Chapter 140
“Have you never found anything strange, never once doubted Yoo Siwoon?”
“Never.”
“Never? Really never?”
“Never. I know the CEO’s true intentions better than anyone.”
Hearing Director Nam’s confident response, Lee Joon-seung let out a dispirited sigh.
“He was just a person who cleaned up the garbage created by Chairman Yoo, who disposed of bodies, someone who’s been doing this for generations. How much resentment must he have had? How do you think Yoo Siwoon feels now that he’s manipulating the Seongha Group’s elder council? Do you know why power is dangerous?”
“…”
“It’s truly sweet. Once you taste it, it’s hard to escape. Power is more addictive than drugs. Yoo Siwoon is on the winning side for the first time in his life. He’s not the same man you trusted and followed. A man who just burned bodies in the incinerator? What do you think was going through Yoo Siwoon’s mind while burning those bodies? He brought that kid with this intention from the beginning, he was aiming for this all along, you pitiful man. We were all deceived.”
Director Nam couldn’t even begin to comprehend where to start explaining or persuading Lee Joon-seung about his deep misunderstandings and distrust of Yoo Siwoon. The Yoo Siwoon that Lee Joon-seung was describing was an entirely different person, separated by an unfathomable distance from the Yoo Siwoon he had known.
“Team Leader Lee Joon-seung, you’re misunderstanding the CEO. It might look that way right now, but revealing Eunseong was a necessary choice to prevent everyone from being endangered. If the CEO had just disappeared like that, neither you nor I would be alive right now.”
Yoo Siwoon wasn’t using Eunseong as a target. He simply wanted Eunseong for who he was, his essence, and loved him.
Director Nam didn’t know how to explain this.
To Lee Joon-seung, who was looking at him with contempt and stubborn eyes that showed no sign of being persuaded, Director Nam exhaled a long breath and slowly opened his mouth, telling him to listen carefully.
“Do you know why I asked to meet?”
“I don’t know. But I can guess it’s not something Yoo Siwoon approved of, seeing how you keep looking around nervously.”
Lee Joon-seung’s lips twisted into a vile sneer as he mocked Director Nam.
“CEO Yoo Siwoon is preparing to eliminate Chairman Yoo and fill the group with our people. The same goes for the elder council. Even though the CEO hasn’t completely changed his mind yet, he will eventually entrust key positions in the police department to Team Leader Lee Joon-seung. There are many in the police who took bribes from Chairman Yoo and covered things up. We need that list, and only Team Leader Lee Joon-seung can provide it. The CEO acknowledges that too.”
“Someone who knows that uses my mouth as an ashtray?”
“That was because Team Leader Lee Joon-seung insulted Eunseong. Eunseong means more than just a target to the CEO. That’s why he reacted that way when you said those things about him!”
“When you put it that way, it sounds even more suspicious.”
“I haven’t even properly brought this up with the CEO yet, but if you respond like this, how can I help you? We must not forget that our goal is ultimately the same. Even for Team Leader Lee Joon-seung’s personal revenge. The CEO is in the process of taking control of Yongse Pacheon Church.”
“I can’t trust CEO Yoo Siwoon anymore. Should I repeat with my own mouth what the man who said he would never do such disgusting things when we proposed using that kid is doing now? He’s doing exactly what he swore he’d never do! If he said he’d never do it, then he shouldn’t do it. That’s how I could trust him.”
“…”
“Because of what Yoo Siwoon is doing, because of those who believe in it, my friend died because of that, because of people like you who believe in it.”
Lee Joon-seung spat out his words roughly. He calmed his excitement and drank his coffee. Putting down the glass speckled with water droplets, he continued in a more subdued voice.
“Why do you think Yoo Siwoon gave so much money to Master Manpo when he was alive? He was planning to take it all for himself later. That person pretends not to believe in superstition more than anyone, but he does everything anyway. Even Director Nam knows that he built that house with a feng shui master, right? I heard it was built considering his own sixty-year cycle. Have you heard that Yoo Siwoon’s birth chart has a ‘self-destruction star’?”
“…”
“That’s a birth chart that kills people. He’s going to exterminate the Seongha Group’s male bloodline, he’s going to kill them all. You don’t know what kind of person Yoo Siwoon is, even though you’re close to him, Director Nam. All his pretending to be polite, serious, humane—it was all a show, a show! You’re still being deceived!”
This meeting was intended to persuade Lee Joon-seung to apologize for insulting Eunseong and quietly come under Yoo Siwoon’s authority. Instead, Director Nam found himself being lectured. He had heard so many scathing remarks about Yoo Siwoon that his mind was reeling as if he’d been beaten.
Yoo Siwoon wasn’t the kind of person Lee Joon-seung thought he was. Director Nam had witnessed how careful he was around Eunseong, how hard he tried to prevent things from turning out this way. Although things had ended up like this, it was all due to circumstances flowing differently from his intentions.
Moreover, Yoo Siwoon, who had been ready to abandon everything and leave with Eunseong, changed his plans when he discovered Yoo Oseon was alive.
If Yoo Siwoon hadn’t made that choice, everyone left behind, including Lee Joon-seung and Director Nam, would have been dead. No matter how many times Director Nam explained this fact, Lee Joon-seung didn’t give a damn.
“…Sigh.”
But looking back, the problem was that while Lee Joon-seung’s claims were exaggerated, they weren’t entirely wrong.
Especially when recalling his beast-like behavior when he filled the house with Jeokdan incense and tried to devour Eunseong from head to toe, it was true that Yoo Siwoon’s actions seemed more suspicious.
“…No. If that had been his intention, he wouldn’t have stopped taking Jeokdan.”
Director Nam shook his head, muttering to himself as he turned the steering wheel.
He knew from hearsay that if Yoo Siwoon, born with that bloodline, became aware of himself as a breeder, his sexual desire would be like an instinct inherent in his blood, causing him to resonate with the prophesied being and suffer from unbearable mating urges.
And only by possessing Eunseong could that painful hunger be satisfied.
Yet such a Yoo Siwoon was putting Eunseong’s needs before his own desires. Although he didn’t know how they were using contraception, stopping the consumption of Jeokdan, which enabled seed production, meant he was being careful in his relationship with Eunseong.
Moreover, from his perspective, he could have just pretended not to know anything and left, as he had initially argued. But Yoo Siwoon chose risk, and prevented Director Nam and the others from dying meaningless deaths.
“…”
Not only had he saved the lives of Director Nam and the others.
He had also obtained both Seongha Group and Eunseong.
In the end, regardless of the process, Yoo Siwoon had taken everything. He was reigning at the top of the group and was trying to weaken the elder council’s power. If Yoo Siwoon also seized control of the elder council, if he broke down the executioners’ loyalty to the apostle, the power he would wield would be incomparably greater than Chairman Yoo’s—the greatest power in history.
Director Nam shook his head as if to clear it of the ominous premonition that had flashed through his mind for a moment.
What if that had been his intention from the beginning…?
What if he had been aiming for all this from the start…?
When dealing with Yoo Oseon, Director Nam didn’t enter the abandoned medical center with him. Yoo Siwoon knew he was uncomfortable with such things, and always showed consideration by having him leave when bodies were being incinerated, even when it wasn’t necessary.
That day too, Director Nam waited outside for Yoo Siwoon to finish his work and come out. He didn’t go inside. Yoo Siwoon went in alone, handled Yoo Oseon alone, and came out saying he had taken care of him.
And that day…, yes, that day.
“Do you know what it feels like to meet your wife?”
He said something strange. And after that, he let go of the cleanliness and obsession he had maintained toward Eunseong. He began doing what he had sworn never to do. At first, he seemed embarrassed, but soon he was like someone who had completely let go of his senses, not listening at all when Director Nam questioned why he was acting this way. He didn’t even leave the house and clung to Eunseong’s body with disgusting obsession.
What if he hadn’t killed Yoo Oseon from the beginning?
What if he had kept Yoo Oseon alive and deceived everyone for the sake of justifying all this…
What if he had lied knowing Director Nam would oppose it?
He didn’t even need to go that far.
As long as Yoo Oseon was alive, it created grounds to settle everything at once.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
