Let's Just Leave Them Be
"So you installed cameras?"
Dojin, who had just stepped out of the shower, asked with a serious expression after hearing what the two had to say.
When Seung-wan, who was supposed to have been in the office the whole time, walked in even later than he did, Dojin had assumed she had just gone to the restroom.
He never imagined she had actually gone out to install cameras.
"Yes. The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Didn't you notice anything odd, Dojin?"
"Something odd..."
Searching his memory at Seung-wan's question, Dojin walked over to the corner of the office.
The blueprints for the recently completed waterway construction were kept there. Dojin pulled out a bird's-eye view map that utilized satellite photos of the surrounding area.
Studying the map, which had been simplified specifically to make it easier for him to understand, Dojin nodded.
"Actually, I did notice something while cleaning up earlier. The types of trash were too strange for the blockage to have occurred naturally."
"The types of trash?"
"Yes. Look here."
Dojin grabbed some sticky notes and placed them on three different waterways on the map.
They were Waterways 1, 2, and 4.
"The trash blocking these spots consisted of agricultural plastic sheets, plastic bottles, cans, and broken glass. And the spot I cleaned earlier even had food waste."
"Ugh!"
Seung-wan's face contorted in disgust. Just hearing about it seemed to conjure up the vivid image in her mind.
Dojin offered a brief, sympathetic smile before continuing.
"It's obviously man-made trash, right?"
"Definitely. It's not the kind of debris that would just naturally accumulate."
"I let it slide the first and second times. I figured that since water had just started flowing through the channels, trash buried upstream had simply washed down. But looking at it today, I don't think that's the case."
Dojin pointed to each of the marked waterways. Following his finger, the other two immediately understood why he sounded so certain.
These waterways shared a single common thread.
"...All of these."
"They're connected to Mabong-ri."
Waterways 1 and 2 ran through Mabong-ri, and Waterway 4 originated from there. Whatever the case, they were all linked to the neighboring village.
Then, Do-hee pointed to the remaining Waterway 3.
"What about this one? This one was blocked once too."
Waterway 3 was the only one with no connection to Mabong-ri, as it flowed along the boundary between the Three Meals House and their newly acquired land.
Yet, it had also been blocked once before. It was the second spot to clog after the construction was completed.
"That one felt a bit different," Dojin explained. "It was mostly tree branches, reeds, and mud. It wasn't even fully blocked; I just cleaned it out as a preventative measure. The situation there was different from the others."
"Ah, I see..."
Do-hee nodded in understanding. Dojin let out a soft chuckle at the sight. For a brief second, Do-hee's expression had overlapped perfectly with Ttorang-i's.
Lately, Ttorang-i's smile has been looking more and more like Do-hee's.
Perhaps because Do-hee was the one taking care of her, the two were gradually starting to resemble each other.
Looking back at the map, Seung-wan spoke up.
"What could their motive be?"
"Motive?"
"Looking at the debris and the common locations, it's pretty clear where this is coming from."
"Isn't it obvious? It's Mabong-ri," Do-hee chimed in.
Both Seung-wan and Dojin nodded at Do-hee's words. Even without concrete evidence, anyone could see it was the work of someone from that village.
"Seung-wan is right," Dojin said. "Blocking a waterway is actually a lot of work. Especially one as wide as the new channels we built."
The old ditches were narrow and shallow, so a few large rocks would have done the trick. But the new channels were wide enough to easily fit a large cardboard box. Clogging them required significant effort.
The sheer volume of trash pulled from the three blockages was proof enough of that.
"Based on the timing, the culprits are doing this late at night or in the early hours of the morning when it's pitch black. It takes way too much effort for it to be a simple prank by one or two people."
"Hmm... True. Why go through all that trouble when they could be sleeping?" Do-hee wondered.
"...For starters, we need to build a fence around the new land. We'll install a gate for external access and another one connecting it to the Three Meals House."
Dojin had always planned to build a perimeter wall. He had originally intended to wait until the temporary shelter was finished to make construction easier, but it seemed he would have to bump up the schedule.
"How many cameras did you install?"
"Eight in total. Two for each waterway."
At Seung-wan's answer, Dojin glanced toward a corner of the office. The shelf where they kept the spare action cameras was completely empty.
"Ah, so you used all the spares."
"Yes. The waterways are long and there are several of them, so installing just one per channel wouldn't have been enough."
"You did the right thing. Still, I feel like this might not be enough... and those cameras aren't really meant for security surveillance anyway..."
The cameras Seung-wan had set up were standard action cameras that saved footage to local memory cards. This meant they would have to manually swap out the batteries and SD cards at regular intervals.
"It can't be helped. I'll contact a security company to install proper CCTV cameras. Until then, let's keep things as they are."
"Understood. I'll keep an eye on them in the meantime."
"Thank you, Seung-wan."
Dojin bowed his head in gratitude. He knew that managing eight separate cameras would be a tedious chore. For her sake, he needed to get the CCTV system installed as quickly as possible.
The reason behind Mabong-ri's sabotage came to light surprisingly quickly.
"An eel farm?" Dojin asked, his eyes flashing with interest.
He was out walking Ttorang-i when he ran into the village chief. The chief had handed him some eels as a token of gratitude for helping him with the bee stings and for the food during Malbok. While casually asking where the eels came from, Dojin had stumbled upon this crucial piece of information.
"Yeah, the Mabong-ri chief's son started an eel farm a few years back," the chief explained. "At first, everyone called him crazy for giving up farming to do something so useless, but the business ended up hitting the jackpot."
Seeing the tangible success, the rest of Mabong-ri quickly expanded eel farming into a village-wide industry. Most of the residents were too old for backbreaking farm work, but running an eel farm was manageable as long as they hired labor.
"I hear they employ about a dozen or so foreign workers."
In rural areas suffering from severe labor shortages, foreign workers were absolutely essential.
"Ever since they started that eel business, those Mabong-ri folks have been walking around with their noses in the air. Tsk!"
A person's true character often revealed itself once their pockets were full. While some, like Hye-seok, used their wealth to care for and give back to those around them, others used it to compare themselves to others and feed their own sense of superiority.
From what the chief was saying, the residents of Mabong-ri fell squarely into the latter category.
Suddenly, a thought flashed through Dojin's mind.
"...But did they actually register the business legally?"
"Who knows? The police drop by every now and then, and they don't seem to say anything, so I assume they did."
"..."
Dojin tilted his head in doubt. The eel farms he had seen on YouTube in his past life were highly specialized operations.
According to those videos, running one required dedicated production, management, and storage facilities, along with various official qualifications. Yet, looking out from the rooftop of the Three Meals House, Dojin hadn't seen anything resembling such facilities in Mabong-ri.
Maybe it's just a small-scale operation?
If so, it made some sense. The videos he remembered were from eight years in the future, so the industry could have modernized over time. However, there was one resource that was absolutely indispensable.
Still, it's weird. No matter the scale, you need a massive amount of dedicated water to farm fish.
Eels couldn't grow on dry land; they needed water. And farming them required a constant, substantial supply. Yet, no such water management infrastructure was visible in Mabong-ri.
"Sir, do you happen to know exactly where that farm is located?"
"Why? You want to buy some more, Mr. Baek? I suppose the ones I gave you aren't quite enough."
The chief chuckled sheepishly, gesturing to the bag of eels. Dojin quickly waved his hands in denial.
"No, not at all! It's just that I run a video channel, you know? I was thinking it might make for a good video if I could film there sometime."
"Ah! Right, of course. In that case, I should definitely tell you."
The chief's face brightened as the misunderstanding was cleared. But as Dojin listened to the directions, his own expression grew increasingly grim.
"Thank you. I'll make sure to treat you to a proper meal soon."
"Aigoo, don't worry about it! You already took care of us on the dog days of summer and even put out that fire. What more could you do? Just buy me a simple lunch when the weather gets nicer."
Parting ways with the chief, Dojin hurried back to the Three Meals House. Sensing his owner's serious mood, Ttorang-i followed quietly without her usual playfulness. The fact that Sun-ja Hal-meoni wasn't in the village also played a part in her subdued behavior. Since her house had burned down, she was staying at her nephew's place—the fire station chief—until a new home could be built.
"You're right, Dojin. There are no such facilities visible," Seung-wan said, handing the binoculars to Do-hee.
After hearing the chief's explanation, Dojin had immediately brought the two women up to the rooftop. Sure enough, the eel farm in Mabong-ri lacked any proper water supply infrastructure.
How strange. The video I watched said eels are highly sensitive to water temperature, so a dedicated water control system is absolutely mandatory.
Eels were surprisingly delicate creatures; water quality and temperature directly affected their growth. Yet, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't spot any equipment capable of regulating those factors.
And the scale is much smaller than I expected.
While three shipping containers weren't tiny, it was far too small to be considered a village-wide industry. Just then, Do-hee, who had taken the binoculars from Seung-wan, pointed toward a specific spot.
"Oppa, what's that over there?"
"Hmm? What is it?"
"Look, just above the farm. There's some kind of pit."
"A pit?"
Taking the binoculars back, Dojin focused on the area Do-hee was pointing to. He had been so focused on the containers that he hadn't noticed it, but there was indeed a large pit dug into the ground.
However, a large tarp covered the top, making it impossible to see inside.
"Huh?"
Dojin's voice rose in surprise. Through a small gap in the tarp covering the pit, a familiar creature had just wriggled out.
It was a dark brown, slimy, snake-like fish. Recognizing it instantly as an eel, Dojin let out a hollow laugh.
"These people are playing with fire."
"Huh? What is it?"
"Did you find something?"
Dojin handed the binoculars back to them.
"They're running a separate, hidden eel pond."
"What?"
"Really?"
Gasps escaped the lips of both women as they peered through the lenses toward Mabong-ri. They, too, spotted the eels squirming near the edge of the pit.
Once they knew what to look for, they noticed several more eels wriggling around the perimeter of the tarp.
But that wasn't what was troubling Dojin the most.
"I think they're illegally siphoning off all the agricultural water."
Dojin had seen it: water diverted from the main channel was flowing directly into the pit. They had covered it with a tarp to prevent evaporation, but they were still constantly replenishing the water to make up for the loss.
The problem was that filling this massive pit was draining the surrounding waterways. If Dojin hadn't recently renovated the channels to increase the overall water supply, the local streams would have run completely dry by now.
"Now I understand why they blocked our waterways."
"Wait, why?"
"Eels prefer water temperatures around 28 degrees Celsius. They stay calm and docile in warm water. But if colder water suddenly rushes in, they get startled and become highly active. Just like that."
Dojin pointed to the eels that had escaped the pit.
"Mabong-ri's old waterways are narrow and shallow. In this hot weather, the water flowing through them gets quite warm."
"Ah, so they blocked our channel because mixing our water with theirs would drop the temperature."
"That's part of it, but the bigger reason is probably to prevent the eels from escaping."
Seung-wan, who had been scanning the area with the binoculars while they talked, chimed in.
"Escaping?"
"Yes. Before, the water volume was so low that once they filled the pit, there was no leftover water flowing in the ditches. So even if an eel escaped, it couldn't go far and stayed near the pit. But now..."
"Ah! Now there's water flowing in the channels! They can ride the current and escape!"
"Exactly."
In fact, Seung-wan had just spotted an eel swimming down the waterway. The new channels from the Three Meals House had made managing the eels a nightmare, and with the fish escaping left and right, the villagers had resorted to simply blocking the flow.
"That's ridiculous! If that was the case, they could have just asked us to redirect the channel away from their pit, or at least asked us to adjust the flow rate. Why block it secretly?"
"Probably because what they're doing is illegal," Seung-wan replied.
"Exactly," Dojin agreed.
"You can't just dig a waterway wherever you want," Dojin explained. "If you build it wrong, it can damage neighboring properties, so you have to follow strict regulations and designated paths."
"And siphoning off agricultural water for a private commercial business is a major violation," Seung-wan added. "It literally deprives the downstream areas of water."
"Oh... So?"
"Right. What Mabong-ri is doing is completely illegal. That's why they can't complain to us directly," Dojin said with certainty.
The eel farming business itself might be registered, but their method of operation was undeniably unlawful.
If I had dug the channels by myself, they probably would have come over to complain.
However, the crew sent by Director Wang had completed the expansion project with administrative officials present, ensuring everything was perfectly legal and above board. With such a large crew and official backing, Mabong-ri hadn't dared to raise a fuss openly.
Instead, they had resorted to petty sabotage under the cover of darkness.
"What should we do? Should we just report them?" Do-hee asked.
"That would be the cleanest way, but I'm a bit concerned," Seung-wan mused. "The fact that they're operating normally despite the police dropping by occasionally leaves a bad taste in my mouth."
"Wait, could it be... bribes?"
"Even if it's not bribery... in rural areas, everyone is connected. They might have just let it slide because they know each other."
"Ugh... this is complicated."
"...Let's just leave them be."
"Pardon?"
"Huh?"
At Dojin's words, Do-hee and Seung-wan stopped their discussion and stared at him. The serious expression he wore moments ago had vanished, replaced by a knowing, mysterious look.
"We don't even need to step in. They're going to bring about their own ruin."
"What do you mean by that...?"
"Oppa, explain!"
Even as he spoke, Dojin kept his eyes glued to the binoculars, watching Waterway 3—the one he had cleaned yesterday.
"Oh, but we should definitely increase the number of CCTV cameras. We need to be prepared for any unexpected situations."
A mischievous grin spread across Dojin's face.