While she prepares for battle, we cut back in time and see what’s led up to this masquerade ball. Yoo-Hui stitches up Hye-Seung with a new project from school, making sure she’s indisposed and making her life much more difficult.
Hye-Seung shrugs it off though and continues on, although she also brings Min-Ji to school to show her around. There, she sees all the different classrooms and meets the creepy professor who tried it on with Hye-Seung last episode.
When he begins rattling off about Yoo-Hui, Min-Ji loses control and races off into the hallway. She’s upset with her mother and calls her out for working with Yoo-Hui after the awful things she’s done.
Min-Ji is so angry that she rings Yoo-Hui outside and demands she meet her outside the building. Driving down to the coast, she tells Yoo-Hui stay away from Hye-Seung and stop insulting her father.
Yoo-Hui shrugs it off, calling Nam-Sik a rapist again (in a round about way) and handing over cab fare for her to get home.
Yoo-Hui next turns her attention to this ball, deciding to learn more about it and the clientele likely to attend. She’s been paying off an inside contact inside Rex who has been feeding her information.
On the way home, Yoo-Hui rings Hye-Seung, promising not to be so nice to Min-Ji next time if she threatens her.
Yoo-Sun meanwhile, is put in a much more difficult position. She’s torn between Ae-Ran’s daughter and Yoo-Hui. Knowing the latter has history with Hye-Seung, she asks to see her file, clearly plotting something.
Back home, Seok-Jin agrees to attend this big party. And so too does Hye-Seung when she rings, desperate to one-up Yoo-Hui after threatening her girl.
This brings us nicely back to the party, but interestingly, Yoo-Sun decides to switch the IDs for the masked wearers for Zeus and Hermes. With word already spreading that Zeus is a top level Black member, Yoo-Sun decides Seok-Jin should be in that position while Hyung-Hu takes the role of Hermes.
It’s an interesting ploy, and something Yoo-Sun has designed to test how Seok-Jin gets on with different women.
It doesn’t take long for Hye-Seung to figure out who Yoo-Hui is, courtesy of a tattoo on her back. And of course, she’s wearing bright red. Hye-Seung follows her into the bathroom and comments how beautiful she is, likening her to the actual goddess of lust she’s dressed up as.
Yoo-Hui’s target is, unsurprisingly, Zeus, unbeknownst to her that he’s actually Seok-Jin. “The less you know someone, the more enticing they become.” She says, and attempts to lean forward and kiss him. However, Hye-Seung follows them and stops Seok-Jin from kissing her.
At the bar, Hyung-Ju and Hye-Seung end up chatting about their jobs. However, Mi-Jin also appears too, and given we know she’s Ae-Ran’s daughter, it certainly throws a spanner in the works. Seok-Jin attempts to talk to her but Hye-Seung rejects his advances.
Anyway, as the night reaches its crescendo, Yoo-Sun decides that everyone should stand up and remove their masks and reveal who they really are.
So one after another, they all take off their masks and open up over who they are. When it’s Hye-Seung’s turn, she removes her mask and decides to open up over what she’s been through. Just before unveiling the truth, the episode comes to a close.
What’s interesting about this episode is just how important look and stature are to these wealthy clients at Rex. These masquerade balls are essentially the real life version of talking over MSN Messenger or chatrooms, getting to know someone’s personality before seeing their appearance.
This episode shows that Yoo-Hui is really more interested in looks and stature than actual background, typified by how embarrassingly fast she stumbles all over Seok-Jin rather than Hyung-Ju.
However, the editing can be a little confusing here, especially as we’re not actually told we’re jumping back through time to catch up with ourselves at the ball. Anyway, the whole drama at the party is nicely paced and the second half of this chapter in particular was gripping and nicely written.