Chapter 31
Chapter 31
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 31
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Anyway, for reporter Choi Chung-gon, there was no way he could let this chance slip. At the moment, he was the only journalist whom Kyung-wan had agreed to meet. His senior reporters were practically threatening him while pretending to ask him for favors, what more needed to be said?
An in-depth feature about the tongue of a habitual con artist who had managed to scam people for a staggering 13 years was, unsurprisingly, a massive hot issue.
Kyung-wan waved his hands modestly.
“All of that is just~ exaggerated talk. A tongue is way too slippery to pull out. You can’t do it with bare hands.”
Reporter Choi forced himself to ignore the nuance that perhaps Kyung-wan would have pulled it out if he had the right tools. He asked about the background of the incident, and Kyung-wan explained the situation where Kim Bong-gyu had tried to scam him.
“As expected of a con artist, everything he said was BS. All that talk about gangsters, front men, and whatnot, total lies. Well, considering he’d been scamming people for 13 years straight, tricking ‘easy marks’ just became a habit. He thought I was some clueless pushover. And you know, stamp-flipping isn’t something anyone can just do; it’s an insider racket.”
Kyung-wan knew that well, since he had lived in the same cell as Jo Pil-tae, a real gangster.
But according to Kim Bong-gyu’s calculation, Kyung-wan seemed like a long-term inmate who’d be locked up for a long while, and although he wasn’t the main offender, he had dared to mess with a gangster’s rice bowl, so even if he got out someday, he wouldn’t come out in one piece. Meaning, Kim Bong-gyu figured there was no need to fear retaliation.
What intrigued reporter Choi most in all this was: how did Kyung-wan see through Kim’s story as a lie? Even he himself found Kim’s explanation believable and plausible when he first heard it.
Kyung-wan answered the puzzled reporter.
“I’ve got an interesting skill. Could you show me your wrist?”
“Like this?”
Choi extended his wrist. The guard’s eyes sharpened, but he ignored them.
As if checking a pulse like a traditional doctor, Kyung-wan placed his fingertips on Choi’s wrist and asked:
“Your name.”
“Choi Chung-gon.”
“Are you married?”
“Not yet.”
“Is she your first love?”
“Uh…”
Choi suddenly thought, What the hell?
Shouldn’t the question after “Not yet” have been about whether he had a girlfriend? Why skip that? Did Kyung-wan already know he was single?
As Choi fell into confusion, Kyung-wan spoke.
“You can answer yes or no. Either’s fine.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a lie. How many times have you dated? More than five?”
“Uh… well…”
“I said you can answer yes or no.”
“No.”
“It’s more than five, but not up to ten, right?”
“T-th-that… it’s not that…”
“Wow! Casanova, aren’t you! Amazing, over ten!”
Choi had never felt this embarrassed in his entire life. Cold sweat trickled down his back. It felt like every lie he had ever told was being exposed, every shame laid bare. Faces of ex-girlfriends flashed in his head, Mi-kyung, Seul-ye, Hye-jeong, Tae-bin…
Kyung-wan smiled and asked:
“Shall we continue?”
“N-no.”
Choi gently pulled his wrist back.
As he rubbed the goosebumps off his forearm, Kyung-wan said:
“Very few people can lie in front of me.”
Feeling a chill down his spine, Choi asked:
“That’s an incredible skill. When did you learn it?”
“When you’re trying to get beaten a little less and survive, you just naturally pick it up.”
“Who beat you?”
“When a drunk father says, ‘Come here, I won’t hit you,’ you need to run if it’s a lie and go quickly if it’s true, so you don’t provoke him and get hit.”
“...”
Choi fully believed Kyung-wan’s fabrication and was left speechless. Even the guard watching their meeting gave him a sympathetic look.
Choi had doubts, no way anyone could easily develop a skill like this, but he feared continuing the topic would make the atmosphere uncomfortable. And uncomfortable tension would ruin an interview.
“Anyway, that’s how the con artist’s tongue got cut. You didn’t have tools in the cell, how did you do it?”
“I scammed him.”
“You scammed him?”
“I told him he’d believe me if he stuck his tongue out. Honestly, that was the entire goal. A monk can’t shave his own head, and con artists never imagine their ‘mark’ will scam them. So he stuck his tongue out, and I gave him a powerful uppercut to the jaw.”
As Choi pictured the scene from the polite explanation, his mind spun. Scamming a con artist to cut his tongue? No normal person would ever think of that.
“I… I see… but if you wanted to punish him, there were other ways. Was there a reason you chose something so… bloody?”
“Well… I just wanted to make sure he’d never again wag his tongue to deceive people.”
“Ah.”
Choi nodded. It was a reason that made you nod automatically. If a con artist can’t speak properly, he can’t scam people.
After the meeting, he wrote the article and published it. The reaction was explosive. Views skyrocketed, and it spread across every major community.
Some said cutting a tongue was brutal, but overwhelmingly, people found it refreshing that someone who had conned people for 13 years straight would now never do it again.
└Isn’t this basically natural cause of death?
└He didn’t die though.
└Shame.
└You’re sad a human didn’t die? Scary freaks ㄷㄷㄷ
└With ten million won you can hire a hitman in Southeast Asia.
└Then that con artist stole 5 billion won, so that’s like killing 500 people? Yeah he deserves execution.
└Yeah, how many people kill themselves because of money?
└Killing yourself over scams is a personal choice, isn’t it? And they got scammed because they were greedy.
└I hope you get scammed and lose everything.
It wasn’t just the internet that found satisfaction. Victims of Kim Bong-gyu’s scams announced through the media that they would pool funds to hire a lawyer to reduce Kyung-wan’s sentence. They did it publicly in hopes that other victims from the last 13 years would see the news and contact them.
But was this the first time victims tried to reward Kyung-wan?
A perceptive reporter dug deeper and discovered that victims of the serial juvenile rapist and the serial rapist of adult women had already hired lawyers to defend Kyung-wan.
Experts voiced concern, such actions could justify vigilante justice and undermine the rule of law.
But regardless of what the experts said, the donations to support Kyung-wan did not stop.
“Nice to meet you. I’m attorney Kang Ban-uk.”
The calm-looking man in his 40s introduced himself, and Kyung-wan bowed.
“Yes, hello.”
“I’d like to represent you regarding the Jo Geum-tae and Kim Gil-yong cases.”
“Who?”
“The two men you blinded in this prison.”
“Ah~.”
Kyung-wan nodded, and Kang continued.
“Will you appoint me as your lawyer?”
“But I don’t have money.”
“The money’s already been paid by others.”
“By who?”
“The families of the victims of the monstrous crimes committed by Jo Geum-tae and Kim Gil-yong.”
“Ah~.”
Kyung-wan nodded again, scratched his chin shyly, and said:
“If I’d known this, I would’ve broken their backs too. Bit of a waste.”
Kang Ban-uk smiled bitterly inside. The young man before him was a beast. He had zero hesitation about crippling people. From the state’s perspective, trying to monopolize violence, he was practically antisocial.
But the lawyer smiled kindly and said:
“What they want is a reduced sentence for you.”
“No need for that, right?”
“What?”
The unexpected reply made Kang blink. He had assumed Kyung-wan would immediately hire him.
“You don’t want a reduced sentence?”
“Attorney.”
“Yes?”
“If you found a rabid dog foaming at the mouth, barking near a kindergarten… would you just walk past it?”
“Of course not.”
“Right? You’d do something about it. But let’s say it’s an emergency, no one’s around to help. The leash holding it is thin and looks ready to snap. Oh? And look, there’s even a spear lying nearby, as if someone left it there for you to kill the dog. Oh? And the kids are walking this way. And the rabid dog is going insane, about to charge them. What would you do?”
“… I’d attack… the dog…”
It was a ridiculous hypothetical, but Kang knew it was a metaphor for what had happened. And honestly, it was a metaphor that made sense.
Kyung-wan continued.
“Then the dog ends up dead. But the rabid dog had an owner, and they tell you to pay for the dog. Isn’t that unfair?”
“It is unfair.”
“But the law says even if the situation could be taken into account, since the incident didn’t actually happen yet, you still have to pay. So what do you do?”
“… You pay.”
Kang felt uncomfortable. As a lawyer, even more so. The young man in front of him was pointing out a glaring flaw in the law. The law is always late. It is never effective as prevention.
And even post-incident, is it reliable? If it were, monsters like Jo Geum-tae and Kim Gil-yong would’ve never been allowed to roam free again.
Kyung-wan nodded.
“Exactly. You pay. Even if it’s unfair, the poor dog owner must be heartbroken.”
“But it was a rabid dog.”
“No one but the attorney who killed it knows whether the accident would’ve happened or not, right?”
That’s why he accepted the additional sentence. He was taking responsibility in his own way.
Kang asked:
“But isn’t it unfair?”
“Well… when you throw a tantrum about unfairness and break the rules, the ones who suffer are always the innocent and weak.”
“You have convictions.”
“… Puhahahahahaha!”
At that remark, Kyung-wan tilted his head, and then burst into wild laughter. What was so funny? He bent forward holding his stomach and laughed for a long time before lifting his reddened face and wiping his teary eyes.
The look in his eyes made Kang shrink back.
Kyung-wan spoke.
“You’re a lawyer, so let me ask you… how much are you willing to sacrifice for your convictions?”
The meeting ended there. Kyung-wan did not appoint Kang as his lawyer. A public defender would probably be assigned.
Driving back to Seoul, Kang mulled over Kyung-wan’s words.
How much could he sacrifice for his convictions?
What exactly did he mean by that?
He had never thought of himself as lacking conviction. A lawyer’s professional ethics were to use legal knowledge for the client’s benefit, after all.