The Tipster

Episode 1. The Tipster

Cheon Yeo-ri is alone, dressed in jogging pants with a leather coat over a hoodie, as she digs for a cellphone and a corpse in an isolated part of a mountain in the dead of night. She is caught by Prosecutor Ma Gang-uk, and they scuffle for the phone, which she refuses to surrender on his demand. The police arrive, following a tipster’s lead in a murder case, and suspect them of being lovers out on a date in the woods. She relents and gives him the phone, both wondering about the other’s identity.

Yeo-ri and the ghost of the murdered man watch from a distance while the police exhume his body and finally solve the homicide with evidence. She continues to ask him about the afterlife until he evaporates into the air like metallic sprinkles, having attained justice at last.

Meanwhile, Gang-uk, the grandson of Madame Pang Myo-sun, is constantly badgered by his grandmother to see the fortune teller at the Buddhist temple to ward off bad luck and spirits. She warns him to avoid individuals born in the year of the black monkey, as they will cause his misfortune. Gang-uk, afraid of ghosts, is pranked by Prosecutors Pil-dong and Hyeong-min, who set a mop and coat in the toilet shaped like a human to scare him at the office.

The following day, Prosecutor Pil-dong grows curious about the caller in the phone booth who tipped the police about the body in the mountains. Hyeong-min finds a clue identifying CEO Cheon Yeo-ri of the Reina Hotels Group as one of the three owners of the expensive imported sneakers seen in the photograph.

Chairman Baek Gyeong-ja, matron of the Reina Hotels Group, grows impatient with her granddaughters, Cheon Yeo-ri and Cheon Ha-ri. While Ha-ri is not choosy about whom to marry, Yeo-ri hesitates because she sees and lives with ghosts. Any man who touches her hand is doomed to see them too, the reason for her reluctance. Ha-ri is set to marry Park Seung-jae, Assemblyman Park’s son, who is only after her wealth and status.

Chairman Baek, disturbed by the rumors, consults a shaman to perform a ritual to help Yeo-ri overcome the presence of spirits.

Cha Gi-u, son of the Cha and Yul Law Firm, proposes marriage to Yeo-ri and holds her hand to give her an engagement ring, despite her warning that he might live in terror as her husband. He brushes this off and confidently agrees to hold the party at Siena Hall of the Reina Hotel. Yeo-ri waits for Gi-u, who arrives but forgets the diamond ring in his car and returns for it.

Yeo-ri notices that it has started to rain, which she interprets as a bad omen. Unknown to her, Gi-u nearly drowns in the elevator as malevolent spirits fill it with water. Suspicious, she goes to the car park to check on him. Already terrorized, Gi-u gasps in fear when he sees a male ghost behind her and calls off the engagement, leaving the country. Yeo-ri realizes that her college-day trauma—when she nearly drowned with her boyfriend Ji-whan—still plagues her. Her hands cannot be touched, and no one can be near her.

Prosecutor Ma Gang-uk’s homicide case against Park Seung-jae is dismissed in court for lack of physical evidence. He was charged with murdering his ex-girlfriend Jang Eun-ju, but her remains could not be found. Confident that the case would not stick, Seung-jae relies on his father’s influence. Gang-uk tells the Chief Prosecutor that he will appeal once he finds the evidence.

Meanwhile, Cheon Ha-ri’s engagement to Seung-jae is secured by his promise to win a golf championship. He eyes marriage into the Cheon Gallery wealth, approved by her mother, Director Ok Gye-hui, giving him reason to dump his ex-girlfriend.

Cheon Yeo-ri is pressured by Chairman Baek to convert Siena Hall into a gallery because it is not earning and suffers from rumors about the failed engagement party. She argues that her father built it for her mother and would not want it repurposed.

Gang-uk becomes suspicious of a shabby man with dirty shoes at a convenience store. Following him outside, he notices the man’s car backing into another and nearly running over a student. Gang-uk saves the girl and sees a woman jump into the bumped car. As Yeo-ri turns her engine on to chase the culprits, Gang-uk joins her, insisting she follow his directions. Unknown to him, the ghost of a taxi driver in the back seat guides Yeo-ri. They block the car, and Gang-uk subdues the culprits. Yeo-ri points to the back compartment, where a gagged and tied man is found.

Gang-uk, shaken, notices a black monkey toy hanging from Yeo-ri’s rearview mirror and recalls his grandmother’s warning about the misfortune this individual would bring to his life. Baffled by her repeated presence at crime scenes, he watches her drive away. His colleagues later confirm that the rescued man was a taxi driver held up and killed by the culprits.

Cheon Yeo-ri watches the man bow in gratitude before vanishing into metallic sprinkles.

Gang-uk goes to Reina Hotel to confront CEO Cheon Yeo-ri about the sneakers linked to the police tipster. Warned that she never entertains visitors, he pursues her anyway. They spot each other in the lobby, and when he finally reaches her office, she loses her balance and falls backward as he opens the door. He catches her, accidentally touching her hand.

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