chapter 28
Chapter 28: The Archive of Shadows
The next morning, Eunha sat alone in a darkened media lab, the only light coming from the screen in front of her. Ji-hoon had dropped off the hard drive and gone to rest for the first time in days. But Eunha couldn't sleep—not yet.
The hard drive was heavily encrypted, but Eunha had once worked a side gig helping a digital forensics team during a whistleblower case. She knew what she was doing.
Line by line, folder by folder, the structure revealed itself. Most of the files were mundane—employee records, production notes, equipment orders. But then she found it.
A hidden folder named "LYNX."
She opened it.
Inside were surveillance logs. Video clips. Emails. Names.
Not just Sae-jin's.
At least five others.
Aspiring singers. Background actors. Stylists. Some had disappeared quietly from the industry. Some had been labeled unstable. One had been found dead in a motel two years ago—ruled a suicide.
Each file painted a pattern.
"Behavioral risk: high."
"Refused to comply with NDA."
"Monitor closely. Consult Baek Do-jin."
It was systemic. Coordinated. A machine built to exploit, then erase.
Eunha's fingers trembled as she copied everything to her secure cloud. They finally had what they needed.
---
Ji-hoon arrived later with bandages on his temple and a fierce look in his eyes.
"Someone followed me," he said, locking the door behind him. "I lost them, but we need to move fast."
Eunha turned the screen toward him. "They called it Project LYNX."
His face paled as he read through the logs.
"This isn't just about protecting their image. This is about controlling people like they're disposable."
She nodded. "Sae-jin tried to speak out. She was close. But they cut her off—just like the others."
Ji-hoon leaned in. "We go public tonight. We take it all to Haneul. She still has contacts who'll run it without burying the truth."
---
That night, Ji-hoon and Eunha met with Seo Haneul again—this time not in a storage unit, but in a secured press office guarded by a trusted producer.
The team reviewed the footage, the emails, the logs. Faces went pale. Fists clenched.
"This… this will shake the whole industry," Haneul whispered. "But once we hit publish, there's no going back."
Eunha didn't hesitate. "That's the point."
Ji-hoon stood beside her. "Let them come for us. As long as the world knows who they really are."
Haneul looked at them both, then reached for the keyboard.
A click. A breath.
The truth was scheduled to go live at midnight.
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Outside, the city was quiet—but not for long.
The shadows Luma Entertainment had hidden behind for years were thinning. And at last, the whisper of justice began to echo louder than fear.