Chapter 601
A boy walked to school.
Around him, his classmates nervously scrolled through pages on their phones. Every single one of them was on the illegal gambling website.
He was the gambling-addicted boy from the opening sequence.
"Hey, what's up with you?"
"None of your damn business, you pathetic losers."
"Look at this asshole talking. You buy those new?"
As the boy entered the classroom, his eyes landed on the brand-new sneakers worn by one of the class bullies—the kind of kid who had everything. Everything he owned was the newest model, every single item from expensive designer brands.
"You've been throwing money around lately. That's pretty suspicious."
"Ha... Stop saying loser shit. If you're jealous, just say you're jealous."
As the ladder-lottery boy trudged toward his desk, a hard smack landed on the back of his head.
"See? Like this! Why can't you be more frugal and well-behaved, like our Hyunsu here?"
Compared to the bully's sneakers, the boy's were old and cheap. Snickering laughter rose from all around him.
"You're not upset, are you, Hyunsu?"
"Huh?"
"...What? Are you mad?"
"No..."
"Aww, that's right. Our little Hyunsu is sooo cute."
Speaking in an exaggerated high-pitched voice, the bullies pinched both of his cheeks before bursting into laughter again among themselves.
The boy searched online for the sneakers the bully had just bought.
[N*ke Kream Red]
₩1,700,000
"..."
He stared silently at the bully, who had already laid his head on the desk to sleep.
"Everyone, take your seats."
The teacher entered and began the lesson.
But not a single word reached the boy's ears. Everything sounded like a distant buzz.
As if reflecting the chaos inside his head, a window appeared before his eyes.
Ding.
[Deposit] [Withdraw]
Ding.
[Sword Saint: ₩72,875,880]
[OneShotLife: ₩69,216,720]
[StopWhiningYouBeggars: ₩62,698,990]
[GodHyuntae: ₩59,821,390]
[HanRiverViewGuy: ₩57,219,580]
Ding.
[Current Balance: ₩874,330]
Ding.
[★Withdrawals are available starting from ₩1,000,000★]
"..."
Just a little more.
If I win just a little more...
* * *
"Ah! I was so close to winning more!"
Although Influ 1 had returned late at dawn, she couldn't sleep in.
Her heart had been racing all night.
Bundles of cash exchanged from casino chips lay piled on the table.
"Ha... This is driving me crazy...."
Influ 1 had lost a few times.
She had won a few times.
In the end, after just one day—
"Two million wonnnn!!!"
She had made two million won.
But to Influ 1, it didn't feel like a reward at all.
"I should've bet bigger...."
If she'd wagered big like everyone else, she would've won far more.
She stomped her feet in frustration before diving onto the bed and rolling around.
Bzzz. Bzzz.
Her phone vibrated, and Influ 1 picked it up.
[Web Message: House of Dancing Water...]
[Please arrive at the venue on time.]
Restaurants, cafés, performances—
The entire itinerary she'd carefully booked before the trip filled her schedule.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Not the chance encounter with Jungnam.
Not romance.
None of it meant anything to Influ 1 anymore.
"What a waste."
She shot upright.
"I-I-I can't stay here...."
She slapped both cheeks hard with both hands.
The mirror reflected the dangerously unstable expression on her face.
She used to look into mirrors every chance she got.
Now she wasn't looking at them anymore.
It was obvious her mind had become completely consumed by something else.
"Still... since I already came all the way here, I'll spend just a little time outside first...."
A tiny thread of reason still remained.
Influ 1 picked up her camera and bag, preparing to leave the hotel room.
"I'll just spend a little."
She grabbed the thick stack of cash lying across the table.
"I can always win it back anyway!"
Her sense of money was melting away.
It was the classic pattern of a gambling addict.
* * *
Sitting alone in his office, Chen Wei counted the endless string of zeros written in the ledger.
He rang the classic brass bell sitting on his desk.
A moment later, someone knocked on the door.
"Come in."
After receiving permission, the office door opened carefully.
Resting his chin on one hand, Chen Wei asked,
"Progress?"
"New registrations on the site have increased twenty-five percent compared to last month."
"Again?"
"The payment rate per user has also risen dramatically. It used to average around two hundred thousand won per person, but it's now reached six hundred thousand. At this pace, each site should generate approximately 4.2 billion won in revenue next month."
One million won.
Unable to reach the withdrawal requirement, they deposited more money.
They kept gambling.
And when they finally reached the withdrawal threshold—
They couldn't bring themselves to leave.
Just one more round...
What if they could multiply that one million won several times over?
It would be a rush of dopamine unlike anything they'd experienced before.
Cheerful sound effects.
Heart-pounding excitement.
The expectation of earning a fortune.
All of it blended with flashy graphics that strained the eyes and muddled the mind.
Gambling.
It devours reason and clouds judgment.
The moment someone convinces themselves that, in a society where everyone else seems to make money so easily, they can do it too—
That is the moment Chen Wei has already won.
Because what he has created is an antlion trap that no one ever escapes with a profit.
"Koreans really are something. They just love gambling."
"But our site's expanding far too quickly.... If we delay the plan just a little—"
"..."
Chen Wei stared silently at his subordinate.
His head tilted slightly.
His chin was still resting on his hand, but a faint trace of irritation crossed his face.
Where Kay had been erratic and Director Sa had been impeccably composed, Chen Wei was impossible to read.
"...It could become dangerous. At this rate, it's practically gambling itself. We may already be on the Korean police's radar."
Without answering, Chen Wei casually shifted his gaze toward the CCTV monitor.
There she was.
The woman wearing the same long dress as yesterday.
Influ 1.
She was standing in front of a gaming table, running her fingers through her hair in irritation.
"Gambling..."
Chen Wei fixed his eyes on her.
"That's my favorite thing."
The corners of his lips curled upward.
He always held the winning hand.
And because of that—
Gambling was always fun.
Influ 1 stepped away from the table and headed somewhere else.
* * *
"Ahhh... This is driving me crazy."
Thinking it'd be easy to win had been Influ 1's biggest mistake.
Before she knew it, she'd lost every last chip she'd exchanged for.
Influ 1 looked over at the person sitting at the next table.
He must've been filthy rich, casually tossing out chips by the handful.
"..."
Gulp.
The look in Influ 1's eyes changed again.
Chips.
If only she had chips.
If she landed one big win, she could recover everything.
"..."
Should I exchange for more chips?
Or should I call it a day?
Her earlier promise to visit a fancy bar had long since vanished from her mind.
Just then, a waiter approached her.
A single earpiece rested in one ear.
"Do you need any assistance? Lose something?"
"Ah..."
Her mind was completely blank.
She couldn't answer right away.
The waiter smiled pleasantly and gestured to the side.
"If you've run out of chips and aren't sure what to do, you can also play using cash."
Ding. Ding. Ding.
"...Really?"
What caught Influ 1's attention was the slot machine.
The very symbol of pachinko.
The image that came to mind whenever anyone thought of gambling.
The symbols spun in dizzying circles before her eyes.
Without realizing it, she found herself sitting down at an empty machine.
Gulp.
Her mouth had gone so dry that even swallowing sounded unusually loud.
She rummaged through her small handbag.
There was still some cash left over from exchanging her chips earlier.
"It's fine. I'll just win it back!"
She shoved a crumpled bill into the cash slot.
The machine chimed as it swallowed the money.
A pitiful little number appeared in the lower-right corner of the screen.
100 dollars.
At the live tables in Macau, it was an amount so small it was almost embarrassing to exchange for even a single chip.
₩17,000.
Exactly the same amount as the very first chip she'd placed on the roulette table.
"Ha..."
With trembling fingers, Influ 1 grabbed the metal lever on the right side of the machine.
Ba-ra-bam! Ba-ba-bam!
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
A cheerful, upbeat tune played as a message urged her to make her selection.
The symbols spun merrily.
It felt as though Influ 1's eyes were spinning with them.
The music was so intoxicating it felt like her brain was melting.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
Firework sound effects exploded alongside the electronic chimes.
The flashing lights from the slot machine were so bright they nearly swallowed her whole.
Colorful symbols danced wildly across the reflection in her dark eyes.
Clunk—
Whoooosh!
The three reels spun at a frenzied speed.
Cherries.
Bananas.
Diamonds.
Their images blurred together into streaks.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
The three reels stopped with sharp mechanical snaps.
None of the symbols matched.
"Ah...!"
The sigh that escaped Influ 1 came from the bottom of her heart.
It wasn't the reaction of someone who had merely lost seventeen thousand won.
Somewhere along the way, she'd become deadly serious about gambling.
"Huh?"
Yet the screen displayed a congratulatory message saying she'd won money.
"Why did it do that?"
She stopped a passing waitress to ask.
The woman explained with a friendly smile.
"Ah, it's because of the payline. Matching symbols on the diagonal count too."
"Ahhhh!"
Influ 1 instantly beamed, as if she'd never been irritated at all.
Using her winnings, she immediately started the next round.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
Hwang Boseok felt an overwhelming sense of dissonance as Han Yeoreum's profile filled the screen.
No...
Even stripping away the dazzling power of the setting...
Even removing the intensity of the music...
Even ignoring the constantly shifting camera angles...
How can someone...
Han Yeoreum's acting was simply overwhelming.
This was already the third installment of the series.
Which meant the audience had long since internalized every major character's personality.
Comic relief characters don't belong in serious drama.
Everyone knew that.
People carried lingering impressions.
A character's established image was far stronger than most imagined.
The moment a comic relief character attempted serious acting, it normally shattered the audience's immersion.
Because they were supposed to be funny.
They were the kind of characters whose mere appearance made people laugh before they'd even spoken.
That was what comic relief existed for.
But right now...
Was anyone laughing?
Was there even a single person shifting uncomfortably in their seat because they couldn't immerse themselves?
Not one.
Because Han Yeoreum had breathed life into Influ 1.
The trembling in her eyes.
Her breathing.
The rigid tension running through her neck and shoulders.
The faint excitement lingering at the corners of her lips.
She was falling apart.
She was falling apart.
A human being was completely unraveling.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Influ 1 stared at the rapidly spinning slot machine with absolute concentration.
She had become a perfect gambling addict.
She won twice in a row.
So on the third round, she pushed every last bit of money she had into the machine.
It wasn't a huge sum.
But her mindset had already changed.
Bet big.
Win big.
High risk, high return...
"Aaaaaah!!"
At last—
Influ 1 hit the jackpot.
"Wow!"
"The young lady really pulled it off."
"Congratulations."
People around her offered their congratulations one after another.
Influ 1 had jumped out of her chair and was literally bouncing up and down.
The CCTV camera captured her face overflowing with joy.
"..."
Watching from the monitor—
Was Chen Wei.
He reached toward the table, picked up the radio, and raised it to his mouth.
"Bring her in now."
Because he said now...
The audience understood everything.
The money Influ 1 had won before.
The jackpot she'd just hit.
Every bit of it...
Had been luck deliberately handed to a pawn on the gambling board.
* * *
As though intentionally breaking apart the heavy atmosphere from moments earlier, Influ 1 was escorted out of the casino by two guards.
"Wait, what? Why? I'm doing great right now! My seat! That's my seat over there!"
She stomped her feet, desperate to place even bigger bets with her winnings.
The guards, each more than a head taller than her, repeated the same line.
"We need to complete a verification procedure."
Influ 1 shrank back slightly, her eyes darting around.
Then she swept her hair back with one hand and lifted her chin confidently.
"Pretty..."
"Can't you just let it slide this once?"
She tried to charm her way out of the situation.
But—
"We need to complete a verification procedure."
It didn't work on the guards.
Following after them, she muttered unhappily,
"Are they not from Jungnam? Guess they're foreigners."
Having somehow convinced herself that her beauty worked perfectly on the men of Jungnam, Influ 1 stumbled.
"Wait! Time out! Time out!"
She lifted the hem of her dress and emphatically demonstrated her predicament.
The tension from moments ago had completely vanished.
Soft laughter spread through the audience.
"Attention please. I'm Cinderella! No shoes! Can't you see I'm barefoot? Seriously... why's everybody in such a hurry?"
This was something only Influ 1 could provide.
Throughout the previous films, she'd become the audience's guarantee.
As long as she was around, no matter how dangerous things became, everything would somehow descend into hilarious chaos.
Director Gong had taught the audience that through repetition.
"I don't think it's... fitting right? Ah... my heel's blistered. This is all your fault, gentlemen."
Grumbling to herself, Influ 1 adjusted her shoes properly.
The guards, who had briefly stopped, resumed walking.
She slowly glanced around.
The tension had become only a fleeting sensation.
Her melted brain no longer prioritized rational judgment.
It obeyed only the desires placed before it.
"Hmm. Why has everyone suddenly become so stingy?"
"Does that tiny amount even count?"
"Quit drinking so much champagne. Don't start whining later that you need the bathroom."
They'd merely gone upstairs.
Yet everything around her had changed.
The people.
Their clothes.
Even the colors of the chips stacked on the gaming tables.
"..."
Looking around in fascination, Influ 1 reached the end of the junket room.
There, she entered an elevator.
Alone.
Without a word, the guards scanned a key card to open the elevator doors.
Then they gestured for her to go up.
Influ 1's expression changed.
Excitement and nervous anticipation coexisted on her face.
She walked down a dim, silent hallway.
A red carpet stretched beneath her feet.
When she'd first arrived at the hotel, she'd walked across gleaming golden marble floors.
Then came the casino's dark green carpeting.
And now—
Blood-red carpet.
An unspoken pressure weighed on her.
As though she were falling deeper and deeper into somewhere she could never return from.
Knock. Knock.
Taking a deep breath, Influ 1 knocked on the door.
No one had needed to tell her this was the destination.
Every other wall was solid.
Only one place had a door.
"Come in."
A quiet voice spoke in an unfamiliar foreign language.
Influ 1 wrapped her hand around the doorknob.
Swallowing hard—as though remembering the feel of the slot machine's lever she'd gripped only moments before—
She slowly pushed open the heavy door.
Inside sat a man whose very presence seemed to thicken the air itself.
Half leaning against a dark desk, Chen Wei met her gaze.
"Hello."
He placed a cigarette between his lips.
"Welcome."
Click.
As he flipped open a Zippo lighter and lit it, heavy silence swallowed the room.
"..."
Thin wisps of pale smoke escaped between Chen Wei's perfectly shaped lips.
As though he himself represented the pinnacle of all the glamour shown until now.
His impossibly striking profile held the cigarette with effortless elegance.
Words she couldn't understand tightened her nerves.
The atmosphere itself made it impossible to breathe comfortably.
Behind Chen Wei, the night skyline of the Cotai Strip glittered brilliantly.
It looked as though the entire district belonged to him.
Sparkle.
Sparkle.
The neon lights outside resembled the flashing display she'd been staring at on the roulette tables only moments ago.
The deafening sounds of the casino...
The soft classical music drifting through the junket room...
All of it vanished the instant she entered.
As though, unless Chen Wei permitted it—
No sound in the world could exist inside this room.
"..."
Chen Wei silently smoked as he stared straight at Influ 1.
Even someone as endlessly cheerful and talkative as Influ 1 found herself unable to speak beneath that piercing gaze.
A subtle tension.
A dangerously delicate atmosphere settled between the two of them.