The Weight of Five Hundred Kilograms
If the quantity of drugs was that large, it made sense that even Cheongpung would take it seriously. That amount was enough to send both the regular police and the Special Task Force into a frenzy. Still, the fact that Cheongpung had simply watched while that much product was being stockpiled felt off. F.A. had been using the drugs for months already. If they knew the exact volume, it meant they had been aware of the manufacturing operation for quite some time.
“It doesn’t add up. Why leave it alone?”
“We had our own problems. Those bastards aren’t ordinary. No matter how much product they had, there was no reason to grind all our kids to dust just to stop them. I still need to keep my business running, so I have to avoid the worst possible losses.”
“China, huh. Makes sense...”
So they already knew. The way Cheongpung was tiptoeing around the issue suggested these weren’t ordinary thugs.
“At that point, wouldn’t it be better to just report it to the authorities?”
“We don’t exactly have a friendly relationship with them. With that much product, the Special Task Force would definitely get involved. How would we handle the aftermath?”
“I see. That’s why you reached out to us? You’re openly trying to use us. What do we get out of helping Cheongpung?”
“Well... fame? We’ll make sure the story spreads far and wide. That Blood Rabbit crushed the Chinese villains and wiped out every last gram of the drugs.”
Fame, my ass. We were already dealing with enough chaos without adding more to the pile. Still, it was true that we had nothing else to gain from them. The only thing on offer was the fame he mentioned, and the thought of wading through a messy fight just to earn a useless reputation made my stomach twist. Of course, that was assuming everything went smoothly in the first place.
“We can’t decide on something this big right now.”
“...Fair enough.”
“I’ll give you our answer here tomorrow.”
“Good. I’ll be waiting for a favorable response.”
Now that we had a rough picture of the situation, it was time for us to discuss it among ourselves. After brushing him off with a promise to reply tomorrow, I signaled to Seong Jiyeong. We left the Hot-Dream club and headed back to our hideout.
Once we returned to the hideout, we immediately held a team meeting to decide how to respond to Cheongpung’s proposal. Seong Jiyeong and Tasha, who had kept their mouths shut while I was talking to the boss, were the first to speak.
“Setting aside what happened with F.A., if the amount of drugs is really that large, I think we should get involved.”
“If Cheongpung fails to stop them properly, things could spiral out of control.”
“So you two think we should help Cheongpung drive out the Chinese group?”
“I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being used. Still, getting rid of the drugs should probably come first.”
The two who had met the boss with me were clearly leaning toward accepting the offer. I had expected as much; it fit their personalities.
“Hmm, this whole thing reeks. Wouldn’t it be enough to just take out that HD guy and leave the rest alone?”
“Reeks, you say. Which part?”
“First of all, the fact that they already knew roughly how much product there was means they’ve been watching the Chinese group for a long time, right?”
“Probably.”
“And the fact that they took out HD today means they’ve already made up their minds internally.”
“If they hadn’t planned on hitting the Chinese group, they wouldn’t have bothered touching HD, would they?”
“Exactly. They wouldn’t have left them alone all this time if they didn’t know. After all, this is Cheongpung’s territory~”
“You have a point.”
“If Cheongpung was already planning to move against the Chinese group, there’s no reason for us to get involved~”
From Cheongpung’s perspective, Blood Rabbit was nothing more than an unexpected variable that had suddenly appeared. Given the current atmosphere, a clash with the Chinese group was already inevitable even without us. That was probably why they had removed the HD branch in the first place. Joining their plan would be like handing them a high-performance weapon. For them, it would be like luckily acquiring a good sword, but we had no reason to become that sword. That was Yu Hana’s opinion.
“We should consider the worst case. What if Cheongpung fails?”
“That would be far too irresponsible. Even if we didn’t know before, we can’t just ignore that much drugs now.”
The two of them pushed back against Yu Hana using the same logic as before. The sheer volume of the drugs seemed to be clouding their judgment, making it hard for them to stay objective.
“Let’s get one thing straight first. Even if Cheongpung fails, there probably won’t be any major incident involving the drugs.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“How could there not be an incident with 500kg of drugs?”
“There would be if those drugs were released in Korea, but that’s not going to happen.”
“Then...”
“Obviously they’re meant for China. This place is just a production base.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“The boss himself basically said so during our conversation.”
I had been shocked by the ridiculous scale at first, but the more I thought about it, the less it made sense. I didn’t know the exact drug consumption rate in Korea, but 500kg was far more than the market could absorb. If that much had hit the streets, there really would have been chaos. But the drug scandals that had made noise in the first timeline weren’t caused by the sheer quantity. They blew up because of the number of celebrities involved and the addition of human trafficking and organ smuggling.
That meant only a tiny fraction of the drugs the Chinese group had been storing was ever intended for Korea. Besides, if they had planned to flood Korea with drugs, there would have been no reason to stockpile such a massive amount. The fact that they were gathering so much suggested they intended to move it somewhere else. And that destination could only be China. Five hundred kilograms of drugs was an absurd quantity that no other country could possibly handle. Finally, the boss of Cheongpung had said during our talk that even a portion being released in Korea would cause problems. That meant he already knew the drugs weren’t meant for Korea. He had deliberately kept the information vague to make us more alert.
So the possibility of all the drugs being released in Korea wasn’t something we needed to worry about.
“Now that you mention it...”
“I see. So that’s why he phrased it that way.”
“That’s pretty underhanded. Giving us such ambiguous information.”
“The bigger he makes the opponent seem, the more likely we are to join. Just like how the two of you were so eager to get involved earlier.”
Revealing only what benefits you is basic negotiation. Still, the guy really did seem like a snake.
“So Yeri, you’re saying we should just leave it alone?”
“No, it’s a bit different from that...”
At first glance, it seemed best to just eliminate HD and stay out of the rest, but that wasn’t quite right either. For some reason, Cheongpung hadn’t even been able to take out HD or control the drugs. From the atmosphere, it seemed like they were going to clash with the Chinese group whether we were involved or not, but it didn’t feel like they would achieve anything. The boss of Cheongpung didn’t seem like someone who would go down easily, so I couldn’t figure out what was really going on. We simply didn’t have enough information to say anything definitive.
“First of all, I think we should move on the drugs ourselves.”
“Really? So we’re working with Cheongpung?”
“No, I don’t see any reason to. I don’t trust them either.”
“It’s ambiguous. What’s the problem?”
“Let me ask you the opposite. Why do you think we have to work with Cheongpung?”
“Because we have the same goal. If the goal is the same, we can cooperate for a while, right?”
“You think our goal and Cheongpung’s goal are the same?”
“Aren’t they? Cheongpung clearly wants to get rid of the drugs too.”
On the surface, that was true. If drugs started circulating in Incheon, it would be just as troublesome for Cheongpung when the authorities got involved. But assuming their goal was actually to eliminate the drugs was dangerous. They were still a local gang, and they were more than capable of selling the drugs themselves. Local gangs cooperated with the police and authorities only because it benefited them. If a much greater profit was waiting for them instead, they would have no problem stabbing us in the back. Five hundred kilograms of drugs was exactly the kind of profit that would make betrayal worthwhile.
That led to another possibility. Cheongpung would drive out the Chinese group, secure the drugs and the manufacturers, then slowly sell the product until a scandal broke out. It wasn’t certain, but it was a scenario we couldn’t ignore.
“My god, but...”
Seong Jiyeong looked stunned, as if she couldn’t believe what I was saying. It wasn’t that she was foolish; she simply lacked experience and had overlooked the details. I had once believed that local gangs could be reasonably cooperative too. Then I got stabbed in the back and learned my lesson.
“So my conclusion is this: we clean up the drugs, but we do it alone.”
Honestly, I still didn’t have a clear picture of the situation. But if things felt this uncertain, we should just move on our own. If we personally took care of the Chinese group and destroyed the drugs, there wouldn’t be any drug scandal to begin with. Besides, I couldn’t just sit back and watch while they set up a production base in someone else’s country and even got involved in human trafficking. Now that we knew, it was hard to just look the other way. The good thing about being phantoms was that we could do whatever we wanted. Even back in the Special Task Force, the Chinese bastards had been thorns in my side. This was a good chance to vent some frustration.
“Well, a dog is still a dog. I never fully trusted their words either. The only reason I considered cooperating was because we have too little information.”
“That’s true. Cheongpung seems to have been investigating the other side in quite a bit of detail for a while now.”
Tasha, with her combat experience, had probably only suggested cooperation to make use of their information rather than actually trusting them. Russia was an even harsher environment than Korea, so she wouldn’t have trusted villains blindly. In the end, this part would have to rely on Yu Hana.
“Yu Hana, I’m asking nicely. Cooperate a little. With your skills, you should be able to figure out what the Chinese group is up to, right?”
“Huh? Come on~ You’re overestimating me.”
“Don’t give me that. Even if you didn’t know before, now that we’ve found out they’re doing this kind of thing in Korea, I’m sure you can dig up their locations and plans.”
Yu Hana was the one who had uncovered the Seochok faction and Scorpion’s terror plot coming from China. There was no way she couldn’t find out the plans and hideouts of Chinese villains operating in Korea. The problem was whether she would actually cooperate willingly... but we would just have to make it happen somehow. I still wasn’t sure how a simple request for a song had turned into something this big, but now that it had, we needed to see it through to the end properly. At least this operation was top secret, so there wouldn’t be any cameras filming us like before. Even Yu Hana wouldn’t be able to tip off Psyker Mad in this situation.