Chapter 165
Chapter 165
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 165
Chapter Title: Desperate Car Chase
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Vrooom!
Inside the speeding car.
It was a car driven by Jeong Yun-ja, a potential suspect attempting to destroy evidence.
Inside sat Jeong Yun-ja, who seemed half out of her mind, and Kang Hyun, covered in dust.
“Slow down.”
“Hic!”
“I said slow down!”
Despite Kang Hyun’s attempts to stop her, the car’s speed kept increasing.
A highly urgent situation.
‘I need to stop this car first!’
With no sign of the speed dropping, the only thing Kang Hyun could do inside the car was lunge toward the front seat.
Whoosh.
“…?”
Kang Hyun barely steadied himself, grabbed Jeong Yun-ja at the driver’s seat, pinned her in place, and gripped the steering wheel.
“W-what are you doing!”
Screeech!
“You almost killed a prosecutor earlier. That’s Criminal Code Article 144: Special Obstruction of Public Duty Resulting in Injury or Death—life imprisonment or at least five years. You gonna keep speeding?”
“Shut up! I said shut up!”
Screeech!
Shake, shake.
Honk! Honk!
Even as the car dangerously swerved across lanes, Kang Hyun and Jeong Yun-ja’s struggle continued.
As Kang Hyun stretched forward, closing the gap between them, she tried to push him away but couldn’t muster the strength.
“Hit the brakes right now!”
“Hic! Hic!”
Jeong Yun-ja panicked, hiccupping wildly, but instead of braking, she floored the accelerator and charged ahead.
In the distance.
Cars raced through the intersection, so she needed to slow down.
Vroooom!
But the car barreled straight ahead like a wild horse with a broken rein.
“You trying to get us killed, Jeong Yun-ja?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything!”
Her car narrowly grazed past other vehicles, heading straight for the intersection.
In the right lane of the intersection, massive trucks and cargo vans thundered mercilessly.
‘At this rate, we’ll crash.’
Continuing into the intersection could lead to a multi-vehicle pileup—a dangerously precarious moment.
So, Kang Hyun made his final decision.
‘No choice!’
To force her to brake, he twisted back toward the passenger seat.
As Jeong Yun-ja relaxed, thinking he’d given up after releasing the wheel...
“Wh-what?!!”
Kang Hyun swiftly covered her eyes and yanked her head toward him.
To make her instinctively slam on the brakes with her vision blocked.
“Br-brake! Hit the brake!”
“Aaaah! Let go!!”
Splash!
The result of Kang Hyun’s final gambit.
Screeeeech!
The speed dropped sharply, their bodies tangling as they nearly flew forward.
Screech! Screeech! Thud!
Other cars in the lanes screeched to a halt alongside them, and the intersection fell silent for a moment.
“Ugh...”
Fortunately.
Truly fortunately.
Cars had stopped in surprise, horns blaring in the chaotic intersection, but it was just a traffic jam.
Not a single minor accident occurred.
“Ah.”
Smoke rose from the tires, their bodies a mess, but Kang Hyun managed to sit up inside the car.
Unscathed, alive when he could’ve died.
“Guh, guh...”
Jeong Yun-ja, meanwhile, was delirious and wandering on the edge of consciousness, but she seemed unharmed too.
“Ha... We made it.”
Kang Hyun stepped out of the car, letting out a sigh of relief as he straightened his back with effort. He pulled out his phone next to her slumped form.
“Ha. Jeong Yun-ja...”
The person he was calling was none other than Senior Prosecutor Hwang Jae-eun, who would witness this scene first.
“Senior, I caught Jeong Yun-ja—the one who fled.”
Around 3 p.m. on the day of the search and seizure at Korea Manpower headquarters.
Just beyond the intersection, about 3-4 km from the headquarters entrance road, on the roadside.
A single sedan was pathetically parked on the shoulder, surrounded by two prosecutorial investigation vehicles. Jeong Yun-ja stepped out of the battered old sedan, head bowed weakly.
Jeong Yun-ja, who had fled with the search target items, intending to burn or destroy them to obstruct the investigation.
Kang Hyun had tenaciously stuck with her and captured her.
Vrooom!
Hwang Jae-eun arrived shortly after and strode quickly toward Kang Hyun.
“Are you insane? That was dangerous!”
“Sorry, Senior.”
“What if you’d been hit by the car or rolled on the ground?”
“I did roll to get in the car.”
“Sigh... You. After this search is over, you’re on suspension. Are you a prosecutor or a parkour athlete?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“No, I mean, sorry.”
Even with Hwang Jae-eun’s furious expression, Kang Hyun—distracted by the case—found her mismatched words amusingly faint humor.
“Whew... Evidence first. Where’s the evidence?”
“Probably in the trunk.”
“Good job.”
At any rate, the case came first for Prosecutor Hwang Jae-eun too. That’s why she meshed so well with Park Min-seong.
She glanced at the car with her eyes, signaling to check it, and Kang Hyun perked up like a puppy, trotting to the trunk.
‘What did she hide?’
His relentless thoroughness left no room for oversight, no margin for error.
Whether that persistence paid off would be revealed the moment he opened the trunk.
Clunk.
“Whew.”
Dust and a massive pile of junk billowed out as the trunk opened.
Kang Hyun, along with a few investigators, began pulling out the clutter and trash bags, spreading them on the roadside.
At first glance, it was just useless junk—dirty, crumpled papers scrawled with messy writing.
But two prosecutors were present.
Sharp-eyed prosecutors deeply invested in this case. No evidence could hide as trash in front of Hwang Jae-eun and Kang Hyun.
Rummage, rummage.
“Ah...”
Following Kang Hyun’s first exclamation, Hwang Jae-eun, hunched over and pushing trash aside, lit up.
“It’s all here.”
Their eyes met as Kang Hyun and Hwang Jae-eun sat on the roadside, hastily sorting evidence.
“That’s why there were no records in the office.”
“And why digital forensics and phone seizures were pointless.”
The direct evidence they uncovered.
Memos on safety management implementation orders, meeting minutes on quality control oversight failures, rushed reports due to skipped self-safety inspections, and more.
Even notebooks detailing the involvement of over a dozen site managers, subcontractors, and supervisors linked to the case.
All the evidence for this incident was in Jeong Yun-ja’s “secret trunk.”
One piece would’ve been a godsend; this was like an endless fountain or a magic club spewing gold.
Not just the incident’s details, but documents mapping involved parties’ positions and involvements kept emerging.
“We can switch Jeong Yun-ja to suspect status.”
“Yes. From what I overheard in the car, there’s an instigator for evidence destruction. A man she called ‘Oppa’—we need to grill her on that.”
“Probably Korea Manpower’s president. They’re said to be lovers.”
“Circumstantially, it might not be him, so we should proceed carefully. And...”
“And?”
“Senior, add Special Obstruction of Public Duty to Jeong Yun-ja’s charges.”
“Got it.”
She scanned Kang Hyun’s disheveled state and nodded slowly.
“And it’s not just Jeong Yun-ja. There’s a reason she fled.”
Kang Hyun already held Jeong Yun-ja’s logbook. Amid the scattered items, he’d found the most crucial document.
“Fourteen suspects. Seems there was conflict between the victims and the constructor. Entries on altering structures without review while skipping safety checks, and prematurely removing horizontal braces—called ‘dongbari’—for a quick finish, etc.”
“That could serve as circumstantial evidence for the case.”
“If we get confessions on shoddy safety checks during construction, it can bolster as supplementary evidence. Looks like we’ve squeezed out plenty.”
“We can wipe out those subcontractor thugs tied to KW.”
“Yes. Switch them to suspects and launch warrantless arrests immediately. Start with locating all involved parties.”
“Right. On return, switch to suspects, order location checks. Have them confirm addresses within two days from the crime scene.”
“Understood.”
She said one thing; he grasped two.
He asked one; she explained two.
With two competent prosecutors, the subcontractor-related case was nearly wrapped up right there on the roadside.
Kang Hyun’s mind raced amid it all, piecing together the faint outlines of the case, but for now, this was it.
For a successful search, safe return with the seized evidence was priority.
Kang Hyun’s first corporate search and seizure.
It became the most outstanding result among Namyangju’s recent years’ operations, etched into history.
The evidence from Jeong Yun-ja’s car was an impeccable spear to pierce KW Construction directly—no internal figure could resist or rebel.
The branch chief stayed silent, the Second Division head hands-off.
The Criminal Division team under the First Division chief earned Namyangju’s collective awe and congratulations.
The day after the search.
Click, click.
“First, we’re switching fourteen constructor, subcontractor, and supervisor site personnel from witnesses to suspects. We’ll conduct intensive investigations to determine charges like professional negligence resulting in death, etc.”
Criminal Division Chief Prosecutor Park Min-seong’s confident briefing.
A stark contrast to former Branch Chief Gu Ik-hwan’s stammering excuses—brimming with assurance.
Their first achievement.
After months of tenacious pursuit, Namyangju Criminal Division One’s debut success had prosecutors and staff alike buzzing with uncontainable excitement.
Amid it, the hottest topic internally was Kang Hyun.
“Whoa, you!”
Kim Si-hwan, the prosecutor barging into Office 323 like he owned it and flipping open a newspaper, widened his eyes.
“You really almost flipped the car?”
“No. It’s exaggerated.”
The rumor spread in a day: he’d pulled off a blockbuster car chase, capturing the evidence-destroying search target.
Kim Si-hwan hadn’t believed it at first.
Ridiculous rumors were commonplace.
Especially about a rookie who’d just arrived.
But articles trickled out, then newspapers and broadcasts plastered with “Kang Hyun.”
As if reporters, poised for trends, swarmed the moment “Kang Hyun” trended, thinking, ‘This is the one we must cover.’
“It says right here in huge letters: the car ‘nearly flipped.’ Can’t the guy on the scene give a more vivid account?”
“Senior, it was really nothing. I just got in the car with her and calmed her down a bit.”
“A car chase, and you downplay it like that?”
“That’s really all it was.”
Despite Kim Si-hwan’s prodding, Kang Hyun responded as if it were routine.
‘Whoa, this guy...’
To Kim Si-hwan, one thing stood out as impressive.
Kang Hyun handled the uproar, congratulations, and cheers with utter composure, just doing his job.
‘Scary guy.’