Chapter 177
“Are you implying that I’m crazy, that I’ve lost my mind?”
“Is that how it sounded to you? That wasn’t my intention.”
“It certainly sounds that way.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“…”
Director Nam rummaged through his jacket. He then pulled out a cigarette pack from his inner pocket and offered it to him. Yoo Siwoon stared at the cigarette pack with cold eyes. It had a gruesome warning image showing how smoking causes lung cancer and how lung cancer ruins lives.
“Then I’ll head in first. Prepare well for your business trip.”
After placing the cigarette pack on Yoo Siwoon’s thigh when he didn’t take it, Director Nam stood up from his chair.
Yoo Siwoon didn’t respond to Director Nam as he walked away, focusing only on the cigarette pack. Even long after Director Nam’s figure had disappeared around the building across the garden, he kept staring at the crumpled cigarette pack that contained only a few cigarettes.
“Isn’t that the real betrayal between the two of them?”
“…”
He slowly gripped the cigarette pack and took out a cigarette. He put it between his lips. Tilting his head, he approached the brazier where he could feel the red-hot heat and lit the cigarette.
Drawing on the filter, he leaned back in his seat and exhaled the suffocating breath that had been constricting his chest. White smoke rose around him and dispersed into the night air.
He closed his tired eyes and, leaning back in the chair, released the smoke upward into the sky.
∞ ∞ ∞
Walking down a street unusually crowded with people, Lee Joon-seung pulled his baseball cap down low. He glanced around. Not far away, he spotted a car waiting with its hazard lights on.
Approaching the car, he opened the door and climbed in abruptly. Director Nam, who had been anxiously drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, recognized him and immediately stepped on the accelerator.
“What’s with all this secrecy, like we’re on some covert mission?”
Lee Joon-seung grumbled as he took off his cap and smoothed back his disheveled hair. Despite his complaint, he vigilantly glanced at the side mirror to make sure no one was following them.
“There’s no harm in being careful.”
Director Nam drove the car toward the opposite side of the busy intersection.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go get something to eat.”
Once they were away from the busy street, Lee Joon-seung spoke in a lighter tone, as if his tension had finally eased.
“You haven’t eaten yet? It’s already 2 PM.”
“I did eat, but I’m hungry again.”
“I don’t want to eat with you, Team Leader. I wish you’d acknowledge who’s responsible for making this situation so difficult.”
Lee Joon-seung was the primary cause of the current state of affairs between Eunseong and Yoo Siwoon.
It was something that someone had to do if Yoo Siwoon wouldn’t, and if not Yoo Siwoon, Director Nam himself would have been the best alternative to minimize the impact on Eunseong.
He should have been honest with Eunseong himself. Director Nam blamed Lee Joon-seung while knowing his own fault was significant.
“Are you saying it’s my fault?”
Lee Joon-seung frowned and looked fiercely at Director Nam as he drove.
“You should have at least consulted with me.”
“I did consult with you, but you didn’t listen. When I told you about Yoo Siwoon’s strange behavior, I was prepared to take responsibility for my actions.”
“…Sigh. You shouldn’t have exposed things that way. Moreover, some of it wasn’t even true.”
“If I had directly said, ‘You can bear a child, and you’re being used as a breeding vessel for that family. They’re some kind of cult that’s been around for about 2,000 years, and Yoo Siwoon is using you to become their leader’—would he have believed me? It sounds ridiculous even as I say it now. It only worked because he saw his father die first.”
Lee Joon-seung mocked the situation, using every facial muscle he had.
“You know that CEO Yoo Siwoon didn’t do it.”
“Nobody knows for sure whether Yoo Siwoon did it or not. That’s why we’re meeting secretly like this without Yoo Siwoon knowing. Even changing locations.”
“…”
Lee Joon-seung had hit the mark.
Director Nam was betraying Yoo Siwoon. While knowing his intentions and feelings, he was steering the relationship between the two in a direction Yoo Siwoon didn’t want. Director Nam shook his head briefly, trying not to fall into unnecessary anguish.
He drove into a café with a spacious parking lot. They sat in a corner seat next to a large plant. Lee Joon-seung, who had claimed to be hungry, brought bread and cake. Director Nam had no appetite and only drank his coffee.
“CEO Yoo Siwoon is going to Washington on a business trip next week.”
“I heard a faction of the Yongse Pacheon Church has emerged. Did you know?”
Lee Joon-seung confronted him as soon as he sat down, demanding to know what had happened after Yoo Siwoon had claimed he would dismantle the Yongse Pacheon Church. Director Nam gave a tired, irritated sigh and expression, but nonetheless took something out of his briefcase and placed it on the café table, along with an unnecessary prejudice that this was the kind of person who became a police officer.
“What is this?”
Lee Joon-seung asked, picking up the document and examining it with lingering suspicion.
“The person promoted to elder of the faction.”
“Huh?”
“You know him, right? The con artist with 14 prior convictions, the one for whom victims even wrote petitions.”
“Ah, I heard this guy was released, but you cast him?”
The person in the document’s photo was someone Lee Joon-seung knew. Recognizing the con artist, he slapped his knee. It was a novel approach he had never seen or heard of before.
“He’s perfect as a cult leader, isn’t he? He speaks so well that even I, knowing it was all lies, was almost moved to empty my wallet for a donation.”
“This is unbelievable. So you’re going to feed him to them?”
“We’ll gradually leak that he has 14 prior convictions in a few months, but before that, he’ll efficiently empty the believers’ pockets, so they’ll find out eventually. They were happy about not having to pay taxes on donations.”
If it became known that the newly appointed apostle was a notorious con artist with 14 prior convictions, it would be the final blow to the Yongse Pacheon Church, which had already suffered a major setback, potentially leading to its complete downfall without a trace.
“They say three years in a cult makes you a poet. You could replace me in hunting down cults now, Director. I never thought you had such a talent for scheming.”
“CEO Yoo Siwoon recommended him.”
Lee Joon-seung, who had been marveling at the incredible strategy, immediately changed his attitude upon hearing it was Yoo Siwoon’s idea. He snorted dismissively.
“See? That man pretends to be a bear, but he’s actually a fox. A bear-like fox.”
It was true that Yoo Siwoon had taken control of the Yongse Pacheon Church and Seongha Group, and was gradually working to break the cult members’ faith, but Lee Joon-seung still doubted his sincerity because of Seo Eunseong.
“The CEO even set fire to the main church’s safe to burn the original scripture and destroyed all the treasures of the Yongse Pacheon Church. He couldn’t have done that if he didn’t intend to eliminate the Yongse Pacheon Church. Do you know how old that scripture was, discovered even before the Vatican copy? It was an artifact of great historical value, regardless of it being part of a cult.”
He had also confiscated and incinerated all the copies held by the breeders, and now only one copy of the Yongse Pacheon Church scripture remained, which Yoo Siwoon possessed. Yoo Siwoon said he would soon dispose of that as well.
“So what?”
“The CEO wants to eliminate the Yongse Pacheon Church just as much as Team Leader Lee Joon-seung does.”
“Well, I understand that.”
Lee Joon-seung shrugged with lukewarm acknowledgment, as if telling Director Nam to stop trying to convince him to reduce his suspicion of Yoo Siwoon.
“By the way, after the fire at the main church, the elders’ council executives fled. We can’t find their whereabouts. They must have realized the CEO’s intentions by now and might try something. Could you possibly issue a wanted notice?”
“We need to know their identities to issue a wanted notice. I’ll look into it for now.”
“They have embezzled items from the elders’ council apostles, so they might try to convert them into something else. Gold bars. Look into that.”
Director Nam couldn’t dismiss his anxiety when he thought of the elders’ council executives with their unnaturally small pupils, as if wearing special lenses, which instilled fear and intimidation just by looking at them.
After taking a sip of coffee, Director Nam continued.
“When the CEO goes abroad on a business trip, it’s our only opportunity. We may never have such a chance again.”
Without that moment, it would be impossible to separate Eunseong from Yoo Siwoon. Lee Joon-seung, apparently agreeing, spoke seriously.
“You know about the whistleblower in the industrial complex selection bribery case who’s agreed to testify in court, right? We’ll list Seo Eunseong as a relative and initiate protective custody procedures. Since the whistleblower’s testimony is crucial for this trial, the prosecution has ensured from the beginning that identities cannot be recorded, so there will be no problem adding Seo Eunseong, and no records will remain, making it impossible for Yoo Siwoon to find him even if he pulls strings with the police or prosecutors. Given the extensive corruption involved in this case, we estimate it will take at least ten years to investigate all parties and conclude the trial.”
This meant that Eunseong’s identity wouldn’t be discovered for at least ten years, by which time Eunseong would be old enough to have established himself and live independently. By then, Director Nam felt he might also be able to set aside his sense of responsibility and guilt toward Eunseong.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
