Romance Town Episode 17

Bong Yi has dinner with Sang Hoon, and of course he knocks back a few drinks, which of course means his mouth loosens up. If Sang Hoon promises to quit gambling he’ll let him in on a secret. Sang Hoon: “My daughter won first place in the lottery, didn’t she?” Bong Yi: “How’d you know?!?!”

Strangely – and funnily – enough, Sang Hoon actually breaks into tears of joy, so proud that his daughter has done well for herself. But Bong Yi desperately begs Sang Hoon to promise to quit gambling, perhaps afraid that Sang Hoon will go and try to get his hands on Soon Geum’s money.Outside of the station, Soon Geum and Young Hee are waiting around, and still fighting about whether she should leave the neighborhood or not. Young Hee thinks it’s unfair she’s staying there when she’s being disrespected, while she really wants to be accepted for who she is, not for what she has. He declares his alliance with Hyun Joo for her revenge, but also views himself as “on the fence” between the rich people and the maids. Hyun Joo leaves the station – alone. The two of them are surprised she didn’t bail out the other maids, but when they turn around – tada! They’re free. They all gather in front of Young Hee’s lawn. Hyun Joo wants to entrust all the money to him; she wants him to invest it in the stocks and increase their riches so that she can enact revenge upon the households of 1st Street. Young Hee happily accepts, but everyone else is aghast. Soo Jung backs out – she just wants her share as she doesn’t know anything about the stock market. The same goes for Zar Lin, who has little interest for it. Most of them just want to buy a house, so instead of splitting the money equally, Young Hee suggests they all decide what they want to do with the money and split it accordingly. Da Kyum declares that she knows exactly which house she wants to buy – Young Hee’s. And yes, she’s also taking her revenge on him by buying it. And yes, she wants him to invest the money in the stocks so that she can have enough to buy it. She’ll trust him to take care of it well!Back inside, Tae Won hopes that Soon Geum will now leave, but he can’t bother himself with all these games. So Yoon Joo decides to take the initiative and take care of their “Soon Geum Problem.”She goes to the bank to claim the lottery ticket Tae Won gave her, but is informed that the prize has already been claimed. Bong Yi looks over the ticket and notes that her winning numbers are for the 334th lottery, but her ticket is for the 336th. Her ticket is fake, and the shock of it lands her in a car accident.Tae Won visits Yoon Joo and finds out that his ticket is fake. It might have something to do with the robbers that night, so he hires a private investigator to look into the robbery and the lottery ticket, and to follow Hwang Yong. The private investigator manages to track down one of the robbers, who after some forceful persuasion admits that he replaced the real one with the fake lottery ticket. The real one was taken from him by none other than Hwang Yong, and so he has no idea what happened to the money.

Tae Won muses over the information; knowing that Tae Won could not have reported the ticket to the police, Hwang Yong might have sold it to another person. Tae Won places an anonymous call from a phone booth to the prosecutor’s office, reporting that someone on 1st Street is selling winning lottery tickets. Narrowing it down to Hwang Yong, the prosecutor’s assistant goes to check it out, pretending to be a winner and wanting to sell it to Hwang Yong. He says that he no longer buys lottery tickets; after the fiasco with Soon Geum and the maids, he’s told everyone in his office to never buy lottery tickets ever.

The prosecutor’s assistant points out that he still has a sign up saying that he buys lottery tickets. One glare, and Hwang Yong’s men hurriedly take down the banner sign and stuff it under their feet. The prosecutor’s assistant begs and pleads with Hwang Yong to accept the winning ticket. She gives him a sob story of needing to pay off debts, and since Hwang Yong is a big softie, he finally agrees that he’ll do it just once.

As he counts out the bills to pay her upfront, the police and prosecutor burst into the office to catch them in the act. Scared, Hwang Yong quickly stuffs the lottery ticket in his mouth and chews, but the assistant slams him on the desk and pops the ticket right back out. He is arrested with the rest of his men, and his absence the next morning worries Joo Won. Sang Hoon arrives at the Kang residence, soju in hand. He wants to play Go-Stop again, this time with the aim of losing money. Tae Won asks if he wants to win his car; if that’s the case, he can fire his driver and hire Sang Hoon instead. Having one family be his serving staff just makes the household stronger.

Tae Won’s insults continue – he believes that money follows the bloodline, and one’s wealth is determined at birth based on whom they’re born to. Sang Hoon disagrees: “Our Soon Geum has a lot of money. Through luck.”

Soon Geum and Gun Woo freak out, but they can’t shut Sang Hoon up without being too blatant. At the same time, Hwang Yong is being questioned by the prosecutor. Though he refuses to divulge any information (which could have led to a lesser sentence), the prosecutor manages to fill in all the holes. He knows that Hwang Yong bought the lottery ticket #334 for 10 billion so that he/she could avoid taxes. By purchasing it, Hwang Yong aided and abetted a criminal in tax evasion. On top of that, he sold it to someone for an extra 1 billion, which would have led to a profit. Minus taxes from that and Hwang Yong would be left with 300 million Won.

There would be so many penalties and charges against Hwang Yong for this, but if he only said the names of the people he dealt with for that ticket, the charges could be reduced.Back at the Kang Residence, Sang Hoon blurts out the truth: Soon Geum won the lottery. Soon Geum and Gun Woo’s eyes widen; Yoon Joo covers her mouth in shock; Tae Won stares searchingly at Soon Geum, wanting to know if it’s true. She is unable to answer, which pretty much confirms it.