The third episode of "The Manipulated" commences with an auction, where a sculpture by the artist Arleli is up for bid. An online bidder, Yo-han, competes with Chairman Shin Myung-ho, a man with an agenda. During a break in the bidding, Yo-han receives a call from the chairman, revealing that Chairman Shin is eager to acquire the sculpture as payment for Yo-han's silence on his son's misdeeds. Yo-han bids simply to observe how far the man will go, engaging in a twisted game of one-upmanship. Chairman Shin ultimately agrees to pay 6 billion won for the sculpture.
Upon receiving the sculpture, Yo-han adds it to his impressive collection of Arleli's works, then calls the chairman to inform him that the scapegoat who took the fall for his son has died in prison—the same man who took his own life with the pages of a Bible in the previous episode. The next day, during a significant company meeting, Yo-han receives a call from Kim Sang-rak, who demands a "cleanup."
In prison, Yeo Deok-su's henchmen attempt to rough up Tae-joong once again. This time, Tae-joong dispatches them all with ease and warns Deok-su to stay away. In the city, Noh Yong-sik struggles to run an electronics repair shop while his daughter, Eun-bi, siphons off what little cash he has. Their relationship is strained. The priest from the prison soon arrives and informs Yong-sik that Tae-joong has returned the Bible.
Deok-su vents his frustration on an inmate who dared to speak ill of him. Another prisoner, Do Gang-jae, arrives, and the two bullies exchange greetings. The warden then summons Deok-su to ask him to keep things low-key due to recent scrutiny following the suicide. Instead of doing so, the warden assigns two white-collar criminals to Deok-su's cell as a makeshift compensation. Deok-su agrees but later instructs one of his men, Jin-yong, to attack Tae-joong regardless.
Yong-sik visits Tae-joong and inquires if everything is okay. Tae-joong confesses that he plans to escape the prison during the guard's shift change at 3:30 pm, when he has a half-hour window to do so. For this escape to succeed, he needs to be assigned a cleaning job in Zone B of the prison.
That evening, Jin-yong is assigned to Tae-joong's cell, with a sinister intent to harm. Tae-joong, however, effortlessly bests him in a fight. The next day, Tae-joong sits down with Deok-su and urges him to desist from his violent ways. Deok-su, unyielding, initiates an attack on Tae-joong, only to be tased by a guard and sent to solitary confinement—a move that seems to have been Tae-joong's master plan all along.
Later, the benevolent Officer Yang, the same guard from earlier, presents Tae-joong with a green sponge that he had requested to decorate the church with flowers. Tae-joong ingeniously hides a portion of the sponge within a flower plot, which he keeps in the storage closet. He then launches an attack on one of the inmates working in Zone B, securing the cleaning job for himself. With the keys to the zone in hand, he fashions a mold using the green sponge, fills it with glue, and conceals it in his garden.
Meanwhile, one of Yo-han's men arrives at the prison, posing as a doctor administering vaccines to the inmates. While everyone else heads to the infirmary for their shots, Tae-joong remains at the mechanical workshop area, fixing one of the guard's car engines. When the guard departs for lunch, Tae-joong uses the workshop tools to carve a set of keys from the mold he had created.
As he makes his way back to his cell, Tae-joong is ambushed by Do Gang-jae and his men. Gang-jae offers a partnership to bring down Deok-su, but Tae-joong declines, earning himself some time to consider.
In his cell, Tae-joong finds a guard waiting for him. The guard informs him of a forthcoming "match" where a large group of prisoners will fight in front of the warden, and since he has bet heavily on Tae-joong's victory, he sent someone else in his place to take the vaccine. Tae-joong, already planning his escape and aware that it's already 3 pm, hastily beats up one opponent and flees, leaving Gang-jae agitated.
However, Tae-joong encounters yet another obstacle in his path when Officer Yang realizes he never received the vaccine and brings the "doctor" to his cell. The doctor injects him with a pink liquid—different from what he administered to everyone else—as Tae-joong's window of opportunity for escape continues to narrow.
