Funeral and Retribution (2)
Today was the first time I had seen the hospital director. At first, he had been nothing but apologetic, bowing repeatedly. Kwon Byung-do’s death wasn’t his fault, so there had been no need for such groveling. But once he realized I wanted to know exactly how it had happened, he gave me a clear, detailed account of everything he had pieced together after staying up all night following the incident.
The CCTV footage he provided laid out Je-gyun’s movements inside the hospital the previous night with perfect clarity. Combined with the physical evidence collected at the scene, which had been meticulously preserved and presented to me, it was obvious the director had prepared thoroughly for our meeting. Thanks to him, every question I had was answered.
Now, however, the confirmed facts had ignited a fury inside me. The director, quick to read the shift in my expression, changed his demeanor once more. This time he offered neither apologies nor lengthy explanations. He simply gave a short, direct answer that pointed my anger exactly where it needed to go.
“He’s in the family waiting room.”
Once Je-gyun’s location was confirmed, I gave the director a brief nod of acknowledgment, rose from my seat, and headed for the room I had just been told about. In the short time it took the elevator to ascend, my rage intensified. The moment I stepped into the waiting room, I found its target.
Je-gyun sat in a chair against the wall, pinned at both shoulders by security team members. The instant the door opened and he saw me, he glared. After committing the monstrous crime of patricide, how could he still look so defiant? What was inside that man’s skin—demon, Satan? Whatever it was, Je-gyun had become the very embodiment of evil.
I walked toward him slowly, one deliberate step at a time, just as I had when leaving the director’s office. Je-gyun’s mouth flew open and a savage roar burst out.
“You die too, you bastard!”
With a spring-like burst of strength, he shook off the hands on his shoulders and lunged. The security team members, already haunted by their earlier failure to protect Chairman Kwon Byung-do, went pale and reached for him again. They were too late. Je-gyun’s leap carried him forward faster than their hands could move.
He had already cocked his fist, ready to drive it into me with the full momentum of his charge.
Thud.
The next instant, a man’s body crashed to the waiting-room floor. It wasn’t mine. It was Kwon Je-gyun’s.
I had intended to beat Je-gyun senseless the moment I left the director’s office. He had simply made it easier by exposing his torso and charging first. Ever since receiving news of Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s death, my focus had sharpened to an unnatural degree. My eyes and mind instantly identified the perfect target. The fist I had kept ready the entire way here slammed straight into Je-gyun’s solar plexus.
“Cough—cough—graaah!”
Just as he had done to Chairman Kwon Byung-do, Je-gyun found himself struggling to breathe. He coughed violently while letting out a demonic howl. Did he really think that sound would frighten me? His frenzied appearance only fueled my desire to hit him harder.
Thud.
This time my dress shoe connected with his cheek. Blood sprayed from his twisted mouth. A security team member who had failed to restrain Je-gyun earlier looked at me with concern, but the man beside him simply shook his head. Han Seung-woo, who had arrived at the hospital ahead of me and come straight to the waiting room, stood there with arms crossed.
The director had already told me he would consult me on every subsequent matter, so the security team had quietly contacted him. With Han Seung-woo present, no one here would try to stop me. My foot rose again and drove its heel into the back of Je-gyun’s head.
Crack. Thud.
Je-gyun’s face slammed into the floor. His mouth opened once more—this time not with a pathetic growl, but with a yellowed tooth. He stared up at me in terror, blood and saliva dripping from his lips, and shouted in a garbled voice.
“You—you’re a lawyer! Can a legal professional beat someone like this?”
Well. I wasn’t standing here as a lawyer today. For once, the law—my greatest weapon—felt utterly unsatisfying. The judgment I had already seen handed Je-gyun a mere thirty years. With no prior convictions for the same crime and a finding of diminished capacity, the sentence was legally correct. That was precisely what I hated about it.
Applying my knowledge as a lawyer to the future judgment I had glimpsed, an even more absurd outcome was possible. Under the current system, a prisoner could apply for parole after serving only one-third of the sentence. If the Ministry of Justice granted it, Je-gyun would simply walk free. When I factored in the possibility of a treatment-and-custody order being issued alongside the sentence, the worst-case scenario became even more grotesque: after serving only ten years in a Ministry-run facility, he could be released back into society. Our laws were said to be too lenient toward criminals, but this felt less like mercy and more like a persimmon left to ripen from winter until the following summer.
My kicks and punches continued to rain down on Je-gyun’s prone body. Han Seung-woo and the security team simply looked at the wall, nodding as if it were only natural.
“I’m going to sue you!”
After taking another round of blows, Je-gyun’s dying scream cut through the tense atmosphere of the waiting room with sheer absurdity. A murderer about to be dragged off to prison was now invoking the law. One of the security team members, presumably the one most prone to laughter, had to stare hard at the floor to keep a straight face.
If he wanted to sue, I wasn’t about to stop him. But as Je-gyun himself had desperately reminded me moments earlier, I was a lawyer. And not just any lawyer—an elite one who could see future verdicts. Naturally, the judgment for the very lawsuit Je-gyun was threatening to file against me appeared clearly before my eyes.
[Ruling. The defendant is fined 500,000 won.]
That had been the judgment when I first struck Je-gyun’s solar plexus. As my blows continued, the fine amount steadily increased.
[… 1,000,000 won …]
[… 2,000,000 won …]
Now it had reached 10,000,000 won. Yet contrary to Je-gyun’s hopes, I would not ultimately be found guilty in this case. The appellate ruling would be different.
[Ruling 1. The original judgment is overturned.]
[Ruling 2. Sentencing of the defendant is suspended.]
When I checked the Supreme Court ruling as well, the appellate decision was upheld. Therefore, even if Je-gyun sued me, the final outcome would be a suspended sentence. A suspended sentence meant the court acknowledged guilt but, at its discretion, chose not to impose punishment. Unlike a suspended execution of sentence, it was not a conviction and left no criminal record. It was, in effect, a judge’s ultimate technique for turning guilt into innocence.
I paused my private punishment of Je-gyun and read the rest of the judgment. Both the appellate court and the jury had determined that my assault, committed immediately after Je-gyun’s act of murder, had been “understandable.”
Confirmed that I faced no real legal consequences from this beating, I crouched down, met Je-gyun’s eyes, and grabbed his chin with one hand. Blood, saliva, and mucus clung to it, making the sensation as filthy as the crime he had committed.
“You’re going to sue me? You want to fight me in court again?”
Je-gyun’s cheek trembled, but he gave no answer. The memory of every previous attempt to challenge me legally—and the crushing defeats that followed—must have flashed through his mind.
“Then do it legally. I’ll make sure you never set foot outside prison again for the rest of your life.”
This was no empty threat. As the new chairman of QS Group, I would never allow Je-gyun’s parole to be approved. Whether by direct pressure on the Ministry of Justice, by mobilizing public opinion, or by any other means at my disposal, I would block it. Nor did I intend to let him return to society after thirty years. From now on, I would pile additional charges onto Je-gyun to increase his sentence. Every incident he had been involved in—incidents the company had previously overlooked to protect its image—would be dragged into the light: the unfair contract he forced between QS EnM and QS Delivery, the recent embezzlement of executive performance bonuses, and the order to have me kidnapped and illegally confined. If all of it came out, his sentence would easily double. And if, despite everything, Je-gyun proved to have an unusually long lifespan, I would continue filing new complaints and accusations after having every document in QS Group reviewed by legal counsel.
Patricide alone might have earned him only a slap on the wrist, but with me watching, Je-gyun’s social life was over. His remaining days would consist of nothing but shuttling between prison and court, sighing and despairing as his sentence grew ever longer. No matter how lenient our laws were said to be toward criminals, they could not overturn the law I now held in my hands.
* * *
Once I left the family waiting room, I was given only enough time to wash my hands and change my clothes and shoes. Through the director, I contacted the rest of the family and began arranging a funeral hall for Chairman Kwon Byung-do. I decided it would be better to remain at the hospital rather than return to the company until the funeral was over. For the time being, therefore, my office would not be the Central Management Division or the chairman’s office at QS Tower, but the director’s office at Myeongnyun University Hospital.
Officially, this space had been prepared for Chairman Kwon Byung-do’s use at the hospital. It was fully furnished yet had gone unused for a long time, making it perfect for temporary occupation. In this new office, the number of people I needed to meet today already exceeded what I could count on both hands. The director had been granted permission to enter without knocking and came and went frequently. Meetings had also been scheduled with the neurosurgery department head and the rest of the medical team that had treated Chairman Kwon Byung-do. Seong-gyun, who had arrived after receiving the call, was threatening to come up himself if I didn’t come down soon. He was obviously preparing to start the usual tedious and pointless argument—why had I been the first to learn of our father’s death, why had I begun funeral preparations when he was the eldest son—and I had already decided to ignore whether he came up or not.
Then, before the morning had even passed, two lawyers arrived at the director’s office, guided by the hospital director.