Please support the authors by reading Manhwas on the official websites. This is where you can read the Manhwa: Jinx But be aware that the Manhwa is a mature Yaoi, which means, it is about homosexuality with explicit scenes. Here is the link of the table of contents about Jinx. Here is the link where you can find the table of contents of analyzed Manhwas. Here are the links, if you are interested in the first work from Mingwa, BJ Alex, and the 2 previous essays about Jinx Drama Queen 👸 Han Dan and The Joker -part 1 and Drama Queen and The Joker – part 2
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Kim Dan’s birthday and his presents
As the narrative of Jinx moves toward the decisive window of December 24th to 
(chapter 89) December 26th 
(chapter 97), readers are confronted with a question that seems simple yet resists any easy answer: what exactly has Joo Jaekyung prepared for Kim Dan’s birthday?
For many, the answer appears obvious. (chapter 97) The bouquet of red roses—long associated with romantic passion, desire, and confession—seems to speak for itself. Paired with the appearance of a strawberry cake and the long-anticipated possibility of couple rings 
(chapter 97), the scene appears easy to decode. It suggests a champion finally ready to step out from behind his walls and express what words have long concealed. But are these gifts the true center of the moment, or only its most visible layer? Is Jaekyung merely celebrating a birthday, or trying to alter the future he and Kim Dan might share?
Yet Jinx rarely reveals itself through what is most obvious at first glance. Again and again, significance emerges through timing 
(chapter 81), hesitation, gesture, and subtle changes in the spaces characters inhabit. A gift may matter less than the moment it is offered. A movement may reveal more than a confession. Even the introduction of something new into a familiar environment can carry emotional weight beyond words.
Perhaps the most important mystery lies not in what Kim Dan will receive, but in what Jaekyung himself is becoming. Is he still the man who equates care with possession and value with financial power? Or is he beginning, however awkwardly, to imagine another form of devotion—one expressed less through spectacle than through protection, constancy, and shared future?
To answer that question, we must look beyond the surface of roses and celebration. For the most meaningful present may not be the one that first captures the eye, but the one that reveals a transformation of the heart.
When Gifts Speak Volumes
At first glance, Chapter 97 appears easy to interpret. A bouquet of red roses, a strawberry cake marked Happy Birthday, and a pair of rings seem to point toward an obvious conclusion: (chapter 97) Joo Jaekyung has prepared birthday presents for Kim Dan. Yet the chapter becomes far more complex, once we recognize that these presents do not carry fixed meanings in themselves. In this story, gifts are shaped less by appearance than by intention, timing, and emotional context.
Red Roses: Desire and Reconciliation
The bouquet of red roses offers the clearest example. Traditionally, red roses signify romantic love, passion, desire, and confession. On the surface, they appear to announce a straightforward romantic gesture. Yet the surrounding context changes their meaning. Jaekyung brings them after acknowledging that he had treated Kim Dan badly. 
(chapter 97) Because of this, the flowers express more than attraction alone. They also function as apology and reconciliation. Their romantic symbolism remains, but it is deepened by remorse and by the desire to restore closeness after harm.
This double meaning is important. The roses do not erase desire; they refine it. Passion is no longer detached from responsibility. Attraction is joined to remorse. In that sense, the gesture marks growth: Jaekyung does not simply want Kim Dan—he wants to restore closeness with him. If intimacy follows that night 
(chapter 97), it would carry a different significance than in the past. It would no longer be defined by the old “jinx” logic of transactional or ritualized sex, but by reconciliation and mutual affection. The act would cease to be mere release and become an expression of true love.
The bouquet of red roses carries yet another layer of meaning when placed beside the couple’s earlier conversation about flowers. When Kim Dan once received pink roses from Choi Heesung 
(chapter 31), he explained that he liked flowers because of their scent. 
(chapter 31) The statement seemed simple at the time, almost shyly innocent, yet it reveals something essential about his character. Kim Dan values not spectacle, status, or monetary worth, but the quiet emotional effect an object can have. He does not love flowers because they are expensive. He loves the atmosphere they create, the comfort they bring, and the mood they awaken.
This detail becomes even more significant when contrasted with Joo Jaekyung’s immediate response: (chapter 31) At first, the line sounds like blunt indifference. Yet its emotional effect falls most sharply on Kim Dan. Having just admitted that he likes flowers because of their scent, Kim Dan is suddenly placed in an awkward position. Thus he apologizes. The rejection no longer concerns flowers alone. It risks sounding like a rejection of what Kim Dan himself has brought into the shared space.
This matters because scent crosses boundaries in ways other objects do not. A fragrance cannot be neatly contained. It lingers, spreads through rooms (chapter 31), and remains in the air. In that sense, Kim Dan may feel he has trespassed—that he has filled Jaekyung’s penthouse with something unwanted, leaving behind traces of himself where he had no right to do so. That’s how it dawned on me why the athlete refused to have the room cleaned for quite some time 
(chapter 55), he wanted to keep the physical therapist’s scent there.
But let’s return our attention to the scene with the pink roses. For a man as careful and self-effacing as Kim Dan, such a moment would naturally produce embarrassment. The shame lies not only in differing tastes, but in the fear of being too present. His preference seems to have occupied space that was never truly his. And now, you understand why he didn’t leave the elevator at the same time. 
(chapter 31) He wanted to be considerate of Joo Jaekyung, making sure that the flowers’ fragrance would not bother his “landlord”.
Striking is that the line “I hate flowers” is more than just blunt indifference. Yet later revelations about Jaekyung’s childhood allow it to be read differently. His past is marked by humiliation, deprivation, and social contempt. 
(chapter 72) He was mocked as dirty, poor, and 
(chapter 72) “smelly.” Odor, in his early life, was not associated with beauty or tenderness, but with shame. Smell became tied to exclusion.
That distinction matters because scent is one of the most powerful carriers of memory. Unlike rational thought, fragrance can bypass language and return a person directly to emotion. For Kim Dan, the smell of flowers “puts [him] in a good mood.” (chapter 31) For Jaekyung, sensory memory may have operated in the opposite direction, linking smell to poverty, rejection, and pain.
Seen in this light, the red roses of Chapter 97 are profoundly symbolic. The celebrity does not merely buy a conventional romantic gift. He chooses an object tied to a sensory world he once rejected. Whether consciously or not, he reaches toward what he had previously denied. (chapter 97) This contrast gives the bouquet an additional significance. The red roses do not merely symbolize romance or apology; they also possess an immediate emotional function. Because the wolf remembers that flowers can cheer up his fated partner, his choice of gift becomes quietly strategic as well as affectionate. He is not only offering an object, but shaping the atmosphere in which the encounter will unfold.
The fragrance of the roses can soften tension, brighten the space, and reduce the emotional distance created by their recent conflict. In that sense, Jaekyung is doing more than saying I’m sorry. He is creating the conditions in which that apology may be more easily accepted. Rather than forcing reconciliation through words or authority, he approaches Kim Dan through something known to bring him comfort.
The gesture therefore reveals a subtle but important evolution. The MMA fighter is no longer acting only from impulse or pride. He is observing, remembering, and responding to Kim Dan’s inner world. What he offers is not simply flowers, but consideration.
At the same time, the bouquet suggests the rewriting of scent itself. What was once connected to humiliation is now reintroduced through affection. What once belonged to trauma is placed inside a gesture of care. This is why the flowers can be understood as therapeutic for Jaekyung as well. In offering them to his fated partner, he may also be exposing himself to a new emotional association. The fragrance of flowers no longer belongs only to distance or discomfort. Through Kim Dan, it can become linked to warmth, intimacy, and home.
The color deepens this transformation. Earlier pink roses symbolized admiration, gratitude, joy, grace, and gentle affection. 
(chapter 31) Red roses carry stronger meanings: passion, desire, courage, and declared love. The movement from pink to red mirrors the movement of the relationship itself—from undecisive tenderness to chosen intensity. 
(chapter 97)
Most importantly, the bouquet reveals how Kim Dan changes Jaekyung’s relationship to the world. Kim Dan does not simply receive gifts; he rehumanizes meanings that trauma had distorted. Through him, even something as ordinary as scent can be recovered. In that sense, the roses speak not only to Kim Dan, but to the wounded child Jaekyung once was.
The Strawberry Cake: One Object, Many Readings
The cake works in a similarly revealing way. (chapter 97) Its packaging openly displays the words Happy Birthday, inviting the reader to assume that its purpose is self-evident. Yet the narrative itself unsettles that assumption. 
(chapter 97) Kim Dan also purchases the same kind of cake, but not to celebrate his own birthday. He chooses it to honor Jaekyung, expressing pride, care, and happiness for the champion’s success. 
(chapter 97) Gratitude and admiration replace regret as the emotional core of the gesture. The same object therefore carries different meanings in different hands.
This parallel reveals that the cake does not inherently mean “birthday.” Its significance depends on the giver and the feeling expressed through it. In Jaekyung’s hands, it becomes part of an effort to repair tension and reopen warmth. In Kim Dan’s hands, it becomes admiration and support. The printed message remains the same, but the emotional message changes. The same object becomes two messages: one says, I’m sorry. The other says, I’m proud of you. Without coordination, both men choose the same symbolic language: Love. They are beginning to meet each other in thought. To conclude, the cake reveals emotional convergence.
The cake gains additional meaning when placed within its seasonal context. In South Korea, the strawberry shortcake-style dessert displayed in bakeries each December is strongly associated with Christmas celebrations.
Covered in white cream and topped with bright strawberries, it visually echoes the festive colors of winter and has become a familiar part of romantic holiday culture. It is not merely something people eat; it is an object tied to atmosphere, celebration, and shared occasions.
The cultural backdrop changes how the scene can be read, but not necessarily how the characters themselves understand it. On December 24th, roses and a strawberry cream cake naturally evoke the visual language of romance and couple celebration. To an outside observer, such gifts can resemble the signs of a private date or an intimate evening together. Yet the scene suggests that neither Kim Dan nor Jaekyung fully approaches it through that lens.
Kim Dan’s attention is drawn to a family leaving the bakery 
(chapter 97), which subtly shifts the emotional frame. Rather than reading the setting as romantic spectacle, he may register warmth, celebration, and shared belonging. True to his character, domestic happiness may speak to him more immediately than public codes of romance.
Jaekyung’s position is different, but no less revealing. He appears motivated first by personal memory and immediate need. He remembers flowers in connection with Kim Dan and seeks a way to repair the distance created by recent conflict. (chapter 31) His impulse is intimate rather than seasonal. He is not setting out to perform Christmas romance; he is trying, in the only way he can, to reconcile.
At the same time, that private intention takes shape within a very specific environment. Because he is shopping on Christmas Eve, he moves through spaces already saturated with festive displays, bakery counters, bouquets, and seasonal rituals of affection. The desire originates within him, but the language available to express it is supplied by the world around him. This helps explain his visible hesitation. 
(chapter 97) He questions whether it would be strange to give such presents and admits that he no longer even knows what to do. The uncertainty suggests that he has not fully mastered the symbolic code he is using. He senses that flowers, cake, and rings matter, yet he cannot entirely explain why they feel right or whether they will make him look foolish.
That tension makes the scene especially moving. Kim Dan sees warmth 
(chapter 97) where others might see romance. Jaekyung reaches for gestures of affection whose wider meanings he only partially understands. Neither man consciously names the moment as a couple’s ritual, yet their actions begin to inhabit that language all the same. Personal feeling leads, while culture quietly gives it form.
This gives the moment a special subtlety. The gifts carry meanings larger than either man explicitly names. Their relationship begins to appear as a couple’s bond, even before they fully recognize it themselves. Culture speaks around them before they can speak for themselves.
Yes, Christmas in Korea is celebrated similarly to Valentine’s Day. It is also often referred to as “Valentines with Santa” because it’s more of a couples’ day. Instead of a family festival, it’s seen as a private date for couples to cherish winter and the Yule tradition.
This makes the writing on the box especially significant. Happy Birthday offers an innocent and socially acceptable explanation for gifts that might otherwise appear overtly romantic. (chapter 97) The label clarifies the scene on the surface, yet it may also conceal its deeper meaning. What looks like a birthday errand can simultaneously function as an intimate gesture between two people, whose bond is becoming harder to hide.
The timing of Jaekyung’s gesture strengthens this reading even further. Kim Dan’s birthday falls on December 26th, yet the flowers and cake are brought on the night of December 24th. This is not merely an early delivery. It creates a practical contradiction. (chapter 97) Both gifts are highly perishable. (chapter 97) Fresh roses begin to droop with time, and a cream cake topped with strawberries is meant to be enjoyed while fresh. If these objects were truly intended as the final birthday presents for the actual day, they would be oddly chosen. By the time December 26th arrived, the flowers would already be fading and the cake would have lost the freshness that gives it value.
This everyday logic matters because it shifts the interpretation at the most basic level. Even before symbolism enters the discussion, the objects do not behave like conventional birthday presents. They belong to the present moment, not to a celebration two days away. (chapter 97) That present moment is emotional rather than calendrical. Jaekyung does not bring them because the date demands it, but because the relationship does. The gifts answer urgency: recent conflict, approaching uncertainty, and the desire to restore warmth before the match intervenes and the doctor leaves him.
In that sense, their perishability becomes meaningful in itself. These are objects made to be experienced now, just as reconciliation must happen now. They are temporary gifts chosen for an immediate wound, while the more lasting question of the future is carried elsewhere.
The Couple Rings: Equality and Commitment
Once the flowers and cake are recognized as gestures for the present rather than true birthday presents, one visible possibility remains: the couple rings. 
(chapter 97) They seem, at last, to be the real gift. Their permanence contrasts with the fragility of roses and cream cake, and their symbolism suits an important personal occasion far more naturally.
And yet even here, the scene proves more complex than it first appears.The rings belong to another emotional layer altogether. Unlike the flowers and cake, they are already in Jaekyung’s possession. He carries them with him 
(chapter 97) and admits that he has gone back and forth countless times about giving them. (chapter 97) This hesitation suggests that they were acquired well before the events of the chapter and tied to a longer internal struggle. An earlier panel strengthens this interpretation. 
(chapter 97) While still at the gym, before any flowers or cake appear, Jaekyung tells himself that he has to give Kim Dan something. The wording is important. He does not think about buying something, searching for something, or choosing something later. He speaks as someone who already has a gift in mind and already has it with him.
That object can hardly be the flowers or the cake. Both appear freshly purchased and belong to the practical errands of the journey home. The roses are newly arranged, and the cream cake with strawberries is clearly meant for immediate consumption. They are gifts obtained on the way, not items long carried in secret.
The rings fit the evidence far more convincingly. Small enough to remain hidden in his pocket, already burdened with emotional hesitation, and linked to a decision he has postponed many times (chapter 97), they are the only visible present that explains the panel at the gym. Jaekyung leaves early because he intends to act, but before returning home he stops at the bakery and flower shop, adding new gestures of apology and warmth to the older gift he had already prepared.
This also explains the subtle irony of the sequence. Though he departs the gym early, he does not arrive home immediately. The delay itself becomes meaningful: between decision and confession 
(chapter 97), he gathers the courage—and the accompanying symbols—needed to finally face Kim Dan.
Yet among everything he carries or acquires that evening, one object stands apart from the rest. The flowers and cake belong to the immediate moment: they soothe tension, create warmth, and answer a present emotional need. The rings, by contrast, reach beyond the night itself. They are not meant to be enjoyed briefly or consumed in passing, but to endure. For that reason, they carry the greatest symbolic weight of all.
Flowers can wilt, cake is consumed, but a ring endures. (chapter 97) Its circular form traditionally signifies continuity, fidelity, and mutual belonging. Most importantly, a ring cannot fully function within hierarchy. It gains meaning through reciprocity. One person may offer it, but its true significance depends on acceptance. In that sense, the rings challenge the old imbalance that has defined their bond: wealth versus debt, fame versus obscurity, strength versus vulnerability. If the wolf offers couple rings, he is not simply giving an object. He is inviting Kim Dan into a shared definition of the relationship. That is a radically different gesture from transactional generosity. It says not I provide for you, but let us belong to one another.
This is also why the rings cannot be understood as an ordinary birthday present. A birthday gift is usually directed toward one person alone. Couple rings follow another logic entirely: the giver receives one as well. The gesture is not centered on an individual celebration, but on the creation of a mutual bond. They do not say this day belongs to you so much as our future belongs to us.
And yet even this is not the final step. Commitment of the heart must still be matched by conditions in which that commitment can live.
For that reason, the rings signify something deeper than celebration. They do not simply mark a date. They express commitment, vulnerability, and the fear of loss. More than any other object in the chapter, they reach toward the future. Seen in this light, none of the visible presents can be reduced to simple birthday gifts. The flowers speak of love and apology. (chapter 97) The cake proves that even obvious symbols can be redefined by intention. The rings embody permanence and the hope that what exists now might continue beyond the match. (chapter 97)
Thus I conclude that even the rings do not complete the transformation. The roses may apologize, the cake may reconcile, and the rings may promise continuity, but all three remain symbolic gestures. They express feeling without necessarily changing the conditions in which that feeling must survive. In this story, love is tested not by sentiment alone, but by circumstances and actions. What use is confession without safety? What use is commitment without freedom? What use is tenderness if the surrounding world remains invasive, unstable, or controlling?
For Kim Dan, the deepest issue has never been exhaustion alone. His life has long been structured by dependence: on institutions, on precarious work, on family obligation, and finally on Jaekyung’s benevolence and protection. Flowers, cake, and even rings may express attachment, but they do not resolve the question of autonomy. Until now, the physical therapist has rarely been treated as a fully self-determining adult. 
(chapter 78) More often, he has been positioned as a servant to be used or a child to be guided. 
(chapter 89) His choices have repeatedly been shaped, directed, or provoked by the will of others rather than emerging freely as his own.
If the story ended with the rings, Kim Dan would be a loved dependent, but still a dependent. He would remain the one waiting in the penthouse 
(chapter 96), the one being driven, the one whose safety exists only when Jaekyung is physically present.
To love him fully, then, requires more than symbolic devotion. It requires the creation of conditions in which he can move freely, choose freely, and exist securely without total reliance on another person. And that is precisely where the question of the true birthday gift returns.
The Architecture of the Sanctuary
And once these meanings are recognized, a final question naturally emerges: does the champion truly have a birthday gift for Kim Dan after all—and if so, where is it?
The answer may begin not among the visible presents, but in a detail far easier to overlook: the parking garage. 
(chapter 97) The moment the flowers, cake, and rings are understood as gestures serving other emotional purposes, the possibility of another gift comes sharply into view. If those objects are not the true birthday present, then the narrative invites us to search elsewhere. One panel quietly draws attention to exactly such a possibility: for the first time, a third car appears.
This detail gains force when placed beside earlier chapters. The garage shown in Chapter 97 does not simply contain another vehicle; it reflects an evolution already underway. In Chapter 18, the space appears more functional and exposed. 
(chapter 18) By Chapter 32, the parking area has changed noticeably. 
(chapter 32) It is larger, more exclusive, and more carefully structured, resembling a private VIP bay rather than an ordinary shared garage. The environment itself has become more protected.
That architectural change matters. A private bay separates the vehicles from the risks of crowded public parking: scratches, collisions, intrusion, unwanted proximity. (chapter 97) The cars are no longer stored merely for convenience. They are sheltered. Even before any emotional interpretation, the space communicates a desire for control, security, and preservation.
In episode 32, Kim Dan wondered about the number of Jaekyung’s cars, because he noticed the new car. (chapter 32), and many readers likely did the same. Attention naturally falls on wealth and quantity. Yet the more meaningful change may lie elsewhere: not in how many cars exist, but in the kind of space being created around them.
Personal transformation in this story is often reflected through architecture. Rooms, hallways, rooftops, doors, and thresholds do not simply contain events; they externalize inner states. Jaekyung’s world has long been luxurious, elevated, and impressive, yet also emotionally isolated. The penthouse functions as both reward and prison: a symbol of success that often feels sterile and inaccessible. It is therefore significant that one of the clearest signs of change appears below the tower rather than inside it.
The deepest change may not be that Jaekyung owns more. It may be that he has begun arranging what he owns for someone else.
The White Sedan: Why This Car Matters
Among the parked vehicles, one stands apart: the white sedan. (chapter 97) . Unlike Jaekyung’s earlier sports cars—machines associated with speed, aggression, (chapter 32) display, and public image—this vehicle speaks a different language. It is understated rather than theatrical, spacious rather than cramped, functional rather than performative.
The color matters as well. White can suggest clarity, neutrality, and renewal. Whether read symbolically or simply aesthetically, it sharply contrasts with the darker, more aggressive aura of luxury performance cars. It looks less like an extension of ego and more like the beginning of another chapter. On the other hand, white is the safest color on the road because it’s the most visible to other drivers at night. If this theory is true, then it indicates that Jaekyung is truly prioritizing Dan’s safety over his own “cool” aesthetic.
More importantly, the sedan fits Kim Dan far more naturally than it fits Jaekyung’s former image. Kim Dan has never been defined by extravagance or spectacle. He values usefulness, modesty, comfort, and quiet sincerity. A practical and comfortable vehicle suited for daily life reflects his character far more than a machine built to impress strangers.
For that reason, the sedan becomes another clue that the new car may not be intended for Jaekyung at all. It resembles Kim Dan’s needs more than Jaekyung’s branding. The car also offers something rare in the world of Jinx: invisibility. Fame has repeatedly exposed Jaekyung to surveillance, intrusion, and manipulation. Many readers will certainly recall this episode where a black car was detected following the champion’s gray SUV. 
(chapter 33) A discreet sedan blends into ordinary traffic in ways a recognizable celebrity vehicle cannot. If registered under Kim Dan’s name, it would create even greater privacy and unpredictability. Protection would no longer depend only on physical strength, but on foresight and anonymity. And if this car was purchased recently, no one would know about its existence. Not even Park Namwook! If Chapter 33 presented movement as secrecy, confusion, and anxious uncertainty 
—where the question was Where are they going, and why? 
(chapter 33) —then Chapter 97 becomes its positive reflection. The same motif of driving now signifies trust, mutual desire, and emotional security. What was once shadowed by suspicion is transformed into intimacy. The destination matters less than the person beside you. The journey is no longer something done to Kim Dan, but something they experience together. 
(chapter 97)
Yet perhaps the most important meaning is autonomy. If Dan owns or drives the car, Jaekyung is not merely giving him transportation. He is giving him the power to choose when to stay, when to leave, and where to go. He is literally placing the keys of departure in Kim Dan’s hands.
But due to his social class, it is clear that Kim Dan does not yet have a driving licence. Therefore the gift cannot be reduced to ownership alone. It would imply learning, practice, patience, and future development. In other words, the present becomes a shared project. That changes Jaekyung’s role as well. He is no longer simply the powerful man who provides solutions from above. He becomes someone who teaches, encourages, and accompanies Kim Dan as he acquires a new skill. Instead of keeping Dan dependent, he would actively help him become more independent.
This matters because it reverses earlier patterns in their relationship. 
(chapter 89) So often, Kim Dan has been pushed by crisis, debt, or necessity. Here, he would be pushed toward growth. The pressure would no longer come from fear, but from care. The physical therapist could drive his drunk lover back home.
The symbolism is rich: learning to drive means learning confidence, judgment, orientation, and trust in one’s own decisions. It is not only about operating a vehicle; it is about entering a wider world. Seen in that light, the gift would expand Kim Dan’s life on multiple levels. It offers mobility in the present, autonomy in the future, and a new horizon of possibility. He could suggest to his lover to go on a trip: 
(chapter 47) Jaekyung would not merely be giving him a car. He would be helping him become someone who can go further than before.
And that changes everything. If Kim Dan remains after receiving the freedom to leave, then his staying becomes meaningful in an entirely new way. In other words, the white car stands for blind faith.
Rings Before Keys: Commitment and Shared Future
Even so, the car cannot come first. Among all visible presents, the couple rings carry the greatest symbolic weight. Unlike flowers or cake, a ring endures. It signifies continuity, reciprocity, and chosen connection. Its circular form evokes a bond without hierarchy, beginning, or end.
That symbolism matters because Jaekyung and Kim Dan’s history has long been shaped by imbalance: wealth against debt, fame against obscurity, strength against vulnerability. In such a relationship, an expensive gift can easily reproduce the old pattern of giver and receiver, power and dependence.
A ring resists that logic. (chapter 97) Its meaning does not come from price, but from mutual consent. It only becomes meaningful when accepted. For perhaps the first time, Jaekyung would be offering something that requires equality.
This is why the order matters. If the car came first, it could still appear as another transaction. But if the rings come first, the emotional foundation changes. Commitment precedes comfort. The relationship is defined before support is expanded.
Kim Dan once gave from scarcity. 
(chapter 42) He worked exhausting night shifts and spent money he could barely spare in order to offer something meaningful. The value of the keychain was not only monetary; it represented sacrifice, attention, and a sincere desire to make Joo Jaekyung happy.
If Jaekyung now offered only a confession with rings (chapter 97) and nothing else, the scene could risk feeling emotionally incomplete—not because the rings are insignificant, but because the story has already established a language of giving in which effort matters. Kim Dan gave beyond his means. Readers therefore expect Jaekyung, who possesses far greater resources, to respond not merely with sentiment, but with a gesture that shows equal thoughtfulness and concrete care.
That is why the possibility of another gift carries such force. It is not about luxury for its own sake. It is about demonstrating that Jaekyung has understood who Kim Dan is and what he actually needs. The true opposite of Kim Dan’s earlier sacrifice would not be expensive jewelry alone, but something shaped around Dan’s daily life, freedom, and well-being.
In that sense, the issue is not whether Jaekyung appears stingy. It is whether his love remains symbolic only, or becomes materially attentive. The narrative stakes are higher than generosity: they concern transformation.
Under those conditions, the white sedan acquires a different meaning. (chapter 97) It is no longer a trophy or display object. It becomes shared infrastructure. If the rings secure the emotional bond (chapter 97), the car secures the practical conditions in which that bond can live. For Kim Dan, that practical dimension matters profoundly. Until now, movement has rarely belonged fully to him. He walks 
(chapter 21), uses public transportation 
(chapter 11), takes taxis 
(chapter 1), or is driven by others. 
(chapter 32) Even mobility itself has often depended on circumstance and on the decisions of other people. 
(chapter 95) A car therefore symbolizes more than comfort: it represents agency, adulthood, and the power to move by his own will. Yet the emotional meaning goes even further. In Chapter 97, the question is no longer only where one goes, but with whom one travels. What was once denied to Kim Dan as independence now returns to him as both freedom and companionship. He is no longer merely carried by another person’s choices; he gains the ability to choose for himself while sharing the road with someone who chooses him in return.
The gift would also transform responsibility. Until now, Jaekyung has often been driven, managed, and accompanied by others on decisive days. His manager and coach occupied the space of trust around him—at least when he remained profitable and useful. 
(chapter 5) Yet when he was injured and vulnerable, that support proved conditional and incomplete. 
(chapter 53)
If Kim Dan becomes the one who drives, steadies, and accompanies him, the structure quietly changes. The old “hyungs” are not displaced through conflict, but through irrelevance. Care succeeds where management failed. At the same time, the gesture expresses trust. To let Kim Dan drive is to entrust him with direction, safety, and shared movement. The man who has long carried the weight of control would finally allow someone else to take the wheel. That change matters deeply for Jaekyung as well. It means he no longer has to bear every burden alone. He can rest in the passenger seat, just like Kim Dan does. 
(chapter 95) He can be guided instead of always guiding, supported instead of always performing. The positions become reversible: each can carry the other when needed.
In that sense, the car symbolizes more than freedom. It symbolizes partnership. (chapter 97) They are no longer fixed in rigid roles of protector and protected. They gain the ability to switch places, share responsibility, and move forward together.
This completes one of the story’s deepest reversals. The man once treated as burden or servant becomes the person closest to the champion’s future.
Kim Dan once gave Jaekyung a small keychain (chapter 81): modest (not too visible), personal, and sincere. The price for his hard work. 
(chapter 97) If Jaekyung now gives him a car, their gestures beautifully answer one another. Kim Dan once offered the symbolic key to his world; Jaekyung responds by offering the means to navigate a shared one.
One gift says: stay with me.
The other says: let’s move forward together.
And now, you comprehend why I made the following prediction: They would stay together, but leave the place too!
Conclusion: The Dragon’s Pearl
What emerges from these details is a quiet but radical truth: home in Jinx is no longer a penthouse, a contract, or a symbol of status. It is a person. (chapter 97)
Jaekyung’s deepest transformation is not that he has become softer in some simplistic sense, but that his strength is being redirected. The force once used to dominate, intimidate, and defend his own pride is gradually turned outward in service of another’s well-being. (chapter 97) That is why the image of the dragon and the pearl feels so fitting. In many traditions, the dragon guards treasure—but the highest treasure is not gold. It is wisdom, devotion, and the recognition of what truly matters.
Kim Dan, likewise, is no longer merely the exhausted and scared man in need of rescue. He becomes the emotional center around which Jaekyung reorganizes his life. He is his moon shining in the darkness. 
(chapter 97) Their bond moves beyond the false alternatives of burden and savior, victim and protector, debtor and benefactor. They begin to inhabit a rarer form of intimacy: mutual sanctuary.
In a world shaped by spectators, institutions, scandals, and past wounds, safety cannot be guaranteed by wealth alone. It must be created through trust, constancy, and the willingness to change for another person. If Jaekyung’s gifts truly point in that direction, then the greatest present is neither roses, nor rings, nor a car.
It is the life he is learning to build beside him. (chapter 97)
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(chapter 96), while another movement unfolds elsewhere. 
(chapter 97) The interview, the damaged poster 
(chapter 96), the hallway encounter, the former director’s sudden presence — none of these incidents need to be isolated events. They can be read as layers of the same design, arranged to poison the climate around Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan through mistrust, guilt, and confusion.
(chapter 79) Danger emerged first, and only then did someone intervene. Joo Jaekyung repeatedly occupied that role. 
(chapter 17) He was the one who could step in, overpower threats, and remove Kim Dan from immediate harm. Kim Dan, by contrast, was usually placed on the other side of that equation: the one exposed, cornered, or in need of help. But rescue and protection are not the same thing.
(chapter 96). On the surface, this action resembles a form of protection: they are stopping him from committing a violent act that would derail his career, effectively “saving” him from himself 
(chapter 96). Yet, this is rescue, not protection. Their intervention is purely physical, reactive, and localized. Crucially, as they physically struggle, Park Namwook and the others remain mentally and verbally passive. 
(chapter 96) They do not challenge the source of the rage or offer a solution. They only seek to manage the immediate visible symptom. While the fist is stopped, the underlying “toxic climate” that allows these provocations to take root is left completely intact. This scene proves that without speech, strategy, and mutual agency, physical restraint—even when well-intentioned—is just temporary damage control. This is exactly the kind of passive, limited intervention that the new paradigm must overcome.
(chapter 72) It answers a crisis once it has already begun. Protection reaches further. 
(chapter 72) It concerns safety before the blow lands, the ability to recognize manipulation 
(chapter 49), to prevent harm from taking root, and to create a space where trust can survive pressure.
(chapter 91), and Kim Dan’s recent actions 
(chapter 97) all suggest that the old division may no longer be stable. The familiar roles of protector and protected are beginning to shift.
(chapter 1). In that moment, the world was a predatory space where every threshold was a threat. 
(chapter 90) The memory is important. The director did not lure him with kindness alone. He used his position 
(chapter 1), status, and Kim Dan’s financial desperation to force compliance. Kim Dan needed the job, needed the salary, needed stability. 
(chapter 90) The imbalance of power was already doing the violence before any physical act began. What appeared outwardly as professional authority became a means of control. The setting itself carries symbolic weight: enclosed space, unequal power, obscurity, silence. 
(chapter 90) A place where Kim Dan’s options were reduced and his voice cornered. The hallway now echoes that structure. It is dark. It is private. It is detached from witnesses. 
(chapter 90) It was the body remembering before language could fully explain why. 
(chapter 90) Trauma often recognizes danger faster than conscious thought. If so, the first battle of the chapter is not just one of emotional endurance, but of practical application. Like mentioned above, the look on Kim Dan’s face in the hallway is not one of paralyzing fear, but of profound shock 
(chapter 88). In that moment, the champion wasn’t just showing dominance; he was imparting a philosophy of resistance. He taught Dan that ‘technique beats size’ 
(chapter 88) and that even a smaller person can take down a ‘bigger guy’ 
(Chapter 88).
(chapter 27) The object symbolized instability, provocation, loss and a game whose rules could suddenly change. It represented a force that unsettled even the champion. Now another object occupies his hand: 
(chapter 91) the cellphone containing the article about the disgraced former director. 
(chapter 18) because, for Jaekyung, the ‘system’ was never a source of safety. This mistrust is rooted in a childhood where his abuse was an open secret that remained unaddressed 
(chapter 72), on paper he remained a ‘good citizen’ who never faced legal repercussions. Jaekyung learned that authorities protect the appearance of order rather than the victims of violence. This skepticism manifested again at the docks 
(chapter 69), where he chose to ‘save’ Kim Dan through private force rather than wait for legal intervention. Yet those methods repeatedly failed to create real safety. Problems were hidden, postponed, or redirected, or relegated 
(chapter 52) but not resolved. The cellphone introduces another path 
(chapter 96) He only read the headlines. On the surface, this might appear dismissive or indifferent. 
(chapter 96) Yet it can also be understood as an expression of Jeong. Kim Dan’s attention was not captured by the Joker’s performance. His concern went directly to Joo Jaekyung and how such exposure might wound him. He absorbed the central facts — poverty, orphanhood, hardship — but did not grant full authority to the humiliating spectacle built around them. 
(chapter 96)That distinction matters because Baek Junmin likely assumes that public narrative equals truth. If the audience hears something loudly enough, then it becomes reality. But Kim Dan now stands in a different position. He has already met Hwang Byungchul. He has already heard another version of the champion’s past, something the Joker is not expecting. He knows about the father’s abuse, the violence of the home, and the suffering hidden behind Joo Jaekyung’s coldness. 
(chapter 72) This means that if the hallway encounter is designed to reveal a “hidden truth” — like for example that Joo Jaekyung is only a thug, a violent man who attacks doctors 
(chapter 1) and patients 
(chapter 52) ) someone unworthy of trust— the strategy may fail at its most important point. The intended listener is no longer ignorant. Kim Dan can now protect the champion by refusing reduction. He can challenge selective storytelling. Jaekyung is frequently depicted as an avid reader 
(chapter 97), a sign of a deeply disciplined and self-educated mind. This intellectual depth is his most overlooked form of protection. It means he isn’t just a ‘frightened kid’ or a ‘reactive thug’; he is someone who understands the power of information.Besides, he is a huge reader. He can insist that pain has context, that trauma cannot be erased, and that one act of rage does not explain an entire person. In earlier chapters, Joo Jaekyung protected through action (buying clothes, teaching him how to swim). Here, Kim Dan may protect through interpretation and words. 
(chapter 96) behind the present tension rely on the same weapon — the past. 
(chapter 90) 
(chapter 96), and old reactions, as though Joo Jaekyung were still trapped inside the same vulnerabilities and Kim Dan still occupied the same desperate, submissive position. 
(chapter 90)The former director operates similarly, but with a more intimate cruelty. He does not speak to Kim Dan as a person in front of him. He speaks about Kim Dan to Joo Jaekyung, reducing him once again to an object of transaction, greed, and sexual humiliation.
(chapter 90) Kim Dan is called money-hungry, fake, a slut, someone whose affection can be bought. Their apparent happiness is framed as performance, their bond as a financial arrangement, intimacy as deception. In one move, the former director attempts to degrade Kim Dan and poison Joo Jaekyung’s trust at the same time.
(chapter 97) Joo Jaekyung is no longer merely a reactive fighter ruled by rage. He is now capable to reflect on his own behavior.
(chapter 97) Their relationship itself has altered the conditions on which those older scripts depended.
(chapter 97) the official path of movement. But once it closes, that route disappears. What remains is the staircase: the emergency passage, yet also the more secret and ambiguous one. In Jinx, stairways 
(chapter 50) seem to be linked to conspiracy, crime 
(chapter 50), or offstage maneuvering 
(chapter 96). The hallway therefore feels less like a neutral corridor than a set arranged for entrapment, where ordinary exits vanish and only compromised paths remain.
(chapter 81) As a result, the gesture remained incomplete and vulnerable to misunderstanding. 
(chapter 45) The material gift was visible, but the feeling behind it stayed hidden. The book changes that structure. 
(chapter 87) Oui, c’est l’amour means in French Yes, this is love. The phrase functions almost like an answer to all the confusion that came before: the uncertainty in the dining room 
(chapter 93), the champion asking what he was feeling, the hesitation around whether kindness was guilt 
(chapter 93), pity, or something else. 
(chapter 93) The title responds clearly where the characters still struggle to do so themselves. Yes—what exists here is love. Another visible word, reste, signifies stay or remain in French. Yet because the final letter appears hidden or incomplete, the word can also be seen through English eyes as rest. 
(chapter 72), a young Jaekyung stands in a snow-covered phone booth, promising: ‘One day I’ll make a lot of money… and stop him. So can you come back home?’ For the young champion, ‘Home’ was a conditional destination—a reward that could only be reclaimed once he had enough wealth to physically ‘stop’ the source of violence. He equated protection with financial power and the physical ability to gatekeep. Yet, as an adult, even with the wealth and the power to stop anyone, he remained ‘homeless’ in spirit. By offering him the book and a space to ‘stay,’ Kim Dan is updating this childhood vow. He is proving that a ‘Home’ is not something Jaekyung has to buy or defend alone through force; it is a sanctuary that is built through mutual presence and emotional safety. Kim Dan is offering a new kind of protection: the creation of a domestic sanctuary. If the ring is a place of performance and the hallway a place of entrapment, the book represents a ‘portable home.’ 
(chapter 93), delaying genuine encounters, and keeping everything trapped inside the schedule of the match. Everything must wait until after the fight: truth, tenderness, resolution, emotional clarity. Human feeling is subordinated to spectacle.
(chapter 97) Care continued in absence. The relationship was active even when they were apart. This places the gift in sharp contrast with the keychain episode. Back then, Kim Dan selected something through external logic. He entered the dressing room 
(chapter 42), crossing into the champion’s private space 
(chapter 42), and chose according to appearance and assumed usefulness. The gesture was sincere, but still uncertain. It responded to what Joo Jaekyung seemed to need. 
(chapter 42) The book is different because it responds to who he is. 
(chapter 96), sponsors, and the broader world watching the scandal unfold. The damaged poster seems to continue that same logic by materializing contempt in public space. The champion’s image is defaced where others can see it. Reputation is targeted through humiliation.
(chapter 96) However, there exists another possible interpretation. Readers may remember the earlier café scene, where Kim Dan met Choi Gilseok and photographs of that encounter were later sent to Joo Jaekyung. 
(chapter 48) That episode already suggested the presence of an unseen observer—someone in the shadows who understood that images can wound relationships more efficiently than fists can. If those photographs were indeed part of Baek Junmin’s broader method, then the interview and the poster follow the same principle: public content designed for private damage.
(chapter 93) He knows the physical therapist is no passing employee, but someone emotionally significant. That changes everything. If Kim Dan cannot be removed physically, he may be pressured psychologically.
(chapter 96), someone shameful, poor, abandoned, ridiculous. 
(chapter 96) It reframes loyalty as foolishness. It attempts to poison admiration itself. 
(chapter 97) Someone who remains emotionally invested in the person rather than the image.
(chapter 52) may turn away when public opinion shifts. A sponsor may withdraw when scandal appears. A crowd may cheer one day and mock the next. 
(chapter 36) But Kim Dan’s bond is no longer built on those unstable foundations. He believes in him. 
(chapter 94) For Baek Junmin, lost puppy oozes resent and mockery, but for the physical therapist, the same expression evokes care and protective instincts. 
(Chapter 29) He knows the wounds behind the arrogance. He knows the habits, the loneliness 
(chapter 97), the insomnia, the roughness that conceals care. He has seen the human being hidden beneath the public mask.
(chapter 87), where Joo Jaekyung visibly searched for Kim Dan in the crowd. Or he may have encountered videos 
(chapter 90) circulating online of the disturbance at the restaurant. 
(chapter 90) In either case, the external image would have looked simple: Joo Jaekyung had been provoked once again. The champion still appeared volatile, reactive, and unchanged.
(chapter 90) It could seem as though the physical therapist was merely restraining, interrupting, or obstructing the champion. A hindrance rather than an ally. 
(chapter 90)
(chapter 90) No outsider could know that the tension began because Kim Dan had left the room in emotional distress. No camera would capture the private wound beneath the public reaction. What looked like friction between the former director and the celebrity was in reality the consequence of care, misunderstanding, and emotional stakes invisible to spectators.
(Chapter 96), headlines 
(chapter 95), and shows designed for public consumption. To Junmin, truth is something manufactured for the camera; it is a ‘show’ of superiority and victimhood. This is why his method relies on surfaces—he assumes that if he can change the ‘image’ of Joo Jaekyung in Kim Dan’s eyes, the bond will break. 
(chapter 95) Walls cannot protect trust.
(chapter 96) Distance, interruption, and broken rhythm shaped their contact. On the physical level, they seemed out of sync.
(chapter 97) This alignment appears through a series of quiet but striking parallels. 
(chapter 97) Both independently buy the same cake. 
(chapter 97) The author places them in mirrored and balanced panels, separated in space yet linked in intention. They stand apart physically, but the framing suggests an inner synchrony stronger than distance. What chapter 96 presented as bodily discord, chapter 97 answers with emotional consonance.
(chapter 97) Stay together. And that conclusion may not be reached individually. They are no longer two isolated people reacting alone. They are becoming two people capable of choosing together. That’s what the couple rings symbolize here.
(Chapter 33). The presence of the actor entering the club in slippers and no jacket despite the winter cold suggests a desperate, hurried escape from a world that had become a ‘trap.’ 
(chapter 33) Even then, Jaekyung’s motivation was clear: he followed Kim Dan because he could not bear for him to leave. That secluded house could be the physical ‘home’ Jaekyung had built while waiting for a partner worthy of sharing it.
(chapter 88), resisted differently, and prevented from defining the future. Joo Jaekyung may protect Kim Dan not through another violent intervention, but through truth made public, lawful action, and the refusal to let harm disappear in silence contrary to the past. Kim Dan may protect Joo Jaekyung not through physical force, but through knowledge 
(chapter 47), revelation 
(chapter 48), and the rejection of false narratives designed to reduce him 
(chapter 96) His hesitation, his position, his choice. But this would be too limited. Because episode 96 does not present a single decision. It constructs a field of decisions.
(chapter 96) In this shift, agency is erased. The champion’s path is no longer something he forged, but something that merely happened to him. This reduction is not incidental. It allows Baek Junmin to neutralize what he cannot replicate. If success is luck, then failure requires no explanation. If choice is denied, then responsibility can be displaced.
(chapter 93) to legitimize this narrative—a doctor presented as a voice of institutional truth—is fundamentally fractured. This is no neutral expert, but a fallen figure stripped of professional standing. The choice is not incidental; it reveals a structural flaw. Junmin does not distinguish between genuine authority and the mere veneer of it. And observe how he came to this choice: 
(chapter 93) responsibility can be displaced. But the moment they act, that displacement collapses, and the weight of the compromised authority returns to the one who selected it. He speaks of “wrong choices” while trapped in a cycle of making them.
(chapter 73); not toward a gym aimed at progression, but into a space governed by risk and illegality.
(chapter 74) To conclude, he did not fall outside the system; he was never inside it to begin with.
(chapter 96); discipline as obsession; continuity as a series of humiliations.
(chapter 74) the figure who initiated Baek Junmin into a system of exploitation masked as guidance. On the other, Baek Junmin himself attempts to reproduce this exact position. 
(chapter 5) Unlike the underground mentor, his authority is institutional and his position legitimate. For Kim Dan, this distinction is decisive. 
(chapter 7) He perceives in the manager a form of empathy 
(chapter 36), a concern for the athlete’s well-being—a figure capable of managing what he himself cannot. Kim Dan’s trust does not emerge in a vacuum; it is built through a series of interactions that appear, at first glance, to confirm this perception 
(chapter 7). Park Namwook speaks the language of care, addresses him with familiarity, and repeatedly positions himself as someone who values both the fighter and the medical staff. If there was tension between them, he would side with him and not Joo Jaekyung.
(chapter 37) Even when he intervenes critically 
(chapter 50) —questioning his decisions or demanding explanations—these moments are framed, in Kim Dan’s perception, as being in the champion’s best interest rather than as acts of control.
(chapter 27) He assumes coherence where there is only alignment of interests. What appears as consistency in Park Namwook’s behavior is therefore not examined as strategy, but accepted as sincerity.
(chapter 43), reassurances, even moments of apparent protection and respect 
(chapter 53) —acquire disproportionate weight. They become evidence of character rather than elements of a broader pattern. The contradiction between care and control does not disappear; it is simply reinterpreted. And it is precisely this reinterpretation that allows Kim Dan to maintain his belief in the manager’s integrity.
(chapter 95) He remains outside, convinced that the manager will provide what is needed—not only physically, but emotionally. The transparent door does not function as a barrier, but as an illusion of access. He sees, but he does not intervene. But more importantly, he is turning his back to the door, a sign of trust in the coach and manager. 
(chapter 1) in which responsibility dissolves into circumstance.
(chapter 31) Here, if the athlete had followed this recommendation, he would have injured himself badly. What appears as protection recreates distance; what is named as guidance results in isolation.
(chapter 59) He had indeed made a mistake here, but the director of the hospice had defended him. He was not fired after this incident. Hence I come to the following deduction: Kim Dan is about to be confronted not simply with an external threat, but with the realization of his own misrecognition.He trusted the wrong hyung, just like Joo Jaekyung did. 
(chapter 95) Until now, he has no idea about the champion’s losses 
(chapter 54) and the consequences of his “departure” to the seaside. The incident at the health center, the slap at the hospital 
(chapter 52) and the champion’s drinking
(chapter 54)
(chapter 96) It requires something both have avoided until now: to meet each other’s gaze.
(chapter 1) A towering figure, a champion, a name that carries weight across arenas and screens. Someone whose image is large enough to be printed, displayed, and recognized at a glance. And yet, that same image can be torn. 
(chapter 96) But something has shifted. The image no longer holds in the same way.
(chapter 47) He was introduced as the “underdog,” the one rising unexpectedly, the figure whose ascent could be celebrated. The framing was simple, effective, and, to some extent, transparent. It invited attention, but it also raised suspicion. 
(chapter 47), suggesting that what appeared as spontaneous recognition might in fact be influenced, if not orchestrated. The idea that media coverage could be shaped 
(chapter 47) The system was not yet fully opaque. It could still be glimpsed—but only indirectly, through inconsistencies that were sensed rather than fully articulated.
(90 days), reversible, even later framed as recovery 
(chapter 57) — is now recoded as something definitive. 
(chapter 69) A disqualification operates differently. 
(chapter 69) The panel from chapter 47 
(chapter 47), makes this structure perceptible. The presence of executive figures, the proximity between management and select fighters, and the emphasis on “star quality” reveal a structure in which recognition is not solely determined by performance. 
(chapter 51), the irregularities surrounding the match, the incident with the switched spray—contains elements that could be reexamined. Joo Jaekyung’s public challenge in Paris reactivates these tensions. It signals not only resistance, but the possibility of escalation. By refusing to accept the existing narrative, he reopens questions that the system had already moved to close. 
(chapter 52), notably among the members of King of MMA. This persistence is not merely rhetorical; it reflects a deeper uncertainty regarding the legitimacy of his rise. Within the fighters’ own environment, the outcome of the match is not experienced as a clear victory. Baek Junmin himself acknowledges that he was “this close to winning,” 
(chapter 51) revealing that the tie has not been integrated as a legitimate conclusion. It persists instead as a wound: a result experienced not as confirmation, but as deprivation. In this sense, his current aggression does not only seek promotion; it seeks retrospective compensation.
(chapter 51) So he had not bet on the Shotgun’s victory. 
(chapter 75) The latter’s rise was marked by a visible title, publicly attached to his name and career trajectory. Baek Junmin, by contrast, occupies the position of champion without passing through the same symbolic sequence of recognition. All this time, he was working in the shadow, in the illegal underground fighting. What he inherits institutionally, he does not fully possess symbolically. He may occupy the position of champion, but the conditions of his ascent prevent that position from being fully recognized as legitimate. The label that once signified ascent is never replaced by one that would confirm his dominance. At the same time, his stage name The Shotgun 
(chapter 49) fails to establish itself. Neither his peers nor the media adopt it. Instead, he is consistently referred to by his real name: Baek Junmin. 
(chapter 95) This absence is not insignificant. In the world of competitive sports, a title or nickname is not merely decorative; it is a marker of recognition, a sign that an identity has been collectively validated. To name a fighter is to fix his position within the symbolic order of the sport. By refusing—or failing—to adopt his stage name, the media and his environment deny him that stabilization.
(chapter 52) Victory must be seen, fixed, and circulated in order to become real. In this respect, Baek Junmin’s position reveals a fundamental volability. His so-called victory does not produce a defining image. The match that secured his title was neither clearly decisive nor widely broadcast, leaving no shared visual reference through which his dominance could be established. 
(chapter 95) It becomes more visible, if you contrast this show with the one about the celebrity in episode 52: 
(chapter 54) Instead, it continues to rely on the image of Joo Jaekyung. Even in defeat, the latter remains visually central: his body, his injuries, his presence provide the material through which the narrative is articulated. 
(chapter 95) The fallen champion supplies the image that the reigning one lacks. This imbalance has significant consequences.
(chapter 96) The MFC may have declared him champion, yet this recognition remains institutional; it does not translate into collective acknowledgment among the masses. Hence he is never seen signing autographs. 
(chapter 11) It is a shadow that cannot be struck with a stone. However, this configuration reveals a fundamental weakness: the Giant is not just made of paper; it is rotting from within. If the foundation of the MFC is nourished by money laundering 
(chapter 96) and his true self. Whenever he is forced into restraint—when he must deliver the scripted, empathetic lie—his eyes are firmly shut 
(chapter 74) The omission cannot therefore be reduced to coincidence. It suggests either a lack of knowledge regarding this dimension of the past, or a deliberate decision to leave it unaddressed. In both cases, the effect is the same: a crucial element of the champion’s formation is excluded from the narrative, preventing any recognition of continuity, inheritance, or transmission. 
(chapter 73), a connection that the narrative had carefully displaced. What appears as a personal account thus becomes unstable, exposing not only its own inconsistencies, but the broader system it sought to conceal.
(chapter 71) The photograph of the young fighter with his coach introduces a contradiction that the interview cannot fully absorb. It does not merely suggest discipline or continuity; it attests to a process that precedes and exceeds the narrative imposed upon it. The trajectory it reveals is not incidental, nor dependent on a single relationship, but anchored in duration, training, and transmission.
(chapter 73). This detail is decisive. It establishes that his development was already underway, and that his formation cannot be reduced to the simplified account presented in the interview. It also repositions Hwang Byungchul. Far from being the negligible or ineffective figure implied indirectly by the discourse, he appears as part of a structure that enabled this early progression.
(chapter 71) , the tournament, the documented progression—these elements introduce points of verification that resist the logic of selective reconstruction. The past is not entirely available for reinterpretation; parts of it remain anchored in events, relations, and figures that can contradict the imposed version. On the other hand, the Champion in Paper has only his recollection as evidence which is based on the narration of others. 
(chapter 74) rather than systemic conditions. Thus he accepted that his body as a fighter got so damaged. 
(chapter 72), yes, but she had reasons. The father was violent, the household unstable, and escape could therefore be understood as a form of necessity. In this interpretation, the mother’s departure remained painful, but intelligible. What he failed to ask, however, was the decisive question: if she left to save herself, why did she leave the child behind? Why was the boy not taken with her? For him, absence did not mean abandonment. He still had a positive vision of the mother: caring and selfless. 
(chapter 74) The interview brutalizes this unresolved contradiction by collapsing it into a simpler formula: 
(chapter 72) In doing so, he mistook a visible moment for the whole of the problem. He overlooked the impact on the little boy’s soul. What Baek Junmin reveals—despite his malicious intentions—is that 
(chapter 71), as if it were an exceptional trait now begins to look like the product of a much longer history of humiliation, abandonment, and misrecognition.
(chapter 71) Not once. Despite the years of training, despite the shared history, despite the role he himself believed to have played 
(chapter 74), the champion had cut all contact without explanation. This absence had remained unresolved, almost suspended—something to be accepted, but not truly understood. Hence he became resentful.
(chapter 65) The simplified narrative offered by Baek Junmin aligns too easily with her own history of hardship. But this immediacy has a cost. By recognizing the pain, she risks accepting the distorted framework through which it is presented.
(chapter 65), even if it was never enough. Her role was defined by sacrifice, by the necessity to protect and sustain the “child” she still perceives in him—someone to be fed, guided, and contained rather than allowed to stand fully on his own.
(chapter 94) They attest to the existence of parents, of a prior life, of relationships that were not entirely erased but quietly set aside.
(chapter 7)
(chapter 65) The debt is not mentioned; it is simply endured. In doing so, its cause is displaced, if not entirely obscured. 
(chapter 57) It was not only a gesture of comfort; it was a conviction. It implied that the absence of others could be compensated by her own care.
(chapter 57), and where being “different” invited mockery and exclusion. What Shin Okja had perceived as a problem of loneliness was also a problem of exposure and humiliation.
(chapter 21) She perceived him as a finished figure—healthy, solid, and self-sufficient—without questioning the conditions that made such stability possible. Even when she turned toward him with warmth 
(chapter 94), her perception remained structured by Kim Dan. She acknowledged his place beside her grandson, but not the history that had formed him. She had never asked him any question in the end. 
(chapter 94), withdrawing under pressure rather than sustaining himself. While Jaekyung’s strength appears to have been forged under conditions of absence, Kim Dan’s fragility seems to persist within the structure of her presence.
(chapter 96) without confronting what that presence truly meant, because he occupied a role. He was the physical therapist. His gestures, his proximity, his care—all of it could be justified, contained, and, above all, depersonalized.
The addition of the star on the therapist’s uniform is more than a “badge of office”; it is a geometric prophecy. It represents the intertwining of two disparate lives—the red triangle of Jaekyung’s force and the blue triangle of Dan’s empathy. When these two triangles overlap, they create a structure (The Star) that is far more stable than the ‘Paper Giant’ of the MFC. This star is naturally a reference to the star of David. But at the same time, I wanted to avoid any reference to religion as such. The star of David is created by 2 triangles intertwined together. And the moment you accept that each main lead represents one triangle, you realize that both can become the star of David, once they become a team and a couple. 
(chapter 88) The “hamster” is not an isolated symbol. It has been shaped in relation to Joo Jaekyung—through proximity, through tension, through a form of attention that is neither hierarchical nor purely functional. If Kim Dan embodies connection, Joo Jaekyung embodies determination and direction. 
(chapter 94) What emerges between them is not dependency, but a potential alignment. That’s the reason why I believe that contrary to that morning 
(chapter 96), Kim Dan might decide to follow Joo Jaekyung. 
(chapter 96) and as such to be loved, something his mother never did. 
(chapter 73) Even with an injured hand, he can do this. As you can see, I am full of hope. 
(chapter 73) His words are punctuated by smirks, interruptions, and mockery. The childhood he evokes is not one of growth or development, but of humiliation, hierarchy, and control. 
(chapter 88) Without it, action becomes mechanical, external, and ultimately unsustainable. What is done without pleasure cannot reach completion, because it remains detached from the subject who performs it. 
(chapter 95) 
(chapter 96) It is directed outward, against the main lead and others, and depends entirely on their diminishment. It cannot sustain itself. It requires a target. In contrast, Kim Dan is associated with a different form of laughter. 
(chapter 27) The hamster—seemingly insignificant—represents companionship, warmth, and a form of joy that does not depend on hierarchy or recognition.
(chapter 96) It’s the consequence of pain, it belongs to the logic of rupture, of protection through distance, of a structure that resolves tension by separation. To obey would be to repeat the past—to accept absence as the only possible form of resolution. To follow the athlete, however, would be something else entirely. Not obedience to his words, but an understanding of what they conceal. Not submission, but a deliberate alignment: an act of commitment. A decision to remain—not because he is told to, but because he chooses to.
(chapter 30) Let’s not forget that the champion’s “jinx” is linked to the smell, something which Baek Junmin revealed earlier. 
(chapter 96) A hand reaches out to continue what is not yet finished. Kim Dan tries to stop the champion, to maintain the contact, to complete the treatment. 
(chapter 96) The response is immediate: Joo Jaekyung pushes the hand away.
(chapter 95), and the one in the office, where Park Namwook places his hand on the champion’s shoulder and directs him once more toward performance. 
(chapter 95) Both scenes belonged to episode 95, and together they already announced a growing dissonance.
(chapter 95) The other was quieter, grounded in proximity, shared time, and a more fragile sense of presence. 
(chapter 95) They did not openly clash, but they did not align either.
(chapter 96) From where he stands, the words and gesture appear as rejection, and the scene seems to confirm an old pattern.
(chapter 95): in what is missing, in what is delayed, in what no longer coincides. A presence that is no longer acknowledged. 
(chapter 95) A touch that relieves tension, but does not invite the burden to be shared. 
(chapter 95) There is no entourage 
(chapter 36), no managers, no advisors 
(chapter 47), no representatives from the entertainment agency
(chapter 81). And yet, we know this moment matters: the match is approaching, the stakes are high, the narrative around him is already circulating. He only has 10 days left. 
(chapter 95) It becomes even more obvious, if you compare the sparring between the champion and Oh Daehyun 
(chapter 95) and the one in episode 1, where the other partner got injured. 
(chapter 1) He rushed to the injured fighter. But in episode 95, he is invisible. No explanation, no transition. His absence is not emphasized—and yet, it echoes. Especially if we recall episode 46, where he was on the verge of being sent out 
(chapter 46), tasked with gathering information, while Park Namwook positioned himself as the director of Team Black: 
(chapter 46) This detail is not incidental. It establishes a division of roles that is directly connected to a larger structure: the network linking gyms and the MFC. This network is not hypothetical; it is explicitly confirmed in episode 49 
(chapter 49), when Choi Gilseok asks Park Namwook why he was absent from the Seoul managers’ meeting. In other words, coordination between gyms and directors is not occasional—it is organized, expected, and institutionalized.
(chapter 95), yet we know that meetings and exchanges between directors must still be taking place, then the question becomes unavoidable: who represents Team Black within that network at that moment?
(chapter 96) Yosep is the one who calls Joo Jaekyung. He is already informed. More importantly, he is the one who presents the video—the interview in which Baek Junmin openly frames the confrontation.
(chapter 96) Instead, he becomes the relay of a narrative that is already circulating publicly. What he transmits is no longer a report meant to establish truth, but a mediated version of events—one that exposes Joo Jaekyung to an external gaze shaped by others. 
(chapter 95) the author reveals a table full of notes and a pen next to his left hand, while the champion is holding a sheet of paper. This image exposes that Joo Jaekyung was actually engaged in another activity: he was writing notes for his next fight. This implies that he was not oriented toward the act of watching, but toward a process of concentration. So why would he watch a show, when he is developing his game?
(chapter 47), his gaze is sharply defined and functions as a marker of attention 
(chapter 36), recognition, or confrontation. Here, that anchor disappears. The subject is present, but not visually positioned as the origin of perception. 
(chapter 87) 
(chapter 89)
(chapter 13); he intervenes at its margins. He does not construct the framework; he reacts within it. And in doing so, he creates situations in which his presence becomes necessary again —whether by interrupting, redirecting, or framing what is happening. 
(chapter 88) and Shin Okja 
(chapter 94), the champion’s schedule has already shifted: training has been interrupted, attention divided, priorities altered.
(chapter 37) —they allow it to pass through unchecked. 
(chapter 96), but he can clear grasp the situation: an act of vandalism. Then he questions the identity of the perpetrator 
(chapter 96), and turns suspicion toward the fighters present. 
(chapter 96) The scene frames him as someone discovering the vandalism alongside the others.
(chapter 96) Yosep is already inside the gym before the others arrive. He opens the door from the inside. This detail matters. 
(chapter 96) This transformation is not abstract. It is rendered directly in the body of the athlete. His breathing becomes labored, his skin flushed, his eyes reddened—as if the system itself were overheating. The excess cannot circulate; it accumulates.
(chapter 96), he does not raise his voice. 
(chapter 96), maintains composure, and—most importantly— 
(chapter 96) attends to the other’s response before leaving. 
(chapter 96) This detail matters.
(chapter 95) At first glance, its transparency suggests continuity—the inside and the outside remain visually connected. And yet, the author frames the door in a way that emphasizes secrecy, separation rather than openness. The image functions less as a window than as a boundary. 
(chapter 54) He imagined that the celebrity would entrust him the selection. To conclude, Park Namwook’s seat is not random. He represents a hindrance to the fighter’s emancipation, becoming the director of a gym. 
(chapter 95) 
(chapter 95) 
(chapter 95), readers can detect a pattern emerging.
(chapter 95) There is no transition to negotiate, no boundary to maintain. There is only the fight. What appears, from this perspective, as distraction is therefore reinterpreted as failure. What is, in fact, a tension between two spheres is reduced to a flaw within one.
(chapter 95) This clarity signals a mode of perception that has already appeared elsewhere. When he looks at the main lead and calls him “fresh meat” 
(chapter 74), the same logic is at work. The individual is not encountered as a subject, but classified as a function, reduced to a body that can be evaluated and positioned.
(chapter 95) Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan sit side by side, aligned within the same horizontal plane. The asymmetry that structured the office—front versus opposite, speaker versus evaluated—seems to dissolve. The scene suggests proximity, even equality.
(chapter 95) The promise is unilateral. There is no reciprocal formulation, no mirrored commitment, no re-articulation of the bond from the other side. What is offered outward is not taken up and extended; it remains suspended.
(chapter 95) In Kim Dan’s gaze, Joo Jaekyung is not reflected. What appears instead is the lighthouse in the distance. At first glance, this suggests a displacement: the athlete’s presence does not fully register within his field of vision.
(chapter 69) This panel implied that Kim Dan had become his whole world. The comparison exposes that the athlete is still not in the center of his life yet. The lighthouse is not only an external point of orientation. 
(chapter 91) It lingers in the background, acknowledged but never truly treated. And yet, it is not incidental. Insomnia signals the inability to withdraw, to interrupt exposure, to let the body enter a different rhythm. In this sense, it mirrors the function of the lighthouse. A lighthouse remains on—it stabilizes, but it does not allow rest. 
(chapter 96), without reestablishing that line of orientation, the structure collapses. What had been silently assumed—being seen, being turned toward—is no longer confirmed.
(chapter 96) At first glance, this appears simple. But it is not neutral. It is a repetition. Kim Dan tries to reactivate a shared ritual—the one established after the night in Paris.
(chapter 87) A moment where touch, words, and intention aligned. 
(chapter 87) A moment where connection was not abstract, but embodied.
(chapter 87) But in front of the entrance, something is missing. 
— earlier echoed outside the narrative—suggests a moment that has not yet been reached. A point where gesture, intention, and response will finally align.
(chapter 94) It is not a gesture of control, nor of care defined by function. It is, instead, a gesture of recognition and affection. 
(chapter 94) When the grandmother suggests that “the three of us can go for a walk,” the gesture shifts from recognition to movement. The proposal is not incidental. It translates what has just been opened into a concrete form.
(chapter 95) Her words are not recalled, her figure is not evoked, her request is not consciously revisited. On the surface, she is absent. And yet, this absence is deceptive.
(chapter 95) —is no longer stable. It is immediately unsettled by another voice, another possibility: 
(chapter 95) And what follows is not an abstract idea. It is an image. Kim Dan appears. 
(chapter 95) This shift is decisive. The grandmother is not present as a figure, but as a function. She has already altered the internal configuration through which Joo Jaekyung perceives himself. Her gesture has been absorbed, displaced, and translated into a new form of questioning.
(chapter 94) It has introduced a new axis—one that opposes performance to relation, victory to something else that remains undefined, but essential. But this axis is not yet resolved. It exists as a fracture. And from this point onward, absence no longer signifies emptiness. It signifies transformation. What is no longer visible has already begun to act.
(chapter 96) Thus the physical therapist is not included in the meeting. Distraction must be eliminated, influence must be controlled, and relationships are tolerated only insofar as they remain functional. The body must remain available, and the mind aligned.
(chapter 126) to another 
(chapter 126). He allowed his father to humiliate and abuse him 
(Chapter 126) once again. It was, as if the story was back to square one and the protagonist had learned nothing at all. Under this perception, my avid readers can comprehend why I selected such a title. However, instead of thinking that the author was a bad writer, I decided to ponder on the following question. Why did the author choose such an evolution? 
(chapter 7) Like Baek Na-Kyum, he rushed to his loved one’s side. However, he was first stopped 
(chapter 126), because it was not the right time. How so? Notice that his brother had fetched him at the port
(chapter 125), but he never followed him to the bureau of investigation. And the same happened later. Why didn’t he go to his shed, when he was trapped there? Where was he, when the eldest son visited the father? 
(chapter 126) His absence exposed his passivity and betrayal. However, at no moment, Yoon Seungho noticed this. To conclude, Yoon Seungho was so worried for the painter that he didn’t pay attention to his surroundings, just like the painter didn’t see the learned sir’s disdain expressed through the cold gaze. 
(chapter 07) Therefore Yoon Seungho didn’t notice the presence of a civilian next to the governor. 
(chapter 126). Striking is that the governor knew about Yoon Seungho’s whereabouts before his arrival: the coast. As you can see, I am detecting a link between the governor and the younger master Seungwon. Yet, it was disguised as a rumor behind the expression “I had heard”. My assumption is that Seungwon came from the bureau of investigation in order to inform his brother. Therefore it is not surprising that Seungho was invited by his brother to visit the prison during the night. 
(chapter 126) And the moment I perceived the protagonist as a fool in love, I realized that chapter 126 is a reflection of episode 7, 29 
(chapter 29) and 40 
(chapter 40). Here, the painter was trying his best to protect Jung In-Hun’s interests (life, high position). Moreover, in episode 40, the painter had a dream, when he saw the announcement for the civil service examination. He smiled, for he was looking forward for the future. 
(chapter 40) And what have these episodes more in common? A betrayal, abandonment from a loved one and a paper (painting, poem). Hence I am more than ever convinced that the petition will resurface very soon and play a huge role in the downfall of the schemers and haters. Besides, chapter 40 represents the negative reflection of the conversation in the prison. 
(chapter 126) Though they are in a tough situation, Yoon Seungho is not leaving his side contrary to episode 40. 
(chapter 40) There is neither disdain nor mockery. The mentioned scenes are similar, for the present resembles the past. And this brings me to the second reason for the Webtoonist’s decision.
(chapter 123), Yoon Chang-Hyeon considered Yoon Seungho as a human, for he employed the personal pronoun “he”. He was still his son. Then in episode 77, he judged him as a slave 
(chapter 77), hence he was submitted to the straw mat beating and was held captive. He even refused to send for a physician. 
(chapter 83) Here, the father is denying his humanity, he is just an animal. In their next confrontation, he describes him as a monster, hence he wished that he had never been born.
(chapter 86) However, his words exposed that he was still viewing him as a living being. Therefore it is not surprising that he accepted lord Song’s request to order the murder of his son! In the gibang, he decided to no longer acknowledge Yoon Seungho as his son. 
(chapter 107) The tragedy is that the protagonist still viewed the Yoons as his family because of Yoon Seungwon, who keeps calling him “brother”. This explicates why Yoon Seungho sponsored his brother to have an official position. 
(chapter 115) Therefore it is not surprising that he followed Yoon Seungwon’s advice again. 
(chapter 120). He would bring the petition to his own father. This means that he is acting like the painter who listened to his noona Heena so well. 
(chapter 46) But now, Yoon Chang-Hyeon believes to have the petition. 
(chapter 125) This explicates why the patriarch is now calling the main lead “nothing”. 
(chapter 126) He is not even a thing. This means that he is actually discarding him. This explicates why he sent him to the shed. 
(chapter 126) It was, as if he had become a merchandise. Or we could say that the elder master had been using him as a tool, which he can now abandon. 
(chapter 126) Interesting is that the idiom “plaything” has for antonyms tool, implement, instrument and utensil. And this brings me to the following remark. The father’s words are reflecting the last scheme. Yoon Seungho was used as the sword to get rid of an enemy, lord Song. It was, as if someone had decided to get rid of lord Song, for he represented a danger or threat. It also mirrors the trick in the shrine. Min and the others got killed, because Lee Jihwa went to his childhood friend. And who had seen the main lead using this sword, when he was enraged? Father Lee! 
(chapter 67) But let’s return our attention to the patriarch and his son. Yoon Seungho is no longer recognized as a Yoon member. Therefore I come to the conclusion that Yoon Seungho will make the following decision: to become an orphan. And this is symbolized by the loss of hair. I am expecting him to cut off his hair, something the painter has been doing for a long time. That’s why Byeonduck showed us the lord without a topknot. 
(chapter 126) This would coincide with my previous statement. The lord is going through the same experience than his loved one. However, people will come to the conclusion that this was done by the father. How so? Remember how each rumor became a reality. 
(chapter 1) I had already demonstrated that Yoon Seungho was not a fiend for sodomy with no regard for time and place, until he met Baek Na-Kyum. But once a deed is done, it can never be repeated. 
(chapter 101) So should Father Lee claim that he has long disowned Jihwa by cutting off his topknot, no one will believe him, for the young master was still seen with a topknot after confessing his feelings in public. 
(chapter 57) In other words, the topknot incident at the kisaeng would be brought up. It is impossible for 2 fathers to act the same way. Besides, the loss of the topknot has another signification: Yoon Seungho would cut off ties with valet Kim, for the latter was the one who gave him the topknot. And episode 126 reflected one more time his position: 
(chapter 126) He is the one dressing him. It was, as if he was the pope.
(chapter 116) It is because someone had reported to him the conversation between lord Song and the painter. 
(chapter 122) There was a spy listening to their conversation. Since all the guards died 
(chapter 124) 
(chapter 125: I am assuming that the survivor got executed), I am suspecting the scholar. Moreover, why would Yoon Chang-Hyeon accuse his son to have abandoned Baek Na-Kyum? It is related to this departure of the staff and Yoon Seungho. 
(chapter 120) And who was present there? Jung In-Hun! But there is more to it. Since leaving Baek Na-Kyum behind is considered as an abandonment, it means that the patriarch abandoned his son too. 
(chapter 27) By speaking to Yoon Seungho, the elder master Yoon didn’t realize that he was admitting his own wrongdoings. Actually, he had abandoned him many times… like here for example 
(chapter 87) Therefore his words will come back to bite him. But these words are also exposing the valet’s betrayal and abandonment towards Yoon Seungho!! How so?
(chapter 122), then he should have been at the patriarch’s house. The absence of the valet is the evidence of his treason. For me, he is now working for Jung In-Hun which explains why he never mentioned his presence in the mansion, only lord Song. Besides, keep in mind that once deed done can not be repeated. In episode 27, the lord was too angry and busy to notice the learned sir’s spying activities. 
(Chapter 27) Moreover, Kim didn’t report the interrogation to his master. This means that the butler covered up for the teacher’s wrongdoing. But here is the deal: 
(chapter 120) The library was ransacked, hence this crime is bound to be discovered. Finally, his intervention in the shed is exposing his deception. 
(chapter 83) That’s why I am convinced that these words 
(chapter 126) He is no longer suicidal, in fact he is full of hope! Though he was sent back to hell for a short moment, he came out of this as a winner. My evidence is that the lord has now become a believer. 
(chapter 126) Yes, episode 126 exposes the return of his faith! And where could we see the atheism of Yoon Seungho in the story? In chapter 92! 
(chapter 92) He didn’t believe in the spring poetry to ward off bad luck! That’s why he was sent back to the past. He needed to lose everything in order to find hope! In his darkest moment, he expressed a wish: to meet his loved one! And where did he pray to the gods? In the shed! 
(chapter 126) Observe how he is kneeling in direction of the bars. He is hoping to meet Baek Na-Kyum again. As you can see, though this scene 
(chapter 126) He was showing resistance and anger towards his father. Moreover, he was no longer shaking in front of the patriarch or the guards. 
(chapter 86) Thus I deduce that though he was mistreated and insulted like in the past, he was no longer suffering from his traumas. He is healed. His will is now really strong, supported by his new found faith. 
(chapter 62) Even if they were hugging, they were not close emotionally and mentally. This stands in opposition to the scene in the jail. They might be separated by the bars, but they are touching each other tenderly. 
(chapter 126) They are able to see each other. 
(chapter 126) Try Meditation 
(chapter 126) or Prayer 
(chapter 126) 
(chapter 126) Quoted from 
(chapter 126) It is relevant, because light represents knowledge and truth. He is now the bearer of the truth. And he got his blessing from Baek Na-Kyum, when he touched his hands. 
(chapter 120) Yes, chapter 126 mirrors 92! This somehow confirms my theory that the butler was the one hiding under the purple hanbok. 
(chapter 92) Moreover, we have another reference to this episode, the pouring of alcohol! 
(chapter 92) 
(chapter 126) It was, as if someone wanted the lord to pay for Min’s insult! That’s the reason why I come to the following conclusion: Yoon Seungho is now opening up to Baek Na-Kyum. He is confessing to the painter about his wishes. 
(chapter 85) The manhwaphiles should keep in mind that the request from the artist in the study was strongly connected to forgiveness. And Baek Na-Kyum could also confess what happened in the past: his guilt and regret asking for the lord’s forgiveness. Right now, both are blaming themselves for the incidents, although they got fooled by many schemers. Because the lord proved his loyalty and blinded trust in the painter, I see the scene in the jail as a new version of this confession: 
(chapter 75) Thus I consider the prison cell as a sacred place, where both characters are about to be freed from their guilt! 
(chapter 11) thus he could escape justice! 
(Chapter 11) Simultaneously, the first definition of life lie corresponds to Yoon Chang-Hyeon. The latter blames his eldest son for the downfall of the Yoons. 
! (Chapter 86) Secondly, he still thinks that he is powerful. But it is just an illusion. 
(chapter 125). They fail their duty, for they allowed the main lead to barge in the room. 
(Chapter 126) Finally, observe how they keep apologizing without giving any explication. 
(Chapter 125) Their apology is fake. As you can see, the patriarch is living in an allusion. He is powerless, and the best evidence is that he doesn’t have the petition. 
(Chapter 126) He is actually encouraging his son to hate himself and indirectly his own father! However, the son made the exact opposite decision: love!! Hence I am more than certain that the elder master is about to experience a harsh awakening. 
(chapter 101) Thus they got punished. And now, the two main leads are about to face human justice. 
(chapter 65) But strangely, the painter is showing no fear at all. 
(chapter 126) He is ready to sacrifice himself. So why was Yoon Seungho dressed up in the end? One might say that with the topknot and the hanbok, the abuse from the patriarch got covered up. That way, Baek Na-Kyum wouldn’t detect Yoon Chang-Hyeon’s lies and abandonment! 
(chapter 125) The latter brainwashed him to take the fall for everything, implying that way, his loved one would be protected! However, I am suspecting that if the lord were to leave the prison, he could meet someone in the office. That way, this person is not confronted with the reality: the main lead was “abused”. According to the butler, he was supposed to meet his brother at the office. 
(Chapter 92) In episode 92, we have a mysterious man in the background dressed in black, but he is not wearing his gat. Besides, I would like my avid readers to remember this image from the trailer: 
which reminds us of the office: 
(chapter 98) This place symbolizes power and strength. And because episode 126 is a reflection of chapter 7, 11, 29 and 40, I think, Yoon Seungho is about to receive a deal, for these episodes are focusing on the deal between the painter and the protagonist: protection from the father and punishment in exchange for entertainment. He would appear as a fake savior in the end. Remember what in episode 11 the artist said in front of his fated partner:
(chapter 11) He would do anything except painting!! He was not willing to give up on this principle, which reminds us of faith. So when Yoon Seungho faced his father, he experienced powerlessness for one reason. 
(Chapter 105) Then in episode 122, 
we discover that lord Song employed the pipe to beat the painter. Moreover, I detected a progression. In season 2, Yoon Seungho was still smoking. 
(Chapter 74) But once the painter showed that he didn’t like smoking, Yoon Seungho stopped taking the drug. This explicates why in season 3, he was no longer seen with the item in his hand. Even under stress, he chose to hunt instead of smoking in front of the window. We have two scenes where the pipe is present. One is when the lord is throwing it out of anger,:
(chapter 86) which reminded me of the incident with the music box.
(Chapter 85) This shows that this item had no value to the protagonist. Then the pipe appeared in the gibang on the table. 
(Chapter 96) However, here the lord had only eyes for the painter or Heena. Hence I have the impression that the pipe could resurface and serve as an tool to identify the perpetrator, just like the glasses were used to recognize the scholar. 
(Chapter 102) Finally, since the pipe appeared in the gibang twice, it indicates that this hobby is linked to the kisaeng house!! And this brings me to my final observation: the pipe is connected to paper
(Chapter 1) 
(chapter 1) However, there exists two books!! And one has no PIPE! This coincides with the decision of the painter to stop drawing erotic pictures! Yes… dropped amusement! At the same time, Yoon Seungho has long lost his interest for erotic publications. He also dropped this hobby. On the other hand, the books were dropped in front of the painter. 
(Chapter 1) Finally, the petition was dropped in front of lord Song 
(chapter 123) which announced his death sentence. To conclude, the papers have a strong connection to punishment and death. 
(Chapter 126) Yoon Seungho went to the father’s mansion, and it didn’t take him that long! As you can see, I consider this trip with Yoon Seungwon as a diversion. 
(Chapter 121) So why didn’t the elder master return to his old home? It is to drive the Yoons out of their propriety. In other words, the lies from the past are becoming a reality exposing the liars in the end. Their life lies will be ruined.
(chapter 87) Not only the painter and the 3 noonas were sharing the same bed, but also they were taking their meals together. 
(chapter 87) They would even caress each other and laugh together. This scene oozes happiness. Consequently, it is no coincidence that during that night, they shared their honest thoughts to Baek Na-Kyum giving him good advices. But more importantly, the painter was there, when his noonas were struggling. 
(chapter 94) He cried in front of them. His tears symbolized his compassion and love for his noonas. He regarded them as his family. And it was the same for the artist. He had the noonas by his side, when he was in trouble or agony. 
(chapter 94) 
(chapter 107) However, at some point, it changed! 
(chapter 94) Jung In-Hun entered his life and consoled him. Thus I deduce that this image 
(chapter 68) represents a turning point in Baek Na-Kyum’s life. During that night, the scholar took away the young painter from Heena, hence he couldn’t help her. And now, observe the learned sir’s reaction. He didn’t allow the painter to cry. He shouldn’t share his pain. 
(chapter 70) In fact, he diverted Baek Na-Kyum’s attention from the incident to the moon. The learned sir was smiling the whole time. 
(chapter 70) He was acting, as if nothing had happened. The fact that he didn’t bear the tears from the painter exposes that the learned sir never considered him as a family. Therefore it is not surprising that he got abandoned, when the learned sir struggled: 
(chapter 19), he pushed away the painter. 
(chapter 19) He was mad, because Baek Na-Kyum was the cause for his sponsoring. 
(chapter 19) However, the family serves as pillar and protection. When the scholar’s pride got hurt, he rejected Baek Na-Kyum. He only approached the painter, when he needed him 
(chapter 10) 
(chapter 24) 
(chapter 35). 
(chapter 111) For me, in episode 10, he was definitely aware of the existence of a plot, thus he led the painter to the pavilion. Then in episode 24 and 35, he wanted the artist to spy on his benefactor. Finally, in episode 111, he knew that by taking away his former pupil, he would hurt Yoon Seungho, for he was aware of his affection for Baek Na-Kyum. Under this new light, it becomes comprehensible why Jung In-Hun didn’t bid farewell to the main lead in episode 44. Baek Na-Kyum’s presence was not necessary for the preparation for the civil service examination. And this brings me to the last scene between the learned sir and the painter. 
(chapter 118) He is now crying in front of him, as if he was considering him as a part of his family. He is trying to create the illusion that he shares his suffering, just like he shared his happiness during the parade. 
(chapter 111) But in the gibang, the learned sir changed his attitude towards his former pupil, for he kissed the painter. 
(chapter 117) It was, as if the former was starting his family. Baek Na-Kyum is now his “bride”. But naturally, everything is just an illusion. Why? It is because the Manhwaphiles never saw Jung In-Hun share his bed or room with the artist! 
(chapter 27) 
(chapter 38) He was also never seen taking his meals with him. This explicates why he never visited him, when the painter was sick. In fact, the learned sir is connected to the air and the courtyard. That’s the reason why he is always seen roaming around with Baek Na-Kyum (10: pavilion, 18-19-27-35-44: courtyard, countryside/city: 29-37-70 and 
) But more importantly, he is not sharing his true thoughts and emotions to the young man. 
(chapter 118) He never explained how his face got bruised! This shows that he approached Na-Kyum for one reason. He was in trouble and he needed him. But he acted, as if he was becoming responsible for him. 
(chapter 118) 
(chapter 118) He didn’t expect a rejection. Why? It is because now, he was treating the main lead as family member. Nonetheless, don‘t get me wrong. In Joseon, servants were considered as a part of the household and as such of the „family“. I don‘t believe that the teacher views Baek Na-Kyum as an equal. Yet, the latter is in reality a free man. 
(chapter 118) Thus out of fear, he made a false love confession which resembles a lot to obsession and possessiveness. His words display his worries and despair. Another important aspect is the absence of the personal pronoun “we” in their conversation. We only have “you” and “me”. 
(chapter 118) 
(chapter 40), the latter learned the following lesson: Jung In-Hun had never been his new family. That’s the reason why he was so wounded. Therefore it is no coincidence that his karma is to be abandoned the moment he needs Baek Na-Kyum the most. But why did he not consider the painter as a family member? It is because he came from the gibang. Moreover, he was blinded by his desire to succeed on his own, not realizing the true role of a family. 
(chapter 86) 
(chapter 107) The sexual abuse is something they hid from Baek Na-Kyum! They could never share such a burden with the protagonist. But there is more to it. In fact, Byeonduck illustrated the slow deterioration of Na-Kyum’s s family in season 2, 3 and 4. First, the painter couldn’t talk to his noonas like in the past: 
(chapter 46) He could only express his sadness with his tears. Then when Heena reentered his life, she was seen next to his bed while hugging. by his side 
(chapter 66) This means that she would no longer share his cover. This is no coincidence that in the gibang, the noona could no longer enter her brother’s room. 
(chapter 96) Little by little, Heena got excluded from the painter’s life. She could no longer share her meals with him. 
(chapter 93) This explicates why in season 4, Baek Na-Kyum can not penetrate Heena’s room. 
(chapter 105) She is hiding more and more things from her brother: her “illness”, her involvement in the murder of nobles and her lies. On the other hand, the painter still considered her as a part of his family because of her intervention in episode 68/69: 
(chapter 68) Their argument was reflecting their trust, though here the kisaeng was questioning her brother’s maturity. Due to her concerns, Baek Na-Kyum felt that they were still a family. However, I sense a rupture, when they argued in the kisaeng house. The artist was no longer trusting Heena’s words: 
(chapter 97) Interesting is that from that moment on, Baek Na-Kyum and Heena never faced each other! She didn’t join his side during the parade. This means that their argument in the kisaeng house represents their last reunion. And what did Heena do in this scene? She cried 
(chapter 97), while the painter didn’t, though he looked disturbed. 
(chapter 97) He lost all his colors. However, such a scene could be perceived as a sign of indifference, especially for the kisaeng. And this observation made me realize why the kisaeng asked Yoon Seungho not to reveal his suspicions about Jung In-Hun’s involvement to her brother. 
(chapter 105) Here, she implied that Baek Na-Kyum would cry out of pain and shock. But she had seen that he had shared no tears, when he heard about his murder: And it happened again in the shrine.
(chapter 99) Simultaneously, the request from Heena exposes that they are no longer sharing agony and as such struggles. Moreover, this made me realize why the artist left the mansion after the nightmare. It was out of fear and obligation. For me, he had sensed that Heena liked the learned sir and as she was still part of his family, he had to make sure that this was not true. Yet, even after witnessing the faked crime scene, he still trusted Yoon Seungho. Hence I am deducing that the absence of tears is the trigger for their separation which stands in opposition to their embrace in the mansion: 
(chapter 66) 
. (chapter 68) And what was her reaction, when she saw her brother in tears and yelling at his lover?: 
(chapter 105) She remained silent, passive and rather indifferent. This impression gets reinforced, when she is lying next to her colleagues. She is not sharing her thoughts and emotions, rather pensive contrary to these kisaengs: 
(chapter 105) She is even turning her back to them. This displays the dissolution of this family. The kisaeng is no longer sharing her fears, her tears and emotions to others. Therefore she can not sense “happiness or relief” like the others. 
(chapter 93), but the moment the lord joined his side, the honesty started vanishing. Notice that the painter couldn’t talk about his past (how he met Yoon Seungho and how he got abandoned by Jung In-Hun). It was reduced to “I was caught up with something”. He had so many secrets that he couldn’t share to his noonas. And it was the same for the kisaengs. 
(chapter 93) They also had secrets, hence they were seen whispering. Baek Na-Kyum could confide less to Heena. Why? He sensed that the kisaengs might show no understanding. And note how the painter reacted, when he met his noonas in episode 105. 
(chapter 105) He lied to his noona, he didn’t voice his worries. He didn’t enjoy his time spent by the kisaengs’ side. He didn’t eat with them either. This is the sign that he was moving on, he was on the verge of starting his new family. In other words, this scene 
(chapter 105) corresponds to the bird flying from the nest which was witnessed by Heena and the kisaengs. Because the painter was not sincere to his noonas, it is not surprising that they acted the same way. Here,
(chapter 105), the kisaeng’s words are a reference to loss of virginity. Yet the painter didn’t grasp the true meaning. Only in his dream and nightmare, he realized the significance of her words: 
(chapter 109) Hence I come to the conclusion that we are witnessing to the birth of Baek Na-Kyum’s new family: Yoon Seungho. 
(chapter 118) That’s the reason why the painter decided to run away with his lover. 
(chapter 118) However, in order to become a real family, the painter needs to call his husband like this: 
(chapter 72) Under this new light, it becomes comprehensible why the noonas were no longer entirely honest with Baek Na-Kyum in the gibang. They couldn’t share their thoughts and secrets to the artist, as they had played a role in the separation of the couple 
(chapter 99) and the nobles’ execution. Besides, they also had secrets which they had to hide from their donsaeng. 
(chapter 57) I believe that it is related to the protagonist’s sensibility and intelligence. My assumption is that Yoon Seungho is a 
(chapter 85), his second son and even lord Song as his family 
(chapter 116) Hence they are sharing a drink, their secrets and emotions together, though it is obvious that the man in purple is deceiving the patriarch. However, the elder master still trusts and listens to his words. 
(chapter 26) The latter was not allowed to cry! Therefore the artist heard the same reproach from the main lead. 
(chapter 26) The valet disliked the tears, because he refused to share the suffering. The reason is simple. If he did, this would have increased his guilt. Furthermore, Kim never shared the cover or his meals with Yoon Seungho in the past 
(chapter 17) he even refused to bring him his breakfast. But one might argue that Kim cried in front of the protagonist in the shed, he even expressed regrets: 
(chapter 108) So we could assume that he was starting to view the main lead as a family member. But no… for me, it is just an illusion. First, note that he never let the lord see his gaze while weeping. Besides, the noble’s heart was not moved either. They were not crying together, a sign that the two were drifting apart. Moreover, in the shed, the valet never shared the information about the fire at the shrine. 
(chapter 108) The noble had to use threat and force in order to push the butler to voice his thoughts. Finally, at the end, the valet never vowed his loyalty to Yoon Seungho, but to Baek Na-Kyum. 
(chapter 108) Moreover, like exposed above, family in the poem symbolizes trust, love, responsibility, comfort and protection, but the valet failed to fulfil his duties which he admitted in the shed. As a conclusion, the butler didn’t keep such a promise. Moreover, what did the butler do after the painter’s abduction? 
(chapter 64) 
(chapter 64) He ran away. He never saved the painter, just like he didn’t argue with his master in that moment. But he could have, since the latter had no sword by his side. Imagine that he had a heated discussion with Yoon Seungho the very next day, and in the courtyard, the protagonist had the sword in the hand. 
(chapter 68) A sign that he knew that the noble would never slay him! And in the past, the valet had not come to his rescue, shared his suffering or defended his honor. And now, you comprehend why I am more than ever convinced that the valet was never Yoon Seungho’s family: no tear, no joy or no secret shared! His expression “bird of misfortune” embodies the gap between the two characters. 
(chapter 109) The latter would even get the opportunity to eat sweets and sit in the patio
(chapter 109), while the lord was relegated to the courtyard. 
(chapter 109) And the poem mirrors perfectly the birth of Yoon Seungho’s first family. Baek Na-Kyum is his very first family. Thus he could share his pain, his fears, his resent, 
(chapter 62) and his hope to be happy for one moment: 
(chapter 63) I selected the terrible scene in the shed for two reasons. It symbolizes the verse “how to become a family”. This explicates why in season 3, the artist was slowly using the personal pronoun “we”. 
(chapter 78) This means that the two protagonists were learning how to become a true family. And one of this important step was “crying together” which occurred after the sexual abuse in the shrine, 
(chapter 102) However, Yoon Seungho had to learn the importance of “secrecy”! He kept his crime from his loved one hidden, not understanding that a real family is to “endure all hardships” together. Consequently, I judge this night 
as the finalization of their “Wedding”, though it is still not official. During this night, we have all the criteria. They share their worries
(chapter 110), their happiness 
(chapter 110), they sit together while eating
(chapter 110), they embrace each other, they share the same bed. And the lord makes the following promise: there won’t be any secret between them. He will share everything with his lover. 
(chapter 110) So when the brother gave the petition to the artist
(chapter 116), he even reinforced their bond. It was, as if they had no longer any secret between them. Thus they talked about the document in the pavilion making sure that no one would listen to their discussion. 
(chapter 117) Therefore, it is not surprising that during that same night, the couple slept under the same blanket while hugging each other. 
(chapter 117) The symbol for the new family! But a family is not made just of two members! Is Yoon Seungwon a part of Yoon Seungho’s family? Let’s not forget that he considered the artist as his brother’s wife. 
(chapter 116) What caught my attention is that Yoon Seungho was not followed by his lover, when he met his brother in the gibang. 
(chapter 118) And this reminded me of this scene: 
(chapter 37) He wished to send away the artist, but the host refused. Then if you pay attention to his behavior, you will notice that none of them were seen eating together! 
(chapter 118) Compare it to Black Heart’s behavior: 
(chapter 43) In fact, the two guests were drinking on their own! Yoon Seungwon had even started drinking before the protagonist’s arrival. 
(chapter 118) Moreover, exactly like the scholar, Yoon Seungwon is just employing the pronouns “you”, “I” and “father”. There is no WE at all. 
(chapter 118) Moreover, he doesn’t want to share the pain and suffering with his father. And while he shared a secret with Yoon Seungho in the past,
(chapter 118), I believe that he is hiding something from his brother again. Thus we see constantly him with a drop of sweat. 
(chapter 118) 
(chapter 118) Striking is that he is at no moment mentioning the painter, which actually represents the lord’s source of comfort and joy! He is more talking about the past than the present. He is hoping for a change of heart. That’s the reason why I come to the conclusion that Yoon Seungwon called the main lead as brother
(chapter 118), but it is only a name! In reality, he desires to use the main lead. He needs him more than ever! Let’s not forget that the patriarch could discover Yoon Seungwon’s betrayal at any moment. Finally, I would like to outline that family stands for effort and understanding, nevertheless the younger master never showed compassion or worries for his brother, who had just recovered from a stabbing. His speech was full of blame. 
(chapter 22), the physical therapist still views her as his family. This corresponds to the verse “no matter where you are”. This explains why he listened to her and started treating the champion differently. From my point of view, they became a family, because they slept under the same cover
(chapter 21), shared their agony, fears 
(chapter 5) and their happiness together, though this needs to be relativized. 
(chapter 11). I will give more details later. Another evidence that they are family is that the grandmother would often sing him songs. Then we could say that the grandmother shares her meals with the doctor, for she is often saving yoghurts for her grandson. 
(chapter 05) She is happy, when she hears good news from her grandson. 
(chapter 07) When she feels lonely or miserable, she asks for his presence. 
(chapter 21) 
(chapter 5) Nevertheless, there exist two negative aspects. First, I noticed that she didn’t question Kim Dan about his career, only when it was necessary. 
(chapter 07) She is not that involved in his current life. 
(chapter 05) Secondly, what caught my attention is that the halmoni is not letting her grandson weep. With her attitude, she implied that he had overreacted (“Now, now none of that”). 
(chapter 21) Moreover, the poem outlined the necessity of crying together (“be able to cry together”), yet the halmoni was not upset, when she found the little Dan in tears. She didn’t understand his abandonment issues. Thus I deduce that the shared agony was only in one way! If the grandmother was scared or suffering, her grandson should feel the same. 
(chapter 5) This explicates why Kim Dan was willing to sacrifice himself for his halmoni. 
(chapter 16) It is because he knew that her grandmother disliked tears. Besides, in a previous essay, I had already outlined that such an attitude was considered as abusive, for such a young child should have been shielded from harm. However, he was exposed to violence very early on. Under this new perspective, it becomes comprehensible why Kim Dan started having secrets from her. Finally, the family portrayed in the poem implied the notion of effort and work. But the moment the grandmother refused to share his agony, she stopped putting energy in her relationship with Kim Dan. This means that as time passed on, she became more and more passive and relied more and more on the main lead. Another interesting aspect is that Kim Dan came to enjoy K-dramas because of his grandmother. 
(chapter 30) This shows that Kim Dan’s preferences are all influenced by the halmoni. We could say that he didn’t truly develop his own identity. It was, as if he had become the second version of “grandma”. And now, you comprehend why he rejected sex: 
(chapter 20) 
(chapter 30) Because the grandmother didn’t allow her grandson to share his struggles (no tears), Kim Dan has been hiding many things from his grandmother
(chapter 07): the beatings from Heo Manwook, his firing from the hospital, the sexual assault from the perverted hospital director and the moneylender, his deal with Joo Jaekyung and the fact that he moved to the penthouse. This means that little by little, the physical therapist is sharing less and less his happiness with her. I doubt that he told her about his trip to Busan, his first MMA fight as spectator 
(chapter 15) and his first sparring with Joo Jaekyung 
(chapter 26). But this is a sign that Kim Dan is maturing. Therefore it is no coincidence that after their first day off spent together, Kim Dan is already under the champion’s spell. 
(chapter 30) And at some point, the grandma will notice her little boy’s transformation and the growing distance. And Choi Heesung could be the trigger for a first quarrel 
(chapter 22) 
(chapter 26), they get support from each other 
(chapter 14) 
(chapter 23) or they argue 
(chapter 23) which is another evidence that Team Black functions more like a family than like a company. What caught my attention is that the doctor is not addressed as hyung 
(chapter 30) but as Doc Dan or doc. 
(chapter 23), though the manager Park Namwook had introduced him as hyung. 
(chapter 22) It exposes that the physical therapist occupies a particular position at the gym. On the one hand, it could be interpreted that he has not been entirely adopted as a family member. On the other hand, the physical therapist didn’t exclude that he could have other clients. 
(chapter 25) This means that his “adoption” is not definitive and official. Nevertheless, I would like to outline that though Team Black’s structure resembles a lot to a family, we can not say that it is a true family. Why? It is because Joo Jaekyung is hiding many things from his hyungs and members. He is not sharing his problems to his coach (his insomnia, his jinx, his sexual orientation, his insecurities eg). Imagine that he preferred deceiving his admirer 
(chapter 15) than admitting that his shoulder had been plaguing him. And it is the same for Potato. He didn’t talk about the incident with the office room and the sofa. 
(chapter 25) According to me, Jeong Yosep knows about the true relationship between the physical therapist and the alpha black wolf. But he kept this information to himself as well. However, like pointed out before, family stands for communication and not secrecy! Moreover, so far, we only saw the fighters share their happiness. And what about their struggles or defeat? To conclude, Jinx is actually showing us the transformation of Team Black as company into a family. How they “become” a WE! Park Namwook does consider Team Black as his gym, but he has his own family. However, this is not the case for Jeong Yosep or Joo Jaekyung, who lives as a loner wolf! In my opinion, Team Black will turn into a real family, the moment Kim Dan loses his halmoni. Remember the quote from the poem: “If you can’t say you’re hurt when you feel hurt you’re not family“. Kim Dan won’t be able to hide his sadness and broken heart. In the beginning of the story, he lied to the coach and Kwak Junbeom about the reason for his injuries: 
(chapter 11), because he considered them as superior and colleagues. In other words, the fighters will share their pain with doc Dan helping him to overcome the loss. But this change can only happen, when the owner of Team Black has a change of heart himself as well. Remember how he pushed Oh Daehung and the other members away. 
(chapter 22) He didn’t want them to come to his house. 
(chapter 22) So far, he didn’t want people to cross the line, but thanks to the physical therapist, this will change. That’s how both protagonists will come to view more and more Team Black as a family. They will share their struggles and happy moments together. I have one evidence that Kim Dan is the key to turn Team Black into a real family. It is because Joo Jaekyung came to the gathering
(chapter 9), though he had been avoiding such events in the past. 
(chapter 30) But he is there an employee. Thus I am suspecting that the talent agency is working differently from Team Black. If there is a scandal, I doubt that the company would side with the star in trouble or they would try to find ways to get rid of the issue, like finding a scapegoat in order to bury the truth. As a conclusion, I am expecting to see companies run differently so that the readers can perceive Team Black as a family company, although it is an incorporation.
(chapter 4) This was a reference to the blanket in the poem, though here Kim Dan slept in a cocoon. This was a sign that he didn’t feel safe. However, as time passed on, I detected a change in Kim Dan’s sleeping position. He is lying on his back and even in the middle of the bed. 
(chapter 29) It is because Joo Jaekyung always put him there! This exposes that the champion is still thinking that he represents a disturbance to the Sleeping beauty. One thing is sure: Joo Jaekyung will become the blanket taking over the grandmother’s past role: 
(chapter 1) This was the reaction from the champion: 
(chapter 1) He questioned the cause for the tears. He was naturally annoyed (“the hell”), but he didn’t make fun of the doctor. And now, pay attention to the memory Joo Jaekyung had from their first night. He remembered his tears which had moved him deeply: 
(chapter 6) This shows that the celebrity is not judging the physical therapist as weak due to his tears. In episode 28, he even showed concerns, when he heard the doctor crying. 
(chapter 28) 
(chapter 28) He questioned the doctor once again, why he was in tears. However, he didn’t ask the doctor to stop weeping or to wipe his tears. He wanted to understand him. This exposes the fighter’s tolerance and interest in Kim Dan. For me, it reveals that Joo Jaekyung is willing to share the pain or fears with Kim Dan. Therefore it is not surprising that Kim Dan is remembering this moment! 
(chapter 30) He was allowed to express his emotions. Interesting is that this image is now connected to red, not to grey/black. 
(chapter 30) The switch of color indicates the doctor’s increasing feelings and sensuality for Joo Jaekyung. That’s the reason why I am expecting that one day, the two protagonists will cry together, something that the grandma hasn’t done until now. 
(chapter 13), it doesn’t signify that they are a family now. And it is the same for the penthouse. 
(chapter 18) They might share the same flat, but the penthouse is so huge that they can technically live apart. Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan are slowly spending more and more time together, either because the champion feels like it 
(chapter 19) or it is necessary 
. (chapter 27) During the day off, they shared their thoughts,, their emotions 
(chapter 27) 
(chapter 27), their happiness 
(chapter 28) and their fears 
(chapter 27) 
(chapter 29) Because Joo JAekyung confessed his fears and health issues to Kim Dan, it shows that he was trusting him. For me, this night represents another step how to become a true family. “If you can’t say you’re hurt when you feel hurt you’re not family.” This day and night were so magical that it affected the protagonists’ life forever. From that moment on, Kim Dan is feeling more attracted to the champion, hence he is peeping at him. 
(chapter 30) And it is the same for the champion. Now, he is slowly regretting that they live in two different rooms and they have their own bathroom. Therefore he came to the doctor’s bathroom under the fake excuse that he had run out of toothpaste. 
(chapter 30) What was so funny is that he had opened the door like a huge bear. Why? It is because he was so annoyed how to explain his intrusion. 
(chapter 29) For me, he will be forced to recognize that work is not bringing him closer to Kim Dan, especially after Choi Heesung met the main lead. 
(chapter 30) For me, this scene is the bathroom represents another step how to become a true family. 
(chapter 30) However, like Mingwa voiced it, they have a long way to go, for Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan are hiding their true thoughts and emotions from each other. 
(chapter 30) Kim Dan had to hide his blushing, while the champion had to lie for his appearance. Moreover, the fact that he tried to hide his underwear 
(chapter 30) indicates that their intimacy has not reached its peak. He doesn’t feel comfortable around the athlete to be seen in underwear. Moreover, the champion is also hiding his jealousy and possessiveness towards the main character. 
(chapter 30) But like I said, they need to open up their hearts and mind in order to become a true family. From my point of view, the halmoni could play a huge role in their union. How so? It is because she entrusted her grandson to Joo Jaekyung. The latter also conversed with her 
(chapter 21) and even paid her hospital bills. She even took his hand 
(chapter 22) and gave him a yoghurt.
(chapter 21) So the moment the grandma vanishes, it could also wound the champion’s heart, especially when his sex partner is so heartbroken. It would be interesting if the champion came to voice his feelings about her. If you can’t say you’re hurt when you feel hurt you’re not family.“
(chapter 105) „Thank god, he didn’t see nor hear a thing about that awful matter“. This is what Heena said in the original version. [Here I would like to thank my follower @katamins again for her help] 
(chapter 105) He desired to spare his heart. To conclude, “that awful matter” is referring to the whole prank and its consequences.
(Chapter 97) 
(chapter 98), because it happened during the day and at downfall. Due to this expression, the readers can detect the presence of Yoon Seungho’s white lie. The painter had clearly mentioned what he had heard before.
(Chapter 104) However, he had been silenced by his lover, when the latter suggested to him to view everything as a nightmare. The lord made the mistake not to listen to the victim and witness. 
(chapter 105) With such a contrast, the manhwalovers can detect the link between ignorance and absence of memories. To conclude, in both versions, the main lead is “lying” out of ignorance. This is the positive version of “ignorance is a blessing”. Hence the noona thinks herself safe.
(Chapter 99) It was clear that her brother would meet the noble, as their meeting didn’t surprise her. She was more upset that Baek Na-Kyum was unconscious. 
(chapter 99) However, her question „What’s wrong with Na-Kyum?“ divulges her hypocrisy and acting. How could she not realize that her sibling had been beaten? 
(Chapter 99) His head was bleeding, and the black guards were carrying sticks. It was clear that his state was not caused by an illness. To conclude, the calling “lord Jihwa” is the proof of her complicity, though in front of Yoon Seungho it serves as an excuse to portray herself as a victim. 
(chapter 105) Thus I deduce that Heena thinks, the painter could not witness her acting in front of the scholar’s house, for his head was turned around and he was not moving. She feels secure concerning that night, while I am expecting the opposite. Nonetheless, her past behavior in the kisaeng house represents a source of danger for her. That’s the reason why she has to hide the “attempted murder” from her brother. The moment Heena mentions that she has been hurt, the painter won’t believe her. Why? It is because in the kisaeng house, he has not forgotten her words: 
(chapter 97) Even if she was “fooled”, the artist can only reproach her stupidity. Remember her harsh words, she had called him stupid: 
(chapter 97) She had helped Min, and she can not claim ignorance. As you can see, Yoon Seungho was encouraged to hide the “attempted murder” from Baek Na-Kyum for selfish reasons. Therefore it is no coincidence that when the lord visited Heena, he made sure that his lover wouldn‘t see Heena in bed. 
(Chapter 104) This explicates why later the lord was hugging his lover under the cover. 
(Chapter 104) Hence I conclude that Heena must have thought the same way about Yoon Seungho. „Thank god, he didn’t see or hear a thing about that awful matter“. He has no idea about her altercations with her brother in the kisaeng house. It is important, because our beloved seme has the impression that the noona has her brother’s best interests at heart, but actually he is wrong. In my opinion, the relationship between Heena and his lover serves as a mirror to his relationship with Yoon Seungwon. So far, the young noble doesn’t suspect his brother to have betrayed him. Note that he blames his father more than his younger sibling. 
(chapter 105) Yet, this incident was presented as Yoon Seungho’s memory. This panel could be used as an evidence that my theory, Heena was present next to the shaman’s shrine during the bloodbath, was wrong. Nonetheless, this image didn’t make me change my mind. Why? I paid attention to details and judged this rescue as “fake” again. The servants had a drop of sweat on their face, the symbol for deception. Secondly, the kisaeng was wet, while the staff’s clothes weren’t damp. How did they save her then? Besides, where are the foot prints? Moreover, where was the head cover? 
(chapter 99) Finally, her hands and feet were not tied. So where did the items go? Since we saw her “execution”, we are the witnesses, and as such we know the truth about that “awful matter”, but it is not the case for the lord. This image contains so many errors, hence it can not reflect reality. 
(chapter 103) Hence he could have never been outside the mansion. That’s how I realized that the author was presenting us a false memory. This means that the manhwalovers are facing an implanted memory. But how could this happen? First, false memory is quite normal and is often of no consequence. But a false memory relayed during criminal testimony might lead to the conviction of an innocent person. As the manhwalovers can detect, it represents a serious problem. 
(chapter 58), it makes him particularly vulnerable to false memories. 
(chapter 104), the lord and even the readers imagined to see medicine in the white bowl! 
(chapter 105) Besides, the author had always connected the drug with the tray. 
(chapter 23) As you can see, the readers interpreted this scene due to associations. Nonetheless, like mentioned in the previous analysis, the different color and the traces on the edge were the evidences that it was ink. 
(chapter 36) Besides, Heena was in bed indicating that she was still weak. The circumstances led people to have a different perception of “verity”!! Only through the mind’s eye, the manhwalovers can detect that this scene was staged. 
(chapter 103) The protagonist projected his own thoughts and emotions onto one servant: shock! 
(chapter 61) This was interference by excellence. Besides, emotions can affect your memories. Since the lord was so under shock after witnessing the painter’s unconsciousness, it is not surprising that he imagined to have witnessed this scene. At the same time, when he left the shrine in trance, he could have overlooked the presence of a third person… similar to Lee Jihwa next to the shed. That’s how he doesn’t recall anything from that night except his crime. He didn’t see and hear the person by his side. Where is the sword? Where did he get the hanbok from?
(chapter 102) Therefore it is not astonishing that he imagined a similar scenery. 
(chapter 1) This shows that the artist had only heard his name without seeing his face before. This explicates why the main lead’s gaze and facial expressions were similar 
(chapter 1) 
(chapter 1) 
(chapter 103) 
(chapter 104) My avid readers can certainly recall the rule I had detected: each chapter will be reflected in the next! 
(chapter 105) How is it possible? Especially, when the painter said this: 
(chapter 94) Furthermore, the painter is associating the learned sir to the moon and as such the night. 
(chapter 94) Thus I am now suspecting that this image 
(chapter 94) 
(chapter 94) It was, as if the noonas had never been informed about the painter’s suffering and tears. This shows that Heena has been hiding many things from her colleagues. But there is more to it! The manhwaphiles saw the artist’s tears in his childhood. 
(chapter 68) Heena was misremembering that night, and she was misattributing the painter’s tears. In other words, she was confusing two incidents.
(chapter 105) It is the same facial expression, though the redness around the eyes is more pronounced. This observation confirms that the noona’s memories in the kisaeng 
(chapter 105) He had run after his lover in socks. While in “Baek Na-Kyum’s foot”, I thought that this memory was true, I come now to a different signification. It was a false memory in order to hide a crime related to Heena. I would like to outline that in the kisaeng’s comment, we have the notion of “shame” and as such “guilt”. First, I thought of rape, but then it could be much simpler. The painter could have witnessed his noona having sex with the learned sir. But because he was too young, he misjudged the situation… as a virgin, she had to bleed. Because he saw blood, he imagined that the learned sir had hurt Heena. This would explain why the artist was afterwards anxious around the teacher. One might think that this is not terrible. But let’s not forget that as a kisaeng, she can not have sex like that. 
(chapter 68) Through suggestions, she had been able to convince her brother that the learned sir was a nice person. This explicates why the caresses and hugs were used to silence the artist. By repeating to her brother, he liked Jung In-Hun, he came to develop such feelings. The kisaeng’s statement implies that the admiration for the teacher was not constant. 
(chapter 46) A change of heart versus “eternity”. This shows that the painter’s decision to go to the learned sir’s house was never his choice. He had simply followed Heena’s suggestion. She was definitely distorting his past. Furthermore I detected a strong connection between love and memory. 
(chapter 94) If it is a loved one, then it can only be a good memory. Therefore it is not surprising that by saying constantly saying that the painter likes the scholar, he is repressing the bad memories with the scholar (the beating in episode 34, the betrayal in chapter 29, his words in the library and his reproach about his job). So far, he only mentioned one negative incident. 
(chapter 76) So while the painter was following his lover, the latter turned around and hugged him. Afterwards, he asked him to go to his noonas, for he needed to talk to Heena. Moreover, contrary to Yoon Seungho, Baek Na-Kyum paid attention to time. He was not lost in thoughts or had lost the sense of time
(chapter 105) But the latter acted, as if his hand was not wounded. 
(chapter 105) He ignored his physical pain and heartache.
(chapter 105) This is important, because the stumbling symbolizes the intervention of the gods… We have the perfect example at the end of season 3. The lord fell on his knees in front of the scholar’s house, hence there is a hand print on the snow. 
(chapter 100) That’s how he refused to view Lee Jihwa as the murderer of his lover, Baek Na-Kyum”. YES, the falling is the real manifestation of CHANCE! How so? I would like the manhwaphiles to keep in mind that chance is the antonym of trick and scheme! The latter are connected to plan and organization. Thus I come to the conclusion that the noble will decide to go to the doctor’s office in order to treat his lover’s hand. 
(chapter 57) he was feverish so that he couldn’t pay attention to the physician. Besides, the man never remained by his side. Finally, in episode 74, the man never left the office!! 
(chapter 74) I conclude that Yoon Seungho never saw the physician for commoners! Besides, I doubt that he remembers him from his childhood. But this is not the same, when Baek Na-Kyum was ill. He met the other doctor twice. 
(chapter 33) 
(chapter 103) On the other hand, the artist assumes that the man in the office is Yoon Seungho’s doctor!! He heard his confession: 
(chapter 57) There exist two physicians in the city at least. That’s how a part of the truth will come to the surface! And who had fetched the doctor? 
(chapter 103) The staff… I would like to outline that in this panel, Kim was no longer seen next to the couple. 
(chapter 105) So where did he vanish? Probably to the mansion, for he had to warn the domestics that the artist would be returning! But if he left the couple behind, this means that he can’t witness what Yoon Seungho and Baek Na-Kyum will do next. And if they don’t go to the doctor, there is no ambiguity that the main lead will send for the doctor again. But according to me, the man disappeared. 
(chapter 103) To conclude, I am expecting that Yoon Seungho will make a huge discovery in the next episode… just like the painter did in the gibang. 
Yes, when people read juicy deeds, they were already imagining that I would describe a love session like this one 
(chapter 96), because of the expression „to do the deed“: 
(chapter 87) However, the deed is not just related to intercourse, like the manhwaphiles could discover it in chapter 51. 
With „deed“, Deok-Jae was referring to murder and assassination. As you can see, deed has other meanings than sex. Thus it has for synonyms action, accomplishment and reality!! So when I selected this name for the essay, I was thinking of the relationship between action and word. And this connection came to my mind, when Byeonduck released the last picture, because the painter’s action symbolizes a conversation and as such words.
(Chapter 88) By reaching his hand, the painter was letting him know that he was no longer alone in this world. He was not only joining his side, but he was willing to try to understand the main lead. 
(Chapter 88) This gesture stands in opposition to the situation with Yoon Chang-Hyeon.
(Chapter 86) During that fateful night, the father neither talked to his son nor looked at him. He even turned his back to him, when the young master attempted to grab his father‘s hanbok. Both scenes from chapter 88 and 86 have two common denominators: an action accompanied with silence!! Yet, what distinguishes them from each other is the nature of the deed, the action. Alliance and empathy versus abandonment and estrangement! This is no coincidence that after reaching his hand, Baek Na-Kyum started confessing his thoughts and emotions to his lover: 
(Chapter 88) As you can sense, the hand gesture delivered a message, but the painter still felt the need to clarify the meaning of his hand. He was willing to remain by his side, but he was still afraid of him. He didn’t want to create a misunderstanding, like for example that he wouldn’t argue with him or that his loyalty was now unconditional or total. That way, Yoon Seungho wouldn’t come to view him as a hypocrite or as dishonest, if an argument would appear. Thus he needed words to explain his position. He would remain by his side and attempt to sympathize with him, but he still felt insecure and had doubts. In other words, his action (his hand gesture) was not truly reflecting his mind and heart. 
(Chapter 88) Later he even asked his lover not to leave his side no matter what. 
(Chapter 88) To conclude, the hand gesture in episode 88 was connected to insecurities and as such fear, yet the painter had shown no hesitation to take his hand. The anxiety was not visible.
(Chapter 30) His fingers barely grabbed his hand, so when he made the following vow, he was not entirely sincere or better said, truly determined to keep his promise. 
(Chapter 30) The words were not truly in unison with the gesture either. Therefore he once tried to leave the mansion in season 2. When he pledged loyalty, his intention was to protect his teacher. To conclude, fear has always been present, when the painter took Yoon Seungho’s hand. Even in chapter 88, but contrary to the scene in the courtyard, his hand was not shaking. 
(Chapter 82) This explicates why the artist chose to remain by his side, though the lord had broken his promise. 
(Chapter 82) On the other hand, in this scene 
(chapter 82), the lord was grabbing his lover’s hand out of fear. He was recognizing his mistake and was trying to beg for his forgiveness, though he couldn’t express it directly. Striking is that during the lord’s flashback, his hand was trembling as well, grabbing onto his partner’s body. 
(Chapter 81) It was, as if Baek Na-Kyum was his rescue buoy, helping him not to be swallowed by the darkness. Thus I came to the conclusion that the protagonists’ hand gestures are all connected to anxiety and pain. 😲 Hence I am deducing that in this scene, Baek Na-Kyum is holding his lover’s hand, 
(Chapter 102). This would have definitely scared Baek Na-Kyum, especially Yoon Seungho’s haunted gaze. On the other hand, since the painter had been himself the victim of physical and sexual abuse, the artist can only grasp why the noble reacted that way: fear, anger, despair and heartache. The artist had also been desperate, in pain and scared in the shrine, though this time, he had not screamed for his help. Since the lord had not returned to the mansion, how could he expect him to come to his rescue? 
(Chapter 98) Back then, he had been waiting for his lover‘s return and explanations. He wanted to hear him and get his reassurance and comfort. .
(Chapter 98) The latter couldn’t reassure the painter with his hand contrary to the previous night. 
(chapter 97) Exactly like mentioned above, the painter’s hand gesture is connected to fear and conversation. 
(chapter 97) Striking is that in the gibang, the lord confessed his biggest fear to his future “spouse”. He feared to lose him, though one of his biggest desires had been finally fulfilled. This means that Yoon Seungho felt even more insecure and frightened than before after receiving the artist’s love confession. That’s the reason why I believe that the new picture is standing in opposition to the scene in the gibang. The lord will feel relief after his admission. As a conclusion, the image is announcing 
(Chapter 89) While the painter was sitting on his partner’s lap
(chapter 89), he was massaging the wounded fingers. It was, as if he was treating his companion’s wound. Note that after his terrible flashback, the painter had avoided to grab his hand out of fear that he might hurt Yoon Seungho even more. 
(Chapter 84) Therefore I conclude that the new panel is an allusion to treatment. While in episode 89, the painter was acting as a doctor, in the new image, the young man is working more like a counselor or psychologist. The aristocrat’s hand might not be wounded in that scene, but this is not the case for his heart and mind. So for me, this scene is connected to mental treatment. 
(Chapter 84) However, the lord had refused to open up. This is no coincidence that the author had not created such a picture during that chapter. As the manhwalovers can detect, I believe that in that scene, 
(chapter 88), and this, although the lord is indeed a murderer. For Baek Na-Kyum, his gesture will have a different meaning: he saved his life and freed him from his torment. Secondly, if the lord reveals the circumstances of his mother’s death, the artist will definitely deny his responsibility in her death, a new version of this scene. 
(chapter 75) And because I detected a discrepancy between words and gestures, I recognized the presence of another trick from Byeonduck.✨
(chapter 91), the latter denied this with the following statement. 
(chapter 91) But when did the painter admit that he liked embracing him? In this panel! 
(chapter 88) That’s the reason why the lord got surprised and moved. As you can see, the author never revealed this whispering to the manhwalovers! The latter had the impression that the lord’s reaction was related to the loving embrace, but it was only partially correct. 
(chapter 62), when the lord had confessed to adore him. 
(chapter 62) This explicates why Yoon Seungho was so pained in season 2. He got embraced, but there were no words. Consequently, when the painter vanished during that night, the lord could only perceive the embrace as hypocrisy and fakeness. That’s how I realized that the story is developed on the contradiction between words and actions. But not only that, there exists a strong link between silence and passivity. Thus after the abduction in season 2, Baek Na-Kyum remained more or less silent
(chapter 62), and as such he was totally passive. He never stood up and begged the lord for his leniency. He stayed there on the bed giving the impression that he was indifferent. That’s the reason why Yoon Seungho got more enraged, for he felt fooled. This means that the absence of words represent inaction… This explains why Yoon Seungho had to corner the main lead in chapter 48 
(chapter 48) to say something, as he had sensed his passivity behind his „submissive attitude“. This is no coincidence that during this night, the painter felt extreme pleasure to the point that he peed. Therefore he could voice his wish to Yoon Seungho during the love session from season 2. 
(chapter 73) That’s how the lord concluded that the painter liked riding him, while in reality such a climax had appeared for the first time, when both were facing each other! 
(chapter 49) 
(chapter 4) than season 2. He was encouraged by his future partner to speak up, yet the moment he got heartbroken, he was left speechless. And note that when the lord played his prank in the bedchamber, he never said anything to his father. 
(chapter 86) Yoon Seungho had acted the opposite, he had tried to speak up, but he had been muted. I am also thinking that the young master must have attempted to converse to his father 
(chapter 77) here as well, but the lord had not listened to him. Why? It is because Kim had said nothing!! 
(chapter 77) Silence was considered as an admission. This is no hazard that the butler didn’t take care of his young master. This scene symbolizes the quote “Actions speak louder than words” 
(chapter 77) The butler had betrayed the young master’s trust, for he had not intervened. He should have defended Yoon Seungho, but no in fact he had sided with the elder master Yoon once again. Not only he had not reminded Yoon Chang-Hyeon of his promise, but also he had assisted the ruthless father by giving himself the straw mat beating! 
(chapter 77), but backstabbed him in the shadow. Besides, we shouldn’t forget that a narcissist’s words don’t match their action, because they are pathological liars. And so far, I had portrayed father Yoon (overt), Kim (covert) and even Jung In-Hun (overt) as people suffering from NPD. And I am assuming that the mysterious lord Song is not different from them, though I am suspecting that he must be a covert type. 
(chapter 76) 
(chapter 53) 
(chapter 87), while the same extremity symbolizes the opposite with the villains and antagonists: violence, silence, submission 
(chapter 83), hatred and resent 
(chapter 97) Here, Heena was hurting her brother, because she wanted him to face “reality”. What caught my attention is that we never saw the father’s hand in chapter 86! 
(chapter 86) Why? It is because it reveals his powerlessness. And this leads me to the following conclusion: the deed stands for reality and honesty, while the words symbolize emptiness, illusion and deception. And now, you comprehend why this work is composed by the dichotomies: dream, words and mouth versus reality., action and the hand. This means that in season 4, the manhwaphiles should try to analyze the thoughts and emotions of the characters behind the hand gestures. At the same time, they can also verify if my interpretation is correct. Is the zoom of the protagonists’ hand connected to fear, confession, empathy and assistance? 
, as Baek Na-Kyum was still viewed as a boy. Moreover, according to social norms, it was impossible, for his lover is a man. Then in front of Yoon Chang-Hyeon, he made fun of his father. 
(chapter 87) That’s the reason why I consider the love session in chapter 88 more like a relationship between a sponsor and an artist. 
(chapter 9)
(chapter 11), I deduced that the culprit was left-handed. That’s how I could identify the culprit, lord Min. The lord was in reality left-handed. We could observe this in chapter 8
, episode 19 
, chapter 33
and episode 43
, in chapter 96 
, in episode 100
and finally in chapter 102 
or 43, or 52 
, he used his right hand! Thus one might argue that Min was simply ambidextrous. However, I can prove 100% that Black Heart is left-handed!😮 The evidence is the usage of the bow. 
(chapter 22) This is how a right-handed man shoots an arrow. On the other hand, we never saw Min using the bow. The bird was already wounded by the arrows, when the scene of the second hunt took place. 
(chapter 41) However, the manhwaphiles can discover the verity thanks to one detail: the bag of arrows. 
(chapter 22) As you can see, the bag is carried on the right side, but the arrows are almost touching the left shoulder. They need to be on the other side, since the scholar needs his right hand to grab the item. And now compare the position of Min’s bag. It is inclined in the opposite direction, hence the arrows are visible on his right side! 
(chapter 41) Thus the noble is carrying the bag 
(chapter 41) differently from the painter too. 
(chapter 22) Under this new light, it becomes comprehensible why Byeonduck never showed the Joker’s hunting skills. People would have noticed that he is left-handed immediately. She made sure to hide this important fact, thus within the same chapter Min was often portraying as using both hands. In episode 43, he employed his left hand to pour the alcohol in the glass
(chapter 9) Here, he was still present, but even before the end of the sex session, he had already vanished. 
(chapter 9) Finally, when the noble with the mole visited Lee Jihwa, the latter claimed that he had spent a long time at Yoon Seungho’s. 
(chapter 9), and his friend never denied it. As you can see, the characters made sure to confuse the readers with the change of the chronology. As you can see, it took me a long time before noticing the bruised face (only during season 3), then to bring up the conclusive evidence that Min was the culprit of the slap. Then in the shaman’s house, he took the dildo with his left hand, because he was angry and frustrated. 
(chapter 100) too. This shows that he could barely control himself here. And once he faced the main lead’s sword, he got so scared that he showed Jung In-Hun’s glasses with his left hand again. 
(chapter 92) The irony is that in this scene, the main lead employed his left hand too, the positive reflection from the night in the pavilion (chapter 43). While here it was to bring him back to reality, in the pavilion, the Joker had the opposite intention: to lure Lee Jihwa to believe in illusions. 
(chapter 74) They announce the future events, though the information is not given properly. On the other hand, since they are memories either, this signifies that they contain insight about the lord’s tragedy. Thus I noticed that the anonymous perpetrator used his left hand to grab his hanbok!! I deduced that the perpetrator in the past is also left-handed!! Secondly, since this vision can also be seen as the announcement of the painter’s second kidnapping, this is no coincidence that Byeonduck created such panels during the painter’s last torment. 
(chapter 99) However, in the shaman’s temple, Black Heart grabbed Baek Na-Kyum with his right hand. He was trying to manipulate the artist, he was acting. He was not showing his true self. Yet, the vision was revealing the truth: the future mastermind of the last scheme was in reality left-handed!! It didn’t matter, because at the end, the main lead was able to discern the truth. He sentenced Black Heart, for he believed that he had killed his loved one! That’s how I realized why the author would focus so much on the hands and on the distinction between unconscious and conscious! The hand in Painter Of The Night represents the crucial clue to identify the culprits!! 
In season 1, we had the hands in the illustration. The hands were revealing the crime committed against the main lead. The latter was totally passive in this picture. The hands are touching and unclothing the immobile man. It also shows that Yoon Seungho was at the center of the conspiracy, in the past and in the present! The painting in the background indicates the presence of a hidden painter. Thus Baek Na-Kyum was not drawn in the cover. The painter of the night was in truth someone else, the painter from the past! Nevertheless, the main lead was looking at the readers, indirectly at Baek Na-Kyum, the young painter of the night. This describes the arrival of Baek Na-Kyum in his life. Striking is that the painting in the background was destroyed… indicating that the portrayed relationship was no longer existent. This represents another clue that the lord’s suffering is linked to a previous relationship. Then in season 2, 
the author revealed Baek Na-Kyum as the painter, who had now become the target of the plot. Yet behind him we see Yoon Seungho’s foot. The latter symbolizes the main lead feared to get close to him, but he wouldn’t leave his side. Moreover, this corresponds to the lord’s impulsive decisions, he let his foot guide him. Thus during the first night of the failed gangrape, he walked towards the study and stopped unconsciously, when he was next to the room. 
(chapter 53) Due to his strong denial, he was strolling not realizing that his feet were under the influence of his subconscious. And it was the same, when he opened the door with his foot at the Lees’ 
(chapter 67) Nonetheless, I believe that the author had another reason to draw the foot in the cover. The foot prints are the evidence of the crime, and as such the deceptions and the culprits. 
(chapter 59) 
(chapter 60) 
(chapter 61) The shoes were the clues how to recognize the perpetrators and accomplices. That’s why I compared these feet 
(chapter 59) with those 
. (chapter 66) My avid readers are already aware of my theory. For me, we have two kidnappers, and one tried to kill the artist! To conclude, Byeonduck left the clues how to unveil the mystery from the past and the present in the illustrations of each season. The paper in the second cover 
(chapter 56), but also to the theft of the painting
(chapter 56) and the painter’s break! At the end of season 2, he was no longer painting and in the beginning, he had also stopped due to his heartbreak. Simultaneously, we have the presence of water which serves as a connection to season 1 with the ruined painting and to season 3 with the well and drowning. The dark shades were an allusion to the lord’s darkness and suffering. The latter would come to the surface. However, since the cover only showed the lord’s foot, it exposes that the lord would not divulge his traumatic past. 
(chapter 78) In season 3, this time the main leads were facing each other, they were recognizing each other: their true self! But this stands in opposition to the deceased people without identity! 
(chapter 94) We never saw the face of the corpses, as they were either covered
, the back 
(chapter 97) or the clothes and shoes 
(chapter 100)! And since Min had disguised himself as Lee Jihwa, it was clear that the deceased shouldn’t be identified by their clothes, but by their faces. As you can see, season 3 was about the face and identity! This indicates that in the past, someone had been not identified correctly!! Why? It is because the main lead has long repressed this memory. He had forgotten his face out of fear and hatred. The only thing the victim remembers is the BEARD, and old bearded men! 
(chapter 44) And the nightmare exposed the number of persons involved in his suffering: 4 men!! 
Here, we have 3 men, and don’t forget the left hand from before. 
(chapter 99) That’s the reason why I am anticipating a cover with the gibang. It would be the perfect place to find closure for the couple. It is a place where both suffered. Moreover, I think, belongings should serve as an evidence for the identification of the schemers and accomplices. Remember that we had the glasses as the evidence of a murder in season 3, yet I am sensing that the possession should serve to identify the perpetrators from the past and the present. Since the clothes were used to confuse people in season 3, I am assuming that in season 4, they should help to recognize people, but at the same time, it is totally possible that our main leads decide to employ the same method to fool the schemers and accomplices. And now, we have the cover for season 4. Both protagonists are not only facing each other, but also touching each other. They are no longer hiding their emotions and thoughts. 
This image represents the opposite to the other seasons. At the same time, the author is again referring to the bedchamber indicating that this place is strongly connected to the protagonists’ suffering. On the other side, since the painter is wearing a silk white shirt, it implies that he is not a commoner. This panel indicates that the main lead was able to the true owner of the study and even bed. However, due to the tears, the beholder can sense that this season will be painful as well. Striking is that in the cover, they were either alone, or they were just looking at each other, hence they didn’t pay attention to their surroundings. Consequently, they couldn’t sense the presence of a plot and the schemers. This indicates that the couple is still not prepared to face new schemes. To sum up, the author selected such covers because she had planned to leave clues there about the mystery! But wait… I had outlined that the person who grabbed the young master Seungho was left-handed, and he played a huge role in the main lead’s downfall and suffering! But who is left-handed in this story? 
(chapter 12) 
(chapter 56). But then I noticed that he carried his master on the left side. 
(chapter 66) and since it is for me the butler, he was not the person from the nightmare. That’s the reason why I am excluding him from the suspect list. For me, if he was involved in the past, it is because he lit the candles 
(chapter 74). Furthermore, don’t forget that in his nightmare, the author exposed the presence of plates with 3 candles 
(chapter 74) which were also used in the shaman’s house. Finally, in this picture, we have a right-handed person. 
(chapter 74) So Kim could have been the one silencing him with his hand.
(chapter 86) On the other hand, at the doctor’s office, he employed his right-hand to keep his son by his side. 
(chapter 57). Why is there this change? The turning point was the prank in the bedchamber. 
(chapter 83), then with the left! Striking is that the author never showed, when the patriarch employed his left hand. The readers could only hear the sound, and see the result of the beating. Both cheeks were wounded. From my point of view, he was conditioned exactly like Min! He was not allowed to use his left hand, but the angrier he got, the less he could hide his true self: he was left-handed and he was a stupid and brutal father!! 
(chapter 37) On the other hand, I am doubting that Byeonduck will introduce many new characters in season 4. That’s the reason why I believe that the man with the pipe is the real schemer, as the pipe was in the annex. Since Min grabbed Baek Na-Kyum in the shaman’s house, I am more inclined to think that the perpetrator grabbing the young master Seungho by the collar was just an accomplice and not the mastermind. In other words, he was the helping hand. 
(Chapter 74) I don’t believe in hazard. Besides, the lord had his nightmare during the same chapter. This means that he could have leaked this information about Yoon Seungho to an outsider, like he did with the painter. As the manhwalovers can grasp, the physician is more suspicious than before. 
(chapter 92) Besides, observe that the angry man put the brush on the left side. 
(chapter 92) The man is left-handed! And what did Yoon Seungho do? 
(chapter 92) He grabbed him by the collar! Exactly like in the dream!! 
(chapter 44) or patio of his mansion, similar to Heena’s. And since the young main lead suffered so much, it is normal that he doesn’t have such believes. IT is also possible that the young master Seungho played a prank which made the man angry and humiliated. As you can see, I come to the conclusion that jealousy and resent were the reasons why he got involved in the first place. Moreover, we shouldn’t forget that the calligrapher is linked to the kisaengs! He even recognized Baek Na-Kyum, as he called him a peasant. 
(chapter 92) Yet, he was either perceived as servant, a noblewoman or as a sir so far! He was never recognized as a peasant. Since he could identify the artist, it is also possible that he was also able to identify Yoon Seungho. But he thought that he was not well educated after living as a male kisaeng for so long. From my point of view, the man could have decided to get revenge on Yoon Seungho and participated in his abduction and gangrape!! Thus his karma was to lose his home! 
(chapter 91) The fact that Yoon Seungho grabbed him the same way than in the nightmare is not random. It was, as if he was getting justice. Honestly, I am more and more suspecting that in the past, Yoon Seungho got raped by commoners! Naturally, I have not changed my mind that the king was behind this plot: to get revenge on the Yoons! Who benefitted the most from the crime? Definitely the king, as he was able to ruin their influence. 
(chapter 39), the other only recognizes him as master Yoon. 
(chapter 64) This means that the latter knows about the existence of elder master Yoon. Like mentioned above, the calligrapher, the physician, the tailor, the fake servant and the “shaman” from chapter 29 have all one thing in common: the beard!! 
(chapter 83) disguised himself and hide his true identity behind “lord Song”. But is he the king or someone else? He was definitely a pedophile, but since we can’t see his face, it is not certain that it was the king. 
(chapter 83) Striking is that he is not “smoking here”, yet I had outlined that one abuser was a heavy smoker due to Yoon Seungho’s behavior. 
(chapter 86) Let’s not forget that in season 3, clothes were used to deceive Yoon Seungho, and the authorities played along. Besides, as the painter had become the love interest of Yoon Seungho and Black Heart, it is very likely that in the past, the victim was exposed to two different abusers, but they all hid behind the name: lord Song. Note that during this feast, one man had a moustache beard which is in Painter Of The Night the sign that he is no yanbang, not even chungin, the upper-middle class. He could be a rich merchant. Just because they are all wearing hanboks 
(chapter 87), this doesn’t mean that these men belong to the aristocracy. Furthermore, Kim never said “nobles”, he just said “visitors”!! Finally, I would like to point out that since Yoon Seungho lived secluded for 10 years, I doubt that he had the means and the knowledge to be involved in the trade: 
(chapter 22) This theory of the participation of a merchant got even reinforced, when I made the following discovery. The wooden boxes in season 1 were present at the tailor‘s shop!! 
(chapter 39) Thus I am deducing that the barn in season 2 
(chapter 51) could have belonged to the tailor or the owner of this shop. And note the couple was in the same position than with the kisaeng with No-Name in episode 51! 
(chapter 51) This was the negative reflection from episode 39: no penetration versus penetration, no interruption versus interruption, no rumor versus rumor etc. And this contrast clearly displays that the tailor shop is involved in Yoon Seungho’s suffering. And the best evidence for this is the nightmare. The main lead’s clothes had a design. 
(chapter1) Or was she simply the noona? 
(chapter 70) At some point, I came to realize that Heena had acted as the surrogate mother, but she had never clearly stated that she was the painter’s mother. In other words, his adoption was never official, which explicates why the main lead only considered her as his older sister. This is important, because her ambiguous status can not only generate problems, but also expose her betrayal towards Baek Na-Kyum. Note that in chapter 97, the noona treated Baek Na-Kyum as her “child” who wouldn’t listen to her 
(Chapter 97), while later she implied that they were both equal, for she employed the personal pronoun “us”. 
(Chapter 93) That’s the reason why the seat of the host was empty and why Yoon Seungho didn’t go there. He would have violated social norms, if he had taken her seat.. Moreover, by doing so, he would have revealed that he knew where the woman was. This could have raised questions.
(Chapter 93) This means that the figures were not sitting in the room shown in the last panel. On the other hand, their voices in the hallway exposed their location. The noonas and Heena were not far away from that door hidden by the veil. That’s how I got aware where Heena’s room was situated. In the last picture, the readers are turning their back from Heena’s study, which is right after the corner. Thus I could recognize the design of the building: ][ In the center, there is this huge hallway with the purple veils, but at its end, on each both sides, there exists a corridor perpendicular to the one with the purple curtains. What the beholder imagined as a door at the end of the hallway, 
(Chapter 68) was in truth a huge window. How do I know this? First, in this scene, the scholar was hiding a huge white vase with red flowers. Hence I deduced that Jung In-Hun couldn’t have walked through that “gate”, it was just a window. Therefore I assumed that he had to walk past the flowers, either turn to the right or the left. Secondly, observe that next to the lantern on the left, there is a small white panel. This means that the view from chapter 93 was more or less taken from the right corner. Moreover, in the next chapter, Heena is not facing this “window”, when she is in the same building. 
(Chapter 69) This time, the white vase with the flowers is standing in front of a wall. That’s how I deduced that Heena had to turn to the left in order to go to the hallway. 
(chapter 69) On the other hand, another element caught my notice. In this picture, 
(chapter 93) which is not present in episode 69. 
(chapter 93) Since I came to the conclusion that Heena’s private room was on the right side after the corner, I deduce that the kisaeng was not on her way to her room. Moreover, since the kisaeng was walking in the same direction than the scholar, I can only conclude that Heena was actually approaching the entrance of the building. I believe that she had turned around, but the author didn’t reveal this. One might argue that it is possible that in chapter 68, the learned sir could have gone with the painter to Heena’s bedroom. However, back then the latter was not the head-kisaeng. We know this due to the presence of a kisaeng standing right behind Yoon Chang-Hyeon during the sexual lesson. 
(chapter 69) It was done on purpose!! She wished that Min would take care of her brother. Under this new light, it becomes comprehensible why the noona has a drop of sweat on her cheek. She is faking ignorance, she is acting, as if she was very protective of her brother. She uses illusion to manipulate people. In reality, she was acting here. One might argue that I am overthinking again. This is not possible, for Heena didn’t know Min at all. Hence she couldn’t manipulate him. The latter had heard of her for the first time in Yoon Seungho’s mansion. 
(chapter 66) But let me ask you this. How could Heena have never met Min, when she was the head-kisaeng? Secondly, just because the servant had never heard of the noona, this doesn’t mean that it was the case for Black Heart. The domestic assumed Black Heart’s ignorance, just like the readers. Moreover, recently I had detected that Heena had been standing in front of a mansion belonging to a noble. 
, (chapter 19) 
(chapter 59). Here, I would like to point out that in episode 59, Lee Jihwa had visited the kisaeng house on different occasions, for his hair was slowly growing. 
(chapter 59) Moreover, note that his visits took place during the day and not during the night. Why? It was for privacy and so far, during the day, the manhwaphiles never saw any kisaeng in the gibang. 
(chapter 1) 
(chapter 19) This image was showing us that Yoon Seungho was visiting the gibang. However, pay attention to the pattern of the doors in the last picture and the next: 
(chapter 19) The motive diverges, it looks like the one from the hallway with the purple veils. This means that the party was not taking place in the room shown in the former picture. What caught my notice is the presence of the white vase with the red flowers in front of the building. It was present in each scene taking place in the gibang. 
(chapter 93) For me, the red flowers symbolize Heena noona. This explicates why during the painter’s dream, the flowers were not present. 
(chapter 44) Due to the similarities, I believe that in chapter 19, Byeonduck was actually exposing the ghost head-kisaeng. Exactly like the father, she was hiding. Why? It is because she is involved in Yoon Seungho’s suffering. And now, imagine her reaction, when she hears that Black Heart has organized a feast for the main lead’s honor. The woman could only avoid the main character. And now, you have the explication why Heena as the head-kisaeng was not present during that festivity. It was deliberate. 
(chapter 19) Striking is that the kisaeng had a similar hair dress than Heena, This is no coincidence. She was acting as the head-kisaeng. The manhwalovers will certainly remember that only two kisaengs had no braided bun or braids: this one 
and Heena. Look at all the others: 
(chapter 93) 
(chapter 93) 
(chapter 95) The extravagant hair dress was exposing the kisaeng’s status. And now, you comprehend why the other noona explained the disappearance of Heena during that night. 
(chapter 19) But how could she sense that the noble was in a good mood? The latter was silent and not even smiling. 
(chapter 19) How could she claim this? In reality she was actually spying on him. Heena had no idea why the lord would come to the gibang, especially after suffering there so much. The kisaeng’s task was to dig up information. This visitation must have bothered the head-kisaeng. 
(chapter 69) She was even turning her back to him. But actually, she could have detected his presence, exactly like I had recognized him: through his laugh!! 
(chapter 99) He was wearing a veiled hat, yet in chapter 69, this was not the case. 
(chapter 88) 
(chapter 99) He was implying that they knew each other for a long time! The irony is that the manhwaphiles had the impression that their relationship was recent, and his cynical tone contributed to it. Secondly, he called her Heena, a sign that they were close to each other. Note that Lee Jihwa never mentioned her name. 
(chapter 99) His words even insinuate that Black Heart had just given the following order. The red-haired master should just fetch a kisaeng and in my opinion, Heena was waiting for Lee Jihwa’s arrival to leave the gibang. According to his words, he had no idea about the kisaeng’s identity. But is it true? I have my doubts now, and this for two reasons. Why would he ask about her identity, when he already knows that she is a kisaeng? The drop of sweat on his face is an indication that he is lying. But the problem is to determine if the deception is only referring to “I heard not a word” and to all the questions. Let’s not forget that he knew about Min’s initial intention. The moment Lee Jihwa arrived in the gibang, she just followed him. That way, they would avoid to attract attention, and with her new hair dress 
(chapter 93), the gibang had lost its “leader”. This explains why this noona as her right-hand had to explain the absence of the owner. 
(chapter 86) The latter had been eyeing the throne in the family mansion, but he failed to take over the mansion. This was the negative reflection of Heena. Whereas the kisaeng had a powerful position in the gibang, it was the opposite for the patriarch. He was no longer recognized as the head of the Yoons. Yet, both have something in common. Both lost their position for good, for Heena and Yoon Chang-Hyeon couldn’t take or keep the seat. We could say that both got defeated by Yoon Seungho. In chapter 93, the main lead acted as a respectful and calm master, whereas in the bedchamber he showed no respect to his own father. He talked back and even made fun of him. 
(chapter 93) To conclude, the surrogate mother and the patriarch made a similar experience in season 3. Both got deceived by manipulations and in both cases, letters played a huge role. 
(chapter 102) That’s why I come to the deduction that her murder will be questioned. Why? There is no blood contrary to the bloodbath in the shaman’s house and there is no corpse!! Since Black Heart used different corpses in order to deceive Heena and the couple, there is no ambiguity that the head-kisaeng’s curtains will be doubted. Striking is that Heena staged her death out of cowardice and selfishness, while Yoon Seungho made the opposite decision. He was resolute to commit suicide in order to follow his lover in his death. During that night, Heena and Yoon Seungho lost their “home”, but at the end, he found his true home: the painters embrace. 
(chapter 96), though he is a noble. Besides, I am suspecting her of suffering from genophobia (fear of sex and intimacy) Their behavior exposes closeness and a certain trust. But how is this possible? It is because she knows that Min is a sodomite, and he is not looking for sexual favors. That’s the reason why she trusted Black Heart in my opinion. Moreover, he is smiling like Jung In-Hun. Therefore it is not surprising that she was speaking like the Joker in chapter 97. Here, the man had actually projected his own thoughts onto Yoon Seungho, and due to her own belief, Heena was more than willing to believe Black Heart. 
(chapter 52) It is because Black Heart knew Heena! I even believe that he had already met the scholar. Note that the man with the black hanbok was repeating the rumors about the learned sir. And the other questioned the main lead’s action exposing that he had never heard about this grapevine before. Hence I am deducing that the one spreading this rumor could only be MIN!! That’s the reason why he just said this
(chapter 52) That means that the noble knew the teacher in the end. Therefore it is no coincidence that Min was aware where the learned sir lived!! 
(chapter 83) And now, if you connect the two scenes 
(chapter 97) 
The latter had given the poetry referring to exit to the painter as a farewell gift. Why was the lord thinking of Jung In-Hun in that moment? It is because he had read the letters from Heena and as such her accusation against him. He had killed the learned sir, hence in the lord’s mind, it was only a matter of time until Baek Na-Kyum would bring up the subject and decide to leave him. The letters are not destroyed, for he asked this to the painter: 
(chapter 94) Yoon Seungho had two reasons to expect such an outcome. First, it was related to Yoon Seungho’s offer to Baek Na-Kyum. 
(chapter 44) Secondly, Baek Na-Kyum had already showed to the main lead that he could leave him at any moment. 
(chapter 85) Finally, what mattered to the artist the most was the lord’s love and trust. 
(chapter 85) He believed in his affection while thinking that Yoon Seungho would keep his promises. But if there was a slight doubt about him, in Yoon Seungho’s mind, the painter would choose his noona over him, like he had experienced it in the study. To sum up, in the gibang, the lord was fearing the artist’s departure. Moreover, when the painter confessed his love to the noble, he was also leaving the scholar’s side. His path was no longer following the teacher’s. Thus when he said this 
(chapter 94), he was actually biding farewell to Jung In-Hun. He was moving on. Finally, if you include these panels from chapter 94, 
(chapter 68). She let her brother hear the laughs from the younger masters. It looks like she is consoling her brother, yet she is not, for she is not embracing him. She is grabbing him by the shirt which reminded me of this gesture: 
(chapter 97) Hence I deduce that this scene in the gibang (chapter 97) is a reflection of the incident in the painter’s youth. 
(chapter 65). Thus she gave more the impression of being righteous and truly concerned. 
(chapter 82)
But there exists another style of moustache beard. 
Striking is that Kim is also wearing such a moustache beard. 
(chapter 87) However, so far in the story, this type of moustache beard was only present among commoners and not nobles!! 
(chapter 45) 
(chapter 45) 
(chapter 78) Hence I started suspecting if these two persons were truly nobles in the end. 
(chapter 99) so that he had been mistaken for a young master. 
(chapter 52) However, the more time passed on, the more the butler kept pointing out that he was just a servant, so that this moustache beard is losing its meaning, the symbol for power and nobility. At the same time, the painter met more and more people with beards, like for example the tailor
(chapter 74), the physician 
(chapter 74), Bongyong 
(chapter 78) and finally Yoon Chang-Hyeon 
(chapter 87). However, note that when the patriarch left, the main character only paid attention to his gaze and not his beard. 
(chapter 87) This explicates why Baek Na-Kyum is not mentioning the beard concerning nobility, while Yoon Seungho never made the connection between the old bearded men and Kim, though the latter has now a moustache beard! To conclude, I don’t think that this physical assault 
(chapter 13), the maid (though not intended) 
, Nameless,
(chapter 60), Kim 
(chapter 78), the calligrapher with his insults 
(chapter 91) 
(chapter 98) and the black guards from Min. 
(chapter 97), two commoners who neglected him totally. By the way, the one with the green shirt and white jacket vanished later. He was not seen in the mansion. Anyway, the two domestics wouldn’t even follow the lord’s orders properly, for they never stayed by the painter’s side. And since it is a reflection from chapter 94, I deduce that the two “nobles” acted the opposite. They played their role perfectly to the point that the painter was terribly wounded and he never doubted their identities. They were just nobles! And that’s the point. That way, no person was truly blamed for the incident.
(chapter 46) Moreover, I am now doubting that Baek Na-Kyum and Heena were seen in front of the gibang. 
(chapter 69) 
(chapter 64) This would explain why she never looked for her brother afterwards. This shows that unconsciously, the painter had judged her betrayal and abandonment correctly, but he had been deceived by her argumentation and attitude. In other words, he was in denial.
(chapter 68) The blue skirt is revealing her presence. She is next to the door and observe that there is a table to her right!! Exactly like in chapter 94! 
(chapter 95) But there exist two other evidences why Heena is associated to the kitchen. Remember the painter’s thoughts in the inn: 
(chapter 75) They let see that he was thinking of Heena, though he spoke of his noonas. However, the presence of religion was introduced with food. 
(chapter 75) This truly exposes that Heena preferred working in the kitchen. That way, she could avoid sex with the clients. Another interesting aspect is that when she was sitting at the table with nobles, she was not talking to her neighbors. 
. (chapter 93) She was not even serving the noble next to her. 
(chapter 93) Once again, she was passive and immobile. Since she was doing nothing, she could hear her brother’s name and turn her head. 
(chapter 46) This was reflecting his past relationship with Heena. And now, you comprehend why Heena never paid attention to the painter’s education. She had not the time and the motivation to do so. She was busy in the kitchen during the evening and night, yet keep in mind that the painter was her excuse to keep her distance from the nobles in the beginning. This explicates why Yoon Seungho crashed the table in the gibang: 
(chapter 99) This was Heena’s karma. She could no longer use the table as an excuse to betray and abandon a young boy. Moreover, we could see this gesture as a compensation for the past incident. 
. (chapter 47). That’s the reason why I am connecting the kisaeng to the food. And I had already demonstrated that there exists a link between the gibang and the lord’s kitchen. 
(chapter 60) And now, we know for sure that the chicken blood was used to stage the crime scene in the scholar’s house. 
(chapter 101) For me, Nameless was behind this prank. It sounded so harmless, but the reality is totally different. Consequently, Heena can become the prime suspect in the scholar’s disappearance. Remember that according to me, Yoon Seung-Won went to the gibang after leaving his brother’s mansion and discovered that he had been deceived. For me, there is no ambiguity that Yoon Seung-Won and lord Song are behind the learned sir’s murder, for both had a huge interest for his vanishing. But in my eyes, Heena is the link between the nobles, lord Song and No-Name, because the kisaeng house is frequented by all kind of people. I have already mentioned that the learned sir must have gone to the kisaeng house after meeting the fake servant. 
(chapter 38) This encounter took place during the day, however he returned during the night. So he must have spent some time elsewhere. Because of the connection between Heena and the kitchen, I think, she will have to take the fall for No-Name’s crimes. Under this new light, I comprehend why Byeonduck declared that she had no longer planned Mumyeong and Lee Jihwa. Both were already receiving their punishment, when they fled. But since I detected a connection between Heena and No-Name, I am quite sure that she is also responsible for the downfall of No-Name. And don’t forget that during the incident in the bedchamber, we had a party!! 
(chapter 65) So she could have worked in the kitchen… helping the other maids. To conclude, the kisaeng had committed the following wrongdoings. She had manipulated her brother with a mixture of belief and prejudices to cover up her own fears and wrongdoings. While in chapter 94, she stopped the painter from leaving the room unconsciously, it was no longer the case with Yoon Seungho, as she was standing in front of the door. 
(chapter 68) For her, sex had become a synonym for torture and death. Her wrong choices reinforced her fears about sex in my eyes. Every time, she decided not to face the truth, she preferred being blind. Thus the goddess chose to punish her by letting her deceived by impressions. 
(chapter 66) Here, she couldn’t help her brother, though the “sequestration” was nothing compared to what Yoon Seungho had experienced at such a young age. She had deceived her brother in the past, and now she was put in the same position. She was the fool one. In addition, she was forced to be confronted with reality, because she needed to admit her wrongdoings. Since she was behind this assault 
. (chapter 96) She even got sequestered herself. 
.(chapter 102) She is a Christian, hence she could be accused of sacrilege too. In my eyes, Heena will never be able to bid farewell to her brother again. His words in the mansion will become a reality. 
(chapter 69) As you can see, I am detecting a progression in her wrongdoings. She is getting more and more involved, though there is no ambiguity that she was deceived herself in season 3. But this doesn’t excuse her crimes, for she refused to listen to her brother and called him an idiot. At no moment, she pondered on the situation. Her decisions were strongly influenced by her emotions (fear, anger and hatred). That’s the reason why I am convinced that if she is not dead (my theory), her attitude towards her brother will worsen to the point that she will call her brother a bird of misfortune! 
(chapter 68) Remember her metaphor concerning the gibang, it was viewed as a nest. She was already comparing her brother to a bird. 
(chapter 01)
(chapter 97) Fake concern versus anger and resent 
The painter’s mouth is wide open. This implies that the painter is laughing! In other words, these pictures are showing a happy Baek Na-Kyum. The laughter is not just a symbol for joy, but also an indicator for social bonding, cooperation and as such social acceptance. Note that in all these scenes, the painter is not laughing alone. He is either facing his lover and the “witnesses” of his marriage. 
(chapter 87) Naturally, this vision reflected the past due to the presence of the noonas. But if you read my previous analysis, you are aware that the painter’s nocturne visions are always composed of three elements: memory, nightmare and desires which will come true at some point. The readers will certainly recall the painter’s wish in the bedchamber: 
(chapter 81) However, here again, this was not real, for he was imagining it. He had restrained himself, for he felt that his actual life was like an illusion. It was too good to be true. Thus I conclude that in both visions, the painter wished to laugh and as such to be happy. And this observation led me to the following deduction. In season 4, the manhwalovers will witness Baek Na-Kyum’s laughter. But this doesn’t end here. All the quoted pictures share another similarity which is the absence of the sound!! There is no HA, HA, HA…. Thus I deduce that in season 4, the readers will even hear Baek Na-Kyum’s laugh!! 🤣
(chapter 1). His mouth was exposing his emotions: happiness. It was, as if he was laughing internally out of joy. Then in the pavilion, the author let us hear Yoon Seungho’s laugh, while we couldn’t see his face. 
(chapter 25) As you can see, Yoon Seungho was not truly seen “laughing”. This is what we saw right after: 
(chapter 25) Either the sound was missing, or the readers couldn’t see his open mouth. Then in chapter 51, Byeonduck created an ambiguous situation.
(chapter 51) Who was laughing here? The main lead or Min recognizable with his green hanbok? This confusion was deliberate. It was to give the impression that the lord had moved on, he was not missing his partner. This image served to divulge the reality: this happiness was fake. Another interesting aspect is that we couldn’t see the lord’s mouth, for it was too far away. It was more or less drawn from the painter’s perspective who was walking in the courtyard. 
(chapter 51) The purpose of this trick was to deceive the painter, Yoon Seungho would no longer care for him. However, this trick didn’t work out like imagined due to the maid’s words. She wished that he would remain in the mansion. But let’s return our attention to the laugher in this panel. I would even add that there was no real social bounding, for Black Heart was enjoying about Yoon Seungho’s misery and loss. He believed that the painter had died. And if it was Yoon Seungho who laughed, then this was to mask his pain. Then in chapter 70, he was caught laughing. And observe that the author separated the sound from the face: 
(chapter 70) Yoon Seungho would even hide his face from the painter, as he was looking down. His laugh was barely perceptible, and when the author revealed his face, Yoon Seungho used his hand to mask his smile. 
(chapter 70) It was, as if Yoon Seungho was not allowed to smile or to laugh at all. I would even go so far to say that laughers were actually forbidden in the mansion. Striking is that in season 3, for the first time, we could see and hear the lord’s laughter contrary to season 1 and 2.. 
(chapter 78) This illustrates the progression of the lord’s healing. He was getting happier, and he would interact more and more with people. Yet, in this scene, the lord’s laughter was not loud contrary to the one in the pavilion. Then in the gibang, his laugh was also fake, for he was masking his pain. 
(chapter 93) Thus the author didn’t let us see his mouth once again. But the painter could see the difference between a sincere laughter and a fake one, as he had already heard and see the lord’s true laugher! Because the lord laughed in all 3 seasons, I could only assume the painter’s laughing in season 4. But I have another proof for this prediction. In season 3, the painter’s laughter was shown in visions (chapter 81, 87) or through the testimony of the maid. 
(chapter 91) As a conclusion, expect a picture with Baek Na-Kyum ‘s laughter reflecting his happiness and sincerity. And this is definitely related to his marriage: 
(chapter 102) There is no HAHA, this shows that this situation is not funny. Yet, Black Heart is still smiling, he is even explaining that they were just playing. However, this smile is totally fake, for he is already scared. Hence he is stuttering. Moreover, he is trying to downplay the whole situation, as he describes it as a game. But the closer Yoon Seungho got to him, the more the villain got scared. 
(chapter 102) On the other hand, Black Heart’s mouth remained wide open, but it slowly exposed his true emotions. As the manhwalovers can detect, the sound “Haa,” is not expressing joy or happiness, but huge anxieties. Thus I couldn’t help myself thinking that in season 4, the painter’s laughter will be reflected with the heavy breathing from fear and pain. Someone will have a mouth wide open out of fear!! And this connection was already present in chapter 1: 
(chapter 1) Baek Na-Kyum and Yoon Seungho had both flashbacks 
(chapter 66), while Min was smiling. He was internally laughing, for it found it entertaining. [For more read the essay HAHA Flashbacks”] And this fear was exposed by the sound: HAA 
(chapter 99) But this doesn’t end here. 
(chapter 84), but in the gibang, he dropped this habit for good: 
(chapter 96) This connection between pain, pleasure and laughter appeared in chapter 91, as the story is based on the following rule: there is always a reflection within the same episode. I would like the manhwaphiles to observe this image: 
(chapter 91) Here, the lord had changed position provoking pleasure to the artist. Before, the maid had laughed so loudly in order to get the painter’s attention.
(chapter 91) According to my interpretation, she hoped that Baek Na-Kyum would discover the existence of the kisaeng’s letters so that the painter would feel betrayed by Yoon Seungho. He had ordered to hide the correspondence. But for that, she needed to explain the reason for her loud laughter. Hence she revealed the incident with the pervert. The irony is that due to his pleasure and embarrassment, Baek Na-Kyum didn’t pay attention to her words. He already felt ashamed, after the servant had exposed the situation in the bathroom. 
(chapter 91) Thus he avoided his lover’s gaze. And note that in chapter 25, the lord laughed, before he raped the painter. 
(chapter 25) This episode exposes the connection between laugh and pain. Here, you can see that the painter is also screaming out of pain, the negative reflection of Yoon Seungho’s laugh. Baek Na-Kyum’s mouth was wide open. When people are tortured, they will usually scream their pain and fear. 
(chapter 37) and the one from Dong-Yi. The absence of the sound. Moreover, the manhwalovers can not see the mouths from the victims either. The torture was already finished, for they had removed the tools and the „suspects“ were covered with blood. And this leads me to the following observation. The author selected a perspective from far away, and didn’t add the sound on purpose. This shows that the pedophile was not present, when the torture took place. He only arrived afterwards. This exposes his cowardice. Secondly, since I had outlined that the author had separated the sound (HA HA) from the lord’s mouth concerning the laughter, I am quite certain that she will use a similar processes for the torture. Naturally, I am also assuming that torture from the past could be slowly revealed. Consequently, my prediction is that the negative reflection of the painter’s laughter will be the yelling combined with fear and pain. This signifies that people will suffer in season 4 and probably die. Another evidence for this prediction is that the author often focused on the characters’ mouth. And this is what we have: 
(chapter 77) 
(chapter 86) 
(chapter 98) In the last scene, Heena was sort of “punished”, when she confessed to the main lead. That’s the reason why I believe that in season 4, we will see people screaming out of pain and fear. It can be in the present or in the past. The interrogation and torture should be exposed in my eyes contrary to chapter 37. 
(chapter 99) Despite the “torture”, he still claimed that Yoon Seungho was no murderer. Thus I conclude that in the next season, it should be the reverse. Yoon Seungho has to make a new leap of faith believing in the painter’s innocence and purity. Hence I am expecting an arrest in season 4. Finally, we shouldn’t overlook that each word Yoon Seungho said became the truth, so when he stated this 
(chapter 65) As you can imagine, I am already sensing a bad ending for Heena and Kim. Striking is that in this scene, while the noona was seen constantly with her mouth wide open, yelling at the host and calling for her brother, the latter was having a flashback. This is no coincidence, especially if you recall that Heena was connected to Baek Na-Kyum’s tears: 
On the other hand, when these persons got tortured, they closed their eyes out of agony, 
(chapter 30), and his fingers reminded me of the eagle’s claws. 
(chapter 18) And this perception got even reinforced, when I saw this panel: 
(chapter 52) In this scene, he was sitting like a king surrounded by his “court”. The hanbok had such a design that I couldn’t help myself associating it to Joseon’s monarchy. 
, I had another revelation. On the one hand, it actually confirmed that Yoon Seungho was somehow destined to become a king, yet he is not represented by the eagle or the phoenix, but by the dragon. Hence the moment I saw this image, one idiom came to my mind: Dragon king!
(chapter 100), though this deity is always accompanied with a dragon and in this picture, the readers couldn’t see one. However, it is possible that the author didn’t desire to reveal too much. 
(chapter 21) Why? It is because the lord was happy. These were the tears of happiness, which Yoon Seungho couldn’t express contrary to the painter. And this is no coincidence that in chapter 58, it started snowing, when the couple was making love: 
(chapter 58) And we had the same weather, when Yoon Seungho saved his lover. 
(chapter 102) The weather was expressing the main lead’s emotions: tears of happiness or sadness. We could say that the lord has the “power” to move the sky. 
(chapter 46) and we have so many jars next to the pond: 
(chapter 94) [For more read the essay “The secret behind the library”]
(chapter 91) This is no coincidence. To conclude, all these elements (rain, jar, well, soul of a deceased), connected to the dragon king, are present in Painter Of The Night. Thus I came to the conclusion that Yoon Seungho is like Dragon king. This reinforces my conviction that the main lead is not only connected to shamanism, but also embodies royalty. So he might not be the king of Joseon, but he is powerful in his own way, though he is not aware of this. And note that the moment he wished to commit suicide by drowning in the pond, he was brought back to life. 
(chapter 86), I have the impression that in season 4, we will assist to a real ritual to ward off evil and back luck, leading the tormenting souls to the afterlife peacefully. 
(chapter 100) and this altar 
(chapter 100) were exposing the presence of a ritual. However, my problem was that I couldn’t determine exactly the nature of the ritual. But by making the connection between the dragon and good fortune, I had now more clues. I have to admit that I can not be 100% sure for this, but this is what I found: 
(chapter 4) 
(chapter 6) 
(chapter 82) 
(chapter 83) and the deer 
(chapter 22). Then the lord compared Baek Na-Kyum’s eyes to a rabbit. 
(chapter 78) Since both resemble each other, I deduce that the main lead has the same eyes, the rabbit’s. Like mentioned above, he utilized his fingers similar to claws: 
(chapter 54) One might argue that this signification is totally impossible, for the lord doesn’t have the body of a snake. This point can be refuted very easily. What is the major characteristic of a snake is molting. A regularly recurrent event during the activity period of all snakes is the shedding of the skin. This coincides with the lord’s change of clothes. The latter reflected his downfall and rising. Furthermore, this animal is linked to death and rebirth. My avid readers are already aware that I had detected different scenes, where we could witness the lord’s spiritual death and rebirth, like for example in the shed: 
(chapter 66) As a conclusion, Yoon Seungho shares so many similarities with the dragon that I came to view him as one. This explicates why even after getting married, he will never wear a beard! 
(chapter 45)
(chapter 55) and as such his heart and mind. 
The painter is sitting inside a room, while Jung In-Hun is standing outside. Nonetheless, the position of the characters are very similar. This indicates that the author’s new alternative story is actually inspired by the main story!! This can only reinforce my perception that Yoon Seungho in the main story is associated to royalty. However, since it is a reflection, I deduce that this image 
He criticized the painter by stating that this was “filthy”. 
In this scene, the characters are caught by surprise, but it becomes obvious that there is no disgust or expulsion. In fact, the fall of man took place before, for Baek Na-Kyum was sent to Joseon. In this encounter, I detect attraction and curiosity. Hence I come to the conclusion that in the original story, when this scene took place, 
(chapter 50) 
(chapter 52) This means that the mysterious lord Song was actually claiming the main lead as his wife in the last scene. Min and his friends were sent there in order to entertain the protagonist, but they failed. This explicates why the next day, Black Heart was seen with a hanbok of lower quality. 
(chapter 56) It was, as if Min had been compensated for his bruised face by the mysterious lord Song. However, for the pedophile, Black Heart was just a concubine, and not his main wife! Hence the hanbok had not such a detailed and expensive design. This would explain the villain’s jealousy. And now, if you look back at the hanboks from the main lead, you will recognize his ascent. First, he is wearing green, which is similar to Yoon Chang-Hyeon’s color. At the same time, his hat resembled a lot to Kim’s. 
(chapter 1) Then later, he is mostly wearing blue which is actually the color of the Crown prince. 
(chapter 11) Yet, his robes initially have no design. Slowly, the lord is wearing colors and designs that are actually reserved for a king: blue, red, black and purple. This constant change of hanboks symbolizes the “snake molting” and as such his transformation and rising. This is not astonishing that on the night of the bloodbath, he had such a hanbok: 
(chapter 102) Here, he was no longer acting like a noble, but as a ruler. Don’t forget that according to me, the mysterious lord Song had proclaimed the main lead as his unofficial Queen by giving him hanboks with phoenixes. However, naturally, this was never mentioned to Yoon Seungho directly. Why? It is because Kim usually selects his clothes. However, this rise was not natural, as the lord had no real saying in this matter. The real metamorphosis took place in the shaman’s house, when the lord was sent back to the past and as such the darkness. 
(chapter 44) It is because the main lead was thinking that the painter would actually run away. Thus the door was left opened, and he was wearing warm clothes. Yoon Seungho never imagined that Baek Na-Kyum would remain by his side. Yet, during the previous night, the lord had consoled his lover by embracing him. 
(chapter 71) But this can be refuted easily. First, don’t forget that during this love session, the lord was acting like a servant pleasing his new lord. So this had nothing to do with Yoon Seungho’s feelings like sadness or happiness. He was determined to keep the painter by his side, and ignoring his own feelings. He never expected the artist to reciprocate his feelings. Secondly, Yoon Seungho’s nocturne vision is not just a nightmare, but also a DREAM! Yes, you are reading this correctly. Only recently, I discovered that all the artist’s visions are a combination of 3 elements: memory, nightmare and dream! I will give you three examples as illustration, for I am slowly running out of time. 
This vision is a combination of these three elements: memory, nightmare and dream. This had happened during the First Wedding Night (memory)
(chapter 21), then we have a similar situation in chapter 49: , 
, but the painter was rejecting this future. Hence he considered it as a nightmare. 
; nightmare 
the lord becomes a ghost and confronts the painter with his biggest fears (admitting his attraction, passion for erotic paintings and homosexuality) and dream
(The painter’s true desire was that the lord would kiss him, he was deeply longing for his lips, yet he was still in denial in this vision. 
. He hoped that the lord would take care of him personally. Naturally, the “spirit” is the nightmare 
. 
(chapter 74) This had already happened, but the lord had not grasped the significance. 
(chapter 53) Besides, he had not opened the door himself. Even when he went to the scholar Lee and opened the door with the his foot, the lord still felt trapped. 
(chapter 96) This shows that the lord’s wish to get released had not been fulfilled so far. In my eyes, it is connected to the torture Yoon Seungho suffered and as such to the purge organized by the authorities. That’s the reason why I deduce that the lord will break a door in season 4, and this won’t be by accident and it will be witnessed by many people contrary to chapter 53, 67 and 96! The broken door will reflect the lord’s rise and power, and no one will be able to stop this. In my eyes, this wish is connected to the door in the servants’ quarter. That’s how his imprisonment started.
(chapter 74) The “dragon” wished to see Kim and his father, and confront them! And this did take place in season 3. Yoon Seungho confronted the butler with his attitude and betrayal
(chapter 77), but this argument was just short-lived. He still viewed the valet as a hard-working and trustworthy person. He had just made bad decisions. Then in the bedchamber, the lord could blame the father for his suffering: 
(chapter 86) As you can see, the lord’s wishes were granted, but the nocturne vision was so difficult to grasp that neither the readers nor the main lead could interpret the message correctly immediately. Besides, the nightmare was mostly silent. But this doesn’t end here. 
(chapter 86) In reality, he was a dragon, who could bring luck and fortune to the person who would cherish him. This is no coincidence that the pedophile sent hanboks with the crane
(chapter 34), 
(chapter 30), but much more brutal and violent! 
Bebebisous33s' analyses in K-Dramaland and Manhwas 