Chapter 93
“We’re always empty inside, aren’t we? Because we might end our lives without ever meeting our other half.”
“What did you say?”
“Pardon?”
Lost in thought, Yoo Siwoon returned to reality at Director Nam’s voice and turned his eyes toward him. The image of Eunseong that had filled his vision disappeared, and in its place, Director Nam was standing awkwardly.
“What did the Executive Director say? Did he tell you to handle it? Or…”
“He asked if the Council of Elders needs to know. He wants to cut off Yoo Oseon’s breath. He firmly believed the fake that Chairman Yoo created was real.”
“So he wants to eliminate the seed of a qualified family altogether.”
“…”
In truth, Yoo Siwoon felt the same way. If Yoo Seongil had hesitated or intended to report to the Council of Elders, Yoo Siwoon would have subtly encouraged him to handle it somehow. More than anyone, Yoo Siwoon himself wanted to eliminate Yoo Oseon.
“We must deal with him. We can’t let him live when he might do something to Eunseong.”
“First, shouldn’t we hurry to get Eunseong out of the country? The paperwork for his new identity is complete.”
Eunseong had been given a new identity as “Shin Wooyoung,” a completely different person of the same age. Now Eunseong was no longer Seo Eunseong but another fake person, Shin Wooyoung. It was a clean identity that no one would question. Eunseong could go anywhere he wanted.
“Find out President Yoo Oseon’s schedule starting tomorrow.”
Director Nam had asked about Eunseong’s situation, but Yoo Siwoon spoke as if he hadn’t heard.
“Are you going to handle it tomorrow?”
“He’s someone who knows about Eunseong. We can’t let him live even one more day.”
“Then I’ll cancel all your appointments for tomorrow and prepare.”
Having received Yoo Siwoon’s instructions, Director Nam immediately left the office.
Once Yoo Oseon was dealt with, there would be no one left in this world who knew Eunseong’s identity. If that happened, there would be no need to urgently send Eunseong abroad. It was clear that he would have to let him go someday, but not right now. Yoo Siwoon wanted to extend that time somehow, even by just one day.
The thick gold ring he had forgotten to take off in the car gleamed between his fingers. He removed the ring, tossed it carelessly on the desk, and took out Eunseong’s cloned phone. He didn’t check it often, feeling like he was invading Eunseong’s privacy and that reading all his raw emotions wasn’t respectful to Eunseong.
Yoo Siwoon turned on the phone and scanned Eunseong’s activities. He went into the call history to check who he had been talking to. He mainly contacted Director Nam, and occasionally a friend named Choi Jung-eon appeared, but lately even those contacts were rare.
There were records of several call attempts to Seo Jeong-gi’s number. Perhaps because he had tried and failed before, there was almost no search history related to Yoo Siwoon. Feeling strangely disappointed, Yoo Siwoon realized he was checking Eunseong’s call records, noting who he had talked to and for how many minutes and seconds, and quietly turned off the screen.
∞ ∞ ∞
Yoo Oseon, who had lost consciousness after being hit on the head with a blunt object, regained consciousness due to a headache.
“Ugh…”
Even though his eyes were open, everything around him was dark. He couldn’t see anything. Instinctively, he stretched out his hand and groped the air, but he didn’t get far before hitting something. He was confined somewhere.
The pain at the back of his head was not ordinary. Groaning, Yoo Oseon gradually came to his senses and felt around him with his hands. His frantically moving hands revealed his situation. A long box with sides completely sealed, no, it was like a coffin. Soon realizing what kind of place he was lying in, Yoo Oseon had a convulsive fit.
“Aaargh! Fuck! What is this! Open the door! Open this! You fucking bastards!”
Bang, bang, bang, bang—he screamed while pounding in all directions with his fists and kicking.
“Aaaah! Fuck! Open the door! I said open the door! Open it! You son of a bitch! Aaaaargh!”
How long had he been screaming? When his throat became raw and he felt dizzy from shortness of breath, there was a rattling movement followed by bright light that struck his eyeballs.
“Huk, huk, heok, huk, huk!”
Yoo Oseon, who had been twisting his body in panic, sat up with a jolt. He breathed violently and roughly until the pain that had squeezed his heart like claustrophobia from being confined in a narrow space disappeared. As his eyes adjusted to the bright view, the whitish surroundings became clearly visible. Yoo Oseon screamed again.
He was sitting on a morgue table, and right next to him, on a steel bed like a drawer pulled out, lay Seo Jeong-gi, no, Yoo Jeong-gi, wrapped in plastic.
“Aaaaargh!”
Screaming, Yoo Oseon thrashed around and fell to the floor. With a thud, he collapsed and flailed his arms in the air as if the dead Yoo Jeong-gi had suddenly risen to pounce on him, then urgently retreated on all fours. He crawled backward, pushing his buttocks against the wall with nowhere left to retreat. Dust rose from the dirty floor.
“What, what the hell is this! What! Ugh, uh, fuck, how did this happen.”
Only after distancing himself from the corpse could he regain his senses. He frantically looked around.
It was a hospital morgue. Judging by the thick layer of dust that seemed to have accumulated over generations, the garbage, and the old, peeling paint, it was clearly the medical center he had visited recently. It was the exact place where Yoo Oseon performed his secret operations.
Yoo Oseon had been leaving the company building with his secretary for a lunch appointment today. In an instant, two black cars blocked his car from the front and back, and strong men jumped out. They struck down the driver with a blunt weapon. As Yoo Oseon turned to flee after seeing that, someone hit the back of his head with a dull thud. That was the end of his memory.
His hair felt wet, and when he touched it, sticky blood came off on his hand.
“Fucking hurts. Haa… Yoo Siwoon, you fucking bastard. Not content with alienating me from my uncle, you do this too? Fucking asshole. I’ll really kill you.”
After shouting angrily, Yoo Oseon wiped his trembling hand on his thigh and stood up on his shaky legs. As soon as he stood up, his eyes met Yoo Siwoon’s, who was standing indifferently beyond the broken window.
“Aak!”
Terrified, Yoo Oseon let out a short scream and sat back down on the floor.
Yoo Siwoon tilted his head inward and quietly looked down at his condition. Yoo Oseon, confirming Yoo Siwoon’s presence again, cursed.
“Fuck!”
He got up hurriedly, staggering. His body wouldn’t obey because of the blow to his head. His legs kept wobbling, unable to stand straight.
“You crazy son of a bitch. You think I’d fall this easily?”
“Didn’t you know in this business, the hesitant die first?”
Yoo Oseon’s eyes frantically scanned the floor, looking for something to swing. Then he noticed Yoo Jeong-gi lying on the morgue table and flinched. Seeing this, Yoo Siwoon spoke with a pitying tone.
“You’re probably the only one in our family afraid of corpses. Why did you kill him?”
“You’re asking because you don’t know? Even if it wasn’t me, he would have eventually been killed by Uncle. The markers are required to report to the Council of Elders if there’s even one piece of evidence! You should know best what the price is for hiding ‘the Great Gap’? It’s only because it was me that he died this cleanly. If it had been Seongil, he would have thrown him to the dogs as food!”
Yoo Oseon quickly moved away from the corpse. At the same time, he moved frantically, wary of Yoo Siwoon as well.
“There was no need to kill him. Is there anyone who wanted to be less involved with the family than Brother Jeong-gi?”
“Haa, fuck. I heard it from Yoo Jeong-gi, but it must be true. Seeing you act like this. I heard that story when I was young too. That Yoo Jeong-gi ran away with some child, not even one he fathered.”
Yoo Oseon thoroughly searched the floor for something to use as a weapon and looked for an escape route, even though there was nothing suitable.
Standing with both hands thrust into his pants pockets, Yoo Siwoon frowned.
“Is that why you killed him?”
“I thought whoever was involved would come to recover the body, but I never dreamed it would be you. If Uncle or Yoo Seongil knew you were a double agent, they wouldn’t stay quiet with their crazy temperament. Aren’t you scared?”
“My number was saved in Brother Jeong-gi’s phone, but you didn’t know that, I guess.”
“Ah shit, there was a phone? I couldn’t find it.”
Yoo Oseon exclaimed with curses, as if he would have killed Yoo Siwoon first had he known. He looked at Yoo Siwoon with a genuinely regretful expression, but in reality, he was looking for an escape route beyond his shoulder.
“How can a normal person… everyone is just insane.”
Yoo Siwoon exhaled a tired sigh, genuinely disgusted.
“Who are you talking about? Yourself? Manpo said that you seem to have acquired something very important. You know, right? That old man considers all money the same. Your money, my money.”
“…”
“The kid that Yoo Jeong-gi was raising… is that really it? Is that why you hid it?”
Yoo Oseon asked with a skeptical look.
“Do you think that makes sense?”
The Great Gap? The God Who Came by the Side Path? The Asura on a blue-yellow horse?
That someone possessing this evidence actually exists and Yoo Jeong-gi ran away with that child?
Yoo Siwoon snorted derisively, saying it was so ridiculous that even laughing was tiresome now.
