Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The Black Ticket
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“Shall we do something fun?”
He had the kind of gentle eyes that could charm anyone, young or old.
A neatly styled haircut.
Inky black hair and eyes as deep as a midnight lake.
The man, whose warm presence was somehow reminiscent of a winter bonfire, continued.
“How about a game of truth?”
The Female President, clad in a fur coat, looked anxious, yet she spoke with an air of arrogance she couldn't quite shake.
“Shut up and take these off, will you?”
Slamming her cuffed wrists on the table, the Female President glared at the man, but he simply smiled, unfazed, and gently took her wrist in his hand.
“I understand. You must be frightened, being suddenly kidnapped and locked away in this abandoned mansion. But don't worry, Female President. I'll let you go after just a few fun questions.”
“…You crazy bastard. Hey, do you have any idea who I am? I'm the lady of Daesung Finance.”
“Yes, I know. You're quite famous in this business. But, Female President…”
Contrary to his soft, soothing voice, his thumb dug into the back of her hand like an awl.
Startled by the immense pressure and pain, the Female President opened her mouth to scream, but then clamped it shut.
The dark eyes, nestled within that gentle face, were now staring at her with a sinister glint.
“This isn't Daesung Finance, is it? Right?”
Newly aware that she was trapped alone with a strange man in a remote place, the Female President bit her lower lip and nodded. The man smiled warmly and said,
“Alright, let the truth game begin.”
The man's left hand wrapped around the Female President's wrist. Savoring the pulse he felt at his fingertips, he spoke.
“Do you like coffee?”
Finding the random question absurd, the Female President nevertheless answered obediently.
“…I do.”
A calm pulse and steady breathing transmitted through his fingertips.
The man nodded once before asking again.
“Do you love your husband?”
“Of course.”
Her heartbeat fluttered slightly, but it wasn't erratic. Her breathing, a little quickened.
“I understand you have two sons. Would you be sad if they died?”
A heart that pounded like a great drum. Labored breathing. A rising body temperature.
“You son of a bitch, what are you trying to say? Are you threatening me? Threatening my kids? You bastard, I'm warning you, if you so much as touch a single hair on their heads…”
Once again, his thumb dug into the back of her hand. This time, unable to bear it, the Female President let out a sharp scream.
The man said in a languid tone,
“It's just a game. It has nothing to do with your children. So please, answer. Yes or no?”
“…Yes. I'd be devastated, and I'd be furious enough to flay the flesh from the bones of whoever hurt my babies.”
Hearing this, the man nodded and pulled a faded photograph from his pocket.
In the photo, a loving couple and a cute-looking boy stood together happily.
“Do you recognize them?”
Frowning at the unexpected family photo, the Female President said,
“I don't know.”
The man silently took out another photograph.
And her face went pale.
In the picture, she saw a man lying with his chest gruesomely cut open, as if just before surgery.
“H-Honey!”
The strange thing was that the man's opened chest was empty of all organs.
Yes, as if his organs had been harvested.
As the woman stared at her husband's corpse in the photo, her jaw trembling, the silent man finally spoke.
“I'll ask again. Do you love your husband?”
A pulse that throbbed violently, like an engine about to explode.
As if trying to discern truth from lies within that chaos, the man closed his eyes. The Female President spoke to him in a trembling voice.
“You... you... what are you? Wh-who are you to do this? W-what do you want? What in the world…”
The man caressed the family photo lying neatly on the table and said,
“1998, Yanbian. Lee Jang-hoon, Seo Ji-hee, Lee Si-woo.”
The Female President's pupils swayed like a pendulum. After a few moments of desperately rummaging through her memories, as if searching for a notebook in an old drawer, she spoke.
“Lee Jang-hoon… Yanbian… Ah, that's right! The kid who escaped… his name was Lee Si-woo! Wait, then you're…?”
“A private organization run by Korean-Chinese. Daesung was quite notorious back in the 90s. They said you were artists at squeezing money from poor debtors. After all, just because someone's broke doesn't mean their organs are bad. It must have been quite profitable.”
Realizing her past sins had come back to haunt her, the Female President glared venomously at the man, Lee Si-woo.
“…I get why you're doing this, but do you really think you can get away with it? Huh? You of all people should know. You know what kind of vicious bastards we are. Listen up. This won't end with you. Your friends, family, lover—they'll all die. We'll hunt down and kill anyone who's ever had the slightest contact with you!”
Lee Si-woo paid her no mind, continuing as if she weren't screaming at all.
“You invited my family, who were backed into a corner, to Yanbian, promising a good business opportunity. Looking back, things were great up until then. I was so excited to go on an overseas trip with my busy parents. A shame that excitement didn't last long, though…”
The screaming Female President began slamming her arms against the table like a madwoman.
She was finally realizing this wasn't a simple kidnapping, but an act of revenge, and she struggled desperately to break free from her cuffs.
Ignoring her frenzy, Lee Si-woo continued.
“I won't bore you with the details of what a boy my age had to do to escape that hellhole without having his eyes gouged out. Or what price I had to pay to get from Yanbian, where I couldn't even speak the language, all the way back to Korea. It would be tedious. But tell me.”
The corners of Lee Si-woo's mouth twisted. It was a grotesque smile, like that of a broken clown.
“I wonder... will your children be as lucky as I was?”
Hearing the ominous nuance in his voice, the Female President shrieked,
“What? N-No! The children are innocent! They don't know anything!”
“My family was innocent, too. Or perhaps we were guilty? There's no sin more wretched or bitter than poverty and debt…”
Muttering to himself in a bitter, self-mocking tone, Lee Si-woo suddenly grabbed the Female President by the hair and whispered.
“Still, unlike you people, I'm quite generous, so I'll give you a chance. You know what we were playing? The truth game. From now on, if you answer all my questions truthfully, I'll let you go. And I won't touch your children. But if you lie... well, I'll leave that to your imagination.”
Her face as white as a sheet, the Female President asked,
“Wh-who's the one judging the lies and truths? It's not you, is it? That's... that's too unfair.”
Lee Si-woo gently released her hair and smiled pleasantly.
Was it because of the sudden shift in temperature, from spring to winter?
A chill ran down her spine, as if she'd handed her leash to a psychopath.
“I have a minor talent for detecting lies through a person's pulse and body temperature. Ah, and don't worry, it's quite accurate. In fact, I'm something of a famous figure in your line of work.”
“You're insane. In the end, you're just going to do whatever you…”
“So? You're not going to play?”
Reminded yet again that she had no choice, the Female President answered in a hoarse voice.
“…No. I'll do it.”
Lee Si-woo once again took her wrist in both his hands and said,
“Try not to be so tense. This won't take long.”
After taking a breath, Lee Si-woo asked in a calm voice.
“Here and now, the child you tried to kill has returned, killed your husband, and is now about to kill you. Do you hate me for it?”
The Female President snapped in a frosty voice.
“Yes, I hate you. To the bone.”
Silently gauging her pulse, Lee Si-woo nodded with a blank expression.
“Do you regret your past mistakes?”
The Female President squeezed her eyes shut and muttered bitterly.
“I regret it. I've never forgotten those days for a moment. I've lived with a stone in my heart ever since.”
A smirk formed on Lee Si-woo's lips.
“Is that why you've been donating and diligently volunteering?”
“Yes. I wouldn't dare say we've atoned, but we wanted to leave proof that we regretted it.”
Lee Si-woo snorted and sneered.
“For someone like that, the threats you were spouting just now were quite a sight to behold.”
“Old habits die hard, don't they? A rotten nature doesn't just disappear. But I swear, we washed our hands of that business in the 2000s and have tried to live as good people ever since.”
After a short silence, Lee Si-woo dusted off his hands and stood up.
The Female President's eyes twitched as she met Lee Si-woo's gaze, who was looking down at her with a complicated expression.
“What... are you going to do with me?”
“Surprisingly, it was all true. So, what can I do? A promise is a promise.”
A wave of ecstasy spread across the Female President's face.
But just as he was about to leave the room, he wet his dry lips with his tongue and spoke.
“Ah, by the way… I lost the truth game.”
The Female President, who had been preoccupied with thoughts of securing her children's safety, finding her husband's body, and digging into Lee Si-woo's background the moment she got out, snapped her head up and asked,
“Huh? What did you say?”
“Unfortunately, there's no truth game a liar can win.”
Lee Si-woo began to close the door.
The Female President's frantic voice leaked through the crack in the door.
“What? Wait! Lee Si-woo! What do you mean by that…?”
Thud.
The door slammed shut, as if it would never open again.
As soon as he left the room, the acrid smell of oil assaulted his nostrils.
Frowning, Lee Si-woo strode forward.
After crossing the slick hallway and exiting the mansion, Lee Si-woo took a lighter from his pocket.
Flick.
With the distinctive sound of a Dupont lighter, a small flame shot up.
Lee Si-woo flicked the lighter through the mansion's doorway.
FWOOSH!
Like a scene from a movie, a carpet of fire rolled down the hallway.
As Lee Si-woo watched the mansion collapse, instantly consumed by flames as if designed for this very purpose, his secretary, Kim Seo-jin, approached and asked,
“Sir, what about the children?”
“Send them to the orphanage I sponsor, and make arrangements so they can grow up without wanting for anything until they graduate from college.”
“Leaving loose ends... isn't your style, sir. Aren't they the children of your enemy?”
“If children have to bear the sins of their parents, wouldn't this already harsh world become too unforgiving? It's best to break this wretched cycle here.”
“…Understood.”
“However, they must be made to understand that their parents died in an accident, and that their ill-gotten wealth was returned to the victims through legal means. Most importantly, they must never know that I am their enemy.”
“And if, by some chance... they find out?”
Lee Si-woo shrugged.
“Then the children will learn.”
Lee Si-woo muttered in an icy tone.
“That the world is, by nature, unforgivingly cruel.”
As if a cold wind had just brushed past her, Kim Seo-jin swallowed dryly, trying to soothe the chill running down her spine.
The chilling implication of his words struck her: he would try to break the cycle, but if anything went wrong, he would eliminate the loose ends without a second thought.
“I will handle it thoroughly so that no problems arise.”
“I'm counting on you.”
As he walked away from the mansion that was turning to ash, Lee Si-woo let out a faint sigh and gently closed his eyes.
With this, his revenge was complete.
Suddenly, a phrase he had read somewhere came to mind.
That the taste of revenge is bitter, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste.
But Lee Si-woo thought differently.
A sweet breath escaped as the corners of Lee Si-woo's lips curled up slightly.
Revenge was sweet.
Yes, sweet enough to be addicting.
-Black Ticket.
Suddenly, a voice echoed in Lee Si-woo's mind, or perhaps in his very soul.
-You are a Black Ticket.
“…Ms. Kim Seo-jin, what did you just say to me?”
“What? I didn't say anything, sir.”
“No, you definitely just said 'Black Ticket'…”
A single black ticket appeared before Lee Si-woo's eyes, riding on the wind.
Like a mirage or an illusion, the ticket fluttered on the breeze, hovering in front of him.
“What... is this?”
Swoosh.
In the empty air where the ticket floated.
A tunnel like a dark cave opened, and a giant hand shot out.
The hand, made of black mist, snatched Lee Si-woo and dragged him into the hole.
It was a greedy grasp, like a frog snatching a fly.
“S-Sir!”
Horrified, Kim Seo-jin reached out desperately to grab Lee Si-woo, but it was too late.
The hole that had swallowed Lee Si-woo vanished without a trace, as if it had never been there.
Her legs gave out, and Kim Seo-jin collapsed, staring blankly at the spot where Lee Si-woo had disappeared.