The Hit Song of This Life Is Revenge - Chapter 56

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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My Hit Song in This Life Is Revenge
Episode 56
In that moment, Hwang Seong-su’s gaze snapped reflexively toward the main monitor.
The stage was flowing forward.
But in his head, the next scenario was rapidly collapsing.
‘Damn it.’
Hwang Seong-su didn’t speak the curse aloud, but his lips shaped it perfectly.
What the staff said next was even more absurd.
“Should I ask the sound director to do an error check?”
“We don’t have time for that! Not now.”
The broadcast is going out live.
If the stage goes up while everyone’s panicking, that becomes the Production Team’s fault alone.
The staff who’d followed him in dropped something even more ridiculous.
“Lee Jae-i wants us to swap out her Music Recorded track. What do we do?”
He’d heard that trainee had composed two songs herself.
But now? Here?
Running audio live on a broadcast with no rehearsal—that was insane.
“That doesn’t even make—”
Hwang Seong-su’s furious words cut off abruptly.
A single sentence suddenly blazed through his mind.
‘Lee Jae-i. She’s the problem. If she could just mess up even once, that’d be perfect.’
Even the Chief Producer had thrown that out with a laugh.
At the time, he’d laughed too, without hoping for such a coincidence.
Interfering could wreck the performance, yes—but that meant throwing a bomb that’d explode in his own hands. He’d wanted no part of it.
‘Just wait and see.’
But now, that sentence had come back crystal clear in a way he never expected.
Hwang Seong-su’s jaw clenched hard.
Disaster simulations detonated in his head one after another.
Sync delay. Music Recorded cue miss.
Even one slip would collapse the entire stage.
The program’s polish didn’t matter.
His job was to lift someone up without it showing.
And besides, she’d asked directly.
Where could he find a more perfect justification than that?
Hwang Seong-su unclenched his fist.
Then he leaned in close to the staff member.
“Make sure she understands the risk—tell her no graphics or stage effects can be swapped out.”
“Understood.”
Honestly, he’d wanted to just tell them to go ahead. But he paused a beat.
This time Hwang Seong-su spoke in a clearer, sharper tone.
“If she still wants to do it, we use a different Music Recorded track. Once she decides, tell them to get the stage ready immediately.”
The staff member nodded and quickly disappeared into the darkness.
When Hwang Seong-su turned back to the monitor, his eyes had changed.
Now a new worry crept in—what if the in-ear monitor malfunctions again?
When the fifth trainee’s stage was about halfway through, a walkie-talkie squawked.
– PD, we’ve given her plenty of warning. Lee Jae-i wants to swap her Music Recorded track.
He barely suppressed the chill that shot through his scalp.
So things did unravel this way after all.
Hwang Seong-su adjusted the walkie-talkie toward the Sound Control Room.
“Sound director. Stage 7. Switching to MR-2.”
– …What?
“No time to explain. Just confirm the MR-2 in-ear monitor and go with it.”
– That won’t work!
The confident voice startled him even more.
“You’re saying the file doesn’t come through?”
– No, that’s not it.
Hwang Seong-su bit his lower lip.
“We’re live on air. Get yourself together.”
– …….
“Stage 7, Lee Jae-i. We’re going with MR-2.”
* * *
Three minutes earlier.
Jae-i met the staff member who’d rushed over.
“Just check that the in-ear monitor’s working and then head straight up. Understood?”
“Yes, I understand.”
Jae-i sketched the new stage in her mind.
Since it was a ballad, her movement wouldn’t change, and the graphics matched the concept, so there was no issue.
The only thing that might matter was the volume level.
‘I can handle that.’
She’d done acapella performances before.
That experience had lowered her fear of audio accidents.
As the stage drew near, a visceral energy washed over her body.
The staff didn’t forget their final warning.
“Your in-ear is fine, right? Since there’s no rehearsal, don’t panic no matter what happens. When the blackout drops, you go up.”
Jae-i gripped the microphone tighter and nodded.
She understood the staff’s hope that no problem would arise.
But now wasn’t the time to dwell on guilt.
“Stage 7. You’re going up. Lee Jae-i, now.”
She climbed one step at the staff’s gesture.
“Breath….”
The sensation of stepping onto the stage felt different.
She could feel the heat from the previous performance still warming the floor, and the breath filling the Audience Seating.
Her steps reached center stage.
Noise flowed through her in-ear monitor.
– Ready.
Jae-i released the tension in her hand gripping the microphone.
All that mattered now was the lights about to come up and that first note.
‘Don’t be nervous.’
The static filling her ear grew thin.
That moment when only her own breath became clear.
Crackle—
After a burst of noise, silence fell.
Her overly sensitive ear was straining to catch sound when—
A single piano key sounded out across the stage.
‘There it is.’
Her body responded first, in an instant.
Her heart, which had been wandering in anxiety, found its place in that note.
The light gradually brightened as though opening a door.
With her eyes cast down, Jae-i conjured Baek Song-ha’s face—the one that would soon be lost in the music’s depths.
That arrogance that could crush anything.
Silently, she threw a challenge toward Baek Song-ha.
‘See if you can brush this aside too.’
Jae-i sank into the prelude flowing through her in-ear, surrendering to complete immersion.
The post she’d chosen.
Her heart had moved at just a single line.
No matter how brief the words, the sincerity pressed tightly inside had been unmistakable.
Over those letters, her grandmother’s face had flickered.
‘I miss you so much.’
She knew well that a second life was a miracle.
‘If only I could see grandmother for just a single day, how wonderful that would be.’
Even if God punished her for such selfish wanting, she couldn’t erase that wish.
That aching, desperate longing for something she could never reach.
That was the story Jae-i wanted to tell.
The prelude flowing in minor key touched her chest.
Something stirred across the back of her hand.
And Jae-i opened her first lyric.
“It’s so hard to repay even what I’ve received….”
The end of the lyric cracked of its own accord.
At the same time, her chest ached as she exhaled.
Was it a phantom sensation—the feeling of rough, dry hands brushing against her?
During rehearsal it hadn’t been like this, but now tears were welling up from somewhere deep inside.
Following the emotional curve, the piano keys wove the next melody.
Unlike rehearsal, Jae-i slowly closed her eyes.
She wanted to feel that sensation again, just in case it was real.
Brighter light poured down across her eyelids.
‘…….’
In that moment, her grandmother’s face appeared starkly through the flickering afterimage.
She hadn’t appeared in dreams even once until now.
So why was she so vivid now?
Jae-i whispered into the microphone with trembling lips, like a confession.
“Even missing you this deeply feels like a greedy wish.”
Before singing the next lyric, Jae-i spoke quietly to herself.
‘Please hear this song.’
As Jae-i lifted her eyelids, she gazed at her grandmother reflected in the light.
* * *
The movement of Hwang Seong-su, who’d been staring at the monitor, went completely still.
The intro flowing through the speakers.
He knew it.
Not his head—instinct recognized it first.
“That’s….”
His breath caught short.
‘That’s Baek Song-ha’s song.’
They’d done rehearsal several times. He couldn’t possibly not know it.
Hwang Seong-su’s eyes drove into the screen.
The trainee’s expression was already sunk deep into the song, her complete absorption overlaying the screen itself.
In an instant, his ears tilted as though enchanted.
‘What kind of song is this…?’
No—the version he’d heard before didn’t have this kind of pressure, this kind of force.
One verse, two verses.
As the song pushed forward with each note, his judgment slipped away and his chest sank.
Even the fact that it was Baek Song-ha’s song blurred for a moment—just a brief moment.
In those stunned seconds, the audience’s breath was sucked into the stage.
That instant, the LIVE marker flashing on the screen cut across his vision.
‘Oh. The broadcast.’
He was live on air right now.
Bang. Bang—.
Hwang Seong-su slapped both his earlobes hard with his palms.
He needed to shake his brain awake somehow.
Hwang Seong-su cut through any hesitation and switched on the walkie-talkie to the Sound Control Room.
“Kill the Music Recorded. Now.”
This was no time to worry about a broadcast accident.
Something far worse had happened.
At his sharp command, the sound director’s confusion erupted.
– What? Right now? What are you saying!
“Don’t you hear me?! Drop the volume to zero!”
Hwang Seong-su stripped away both titles and politeness in his tone.
With the music still layered underneath, Jae-i hit a high note.
– Just one more time—
Just as the climbing note reached its crescendo—
“Cut!”
Snap—.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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