Chapter 116
Calm Down
Night had fallen.
In-hyuk was sitting in his office, checking the list of vehicle owners and renters who had accessed Itako Country Club—data Go Mi-ah had sent him via cloud—on his tablet.
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Baek Si-hwan poked his head in.
"Aren't you leaving for the day?"
It was already a little past the expected time to finish work.
"I still have some materials to review, so you go on ahead."
"... Is there anything I can help with?"
"No."
As In-hyuk declined firmly, Baek Si-hwan bowed his head slightly and headed toward the elevator.
From his seat on the sofa, Hong Yu-geon, who had been watching, muttered apathetically.
"That kid is something else, too."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the way he stays so quietly and brazenly every day, even with Chairman Baek Ji-woong behind him. Just by how he behaves, you'd think he was the very definition of a loyal subject."
Memories of the previous life In-hyuk had spent with Baek Si-hwan at his side flickered through his mind.
At the end of that, he remembered facing Si-hwan's face for the first time just as his own breath gave out.
Crunch—
At that moment, the tablet screen warped as one corner cracked under the strength of In-hyuk's grip.
"What kind of strength... Did you eat a wild ginseng or something when we weren't looking?"
"I suddenly remembered someone unpleasant."
"Whoever that is, if he can make our boss feel this bad, his life probably won't end nicely."
It was an earnest mutter.
Shortly after, In-hyuk opened the cloud file he'd been reviewing earlier on his computer.
As he flipped through the vehicle owner information page by page, his hand suddenly paused.
"This person visited that place?"
His murmur made the atmosphere turn grim, and Hong Yu-geon came closer.
"Someone you know?"
The personal info listed just name, age, nationality, and a few simple facts.
But with the memories from his previous life, In-hyuk could easily spot anyone he'd seen even once, or anyone with significant social influence.
"From the Prosecutors' Office."
"... The prosecution?"
"To be exact, supreme Prosecutors' Office Deputy General Manager Jung Yoon-ju."
"That's really high up, isn't it?"
"Right. Just below the Prosecutor General. And look at that—on the same day as Im Deok-chang, Baek Ji-woong, and Kwon So-jeong, she visited the golf club."
Hong Yu-geon fully understood the seriousness of the situation.
"Should we tail her?"
"No. She'll have agents around her like the others, so we might get caught instead. And she's not someone careless enough to make herself so easy to find."
Anyway, it wasn't certain that Jung Yoon-ju belonged to the same group as them.
Even if she did, the mere fact that they'd met up all the way in Japan showed how meticulous they were; there was little chance any obvious evidence would present itself.
"So, what do we do?"
"We make her move on her own."
"There's a way to do that?"
Van Hester, seated a little off to the side, also looked curious.
With that, In-hyuk curled his lips in a slight smile.
* * *
Seoul, office of the Deputy General Manager of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.
The room's owner, Jung Yoon-ju, was speaking on the phone in a quiet, chilly voice.
"Whether it's overzealousness or some laughable sense of justice, are you telling me you can't handle even that much by yourself?"
The person on the other end was Ahn Seung-joo, deputy General Manager at the Busan District Prosecutors' Office.
He was also high up, but couldn't quite compare to the Deputy General Manager at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.
[As you know, since the Chulsan Capital incident, chief Prosecutor Park Du-seok has been in a very foul mood.]
Park Du-seok at Busan District Prosecutors' Office was the very person who, during the RyzeBurn incident when the mood among prosecutors and police in the capital region became unsettled, tried to leverage the Chulsan Capital case to move up, but failed.
"Always, the greedier someone is, the nastier their intentions... So, you're saying you can't conveniently bury the Sungkwang Construction case?"
Sungkwang Construction had recently come under investigation by the Busan District Prosecutors' Office for embezzlement, breach of trust, and kickbacks involving subcontractors.
The problem was that Sungkwang Construction's Chairman Woo Jae-deok was connected with the organization Jung Yoon-ju belonged to.
As they covered for each other, the prosecution simply had to lend some strength here.
Sensing trouble, Jung Yoon-ju pressed for more.
"... So things are loud at the moment—do we have nothing usable to serve as a distraction?"
She wanted another case to shove to the front to draw public attention away, while working out how to resolve the critical matter.
[There's the neglected case of the lawmaker's son and a police bribery case.]
"Who is it?"
[The lawmaker is Bae Seong-gil, who's in his third term as a city councilman, and the police officer is an inspector at Dongnae Police Station.]
Jung Yoon-ju furrowed his brow and clicked his tongue.
"Knew it, it's always the kids... But why did you shelve the case if it was just an inspector?"
Although being an inspector was decently high ranking, it wasn't especially so.
And the size of the case was big enough that Busan District Prosecutors' Office could have exposed it already; it was odd that it had been left alone.
[It involved taking bribes from a local gang. The offender turns out to be the nephew of the Nambu Provincial Agency chief. There's faint evidence that some of the money passed on to the chief himself, so we kept it on ice.]
Listening, Jung Yoon-ju shook her head.
"What a mess... Let's blow both cases in sequence then."
[You mean both?]
"Councilman Bae is a slippery one—he'd rather sacrifice his son to keep his position. Wait until the situation calms, then have Deputy General Manager Ahn use the police card to negotiate. If you time it right, it won't be hard for us to cover things up for them."
A sigh drifted through the receiver from Ahn Seung-joo.
[I understand. What about Chief Prosecutor Park, who'll keep after Sungkwang Construction?]
That was the critical issue left.
"Wasn't it well known that Chief Prosecutor Park and Councilman Bae used to be thick as thieves in their town? I hear they've fallen out these days, though I'm not sure what over. If you pretend you'll help with his son's matter, I'm sure you'll get something out of that."
A sigh escaped Ahn Seung-joo once more.
[I'll proceed as you say.]
After ending the call, Jung Yoon-ju removed the glasses perched on the tip of her nose and placed them on the desk alongside her phone.
"What a mess, just full of lacking brats..."
Her gaze drifted to the inside of her left ring finger.
There, where the palm met her finger, was a small tattoo. You'd have to really look to notice it.
At the same time, she recalled that organization meeting they had in Japan recently.
"... What on earth is about to happen?"
The sigh escaped on its own.
Plans had started to go awry since the RyzeBurn incident.
A huge number of people—businessmen, children of high-ranking officials, celebrities—got caught up.
Among those exposed were even many who had been protecting RyzeBurn on the prosecution and police side, and some of them were connected to Jung Yoon-ju.
Many of those connections had been wiped out.
The scale and fallout of the case were so enormous, even Jung Yoon-ju couldn't act as a shield.
If she got pulled in, she'd face the same fate, so the only option was to keep her head down as much as possible.
Drrring—Drrring—
Just then the internal call sounded, and the secretary for the deputy general manager spoke.
[Deputy General Manager. The Head of the Anti-Corruption Division, Jo Moo-yeol, is here to see you.]
"Let him in."
The door opened with that reply.
As Jo Moo-yeol walked to the desk, Jung Yoon-ju exhaled through her nose.
"What's the matter?"
"We received a whistleblower tip at the Anti-Corruption Division."
He extended the file he was carrying across the desk.
Picking it up, Jung Yoon-ju tilted her head and read through it. Simultaneously, Jo Moo-yeol began to explain, his voice heavy.
"Several prosecutors are accused of abuse of power, brokered bribery, investigation cover-ups, indigenous corruption, and so on... In total, there are 28 cases."
"Twenty-eight?"
"And 18 prosecutors are implicated: specifically, two chief prosecutors, five department managers, and eleven regular prosecutors."
"Whew..."
Jung Yoon-ju's face twisted as she stared at the file.
Just as Jo Moo-yeol said, it listed the real names, affiliated district prosecutors' offices, and detailed the various corruption allegations.
The problem was that it included connections and photos of meetings with certain individuals serving as evidence, property registers if bribes were involved, and case records of incidents that had been covered up.
"Even just on the face of it, these are too serious to overlook, so I brought them directly."
"... Have you confirmed the veracity of these claims?"
"A few are already under investigation by us. As for the rest, just on content alone, it's hard to consider them unrelated."
Something struck Jung Yoon-ju.
"Who sent this?"
"It came anonymously via email, so we haven't identified the tipster yet. We've requested an IP trace for verification."
"For now, hold off on these cases, and focus on finding the whistleblower first."
That order made Jo Moo-yeol uneasy.
"Given the seriousness, wouldn't it be best to investigate simultaneously?"
"Let's first find out the tipster's intentions. Since this concerns the prosecution's reputation, we must clarify everything before acting, or we could have problems."
"But...."
"Just do as I say."
Jo Moo-yeol withdrew.
"... Understood."
"Report to me as soon as you find anything about the tipster."
With those additional instructions, Jo Moo-yeol left.
Left alone once more, Jung Yoon-ju couldn't smooth out the frown that had creased her brow for some time.
Nearly half the prosecutors named in the anonymous tip were her own people.
If the investigation advanced as things were, the problem could grow out of control.
It might even turn into a second RyzeBurn crisis.
"Just who... how did they find out all this?"
These cases were ones only insiders could possibly know.
Besides, it wasn't the type of thing the people involved would ever speak openly about.
The matters weren't linked by case, either; this was a systematic attack on the prosecution itself.
Unless someone had organized an investigation and targeted them, it was impossible to know this much.
Jung Yoon-ju, to check the situation, called up one of the chief prosecutors listed on the whistleblower memo.
.
.
.
At the same time.
In-hyuk sat in a private room at the 'Hoam' restaurant in Cheongdam neighborhood, waiting for Jang Hyung-cheol, who used to own Chulsan Capital but was now the CEO of AMK Bridge.
Bzzz— Bzzz—
At that moment, a message arrived.
[... Delivered.]
After checking the contents, In-hyuk nodded just as the door to the room opened.
Jang Hyung-cheol, whom he had arranged to meet today, had arrived.
"So you really did survive after all."
There was a faint air of resentment to his tone.
In-hyuk cracked a slight smile.
"Were you hoping I hadn't?"
"You came back to Korea a while ago, but you only contacted me now. I thought you were dead."
Jang Hyung-cheol clicked his tongue and sat across from him.
"Thank you for worrying."
"Tsk—! Who's worrying? Still, considering what happened, you came back without a scratch."
"Just lucky, I suppose."
On those words, Jang Hyung-cheol's face twitched.
"This isn't the first time... Just like last time, isn't it all because of KQ's Jeon Hae-in?"
The fact that In-hyuk was the illegitimate son of KQ Group's Chairman Kang Cheon-gyu was now common knowledge.
In such circumstances, it was obvious whom In-hyuk's existence threatened.
"Well, who knows?"
"It's obvious to anyone. There's no one in this business who doesn't know how vicious that woman's temper is."
"I hear the Russian authorities and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are looking into it, so all we can do is wait."
Of course, he didn't expect results. The forces at play behind the scenes—like Kooou—would suppress things anyway.
Still, Jang Hyung-cheol's voice grew more vehement, not knowing that.
"It's obvious! Your talent threatened her, that's why!"
For some reason, he seemed genuinely agitated.
In response, In-hyuk raised both hands to calm him down.
"Let's calm down a bit."
"Hoo..."
"In any case, I wanted to meet today both to exchange greetings and discuss business."
"Business?"
In an instant, the fierceness left Jang Hyung-cheol's expression.