Chapter 36
Chapter 36
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: Royal Family 11-1
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Seo Ji-hyeok parked his car in the paid parking lot next to the prosecutor's office, looked around, and headed into a nearby convenience store.
He bought two canned coffees, stepped out, and made a call.
"Senior, it's me."
"........."
"I'm right next to your office now. It's the weekend, so no coffee shops are open. I'm standing in front of the convenience store. Yeah. Yeah. Got it there. Alright."
Shortly after hanging up, a man in a suit came walking slowly from the direction of the prosecutor's office.
As he approached, Ji-hyeok gave a light bow.
"It's been a while."
"You creepy bastard. Why haven't you been picking up my calls?"
"I was trying to become a gangster. Figured it wouldn't look good for a gangster to be chatting with a prosecutor."
"And now?"
"Shall we sit over there for a bit?"
Ji-hyeok pointed to the convenience store's parasol table.
The man nodded and glanced at the canned coffee in Ji-hyeok's hand.
"If you're buying something, make it booze, you punk."
"You're working even on a Sunday—why talk about booze?"
"Beat someone up, sleep it off, wake up at dawn. Go get some soju shots."
"Got it."
Ji-hyeok turned toward the store with a faint smile.
He'd wondered if the man had changed, but he was exactly the same as four years ago.
The man's name was Kim Sun-ho.
Ji-hyeok had met Sun-ho four years ago, right around the time he started school.
Funny enough, the place where he'd met Kim Sun-ho was the same as where he'd met Dong-hwi.
To be precise, it was a different location but the same type of place—an illegal casino.
At the time, Kim Sun-ho had lost his wife and daughter in a drunk driving accident.
That crash had instantly plunged Sun-ho, who had been charging ahead on the elite track at the prosecutor's office without a care in the world, straight into the abyss.
He took leave due to the shock and seemed to give up on life itself.
He'd heard later that Sun-ho had planned to follow his mother to the grave once she passed from her illness.
That's how Kim Sun-ho, who had turned his back on the world and drowned himself in alcohol, ended up falling into gambling of all things.
Maybe, at that time, he was desperately seeking some feeling of being alive through the gamble.
Either way, all gamblers meet the same fate.
Kim Sun-ho lost everything, and the debt he racked up was too massive even for his position as a prosecutor to cover.
More than that, when he found himself in that situation, it was like he'd been waiting for it—he gave up on life rather than trying to escape.
As if he'd been waiting all along not for suicide, but for someone to kill him.
The reason Ji-hyeok had stormed into that gambling den was because of Dong-hwi.
The place that had tried to cut off Dong-hwi's wrist was a branch of the same casino where Sun-ho had racked up his debts.
In the end, to resolve Dong-hwi's issue, he'd raided the main branch—and that's where he found Kim Sun-ho.
And that day, Kim Sun-ho got beaten by Ji-hyeok right up to the brink of death.
That was four years ago.
Ji-hyeok emerged from the convenience store with a bottle of soju, paper cups, and shrimp-flavored snacks in hand.
As he set them down one by one on the parasol table, Kim Sun-ho grabbed the soju bottle first and cracked it open with a twist.
"Here."
"Got it."
They filled their cups and downed them in one gulp, then each crunched on a shrimp snack.
"How's your mother?"
"Same as always. She only recognizes me when I show up looking dead tired. Isn't that weird? But she's healthy otherwise."
Kim Sun-ho's mother had dementia.
Even four years ago.
Back then, Ji-hyeok had beaten Sun-ho nearly to death, then put him in a private hospital room and brought his mother there.
She hadn't recognized her own son, but seeing him like that, she wailed in grief and stayed by his side without leaving for a moment until he woke up, nursing him devotedly.
Ji-hyeok remembered feeling pretty moved by the sight back then.
And Kim Sun-ho had pulled himself together after seeing that from his mother.
"Actually, I came because I need a favor."
"Spit it out. Need a lawyer? Then quit your job."
"I'd like you to move me to the Anti-Corruption Division."
For a moment, Kim Sun-ho, who was pouring soju into his empty cup, looked at Ji-hyeok with a startled face.
"That's not a spot you go to just because you want it."
"I know. Senior, I'm at Taesung."
"Taesung? You? You got hired?"
"Yeah. And Taesung Group Chairman Kang Wook is my grandfather."
"Pfft!"
So shocked that even after filling his cup and taking a sip, Sun-ho spat out the soju.
A few drops splashed onto Ji-hyeok's face, but he just wiped it off casually with his hand.
"What? You're kidding, right?"
"Dead serious. I'm in the middle of a pretty dirty and messy war right now. More precisely, I'm fighting to take back what's mine."
"Whew... This story's so huge I can't even respond. And you're not the type to joke about this."
"I need you to be my blade, Senior."
"Your blade?"
"I'll get you moved from your current Criminal Division post to Anti-Corruption. And I'd like you to handle this case."
What Ji-hyeok pulled from his bag was a tablet.
He turned on the screen and brought up the prepared documents on the Taesung Card and asset management scandals, showing them to Sun-ho.
Sun-ho scrolled through the tablet screen in silence for a while, reading.
He handed it back about twenty minutes later.
In the meantime, Ji-hyeok had downed half the bottle of soju.
"Ahh."
"The world's gonna shake."
"Taesung's the one dropping this bomb?"
"Yes. Handle that case, become a star, and aim for Prosecutor General."
"Hmm..."
Kim Sun-ho couldn't answer easily.
If Ji-hyeok had asked him to quit the prosecutor's office and become a lawyer, he wouldn't have hesitated.
But moving to Anti-Corruption was different.
It meant diving into the heart of the power struggles within the prosecution.
How filthy and dirty that path was—he knew better than anyone.
It wasn't the path of a prosecutor.
It was a place not for punishing crimes but for creating them and covering them up.
Purely political, a road of craving power.
And anyone who walked it was bound to get smeared in filth.
"Whew, every time you show up in front of me, you turn my life upside down."
"Sorry."
"Nah. I'm forty-two. About time I got ambitious once. Alright. Let's do it."
"Thank you."
"But let's be clear. Are you asking me to be Taesung's blade? Or yours?"
"Be my blade."
"Then there's no reason to hesitate. I gotta head in—got a few urgent cases to handle. Knowing you, you won't give me much time, right?"
To Sun-ho's question, Ji-hyeok just flashed a grin.
Sun-ho filled his cup, downed it in one go, crunched a few snacks, and stood up.
"I'm off."
"I'll be in touch."
"Okay."
Sun-ho waved to Ji-hyeok as he headed toward the prosecutor's office.
Once he was out of sight, Ji-hyeok picked up his phone.
The screen showed Vice Chairman An Chi-hyeon.
"It's me. Can you talk?"
"........."
"Please transfer Prosecutor Kim Sun-ho from Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office Criminal Division 3 Chief to Anti-Corruption Investigation Chief. I trust you can manage that much."
"........."
"I'll know how big to make this after meeting Vice Chairman Kang Heon tomorrow. What matters is sending the message that Taesung is changing."
"........."
"Yes. Got it. Hanging up."
After the call, Ji-hyeok reached for the soju bottle and refilled his cup.
He sat alone for a long while, slowly finishing the rest.
By the time he stood up, his complicated mind felt a bit clearer.
Monday morning, Ji-hyeok told Dong-hwi to head to the headquarters Special Division and went alone to Taesung Life.
The moment he stepped into the Taesung Life main building lobby, he felt everyone's eyes on him.
But he ignored it and approached the information desk.
"Hello. This is Taesung Life. How can I assist you?"
"Seo Ji-hyeok from headquarters Special Division. I have an appointment with the Vice Chairman. Please check."
"Yes. One moment, please."
He expected it to take a while, but the response came quickly.
"You're cleared to go up."
"Thank you."
He arrived at the 26th floor and entered the secretariat, where tense employees' eyes greeted him.
"You're to go in."
"Okay."
The door that had been flimsy over the weekend was back to normal.
Ji-hyeok opened the heavy restored door and entered the Vice Chairman's office.
There sat Vice Chairman Kang Heon, along with Card's Kang Jun-woo, Asset Management's Kang Seo-woo, and Securities' Kang Min-woo.
"Sit over there."
"Yes."
The three sons sat side by side on the sofa to the Vice Chairman's right.
As Ji-hyeok sat on the left, Kang Heon pressed the intercom and ordered tea.
Until the secretary brought in the tea, a suffocating silence filled the office.
Ji-hyeok didn't start the conversation, and Kang Heon kept his eyes closed, avoiding talk.
Only the three sons openly showed their hostility toward Ji-hyeok.
Especially Kang Jun-woo, who had his crutches propped nearby, glared at Ji-hyeok as if trying to kill him with his eyes.
Amid the awkwardness, the tea arrived, and once the secretary left, Kang Heon opened his eyes.
"Resignation letters from 132 financial division executives."
What Kang Heon handed over was a thick file.
"Why 132? Isn't it 145?"
"This is as far as I can go. I've cut off my limbs, so fill them with your people, right? Enough already. Any more would be unsightly."
Looking at Kang Heon feigning sternness, Ji-hyeok smirked.
"You send gangsters to kill me and now you're acting all prim."
"What? Who? Who did that?"
Kang Heon's reaction seemed genuine—he really didn't know.
Then there was only one left.
Ji-hyeok's gaze turned to the eldest son, Kang Jun-woo.
Kang Heon naturally followed suit and looked at Jun-woo, who bowed his head as if admitting guilt under their stares.
"Tch! You idiot, still hanging with those thugs?"
Kang Heon scolded Jun-woo loud enough for Ji-hyeok to hear.
But Ji-hyeok's eyes shifted back to Kang Heon.
"Cut the show. You know gangsters are secretly cowards? They always look for a way out. They handle the dirty work for chaebols and power players, picking up scraps, but they know they'll get abandoned eventually. They know those ledgers they've prepared won't save them in the end, but they prepare them anyway—like a habit. Yong-seok from Mapo was one of them. How many times do you think Vice Chairman's name appeared in Yong-seok's ledger?"
"What the—!"
"You passed on the gangsters to your eldest son like an inheritance. Impressive, Vice Chairman—personally admirable. Even at your age, heading to the Yangpyeong villa once a week? With your clean habit of never calling the same woman twice, Yong-seok must've had a hard time managing the girls."
For the first time, Kang Heon, who had sharply retorted without missing a beat until now, clamped his mouth shut and said nothing.
And as if all three sons knew about it too, they showed no reaction.
The silence dragged on for quite a while.
Until Kang Heon's voice cracked when he finally spoke...
"How about this. We'll back you. The financial division will back you."
"Back me where?"
"Look at it coldly. Uk will never clean up this mess in the end. No matter who he passes it to before dying, it'll spark a claim on reserved portions, and the strife won't end. Take these resignation letters, prove your worth, use An Chi-hyeon as your beacon, and hold out at headquarters. Then the financial division will be a huge asset in the fight against those three bitches."
"Hold out?"
"No, wait—no. Yeah, I've got a great idea. Nothing stopping us from making you Uk's son. You think there's anything money can't buy? After Uk dies, we'll make you his son. Yeah, that's better. Drag those three bitches down with a paternity suit. Perfect. Yeah, that's it."
In that instant, the atmosphere in the Vice Chairman's office turned strangely tense.