Cinderella's Fate | 🤍 seongjoong 🤍

Chapter 53 part 1

Narrator's POV 

    Jongho's fingers moved quickly across the keyboard, the screen glowing softly in the dim office light. The silence in the room was weighted, not with tension, but with the kind of anticipation that only came after too many sleepless nights chasing something just out of reach.

    Yeosang sat still in his chair, eyes fixed on Jongho, barely blinking. He wasn't saying much, just watching, absorbing, like he had been ever since they'd found the first inconsistency.

    Wooyoung wandered behind them, not pacing with anxiety but moving with restless curiosity. His fingertips brushed over old reports, shelves, even the edge of Jongho's desk, like a child piecing together a puzzle he didn't quite understand but was dying to solve.

Jongho finally let out a breath. "Alright. Found it."

"This is her personal file?" Yeosang asked, voice soft.

"Supposedly," Jongho muttered. He clicked on the image attached to the file, a government ID photo. 

"Mi-Yeon Kang?" Wooyoung read aloud, head tilting. "That's... that's not her name."

"It was Eun-Ji Park," Yeosang added, his brow furrowing.

    Jongho refreshed the page. The screen blinked. Same photo, different name. Hana Cho. He didn't speak. Just clicked again. This time, Ji-Won Seo.

"What the hell?" Wooyoung whispered, stepping closer now, his earlier wonder giving way to unease.

"Every time I load the file, it rewrites itself," Jongho said, frowning. "Name, age, job, everything. But the photo? That stays."

He opened another tab. "This entry says she works at a bakery."

"And that one's a school that was demolished five years ago," Yeosang said, reading from the older file Jongho had scanned.

"Go back to the adoption documents," Wooyoung said suddenly. He crouched beside the desk, eyes sharp now.

Jongho pulled it up. There it was, the name they knew. Eun-Ji Park. The woman who'd raised them. The signature beneath it matched none of the others.

"That handwriting's completely different," Wooyoung pointed out. "These aren't even the same person, on paper, anyway."

Jongho leaned back slowly, eyes not leaving the screen.

  "This isn't just a case of false identities. This file is... actively changing. Something's wrong."

"What kind of official system does that?" Yeosang asked quietly. "It's like it's rewriting itself in real time."

"Exactly," Jongho said, his tone heavy. "The face is fixed. Someone made sure that stayed. But everything else? It's either corrupted... or designed to mislead."

"Someone doesn't want her real identity to be found," Wooyoung murmured, his voice no longer playful.

    Jongho typed with calm intensity, drafting the simplified report needed to file their mother's official missing person case. The soft clicking of the keyboard mixed with the low hum of the overhead lights, filling the office with a muted, static quiet. The air carried a weight to it,  quiet, but expectant.

Wooyoung lasted all of two minutes before curiosity got the better of him.

Looking through the little display of books,  he read the titles.