10 Settling matters.

"It looks like my Grandson is a Child Prodigy."

"Ha Ha, Prodigy eh?" light laughter echoed out from the Northern side of the hall, seeming to mock Kang Seung's words. The laughter came from an elderly man with long ashy white hair that reached his waist. The man wore a white suit embroidered with flying dragons, and on the collar of his white shirt, was a plain black tie. He sat on a chair with a white jade headrest; a member of The Buk faction.

"So what if your Grandchild is a genius Seung, doesn't that mark you as a fool for not noticing it." As he said those words snide subtle chuckles spread around the hall and people began to mutter: "This is what happens when you can't manage your own household affairs."

"He didn't even know his own grandchild was smart." someone said.

"Kang Seung has always had problems with managing his direct family. The eldest son disowned him and married the daughter of that hospital director. And his second son ran off, had a bastard child, neglected it and now this happens."

"Illegitimate children shouldn't be kept at the main household in the first place, they should have sent him for adoption overseas and buried the whole incident."

"Apparently it was Kang Joon-ki who chose to keep the child in the household, probably due to his lingering feelings towards his dead lover."

"So then it's his fault."

"No, it's the Nam factions fault for so blatantly mistreating a child that they've taken in and it's their fault for not being able to control their staff"

"Now we're all getting a bad reputation because of this."

The man in white rose from his chair, a large grin on his face as he heard the surrounding whispers, "That just makes this whole situation even more embarrassing" he continued, "A smart and innocent child was neglected and abused, that's what the headlines are saying and from the looks of things they aren't wrong. Is this the first time you've even seen your own grandson Seung?" the man tutted and kissed his teeth, "It seems your only good at business and not capable of managing the family affairs."

More snide laughter and jeers came from the west, east and north sides of the hall.

The man smiled at the Podium and gave me a small wink, "In all my years even with big events I've never seen our family name so deeply dragged through the mud as it has been today." He shook his head with annoyance, "if you were going to mistreat a child you should have done it properly without anyone knowing. So how are you planning on solving this mess?" His eyes twinkled threateningly, "Will you take accountability and step down from your position as head of the family?"

The moment he raised the question all those seated in the hall seemed to fall into a thick silence. The tension between the man in white and Kang Seung was so tight it was almost suffocating. Everyone seemed to hold their breath, but then surprisingly Kang Seung smiled, "It seems you want me to step down as family head Wook-ah" his voice sounded sickeningly friendly, but it was obvious to anyone that there was anger behind them.

"There's no need for me to step down as head of the family for such a small situation, Wook-ah. Of course you wouldn't know that since you've never been good at business, you're only skilled at gossip and sticking your nose in family affairs, right."

The tide seemed to turn and soon snide laughter filled the hall from all sides, directed at the man in white, Kang Wook. With just a simple sentence Kang Seung had controlled the entire room, making these vicious vipers play his tune. I found myself liking my grandfather more and more.

Kang Wook turned a mysterious shade of purple at the mocking laughs, and angrily retorted, "If it's such a small issue, than why haven't you solved it yet?!"

Kang Seung gave a sly smile, "It's already been solved, look at the headlines."

People made surprised looks, I was also surprised. How could he have possibly solved anything in the time since this meeting had started?

The Pearl Room quickly filled with the sounds of people ruffling in their pockets and taking out their mobile devices. After looking at their phones everyone reacted in a similar way. Many broke into satisfied smiles, some chuckled and others even mumbled words of praise. The atmosphere became visibly very merry.

Curiousity made my fingers twitch. I wanted to ask what had happened to change the mood so suddenly, but I soon found out.

"Read the article to everyone" Kang Seung instructed Lee Min-Ki and Min-Ki immediately obeyed:

"A tale of grief and a servant who took advantage of a mourning family."

"The Kang family has made a statement about the treatment of the child Kang Ho, and the truth has been revealed. After the death of Kang Joon-Ki's previous fiance, who died from a complication during pregnancy, the entire family was grief stricken and mourning the death of the young girl. Unable to deal with raising Kang Ho without feeling guilt due to the absence of his mother, the family left the child to be raised in the care of a trusted servant who had been employed at the estate for a number of decades. Little did they know that the servant in question would embezzle money given to her to raise Kang Ho and would also begin to abuse him.

The servant in question is the Head Maid, Cha Hunha, who has control of the operations of the staff and the buildings on the Kang Estate. Mrs Cha located Kang Ho in the poorly built outhouse nursery seen in Sammy May's youtube video. She also manipulated staff members who questioned the state of Kang Ho's upbringing by blaming the facilities and lack of money on the Kang family.

Footage of her abusing the baby was also caught on cctv footage"

CCTV footage? I was shocked, I had checked the nursery but I hadn't seen a single camera, yet there in the online article was a video of Cha Hunha slapping me. They had really hidden that camera well, so well that none of my attendees and myself included, had noticed it. I could see Lee Min-Ki's face getting more surprised and disturbed the more he read. I couldn't blame him, it's always unsettling when you realise someone is keeping tabs on you.

"The head of the Kang Family, Kang Seung admits that he and the rest of the main Nam faction are at fault for being negligent to the child and leaving his care up to a servant. But with the grief of their lost daughter-in-law and the proceedings of a political marriage between the Kang Family and the Dragon Group, they had believed it best at the time for the child to be raised with servants. Now that Mrs Cha's cruelty has been brought to light, they have declared that they will make sure Kang Ho lives in comfort and that an incident like this will never happen again.

Mrs Cha has admitted to the charges of assault and child abuse. Sammy May has released another video clarifying the situation and has deleted her previous video about the incident on the premise that she was misinformed."

The article ended there.

Wow, they had blamed the entire thing on Mrs Cha with evidence to prove it, and they had made that girl Sammy take down the video and side with them, I wondered how they did it, was she bribed or threatened?

There were a few holes in the story for sure, but they were minor holes that the masses and the common person would overlook.

The public are mostly passive consumers; people like to believe that they think critically when reading information but they often don't, and consume it as is. One or two people might find the article odd, but the majority would be swayed. That's why they say, someone who has control of information and the media, the Fifth estate, controls the world.

I glanced at Mrs. Cha who was staring at the floor, her eyes boring a hole into the marble tiles. Her hands trembling, she looked like she was about to cry but she was restraining the tears with sheer willpower.

"See" said Kang Seung, "The issue has been solved. The trending hashtags have now changed to 'villanous servant', 'family manipulated' and the 'Kang victims'. My poor Grandson has escaped the jaws of his abusive attendant, and Mrs Cha will soon be held accountable for daring to hit him, isn't that right Mrs Cha?"

She flinched and then meekly nodded, barely a sound came out of her, it was as if her soul had been sucked out. That jittery reaction confirmed my suspicions; the reason her cheeks were so red, she likely had been slapped and threatened by Kang Seung earlier. The body language, the way she flinched and her shoulders trembled around him all indicated that she was afraid he would use violence against her. I recognised the signs all too well, my darling wife Melody used to flinch the same way.

Honestly, I started falling for my Grandfather right then and there. Such a vindictive man. I'd only ever been a fan of writers like Wilde and Goethe, but at that moment I had joined the Kang Seung fan club.

Suddenly the doors to the Pearl Room opened, two men holding police badges walked in, they appeared to be detectives.

They both bowed to everyone in the Pearl Room and then stated, "We're here to arrest Cha Hunha on the charges of embezzlement, slander, assault and child abuse."

I almost wanted to laugh as I watched Cha Hunha be escorted out of the room.

Once they were gone Kang Seung turned to Kang Wook and smiled sweetly, "Now that's how you handle business and family affairs. I hope you've learnt something."