Breakthrough
After lifting his hand from the deceased man’s radial artery, Song Tan studied the face once more.
This isn’t suicide.
Normally, when someone resolved to die by drinking poison, the flow of toxic energy took on a slightly different shape.
The poison that ran down the esophagus spread in a near-circular pattern, and while pain was certainly felt, the body’s resistance was comparatively slight.
It was what happened when a person had already accepted death.
This corpse, however, showed the exact opposite.
On the surface, he looked peaceful, as though he had simply died in his sleep, but inside, it was a different story.
The poison had failed to spread through the entire body; instead, there were clear signs that it had abruptly stopped at certain points.
That meant the body had subconsciously resisted an unexpected toxin.
There were also traces of twisted meridians and torn blood and qi pathways.
Proof that the body had fought desperately to stay alive.
That narrowed the answer to one of two possibilities.
Either someone had secretly laced his drink with pesticide and he had swallowed it without knowing, or someone had forced him to swallow it.
"Hmmm..."
Song Tan’s sharp gaze swept through every corner of the house.
Just then, Yu Gyeong-ho, who had finished his radio report, called out urgently to him.
"Take pictures of everything first. I’ll see if there are any CCTV cameras nearby."
"Yes, sir."
Song Tan nodded and took out his phone.
Then, using the camera lens instead of his eyes, he examined the crime scene all over again.
There was no sign of a struggle anywhere.
The shoes in the entryway were neatly arranged, and not a speck of dirt was visible.
"Almost too neat," he murmured.
That was what bothered him.
It felt like a set carefully dressed to look like a suicide scene.
Song Tan’s steps carried him back toward the dead old man.
Those raised in the shadows of the Murim Alliance learned one thing first: how to observe.
Whether it was espionage, assassination, or extermination, all of it rested on the same foundation—observation.
The training method was simple and brutal.
The instructor demonstrated a martial technique.
Then he deliberately mixed in a wrong movement.
If the trainees failed to catch it, they were beaten without mercy.
Later, they had to remember things like what had been placed in that spot a few days ago, or what color knot the instructor had worn around his waist a month earlier.
The funny thing was that after being beaten half to death again and again, one naturally reached a state where every bit of surrounding information was neatly organized in the mind.
Crouching down, Song Tan’s eyes shifted to the old man’s hand.
Odd.
People who drank poison from a cup usually clutched it tightly.
That was because of the bitter taste and foul stench unique to poison.
But there was no sign of tension in the old man’s fingers.
As Song Tan continued photographing the room, he paused in one place.
The kitchen.
For a house occupied by one old man, it was fairly spacious.
And, as expected, the dishes and utensils were all neatly arranged.
Song Tan studied the rug laid out on the floor for a moment—
"Hey! Tan! People are here! Come out already!"
—before turning without hesitation and leaving the house at his team leader’s call.
***
Not long after, two detectives arrived at the scene.
They were people Song Tan knew.
"Oh? What’s this? You again?"
Han Byeong-woo, the team leader of Violent Crimes Team 1 at Annam Police Station, recognized Song Tan and greeted him familiarly.
"Hello, Team Leader Han."
Song Tan bowed politely, and Han Byeong-woo stepped closer and patted his shoulder.
"I heard about it. You’re getting a special promotion?"
"By luck, yes."
"I could tell since the day we caught Choi Chung-gil and handed him over to me... You’re one hell of a man."
The detective beside him gave Song Tan a once-over from head to toe.
"So this is the guy? The one you wouldn’t stop praising, Team Leader?"
"You punk, when did I ever praise him...? I just said it had been a while since I’d found a decent nutcase."
"Isn’t that the same thing?"
"Shut it and get to work, damn it."
Yu Gyeong-ho gave the two detectives an intake briefing.
Time of discovery, whether the door had been opened, the location of the pesticide, the existence of a suicide note, and so on.
The gloved detective examined the body.
"Judging by how rigor mortis is almost gone, the time of death seems to be around last night."
"Hmm..."
After checking the bottle of soju and the plastic pesticide container, Han Byeong-woo unfolded the paper lying on the table.
"It is a suicide note."
I want to see my wife who passed before me.
I don’t know why I should keep living.
I don’t want to be a burden to my children anymore.
That was more or less what it said.
There were no signs of outside intrusion, either.
"Well... Anyone would say this looks like suicide, Team Leader," one detective said.
Han Byeong-woo, who had been studying the corpse intently, shook his head.
"It does look like suicide... but why the hell doesn’t it feel like it?"
"Pardon?"
"Doesn’t it feel like this scene is practically shouting, ‘This is suicide! Believe me!’?"
"I’m not sure I follow, sir..."
"My gut says so, that’s all. It’s too clean, which makes it suspicious."
"Then should we call in the forensic team?"
"Hmm..."
Han Byeong-woo scratched his chin and looked at Yu Gyeong-ho, who was standing there blankly.
"Any CCTV nearby?"
"There’s one on the road leading into the village, but nothing around this house."
"Damn it. What century are we living in, and there isn’t even one camera?"
"The area’s still new, I guess... There’s a lot missing."
Then a noisy commotion rose from outside.
"Sigh. The family must be here. Let’s go."
With a light sigh, the detectives headed for the front door.
**
"Aaaah!! Dad!!!"
A woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties was being restrained by officers guarding the police line as she wailed.
"Why did my dad die? We were talking and laughing on the phone just a few days ago! Waaaah!"
Her legs gave out, and she sank to the ground.
She looked completely out of her mind.
Han Byeong-woo approached her and handed her a bottle of water.
"You’re the daughter who reported this, right? I’m Han Byeong-woo, team leader of Violent Crimes at Annam Police Station. I know this must be extremely hard for you, so I’ll keep it brief. We’ve confirmed that your father died inside the house."
"Why... Why did my dad suddenly...?" she asked in a voice torn raw.
"We suspect he drank pesticide, but the exact cause of death can’t be determined just yet."
"Pesticide... You mean... my dad killed himself?"
"Based on the circumstances, that’s possible."
"That’s impossible..."
"And so... I know this is difficult, but there are procedures we need to confirm. Every word you tell us may play a crucial role in determining your father’s cause of death."
At the mention that this was for her late father’s sake, she finally managed to lift her head.
The detectives took out their notebooks.
"Had your father seemed different from usual lately?"
She wiped her eyes and thought for a moment.
"No, not really... I didn’t notice anything. He was always a pretty quiet man... though maybe because he was getting older, he’d sometimes say he missed my late mother."
"Did he ever say life was hard?"
"He didn’t say it like that... but when he drank, he’d sometimes say life wasn’t much fun."
"Hmm... Did he have any chronic illnesses?"
"He took blood pressure medication, but he didn’t have any serious disease or anything."
As Han Byeong-woo jotted things down, he asked casually, "How were things financially?"
"No problems. He got a pension, and when he was younger, he ran a big business, so he owned several buildings."
"When did he move into this house?"
"About a month ago, I think. He said the city felt suffocating and wanted to move somewhere quiet in the countryside, so this was a house my younger brother built for him."
"Built for him?"
"My younger brother runs a construction business."
"Is he your only sibling, your younger brother?"
"No, I have an older brother, too."
"Have you contacted everyone?"
"Sob... yes, I have. My older brother lives in Jeju and said he’s on his way by plane now, and I left a message for my youngest sibling, so they’ll probably check it after work."
Her emotions rising again, the woman shed tears the size of chicken droppings, one after another.
Watching her in silence, Han Byeong-woo raised his phone and showed her something.
It was a photo of the suicide note taken at the scene.
As she read the contents carefully, she could not hold back any longer and burst into sobs again.
"Waaah, this makes no sense. How can someone just leave like that!? What are the rest of us supposed to do!?"
After crying herself exhausted, she showed signs of collapse, so the two detectives left her in the care of the female officers and returned to the scene.
"What should we do, Team Leader? Call in the forensic team?"
"Hold your horses, kid. You’re awfully impatient."
Han Byeong-woo looked around the area again, slowly, as though checking whether anything else had been missed.
But no matter how hard he looked, there were no other unusual signs.
"Tsk. No matter how I think about it, something just feels off."
"About what?"
"Hell if I know."
"What kind of answer is that?"
"You punk, that’s the instinct of a veteran detective. Instinct. What, a cop like you doesn’t know what that is?"
"Honestly, Team Leader, you’ve got the worst damn instincts in the world. You always lose when we draw lots for bets."
"What the hell does that have to do with this? Damn it."
After grumbling, Han Byeong-woo cast a lingering look around the place and turned away.
"Let’s go."
Then the front door opened, and someone came in.
"Huh? What, you still haven’t left?"
It was Song Tan, still in his neighborhood police station uniform.
"No, sir. I have something to tell you."
"What is it?"
"This isn’t suicide."
........
A cold silence fell at once.
The brow of the Violent Crimes detective who had come with Han Byeong-woo twisted hard.
His rough expression made the atmosphere even more menacing.
"You don’t just go around saying something like that—"
"Wait."
Han Byeong-woo raised a hand to stop him.
His icy gaze settled on Song Tan.
"Go on."
So he’s gotten cocky, has he? Fine. He’d better be ready to get torn apart today.
That nuance hung in the air with his voice.
Song Tan continued calmly.
"There are signs the place was cleaned."
"An old man living alone could just be tidy. What’s weird about that?"
"If the deceased cleaned it himself, he wouldn’t have bothered cleaning only specific areas."
"What?"
Startled, Han Byeong-woo dropped nearly flat to the floor and examined it closely.
There was a faint, almost imperceptible circle where dust had been disturbed.
Scattered, but definite.
"And if you look at the sink, there’s still a little moisture left. The estimated time of death must be at least twelve hours ago."
The two detectives dashed into the kitchen and ran their hands over the sink.
They could feel the cold, damp trace of water.
Han Byeong-woo muttered under his breath.
"After the victim died... someone was here in this scene?"
His face hardened into stone.
Unless the corpse had gotten up and washed its hands, there was no reason for moisture to still be here.
"If the deceased had been with someone before dying, that person would have been someone he had no reason to guard against."
Han Byeong-woo nodded in agreement.
"If it had been a stranger, there would’ve been some trace on the body one way or another."
"That’s my view as well. The victim was completely off guard and was forced to ingest the pesticide against his will. And the culprit was probably just watching it happen."
"Probably. It had to look as much like suicide as possible."
Having caught on to something, Han Byeong-woo’s eyes flashed.
"And that culprit is still inside this house."
"What!?"
The two detectives stared at Song Tan in shock.
"Here? The bastard who killed the old man?"
"What the hell are you talking about? Say something that makes sense."
It was only a single-story house, and while the living room was fairly spacious, there weren’t many rooms.
Meaning there was nowhere to hide.
Without saying a word, Song Tan lifted the rug he had been standing on.
Once exposed, the rug turned out to have been cut into multiple pieces.
"Isn’t that strange?"
Han Byeong-woo narrowed his eyes and examined the wooden floor closely.
Sure enough, the grain was slightly misaligned in one place.
Song Tan crouched down, feeling along the floor, then tapped it as if knocking on a door.
Thunk, thunk—
Sensing something, the two detectives simultaneously widened their eyes.
"No way..."
Song Tan pressed both palms firmly to the floor again.
"Who could build a secret space like this without the homeowner knowing?"
At his quiet question, the two men answered as if under a spell.
"The one who built this house..."
"The youngest son...?"
Before Han Byeong-woo’s words had even faded—
Click—
A section of the wooden floor lifted up, opening its mouth wide.
The smell of damp mold seeped out in a slow, creeping wave.
Swallowing hard, Han Byeong-woo took a portable flashlight from his pocket and shone it inside.
As layers of pitch-black darkness peeled away—
"What the hell..."
his eyes met another pair, glistening in the beam of light, staring straight back up at them.