Episode Summary
A mass food poisoning is initially blamed on a local restaurant, but Man Wai-sam's investigation reveals the true cause is a tainted health supplement. As two victims die, her team and Cheung Ka-yin's team separately uncover a corporate cover-up. Man Wai-sam corners the company's general manager, who confesses that he was the whistleblower trying to expose his boss's deadly decision to sell the contaminated product.
Spoiler Alert
A New Venture and a New Crisis
Man Wai-sam is back in the game. She gets a second round of funding from Pak Shu-wan for her online news platform. Her plan is simple. People watch news on their phones now. So, she’s buying new equipment for that. She also wants to hire more people. She thinks her current team doesn't have enough ambition.
Right in the middle of her meeting, a call comes in. There's been a mass poisoning incident at a hospital. This is the kind of story that gets the blood pumping.
Trial by Social Media
Lau Yim heads to the hospital to cover the story. The victims tell her they all ate lunch boxes from a place called Wang's Kitchen. That’s all it takes for the chaos to start.
Kelly Tang hears the news. She immediately races over to Wang's Kitchen. She doesn't investigate. She just starts a livestream. She yells at the owner and accuses him of being a monster. She even throws a bunch of perfectly good lunch boxes into the trash for dramatic effect. She frames it like she's defending the public. And you know what? It works. Her stream gets a massive number of views.
Wang's Kitchen is instantly empty. No one will go near the place. This hits close to home for Hui Sze-ching. Her dad was good friends with the owner, Uncle Wang. She doesn't believe for a second that he's responsible. Uncle Wang even says he and his own staff ate the food and were totally fine.
Cathy's job means she can't publicly get involved. So, she does the next best thing. She calls Man Wai-sam and asks for her help to clear Uncle Wang's name.
Two Different Approaches
Over at SNK News, they're also talking about the poisoning. Everyone has a theory. But no one has any real proof. Cheung Ka-yin puts her foot down. She decides they won't report a definitive cause until they have hard evidence. A solid, old-school journalistic move.
Man Wai-sam takes a different path. She brings Lau Yim to Wang's Kitchen. She starts questioning Uncle Wang. Her tone is skeptical. She pushes him on his restaurant's hygiene standards. Uncle Wang gets defensive. He thought she was there to help, not to interrogate him. Man Wai-sam doesn't show her hand. She just listens.
On the drive back, Man Wai-sam asks Lau Yim about Kelly Tang 's stunt. Lau Yim thinks it was a cheap way to get clicks. She sees no honor in it. She also suspects Man Wai-sam made a secret deal with Cathy. Man Wai-sam brushes it off. She says she's only interested in a good story. The poisoning is a big deal. She also reveals the new funding will be used to build a press team dedicated to covering the government.
The Truth Starts to Emerge
Man Wai-sam works late into the night. She digs through videos from the hospital. Then she spots someone familiar among the victims. It's Yu Ying-fei. You know him. He's a legendary foodie who is incredibly picky about what he eats. If he was eating at Wang's Kitchen, the food was probably good. This is the first real clue that the restaurant is not the problem.
Lau Yim goes to interview Yu Ying-fei. As a veteran newsman himself, he's already put the pieces together. He shows Lau Yim a bottle of Red Yeast Rice Capsules. That's the real lead.
Lau Yim talks to the other victims. She discovers some of them never even ate at Wang's Kitchen. But every single person who got sick took the same health supplement. The case is breaking wide open.
While Kelly Tang is still online slandering the restaurant, Man Wai-sam's platform releases a video that clears Wang's Kitchen. The restaurant reopens. Man Wai-sam and George Ku both show up. They're both trying to suck up to Cathy to get a spot on that new government press team. Cathy tells them the list is secret.
Then, more bad news drops. Two of the victims, Uncle Tang and Uncle Wong, have died.
The Whistleblower
Poon Ji-ngo has noticed a change in Cheung Ka-yin. She's making decisions based on her conscience again. She finally tells him why. A while back, she received an anonymous letter. It warned her about the dangerous side effects of that exact red yeast rice supplement. She was afraid George Ku would kill the story because of sponsor conflicts. So, she secretly asked Poon to start digging.
Man Wai-sam's team makes another discovery. The supplement store, Hong King Po, is located right down the street from Wang's Kitchen. It's the perfect setup for a tragic coincidence. Ma Ka-ming suggests they send Yu Ying-fei in undercover. He initially refuses. But Lau Yim and Ma Ka-ming guilt-trip him into it. He goes into the company pretending to be a business partner and manages to photograph the supplement's formula.
Poon's investigation pays off. He gets the capsules tested. They contain citrinin, a toxin that can cause serious harm in large doses. The government's own tests came back clean, but Man Wai-sam has a theory. The bad batch was probably sold out already. Her plan is to bluff the company's general manager, Yam Sai-hung.
The owner of Hong King Po complains to George Ku about the bad press. George immediately tells Cheung Ka-yin to do a friendly interview with the company to fix their image. Yam Sai-hung agrees to the interview. He's visibly terrified. Cheung Ka-yin drops a bomb. She tells him they have a whistleblower inside his company who leaked the damning test results. Yam Sai-hung flatly denies it.
Poon does some more digging on Yam Sai-hung. The guy was stuck in the same job for nineteen years. Then, two months ago, he was suddenly promoted to General Manager. That was right around the time Cheung Ka-yin got the anonymous letter. Poon suspects Yam is the whistleblower.
The Confession
Man Wai-sam makes her move. She finds Yam Sai-hung having dinner with his mother. She walks up to their table and gives him a bottle of his company's red yeast rice capsules as a "gift." His reaction is pure disgust. He can't even look at it.
The guilt is too much. Yam Sai-hung goes directly to Man Wai-sam's office. He confesses everything. Two months ago, he discovered a batch of supplements was contaminated with a fungus. His boss told him to sell it anyway to protect their profits. The promotion was a bribe to keep him quiet. But Yam couldn't live with it. He was the one who leaked the information. He couldn't let more people get hurt.
