Chapter 37
Chapter 37
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 37
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When Kyungwan’s knife aimed for Assemblyman Yang Seungtae’s right ear, Yang grabbed his hand. But the forearm choking his neck tightened the moment his hand slipped away.
From that pressure, Yang Seungtae’s healthy eye bulged as if it would pop out, and the bloody tears flowing from the eye adorned with the golden badge grew thicker.
As he felt he was about to suffocate to death, the two hands that had been gripping Kyungwan’s knife-wielding hand moved toward the arm strangling his neck.
“Huff! Aaagh!”
The moment his blocked airway opened, Yang Seungtae felt a sharp pain in his ear and screamed.
Kyungwan tossed the severed earlobe aside and continued speaking.
“With dolus eventualis as your shield, you keep your own hands clean, cover everything up with the help of your dependable junior prosecutors… I honestly can’t believe someone like you would ever receive the punishment of the law.”
“Why! Why are you doing this to me! Who the hell are you!”
Yang Seungtae shouted, overflowing with rage. Don’t provoke a madman? Both his earlobes were already gone, and he’d been turned into a one-eyed cripple, why the hell shouldn’t he shout?!
If he could, he wanted to blast the bastard’s head off with a gun and stomp on the spilled brain matter until nothing was left, that was Yang Seungtae’s honest feeling.
“Prosecutor Kim Omin promised to buy me chicken if I helped with the investigation. But thanks to you and the bastards clinging to you, I couldn’t eat it.”
“I’ll buy it! I’ll buy it for you!”
“If a maggot like you buys it, I’ll lose my appetite.”
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
A scream burst from Yang Seungtae’s mouth. The sashimi knife’s tip dug into the disc area of his waist, shredding a bundle of nerves. His legs gave out.
Once he finished him off, Kyungwan looked into the camera and clicked his tongue in disappointment.
“Prosecutor Yoon Geunhwan, Chairman Oh Taekwang. It would’ve been great if you two were here as well, but what a shame. It’s really tough to go all the way to wherever you are. It’s almost mealtime anyway, so I’ll stop here. Oh! But just know, if you ever run into me, this is what’ll happen to you too.”
He smirked, slapped the cheek of the hollow-eyed, broken Yang Seungtae with the flat of the blade, leaving blade-shaped blood marks on his face, then tossed him aside like trash and dropped the knife to the ground. Then he raised both hands.
Security guards rushed in and covered his body.
= = = = =
The Yang Seungtae Assemblyman Terror Incident.
That was the official name, but online it became a meme as The Lee Kyungwan Chicken Revenge Incident. Under the scene where he said, ‘If a maggot like you buys it, I’ll lose my appetite’, people first posted universally loved foods like pork belly, sirloin, and steak. Later, they even posted controversial foods like mint-choco, McCol, and Sol’s Eye, sparking heated debates in the comments.
Anyway, public opinion exploded after Lee Kyungwan’s arrest. It was the moment the infamous madman Lee Kyungwan’s face appeared fully before the eyes of the public, and the moment he showed the world just how insane he really was.
Members of the National Assembly all criticized the National Assembly security’s incompetence, and further, the prison’s incompetence for failing to prevent Kyungwan’s escape, condemning his actions as private sanctions that disrupted the judicial system.
But on the other hand, the mysterious death of Prosecutor Kim Omin also drew renewed attention. The trillion-won Ponzi fraud case. The fact that Prosecutor Kim Omin had recovered 50 billion won of criminal proceeds from the case hit the news.
Kyungwan’s cooperation in that investigation was also re-examined. His extraordinary ability to determine with nearly 100% accuracy whether someone was lying through physical contact.
While difficult to use as legal evidence, it was extremely effective in tracking where and how the criminal proceeds were hidden. The recovered 50 billion proved it.
But there was still 50 billion missing. Once Kyungwan mentioned Creative Capital in front of the camera, combined with Kim Omin’s suspicious death and the Yang Seungtae incident, hundreds of victims who had lost their assets to the scammer Wang Daehan flooded into the National Assembly. They demanded the entire truth be revealed and for compensation to be paid.
Among them were even people banging gongs and merrily singing, saying it served Assemblyman Yang right for ending up crippled. A nation of satire and humor indeed.
The 50 billion hidden through paper companies. The scammer Wang Daehan. And the now-crippled Assemblyman Yang Seungtae.
All eyes turned toward the case as it showed signs of developing into a massive political gate. It was too large an amount for Yang Seungtae to have taken alone.
Even if he had acted alone, it was reasonable to suspect that fellow lawmakers and high-ranking government officials had been greased to cover up such a massive fraud. Like Deputy Chief Prosecutor Yoon or Prosecutor Hwang, who worked to bury Kim Omin’s death.
While the political world grappled with this major problem, Kyungwan was inhaling seolleongtang and slurping jjajangmyeon as a palate cleanser.
“Is it good?”
The prosecutor watching him asked with a sarcastic tone and expression. Prosecutor Jung? For a young prosecutor, he sure knew how to look like an old-fashioned nag.
Kyungwan slurped his noodles and gave a thumbs-up. Then he emptied the bowl completely and patted his full stomach.
“Ah~. I’m full.”
“Now will you talk?”
Anyone could hear the irritated tone. Well, after causing a nationwide disaster, Kyungwan had insisted he wouldn’t say a word unless they gave him food, acting like a feudal lord. If that didn’t irritate a prosecutor, he wouldn’t be a prosecutor.
Kyungwan answered:
“Ask.”
“Who ordered you?”
A suspicious question.
Kyungwan pointed his thumb at himself.
“My conscience.”
Prosecutor Jung ignored that bullshit. It really was bullshit.
“Don’t screw with me. You couldn’t have done something this big alone. Someone helped you, right?”
“If anyone helped me, wouldn’t it be the 50 million citizens?”
“?”
As Prosecutor Jung thought, ‘What kind of bullshit is this now?’, Kyungwan explained further.
“Because thanks to their taxes, I ate well and lived well in prison. Prison food is surprisingly healthy. And it’s no lie that it’s better than the military.”
“Stop spouting crap and give me the mastermind!”
When the prosecutor shouted, Kyungwan clicked his tongue as if disappointed.
“What, you don’t know basic logic? How can I name a mastermind that doesn’t exist? If you think there is one, it’s the prosecutor who has to prove it. But here you are demanding proof that something doesn’t exist, what kind of nonsense is that?”
“What? Nonsense?”
“If you’re so desperate to insist there’s a mastermind behind me, then go ahead and forge some evidence. You guys have the know-how from the anti-communist frame-up days, don’t you?”
“Ha! Want me to give you water torture like back then?!”
“Oh! Did you really use water torture? How did you do it? Does the prosecution still have those torture techniques?”
“God, this lunatic!”
Prosecutor Jung’s expression twisted with disgust, but Kyungwan’s mouth didn’t stop. A psychiatrist would’ve easily diagnosed mania or bipolar disorder.
“Oh! You don’t do that anymore, right? Because of human rights groups and foreign countries watching. So now you pressure people through media manipulation, or dig up their families and take them hostage, or keep indicting them until the legal fees grind their soul away. But what do you do with someone like me? I’m good with media attention, have no family to hold hostage, and since I get a public defender, I don’t have to spend a single won on trial fees.”
Realizing that intimidation wouldn’t work, Prosecutor Jung approached from a different angle: persuasion.
“You know you might rot in prison for life.”
“And what about it?”
“.. If you cooperate and give me the mastermind, I can push for a lighter sentence.”
“.. Pffft, hahahahaha!”
“···.”
When Kyungwan burst into laughter, Prosecutor Jung’s face darkened. In his short career as a prosecutor, this was the first time encountering someone like this. If intimidation didn’t work and persuasion didn’t work, what the hell was left?
As the prosecutor struggled for a plan, Kyungwan stopped laughing and spoke.
“Hahaha! Ahem! Hmm! That’s a funny offer. Did whoever sent you tell you to muddy the waters by framing this as political terrorism?”
“···.”
A question the prosecutor couldn’t answer. But Kyungwan didn’t push him for one.
“If I were thinking about benefits like that, would I have done any of this? Think of our independence fighters. Do you think they acted for personal glory?”
“You saying you’re a patriot?”
Kyungwan flailed his hands in horror. A patriot? Someone like him, an infinite reincarnator, could never be such a romantic idealist.
“No, I mean I acted out of conviction.”
“What conviction?”
“Treating bastards like the bastards they are?”
Kyungwan scratched his chin while staring at the ceiling. His tone sounded as if even he wasn’t sure whether the words coming out of his mouth were his true feelings.
Prosecutor Jung’s voice rose.
“That’s not a conviction!”
“Then what’s yours?”
“What about me?”
“What conviction makes you so desperate to get a statement out of me saying there’s a mastermind?”
“···.”
Hit right where it hurt, Prosecutor Jung fell silent.
“Could you die for justice like Prosecutor Kim Omin did?”
“··· Stop changing the subject.”
The prosecutor frowned, but nothing could stop Kyungwan’s mouth.
“Prosecutor Kim Omin died because he refused to be bought off, right? And that was when a National Assembly member and a deputy chief prosecutor were involved. When you think about it… Kim Omin was a real nutjob. A normal guy wouldn’t even consider using a criminal like me to investigate a case.”
Prosecutor Jung stared at the rambling Kyungwan with hollow eyes.
“You proud of being a criminal?”
“I did something good, didn’t I? That’s enough for me.”
“Revenge is a good deed?”
“Well, for someone like you who wields state power, that must be an uncomfortable truth. But the idea that respect for others comes from fear, now that’s true. Civilized people are ruder than savages because they’re confident no one will bury an axe in their skull even if they spout bullshit.”
Could anyone doing ‘baton therapy’ after tossing a few hundred thousand won as hush money possibly respect human dignity?
No. Money scared them more than people did, so they could do it.
“With a madman like me around, wouldn’t Deputy Chief Prosecutor Yoon Geunhwan or Chairman Oh Taekwang start thinking, ‘Man, the world is wide and full of crazies,’ and maybe behave more carefully?”
“The one who needs to be careful is you.”
“How kind. Even giving me advice?”
“You mocking me?”
“That depends on what you meant by ‘careful.’”
If the prosecutor meant it mockingly, it was mockery. If he was serious, it was a compliment.
“...”
The interrogation continued, but Prosecutor Jung never got the confession he wanted from Kyungwan.
= = = = =
The Yang Seungtae Terror Incident, the Wang Daehan trillion-won Ponzi case, and the mysterious death of Prosecutor Kim Omin became entangled together and fused with the Lee Kyungwan Syndrome. The Lee Kyungwan Syndrome struck Korean society even harder, and even foreign media began paying attention.