SACCHARIN
CHAPTER 8

 

The chairman’s sharp words had struck a nerve, leaving me overwhelmed with fear and anguish. My face was soon streaked with tears again.

“Wan-yi, stop crying like that. You’re making this old man’s heart soften,” he said, though his tone carried little warmth.

“I’m sorry…” I murmured, sniffling.

“Alright, enough. Stop crying. How old are you now? Acting like a child at your age—it’s no wonder your father still sees you as one,” he said with a mocking click of his tongue. His words stung, laced with condescension, as if accusing me of being immature and useless.

I tried desperately to stop the tears. Crying wouldn’t help me; if anything, it would only make me look weaker. Sniffling, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, trying to regain composure.

It was then that the chairman gave a curt order.

“Shin Chi-woo, bring that over.”

“Yes, Chairman.”

“Give it to Wan-yi.”

“Yes, sir.”

One of the chairman’s burly men handed Shin Chi-woo a paper bag, which he then passed to me.

The chairman gestured toward the bag, urging me to open it. But I couldn’t bring myself to move. I had no idea what was inside, and the thought of it made my blood run cold.

“Go on, open it,” he said.

“Yes…”

“Don’t be so scared—it’s not something dangerous.”

I hesitated, my hands trembling as I clutched the bag. Glancing at Shin Chi-woo, I saw him blink slowly, as if signaling it was safe to proceed.

The bag was surprisingly light, but that didn’t ease my nerves. My mind raced with dark possibilities, imagining all sorts of horrors inspired by scenes from movies. If this was some Pandora’s box, opening it might leave me screaming or fainting in terror.

“Hurry up, Wan-yi. Open it already,” the chairman pressed impatiently.

“…Um, Chairman…”

“What? Do you think I stuffed Seo Kyoyong’s severed head in there or something?”

“N-no… That’s not it…”

I stammered, horrified at the suggestion but also unable to shake the fear entirely.

With trembling hands, I prepared to open the bag, bracing myself for whatever awaited inside.

“Just open it already,” the chairman said firmly.

His command made my imagination run wild, and the growing anxiety over what could be inside the paper bag nearly drove me insane. After hesitating for what felt like an eternity, fidgeting with the edges of the bag, I finally gave in under the weight of the chairman’s piercing gaze. With trembling hands, I pulled the opening of the bag apart.

To my surprise, it contained something completely unexpected—something that made my knees almost buckle with relief.

“Wan-yi, that’s yours, isn’t it?” the chairman asked.

“Yes… It’s the bear my dad gave me as a gift when I finally got into college after three tries,” I replied, my voice shaky.

“Not when you were a little kid, but when you started university?”

“Yes. Somehow…”

Inside the bag was a cute stuffed bear, utterly out of place in this grim situation. I recognized it immediately and began explaining its history in painstaking detail, sensing that this innocent object might hold some deeper significance. It was clear that this bear wasn’t here by coincidence—it must have some secret tied to it.

“That bear was a mascot on a popular variety show at the time,” I began, recalling the memory vividly.

“I was watching the show and jokingly said, ‘I’d like a bear like that.’ My dad must’ve remembered and bought it for me.”

“Ah, well, no matter how old his daughter gets, she probably still looks like a baby to him,” the chairman remarked, his tone unreadable.

“I mean, I wasn’t really at an age to play with stuffed animals anymore. I was just happy that my dad remembered what I said. Later, I just put it in a corner of my dressing room and forgot about it. Honestly, I was more excited about the luxury watch he gave me as part of the same gift—it was something I’d wanted for a long time.”

“I see,” the chairman said, nodding slowly.

“….”

“You’re right, the days of playing with stuffed animals are long behind you.”

Truthfully, while I appreciated the thought behind the bear, it hadn’t meant much to me at the time. As an adult, the extravagant gifts like the luxury watch felt far more exciting. The stuffed bear, cute as it was, ended up as little more than a dust-collecting decoration in a forgotten corner of my room.

Despite how I had stashed the bear in the corner of my dressing room, unable to throw away the gift of a father’s love, it now felt as though the cute little toy was taking revenge on me. Asking, “Why did you abandon me?”

“By the way, you have some interesting things at your house,” the chairman remarked casually.

“…Excuse me?”

“Don’t worry, this old man will respect your privacy. You can trust me on that.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I understand everything, Wan-yi. Everything.”

The fact that the bear had made its way here confirmed what I dreaded—they hadn’t just rummaged through my house but had thoroughly searched my room as well. My face burned with humiliation, not because of the chairman’s cryptic comments, but because of one horrifying thought: my laptop. Had they cracked the password?

It wasn’t just the sly chairman; what if Shin Chi-woo, the woman who worked for him, or any of the muscle-headed goons he brought along knew about my private hobbies and secrets?

I wanted to die right then and there. Forget my father—if they had dug through my laptop, I couldn’t bear it.

“Wan-yi,” the chairman began, “do you know why I’ve kept you here?”

“Isn’t it… because of my father?”

“Exactly. I never imagined Seo Kyoyong, that bastard, would betray me so meticulously after all these years.”

“…That can’t be true. My dad isn’t like that, Chairman.”

“Ah, Wan-yi, you’re still too young, still buried in your studies, so you don’t know the world yet. The people you think aren’t capable of such things… they’re exactly the ones who do it.”

“……”

“People like me. And your father.”

Chairman Pyeon Jae-ho was supposedly a man with little time left to live, yet the fury of betrayal seemed to fuel him with an intensity that defied his condition. His eyes gleamed with a chilling malice that made my skin crawl.

“Look carefully, Wan-yi,” he said, his voice dripping with venom. “See what kind of bastard your father really is.”

With deliberate force, the chairman grabbed the large stuffed bear with both hands and began to tear its limbs apart.

It felt like watching my father be dismembered right before my eyes. Although it was just bits of stuffing flying through the air, it triggered a visceral response. I could almost smell blood, a phantom stench that made my stomach churn. My brow furrowed deeply as my mind filled with the imagined sound of the bear’s silent screams.

When the chairman ripped the bear’s belly open, splitting its body vertically in half, nausea welled up in my throat. It felt as though my own stomach had been torn apart. I couldn’t suppress the wave of revulsion that surged within me, leaving me trembling and barely holding myself together.

But inside the bear’s belly lay a hidden secret. The act of stashing something inside a stuffed animal was so obvious that even someone as ordinary as me found it laughable. Yet, maybe that was what made it so characteristically my father—simple and predictable.

“Wan-yi, do you know what this is?” the chairman asked, pulling out a transparent plastic pouch from the bear’s hollowed body and holding it up in front of me.

“I… no, I have no idea. I didn’t even know something like that was in there,” I stammered, shaking my head with a dazed expression, trying my best to look genuinely clueless.

“Well, then, take a closer look. See if you can figure it out,” he said, tossing the tightly sealed pouch onto the coffee table in front of me.

Inside the bag were two crystal-like chunks, each about the size of a thumbnail. At first glance, they looked like small blocks of ice. For a fleeting moment, I thought maybe my father had been smuggling raw diamonds or had stolen gemstones from the chairman.

But the pouch made a sharp thwack sound when it landed on the table—not the softer thud you’d expect from something lighter like gemstones. It felt off. And then it hit me—this wasn’t ice or diamonds. Could it be… drugs?

“Wan-yi, what do you think this is?” the chairman asked, his tone deceptively light.

“It looks like ice… but obviously, there’s no way it’s actually ice in there…” I replied hesitantly.

The chairman chuckled, shaking his head. “Ah, my dear. Do you even know what kind of company your father works for?”

“Of course I know! My dad has been working at Pyeonjae Trading for over 20 years, serving you loyally as your right-hand man,” I said, grasping at straws to defend him.

The self-made story of Chairman Pyeon Jae-ho’s rise to power was no secret to me. My father’s title as an executive had been earned through decades of loyalty, starting from the company’s early days.

But as I stared at the crystal-like chunks, a chilling realization crept over me. These weren’t just crystals—they were drugs. Large, refined, and deadly. And if that was true, my father and I were in far more danger than I could have imagined.

If my father had stolen or smuggled drugs from the chairman, there was no way he would be allowed to live. The chairman’s piercing gaze locked onto mine, and I felt a wave of terror. The emotion flickering in his eyes was impossible to decipher, and that only made it more terrifying.

“You’re prettier than your mother ever was, even if you look so much like her,” he said abruptly, breaking the tense silence.

“…What? I—what do you mean by that?” I stammered, startled and confused by the sudden and inappropriate comment.

“Just that you’re much more beautiful than she was.”

Since my father had been one of Chairman Pyeon’s closest confidants, it was no surprise that he knew both my mother and me well. But to hear him compare me to my late mother so openly and in such a way felt deeply unsettling.

Before I could respond, the chairman turned to Shin Chi-woo and spoke in a tone that made my blood run cold.

“Chief Shin, I think we need to send our dear Wan-yi to the factory.”

“The factory? Chairman, what do you mean?”

“You heard me. The factory.”

“Why would you—”

The chairman cut him off with a dismissive wave. “Look at her, Chi-woo. She’s lived her life blissfully unaware of what her father’s company really does. She’s been studying away, ignorant of reality. I think it’s time I showed her the truth myself.”

A sinking feeling hit me like a lead weight. The so-called “factory”—whatever it was—felt like a point of no return.

The chairman had finally made up his mind about what to do with me. The word “factory” hung ominously in the air, and I instinctively turned to Shin Chi-woo, silently begging for some kind of explanation. What was happening? What did he mean by sending me to the factory?

Judging by Shin Chi-woo’s reaction, even he hadn’t anticipated this command. The usually composed man looked momentarily startled, his gaze flickering with hesitation.

“Sending her to the factory won’t help, Chairman,” Shin Chi-woo said, his voice calm but firm. “We’d be lucky if she doesn’t cause an accident there.”

“Hm… I know that,” the chairman replied, seemingly unconcerned.

“As you initially instructed, we’ll keep her here under close watch until we find Director Seo Kyoyong.”

“That’s a good plan,” the chairman admitted, but then he gestured toward me. “But look at this. Keeping her locked up in a fancy hotel like this—do you think that bastard Seo Kyoyong will come to his senses?”

“…Still, Chairman—”

“I’ve changed my mind. Wan-yi is going to the factory,” the chairman said decisively.

It was clear he intended to send me somewhere dangerous, a place far from safety. And while Shin Chi-woo’s loyalties remained unclear, it was evident that even he didn’t fully agree with this sudden shift in plans.

At that moment, I abandoned my pride completely. I had no other choice.

Sliding off the sofa, I dropped to my knees on the floor. Pressing my palms together like I was praying, I bowed my head low and began to beg.

“Chairman! Please, spare me! I’m begging you!”

My voice cracked as desperation filled every word. I didn’t care how humiliating it was—all I wanted was to survive.

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