Je Moon-jae was a once-famous drama writer, who achieved success not through talent, but by plagiarizing others’ works and claiming them as his own. His true writing ability was mediocre at best. When his fraud was eventually exposed, he retreated into ten years of seclusion in his home, hiding from Noja, the psychopathic loan shark whose money he had absconded with. Operating under the alias Cha Hyun-woo, Je Moon-jae ran a corporate shell with a Hong Kong subsidiary, ostensibly for tax evasion, but in truth to cover tracks. During his seclusion, he never left the house, living a life meticulously structured yet claustrophobic, with only the outside streets and recurring passersby as constants.
Je Moon-jae’s childhood set the stage for the intricate psychological labyrinth he would later navigate. He grew up in Namchon, a remote island in Jeolla Province. As a middle schooler, he was introverted, talented at writing, and deeply observant. During a writing assignment, he omitted the names of his fellow writing club members, an act born out of a desire to gain his father’s approval after being caught stealing adult videos. This omission became the spark that set off a cascade of bullying: other students’ secrets were falsely attributed to him, leading to social ostracization, and violent harassment orchestrated by O Gi-wan, the future Field Mouse. Je Moon-jae suffered physical assault with a blunt weapon and learned boxing from his abusive father to defend himself.
The school’s writing club became a hotbed of intrigue. Members included Han Jung-pil, Shin Eu-tteum, Park Ji-woong, O Gi-wan, Kim Sung-pyo, Lee Geum-seok, Kim Min-woo, and Hwang Dae-jun. Han Jung-pil was manipulative and cunning; he spread rumors about the writing club members’ private lives, attempting to marginalize Je Moon-jae and plotting to kill him. However, Han Jung-pil was later imprisoned for unrelated crimes, leaving Field Mouse’s identity unresolved. Shin Eu-tteum stood apart as morally upright, often rejecting schemes of deception, and frequently tasked with cleaning up after Je Moon-jae’s inadvertent chaos. Park Ji-woong witnessed early conspiracies and later revealed them to Je Moon-jae.
O Gi-wan, a key figure in the story, had a tortured childhood. An orphan, he was adopted into a violent household and subjected to sexual and physical abuse. The trauma of his early life became the template for his adoption of Je Moon-jae’s identity, culminating in his transformation into Field Mouse. O Gi-wan meticulously mirrored Je Moon-jae’s habits, routines, and even psychological quirks. “Field Mouse’s House,” the organization he founded, masqueraded as a charitable institution but functioned as a surveillance network, selectively murdering and manipulating individuals while bestowing new identities on marginalized people. His motivations, benevolent in intent but executed with brutality, add a layer of moral ambiguity.
One of the story’s pivotal elements is the reservoir murder legend. In Je Moon-jae’s school, a “blood-soaked ghost” allegedly appeared every ten years, carrying the corpses of the deceased. The legend was intertwined with middle school events orchestrated by O Gi-wan. O Gi-wan killed his adoptive father, staged the scene with a corpse in a school uniform, and spread rumors to obscure his identity. Han Jung-pil misinterpreted events, and other writing club members, including Park Ji-woong, O Gi-wan, and Kim Sung-pyo, were indirectly involved, misattributing blame and misperceiving incidents.
During his seclusion, Je Moon-jae noticed anomalies in the streets outside and, upon hearing from his old classmate Na Seong-gi that someone had seen him at church, became suspicious. This led him to cautiously emerge from hiding, confronting decades of deception and uncovering a web of conspiracies.
The conspiracies were deep. An Kyung-hwan, Je Moon-jae’s lawyer and former classmate, conspired with Field Mouse to replace Je Moon-jae with O Gi-wan. Song In-joo, Je Moon-jae’s former lover, became collateral in this web, suffering a car bombing. Je Moon-jae’s uncle, initially uninvolved, was assassinated to prevent him from exposing Field Mouse’s schemes. Noja, the sadistic loan shark who had pursued Je Moon-jae relentlessly, was eventually killed in violent confrontations along with several hired killers, including Kim Sang-su, an experienced assassin and mercenary.
Je Moon-jae’s investigation intersected with middle school connections. Han Jung-pil’s manipulations, O Gi-wan’s duplicity, and Shin Eu-tteum’s moral guidance intertwined to reveal the broader truth. The writing club members’ fates were varied: O Gi-wan/Field Mouse enacted psychological manipulation and physical violence; Kim Sung-pyo, who feigned a rare disease, was revealed to have suffered autism and anxiety; Lee Geum-seok, outed as homosexual, succumbed to despair and committed suicide near the reservoir; Hwang Dae-jun, an eyewitness and former friend of Lee Geum-seok, survived but carried the burden of trauma.
O Gi-wan’s meticulous planning culminated in the confrontation at Sotae Amusement Park. Here, Je Moon-jae realized that many memories he had thought were his own, especially the emotional traumas and feelings of abandonment, were actually O Gi-wan’s. O Gi-wan’s transformation into Field Mouse involved replicating Je Moon-jae’s exact routines and even leveraging rumors of the reservoir ghost to manipulate people’s perceptions. The climax involves a tense psychological and physical battle, revealing Field Mouse’s motives: while intending to give abandoned and marginalized people new lives, he manipulated and killed ruthlessly. Several characters who had discovered Field Mouse’s identity, including Je Moon-jae’s uncle and An Kyung-hwan, were eliminated.
Meanwhile, peripheral incidents tied into the larger narrative: stolen adult videos, deception in the writing club, the reservoir ghost legend, and childhood trauma all intersect. Je Moon-jae’s observations of the streets, the repeated patterns, and Field Mouse’s mimicry of his routines all serve as foreshadowing and misdirection. Every rumor, from the false stories of writing club members’ secrets to the staged “blood-soaked ghost,” plays into the narrative of identity theft, manipulation, and revenge.
The aftermath sees Je Moon-jae confronting his plagiarism, returning profits to original creators, and beginning a new novel, “Those Who Do Not Exist,” reflecting on lost identities, manipulated lives, and the blurred line between victim and perpetrator. Field Mouse, legally deceased, is remembered only by a handful of people who had been directly involved in his schemes.
