The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 60

Everyone seemed to agree with Seong-hwi’s words.

“Right, if we write a clarification statement by clearly refuting each detail, it would be more persuasive.”

“Let’s look at that exposé post right now and match it up!”

“Um, I feel bad for ruining such an energetic moment.”

Ha Sang-hun, who had been quietly observing the situation, raised his hand and voiced his opinion.

“Whatever the case, we need concrete evidence that this exposé post is fake, right? Not just speculation, but photos or evidence that anyone can see and understand. But where and how are we going to find that?”

“Ah……”

Everyone fell silent at his realistic words.

As expected of the hot-blooded young people of South Korea, their enthusiasm was good but their follow-through was still weak.

I organized the hypotheses I had been turning over in my head and slowly opened my mouth.

“We can start from the fundamentals. As Sang-hun said, we need evidence like photos, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then let’s approach it from the opposite direction – there are several ‘evidence photos’ attached to this exposé post.”

“If we reveal that the evidence photos used in the exposé post are themselves false, that would become a solid card we could use on our side.”

“Exactly.”

As expected, Chae Ha-ru, who had the quickest thinking, caught on to my intention.

No matter what claims you make, bringing evidence that others can immediately notice makes for more effective public opinion battles.

It would be great if we could prove Ma Si-hyeok’s words are true through official records like school records.

[Q: Are school violence victims also recorded in school records?]

[A: No, while perpetrators might be recorded, victims are not recorded for protection purposes.]

I searched on the green window knowledge site and found that victims’ information isn’t recorded for personal protection. So we can’t expect help from such official records.

Then we need to narrow our focus to only what’s available to us.

And among those, the part most worth exploiting would be the ‘photos with potential for theft.’

‘If this is just a common troll spreading false school violence rumors, then naturally the photos attached to this post would also be fake. Either fake or real photos floating around online but not actually his photos.’

Why do I know so much about these kinds of school violence exposé posts?

It wasn’t for nothing that I spent 6 years as a trainee. Even within our agency, there were several times when school violence allegations arose, and I heard similar stories from other agency kids through the grapevine.

The odds were almost fifty-fifty.

Half were people who genuinely did terrible things at school and ended up apologizing and reflecting, while the other half successfully counter-sued for false accusations.

In situations like now, we absolutely have to pray for the latter.

Once you get labeled as a school violence perpetrator, it’s not only hard to escape but program withdrawal becomes practically inevitable.

If Ma Si-hyeok drops out, it would cause a major incident right before the 3rd team battle.

“But how exactly can we prove these photos are fabricated?”

“People who write these false posts can be surprisingly sloppy. They’re probably actually from the same school. Or someone who knows an acquaintance who graduated from S Middle School. But since they have to fabricate the story, except for yearbook photos, they likely had to get everything else from the internet.”

When I answered Ha Sang-hun’s question, Kang Seon-woo’s already fierce-looking eyes narrowed even more.

“So what Si-hwan is saying is we need to randomly search the internet, right?”

“As expected of Brother Si-hwan. I’ve actually seen someone get caught spreading false information using exactly that method.”

Seong-hwi winked at me.

I was being serious, but this crazy narcissist looked more energetic than I’d seen him in recent days, as if something excited him.

“Even agencies with proven power like X2 get swarmed by the same stupid bugs. Brothers who debuted before Zefa also had similar school violence rumors attached to them, but it turned out all the photos they uploaded as ‘evidence’ were pictures you could find just by entering specific keywords in search engines. So I think this exposé post might be similar.”

“Then shall we search on search engines for various things like Hwi said?”

“Ha-ru and I will look for the pill photo!”

“I’ll help too.”

“Then Ha-woon, Ha-ru, and Sang-hun will search for ‘pills,’ and Seon-woo, Hwi, and I will look for the bruise photo.”

“Okey-dokey!”

As everyone started tapping on their phones with burning determination, Ma Si-hyeok looked at me with restless eyes.

“……Brother, what about me—.”

“You just lie down and rest for now. Your condition is most important. Don’t think unnecessary thoughts, and try not to use your phone as much as possible. Got it?”

“Yes.”

And so we all dove into the ocean of data together.

I kept scrolling down, carefully examining whether there were any identical photos to those used in the exposé post.

‘I said this, but honestly, this is labor equivalent to finding a needle in a desert.’

An absurd number of photos had been uploaded, but everyone continued their passionate web surfing without showing signs of fatigue.

Kang Seon-woo even pulled out his laptop and accessed Stargram.

“I can multitask a bit. I was thinking that instead of just browsers, they might have stolen photos uploaded on SNS like Stargram without permission.”

That was also a reasonable point.

I nodded briefly and mentally wished him success.

Time passed midnight and entered dawn.

But the heated atmosphere in the dorm continued without cooling down.

All six of us were putting our hearts into this effort as if it were our own problem.

Perhaps feeling that serious atmosphere, Cerberus, who usually whined to me with aegyo around this time, stayed quietly still.

{Master, I want to help too—.}

‘How can you help when you can’t even use a phone? It’s okay, you’ve already helped me a lot.’

{Still…}

‘You were the one who told me Ma Si-hyeok was a decent kid in the first place. Without that information, I wouldn’t have even thought to help like this. So don’t worry too much.’

This is something we need to solve with our own power.

And finally, as if heaven was rewarding our endless efforts.

“Found it! Found it, found it, found it!”

Kang Seon-woo, who had been examining Stargram on his laptop, roared while pounding his bed.

Sensing victory, the team members simultaneously put down their phones and gathered around Kang Seon-woo’s bed.

“What is it? What is it? Where is it?”

“Dude, I searched for that graduation yearbook verification photo just in case, right? I searched ‘S Middle School graduation yearbook’ on Stargram. And this popped right up at the top.”

The screen he proudly pointed to displayed a close-up of the exact same photo that the exposé post author had uploaded as graduation yearbook verification.

“Date. We need to check the date and year.”

“I already checked that too. This was uploaded just last year. It’s a post uploaded by someone who graduated from S Middle School last year, and it was stolen without permission.”

True to Kang Seon-woo’s words, the Stargram post’s upload date was February of last year.

Ma Si-hyeok is 20 years old this year.

Unless this guy regressed, graduating middle school last year makes no sense.

“Whew…… Thank goodness.”

Ma Si-hyeok, who had jumped up from his bed, checked the Stargram post with his own eyes and clutched his chest in relief.

How worried must that big guy have been to collapse to the floor like that?

“Wow, really shameless. How did someone claiming to be a classmate think to steal and use a graduation photo from last year?”

“That’s how these fabrication post trash always are.”

Seong-hwi laughed while stroking Yu Ha-woon’s curly hair as he clenched both fists.

It was strange seeing someone who didn’t look like he’d do such things acting like that, but I decided to just let it slide.

“Then the answer is obviously decided. Now you can stop staring at phones, everyone.”

“We haven’t found evidence that the other photos are stolen yet.”

“That’s what collective intelligence is for. Right, Brother Si-hwan?”

Again, Seong-hwi’s words ended directed at me.

I didn’t want to admit I was on the same wavelength as that crazy guy, but I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded.

“Just this one photo being posted in communities will probably make other netizens find all the remaining photos and prove they’re stolen too.”

“Our fans aren’t just casually browsing the internet. They’ll find them much faster than us.”

“Turn the aggro completely this way, is that what you mean?”

Exactly as Kang Seon-woo expected.

All idol communities and SNS were already consumed with Ma Si-hyeok’s school violence allegations.

In other words, the floating population was at its peak.

In this situation, casually dropping a post suggesting the school violence allegations are fake?

People heated up like boiling pots would react immediately.

“I browse communities a lot so I know – let me post it once. Brother Seon-woo, can you send me that Stargram account link?”

Seong-hwi, still wearing his bright smile, accessed IdolNet with the aura of an expert.

A few minutes later.

“Reactions are coming immediately, right?”

I went on my phone to check the current situation.

A post that was obviously written by Seong-hwi was pinned at the top of the page with a 〈Hot!!〉 badge.

[〈Hot!!〉 It was a scammer bastard lmaooo +244]

I’m not even a Ma Si-hyeok individual fan, just a muggle happily watching ISL 2.

But no matter how I looked at it, something felt fishy, so I searched ‘graduation yearbook’ on Stargram lol and this post popped right up at the very top?

(Stolen graduation yearbook verification photo)

You’ve seen this photo a lot, right guys? But just in case, what if this person is the one who wrote the exposé post? So I DMed to ask lol and got this response.

(Message from the post owner saying they didn’t write such a post)

If you’re going to scam, at least match the year when you steal photos. What’s with using last year’s graduation yearbook photo, you scammer lmaooo

—Get this up there fast, I really couldn’t sleep from frustration T_T

—Holy shit, this is really chilling… So all that content is lies?

—Wait, if the graduation yearbook photo is stolen, aren’t the other photos obviously stolen too?

└Do we need to ask that lol Obviously 100%

└Si-hyeok fans, I recommend looking for the pill photo and bruise photo along with this photo. This bastard probably stole them so sloppily that they’ll show up immediately in searches

—I really believed in Si-hyeok…… Ha, thank you for protecting my favorite T_T

Public opinion, which had been trending toward criticizing Ma Si-hyeok until just minutes ago, flipped instantly.

Individual fans who had been keeping quiet while supporting Ma Si-hyeok finally straightened their shoulders with confidence and started cursing the exposé post author, while fans with high initiative immediately declared their intention to look for other photos too.

All the other team members were also watching the community situation in real-time on their personal phones.

And before long, when an anonymous author brought the original of the pill photo, everyone shared emotional high-fives.

“Wow, it was all stolen as expected.”

“Wow, but Brother Si-hwan and Brother Hwi are so smart. How did you figure out that all the photos were stolen?”

“It was just lucky. And—.”

“And we happened to have seen similar situations before, so it was easier.”

The pill photo turned out to be from a blog that appeared when you searched ‘headache fever reducer pills’ in the green window.

Netizens who discovered this became even more furious.

—LMAO What kind of psychiatric medication, taking Tylenol when mentally exhausted?

└Tylenol omnipotent theory LOL

└Turns out it’s viral marketing? HAHAHA

—Korean netizen trait: Absolutely can’t stand seeing others succeed

└Wow but the person who wrote this has thick skin too. How do you steal everything without missing a single one lmao

└Did the bruise photo stolen link come up yet??

└No not yet, but my 10-year idol fangirl experience tells me it’ll be up within 10 minutes

And indeed, the power of the cyber investigation team approaching tens of thousands was tremendous.

Really, about 7 minutes after the pill photo was revealed to be stolen, the identity of the remaining photo was also exposed.

—Found the original bruise photo too (link) This shows up immediately when you search ‘back bruise’ lol

└―――Case closed―――

—Really, fabrication taken too far~

—Seriously, lies should have limits, and burying an undebuted trainee like this is chilling…

└Recently Ma Si-hyeok’s ranking shot up so much, was someone annoyed? Their favorite dropped? Lol

└Real possibility

—Ha, anyway, our Si-hyeok isn’t involved in any of this, right? All the school violence stuff is lies and we can keep supporting him, right? T_T

└Yeah yeah yeah please keep believing and supporting. Si-hyeok is definitely main dancer material

└Rather, this opportunity might get him more attention and increase his recognition

└LMAO. The fabricator’s insides must be boiling and exploding like a volcano

└Where’s the time to explode, they should pray a lawsuit doesn’t come flying lol

“……It’s roughly wrapped up.”

I sighed and looked at Ma Si-hyeok’s face.

Only now did some color start returning to his pale cheeks as one worry was lifted.

“Contact the team leader first thing tomorrow morning and upload a rebuttal statement. Since all the circumstances have already been revealed, it shouldn’t be difficult.”

“……I’m truly grateful to everyone. Thank you so much for helping me.”

“Hey, this was only natural. We’re a team, aren’t we? Helping each other is the natural thing to do.”

Kang Seon-woo’s warm words seemed to bring the late-night commotion to an end.

Now we just needed to sleep, wake up, and properly upload the rebuttal statement to resolve everything smoothly.

That’s what I thought, but there was still one more mountain to cross.