private rooms and spend more of her family's money.
But of course, if it was a game night Ryu Hajin participated in, she would go even if the first son wasn't scheduled to come. Just as she predicted, she could still win big the second time. People still thought that Hajin won because the others underestimated him, so only three other people bet on him aside from Seul-ah. Naturally, she went all in again.
On the third fight, people no longer underestimated the pretty face. He still ended up as the champion, but a lot of people were also betting on him, so Seul-ah couldn't even double her initial bet.
But it didn't matter, because what she had been waiting for finally came.
"Congratulations," Lee Sol came to her after the host announced Hajin's third consecutive win. He brought a pristine white envelope and carefully placed it in front of Seul-ah. "I have an invitation for you."
Seul-ah widened her eyes and opened the envelope immediately, didn't even bother to mask her eagerness. Inside, there was a plain white keycard with a golden rim. Beneath the card, inside the envelope, was a single cursive line.
The Golden Dome.