Chapter 34. Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
Chapter 34. Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
When Cheolmin opened the door to Room 105 at the sound of the doorbell, three men were waiting. One look was enough to tell they were detectives.
“Choi Cheolmin?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“We’re from the Metropolitan Investigation Unit. You are under arrest for violating the Act on the Punishment of Criminal Organizations and the Narcotics Control Act.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can talk in detail at the station!”
A detective from the unit roughly turned Cheolmin around and slapped handcuffs onto his wrists.
The door to Room 104 opened, and Lauren came out and witnessed the scene.
She immediately sent a message to her superiors.
[Choi Cheolmin has been arrested by the Korean police.]
[Just observe who moves to save Choi Cheolmin.]
After China’s insane, massive bomb terror attack, the U.S. stayed silent, offering only condolences and calling it a tragedy. Meanwhile, the Korean government, even knowing it was Chinese terrorism, was trying to use it as nothing more than an opportunity to crush political opposition.
The U.S. judged this as an opening.
For them, Cheolmin’s arrest mattered more than the bombing.
If Choi Cheolmin was arrested as the leader of an organized crime group, they believed the forces behind him would have to make a move to save him. Any movement at all would provide a lead.
Choi Cheolmin’s abilities were on the level of China’s enhanced soldiers.
He was stronger than ordinary people, but martial artists at that level weren’t completely unheard of in the world. What the U.S. focused on was the fact that the bullets fired at him had veered away on their own.
After reconstructing what happened on that mountain from multiple angles, the CIA concluded the bullets had curved off their normal trajectories.
It was the same kind of phenomenon as missiles or artillery shells deviating from their course, just on a smaller scale.
Even though the U.S. had filmed the battle closely by satellite from the moment Choi Cheolmin fought the Chinese enhanced soldiers on that mountain, they still couldn’t be certain the one who manifested that power was Cheolmin.
The bullets moved as if they were avoiding him, and Cheolmin had swung his sword as if to block them, but it was determined that the sword swings themselves hadn’t produced any clear effect.
So the CIA decided that the unknown power user had a close relationship with Choi Cheolmin, but it was a stretch to conclude that Choi Cheolmin himself was the one.
This time, with Choi Cheolmin being taken by police, the CIA wanted to see who would step in to protect him.
Lauren watched with worried eyes, but Cheolmin was dragged out by the police without resistance.
Upstairs, Arin, Hyeonyoung, and Yuri—who had been cleaning—came rushing down, their maid outfits fluttering.
They felt sorry about what was happening, but there was nothing they could do for him.
At that moment, the door to Room 102 opened, and Bella came out.
“Cheolmin. They say prison rice is good for you! Come back healthier!”
At her random comment, Cheolmin gave a bitter smile, greeted the motel people, and said:
“This is a misunderstanding. I’ll be back soon, so tell Kang Chan, the little brother, not to worry.”
When Cheolmin climbed into the police van waiting in the parking lot and disappeared, only then did the manager exhale and speak.
“That bastard finally got hauled in. I knew it. In this day and age, how does it make any sense for a punk thug like that to strut around? Tch! Ptoo! Chanhyeok—sprinkle some salt!”
The manager, who had treated Cheolmin with extreme deference even that morning, spat phlegm as he spoke.
Then, after he called the owner and told him Cheolmin had been arrested, the owner showed up in less than ten minutes, and the two of them sat in the office cackling like it was the best thing in the world.
6 p.m.
I woke up hungry.
But for some reason, there was no text from Cheolmin hyung asking me to eat.
Busy?
Should I just go eat sundae-gukbap by myself today?
I stretched and stepped out of the dorm.
Bella was sitting on the rooftop bench.
She was watching the sun sink, the sky turning orange.
“Bella! Did you eat?”
“Not yet. What are we eating today?”
“I’m thinking sundae-gukbap.”
Bella got up from the bench and followed me.
On the way down to the counter, I saw the manager and the owner sitting in the office, snickering about something. I hadn’t seen that in a while—though it used to be an almost everyday sight in the past.
At the soup place, I ordered one bowl of sundae-gukbap and savored the broth.
I dumped in a generous amount of seasoning paste, making it spicy.
As the hot broth slid down my throat into my stomach, warmth spread through my whole body and energy surged up.
Humans get the energy they need to function by using energy contained in food and energy in the air.
“You know Cheolmin got arrested? Went to eat prison rice?”
Bella said it while chewing kkakdugi.
“Huh?”
Cheolmin hyung—arrested?
My VIP?
I had a telekinetic field connected to Cheolmin hyung.
But its function was set to alert me only when Cheolmin hyung faced a life-or-death threat. Normally, for his privacy, I left it as a passive connection.
I activated the field linked to Cheolmin hyung and checked the situation.
“You gangster bastard! Talk straight! Everyone says you’ve killed dozens of people! And there are drug cases blowing up every day at the businesses you run!”
“Call my lawyer.”
“You insolent criminal bastard… a lawyer? In the old days, punks like you would’ve gone to the Samcheong Education Camp and gotten beaten half to death!”
Watching it, it felt suffocating.
It looked like he was being interrogated under a false accusation, but there was nothing I could do to help.
If it were a monster attacking, or dozens or hundreds of bad guys surrounding him, that would be easier.
But in legal procedures like this, I was completely useless.
Hmm…
I frowned and shoveled soup into my mouth.
“You want to save Cheolmin?”
Bella stared at me and asked.
“How am I supposed to save him?”
I shrugged.
“Only Kang Chan can save Cheolmin.”
“What?”
I questioned her nonsense.
“If Chan does nothing, Cheolmin stays in prison until he turns into a white-haired old grandpa.”
Bella’s face was as indifferent as always as she spoke.
But even with the same indifferent face, there was a seriousness that wasn’t there before.
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Give the bombers who set off yesterday’s bomb a bomb back. Then Cheolmin gets out.”
“……….”
As she said that, Bella held out three addresses.
One was in Seoul.
One was Beijing, China.
One was Washington, U.S.
“What is this?”
“There are tons of bombs at those addresses. Detonate one in China, and threaten to set off another in U.S. airspace while you lower it slowly—Cheolmin will come out.”
“……….”
At Bella’s words, my mind snapped awake.
Now that I thought about it, Bella really was a strange woman.
Everything she did, everything she said—nothing but riddles.
Hadn’t I stopped the missile because of Bella too?
If it weren’t for Bella, a nuclear missile might’ve exploded—just like yesterday’s bomb.
The anxiety that Bella seemed to know my secret.
And the question of what this woman wanted.
They surged up for an instant, but I shoved them aside and decided to follow her instructions.
Thinking back, nothing bad had happened from listening to Bella so far.
If something went wrong, then I could stop believing her from that point on.
When I searched the Seoul address with telekinesis, it was a villa.
The Chinese men who had previously tried to bury Lauren and the Isu Gang juniors alive were gathered there.
In one room, ten backpacks were stacked up. I probed inside—every single one was a bomb.
Backpack bombs that would automatically explode three seconds after you pulled the detonator.
With telekinesis, I sent half of them flying to Beijing, China.
I didn’t know the exact location in Beijing, so I opened Google Maps and delivered the backpack bombs while looking at the map.
An eye for an eye.
A tooth for a tooth.
I even considered detonating them where Chinese citizens were densely packed, but I held back.
Killing lives too easily could be what dragged me into inner demons.
The nation was in shock from the bomb terror, and waves of mourning were rising everywhere, but I felt nothing.
Humans are beings that can die anytime, for any reason.
Even right now, many lives were dying—so why not empathize with them, but only grieve the deaths highlighted by the media?
Thinking that, I hung five backpack bombs along the north side of Tiananmen Square—on the wall of the Forbidden City—like ornaments, and detonated them all at once.
Five backpacks with the same destructive power that had killed tens of thousands of Korean citizens exploded together.
The wall collapsed, and hundreds of people nearby were killed or injured.
Next: the U.S.
She told me to only threaten, right?
The U.S. was much farther than China.
Five backpack bombs flying over the Pacific.
But when I went all out, they arrived by the time it took me to eat a couple spoonfuls of soup.
I detonated one of the five in midair first.
The bomb exploded at an altitude of one kilometer.
Washington citizens panicked, and the city fell into chaos.
Then an air-raid siren blared across the whole city, and soldiers and police swarmed in from everywhere.
I deliberately lowered the remaining backpacks slowly from the air.
About three minutes later—boom—another backpack bomb detonated at an altitude of five hundred meters.
That position was directly over the White House.
The remaining three bags were descending slowly toward the White House.
I had already finished my soup, but I poured myself a cup of coffee and kept watching Cheolmin hyung’s situation.
I was following Bella’s plan, but I still wondered if Cheolmin hyung would really be released.
The instruction not to detonate at the White House—only threaten as if I would—meant the Americans would be the ones to free Cheolmin hyung.
When the bags had descended to around two hundred meters, missile interception started from all sides.
The missiles were about a meter long, and they were charging straight toward the slowly falling bags.
I grabbed the three missiles that came close to the bags in midair and gently planted them into the lawn in front of the White House.
Three missiles lined up in front of the White House’s front yard looked like some bizarre art installation.
When the bags dropped to around a hundred meters, bullets started flying from every direction.
They were massive rounds meant for sniping helicopters or tanks, not people.
But not a single shot hit the backpacks.
Every one of them missed by just a few millimeters.
At that point, I detonated the third bomb.
Shrapnel from the blast at a hundred meters was now dangerous even to people on the ground.
But I adjusted the shrapnel positions so no one on the ground would be harmed.
Then I lowered the remaining two backpacks even more slowly.
Around then, something changed in the interrogation room where Cheolmin hyung was being questioned.
American men in black suits suddenly rushed in, spoke to the detective who had been spewing abuse at Cheolmin hyung, and the detective went pale and unlocked the handcuffs.
“There was a misunderstanding. We’re sorry. We’ve confirmed that Mr. Choi Cheolmin is a legitimate businessman, and a model citizen who reports and helps capture the drug offenders spreading these days. We sincerely apologize.”
When the detective who had been talking about the Samcheong Education Camp was begging Cheolmin hyung, I stopped the falling bombs.
Then, reversing the slow descent, I hurled them violently out beyond Earth—into space.
I wondered if it was really okay to keep dumping garbage into space like this.
“Let’s go, Chan! We’re done eating—why aren’t you getting up?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
After confirming the moment Cheolmin hyung’s handcuffs came off while sipping vending-machine coffee at the restaurant, I answered Bella.
Happy that my VIP had been released, I pulled out 10,000 won to pay for my sundae-gukbap.
Bella stepped in front of me, blocking my path, and stared.
“Why?”
“Chan, do you have no conscience? I helped you, so you should pay for the meal.”
Ah…
Is that how it works?
It made sense, but I didn’t want to pay.
Should I pretend I didn’t understand what she meant?
But she looked like she knew everything.
In this situation, a normal person would treat someone to a meal as thanks.
I felt my emotions and reason collide at the limit as I pulled out another 10,000 won bill and held it out at the counter.
My hand was trembling.
If I’d known it would be like this, should I not have saved Cheolmin hyung?
No.
After everything Cheolmin hyung had done for me, I couldn’t do that.
If he hadn’t been arrested, he would’ve bought tens of thousands of won worth of beef again today.
I couldn’t be stingy over a measly ten thousand won…
Penny wise, pound foolish… damn it.
When I paid while clearly showing I didn’t want to, Bella’s previously blank face broke into a bright smile.
“If you listen to Bella, rice cakes come to you even while lying down!”
“Bella, relearn Korean. It’s all wrong.”
I snapped irritably and headed back to the motel.