Tour of the D-Workshop (2)
A short while later, Jaehyuk and the others continued their tour of the D-Workshop. Gwangil showed them the victims whose organs were being harvested and explained the organ trafficking operation in detail. But their minds refused to process the words.
The sight of a living person being dissected right before their eyes, organs yanked out one by one, was not something anyone wanted to see. The victims who had screamed for their lives only moments earlier were now reduced to empty, mangled shells tossed aside like garbage. The three men felt a deep, visceral revulsion.
“And this is where we dispose of the empty logs,” Gwangil said, stopping in front of a massive grinder.
“We usually grind them up and send the remains to subcontractor-run dog farms or pig farms.”
Organized crime members in work uniforms were shoving stripped corpses into the grinder, pulverizing them into unrecognizable mush.
“These workshops handle both the log trade and corpse disposal at the same time.”
As the bodies were ground to pieces, Sanggyu and Jincheol’s mental states were being shredded right along with them.
If you do this kind of work long enough, you stop seeing people as people. You start seeing them as money bags—how much they’ll fetch once they’re carved up.
Jaehyuk recalled the three most horrific businesses he had witnessed from Gangryonghoe in his previous life. Human experimentation to test the effects of drugs. The production of all kinds of pornography that exploited men, women, and children alike. And organ harvesting for the organ trade.
To think they were running these utterly depraved operations on a nationwide scale… Even seeing it again, it’s fucking horrifying.
At that moment, a man approached Gwangil.
“Oh, Manager Hong! Long time no see.”
President of D-Workshop
“Good to see you, President Jegal!”
Jegal Sanghwan, dressed in a work uniform, appeared to be in his late forties. He was a gaunt man wearing silver-rimmed glasses. When he noticed Jaehyuk’s group, he asked Gwangil,
“Hm? Are these new recruits from the Suwon branch?”
“No, sir. They’re a security team dispatched from headquarters. Last time, the security guys here caused a huge mess at the house…”
“Ah, so they’re the replacements?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
Gwangil gestured toward Jaehyuk and told Sanghwan,
“This employee here caught a VVIP log that was trying to escape just a little while ago.”
“Really? That would’ve been a major headache if it got away.”
Sanghwan grabbed Jaehyuk’s hand and expressed his gratitude.
“Thank you so much.”
Jaehyuk’s face looked like he had just chewed on dog shit, but the mask and safety goggles hid most of his expression.
A short while later, Jaehyuk’s group entered Sanghwan’s office.
“You’ll be working here starting tomorrow. I assume Manager Hong already told you?”
“Yes.”
Sanghwan prepared a packet of instant coffee, sat down, and leisurely sipped it.
“If it gets too hard to endure, just tell me. I’ll transfer you to a house (gambling den) or a pharmacy (drug factory) instead of the log workshop.”
“Uh… thank you.”
Sanggyu and Jincheol stared at him, completely dazed.
“You all seem quite shocked. Everyone is like that at first. I was the same. Back in my day…”
Sanghwan began telling stories from his past, but none of it registered with them. Sanggyu and Jincheol’s minds had already been shattered by the sheer horror of witnessing an organ trafficking site for the first time.
For now, we’ve secured confirmation that they’re using civilians as cover for the business. If we combine that with the footage we recorded earlier, it should be enough.
Jaehyuk was already thinking about how he would send the information he had gathered here—and what he would gather in the future—to the police to dismantle this horrific criminal enterprise.
After listening to Sanghwan’s stories about the past, he suddenly checked the time on his phone.
“Oh dear, it’s already this late. You three should head back to your quarters.”
As he stood up, Sanghwan turned to Jaehyuk.
“You, stay behind for a moment.”
Once Sanggyu and Jincheol had left, Sanghwan opened his safe.
“Just the down payment on that log from earlier was five billion won.”
From the open safe, he took out a single gold bar.
“Between the recruitment ads we run in Garo, the operational costs, and everything else, it adds up. If we had lost that one, we would’ve taken a minimum loss of five billion.”
He then pressed the gold bar into Jaehyuk’s hand.
“Consider it my appreciation. Keep it.”
It was a gold bar received in exchange for a person’s death. When Jaehyuk thought about the blood of the man who had been dragged away screaming in despair still staining it, a wave of nausea washed over him. Still, he suppressed the disgust. There was no need to create a bad impression by pointlessly refusing the gesture.
“……Thank you.”
Leaving behind Sanghwan, who smiled and nodded in satisfaction, Jaehyuk stepped outside.
A short while later, at the Crown Hotel.
Jaehyuk’s group returned to the hotel.
“Ugh… my stomach is still churning…”
“Same here… I don’t think I can eat anything tonight…”
Even Jaehyuk wasn’t completely unaffected by what he had just witnessed. He was simply more accustomed to it, so the nausea wasn’t as intense. The unpleasant feeling was still there.
The three men each returned to their rooms to rest.
The moment Jaehyuk entered his room, he collapsed onto the bed and stared at the gold bar Sanghwan had given him.
A gold bar received in exchange for killing someone who might have been innocent…
At this weight, it was probably worth around 150 million won. For an ordinary person, saving up 150 million was incredibly difficult. Even as a member of a massive organization like Gangryonghoe, accumulating that much money was no easy feat.
Yet this was a gold bar worth roughly 150 million won obtained by killing one person.
Was that man a rival gangster who had been turned into an organ donor because he opposed Gangryonghoe? Or was he an ordinary civilian—someone’s family member—who had lived an honest life before being kidnapped for his organs? Jaehyuk had no way of knowing.
But he had shoved a man who might have been completely innocent, who had begged and screamed for his life, straight into hell. When the man had run toward him shouting to get out of the way, Jaehyuk had seen the terror in his eyes. He remembered those wildly shaking pupils.
He recalled the man’s desperate cries as he fled, pleading to be spared.
The more he thought about it, the more the gleaming gold bar in his hand felt like a freshly harvested, blood-soaked organ pulled from that man’s body.
Thinking about it keeps making me feel like shit…
Thinking about a man who was already dead and staring at the gold bar left Jaehyuk deeply unsettled. But when he thought about it even more, he realized that although he was a police officer infiltrating the mafia, he was currently earning money by doing the mafia’s dirty work. The realization made him feel like a disgusting hypocrite.
The more his thoughts spiraled, the more nauseous he became. It was exactly like the first time he had seen an organ harvesting site in his previous life.
Jaehyuk set the gold bar down on the bed and let out a long, heavy sigh. He slowly closed his eyes and fell into thought.
If things continue like this… won’t the line between whether I’m a cop or a gangster start to blur? Just like back then…
He remembered the version of himself from his previous life who had risked everything to expose Gangryonghoe’s crimes, only to lose his life in the end. Back then, he had infiltrated the organization, committed crimes alongside them, and gathered information. In the process of committing those crimes, he had suffered a crisis of identity.
Yet in the end, he had continued exposing Gangryonghoe as a police officer and died as one. Even though he had maintained his identity as a cop until the very end, he now wondered whether he could make the same choice again in this new life.
No! That won’t happen! I held on back then, didn’t I?! There’s no reason I can’t hold on now!!
With that thought, Jaehyuk sat up. He stared into empty space, clutched his head with his right hand, and let out another sigh.
“Fuck…”
Swearing didn’t make the complicated thoughts disappear. Still, he wanted to at least dull them a little by cursing.
Meanwhile, at a luxurious restaurant in Seoul.
In the VIP room of that restaurant, a secret meeting between three powerful figures was taking place. The three men sat around a round table inside the private room.
“It’s been a while. I hope you’ve all been well?”
Leader of the pseudo-religious cult Gwangsaenggyo
“Leader Cheon, you look like you’ve lost even more weight since we last met. Have you been working out lately?”
Second-in-command of Gangryonghoe, Representative of Crown Capital
“Working out, huh… I’ve been doing plenty of that in bed,” Cheon Manhyeong replied with a lewd smile. “Would you like to join me sometime? We could book a separate room.”
“Shall we? Now that you mention it, it has been quite a while since I last drained the tank.”
“I’ll introduce you to a suitable girl who matches Representative Choi’s tastes soon.”
At that moment, the third man, who had been drinking wine, spoke to them with a hardened expression.
Ruling Party Leader of the Seonmin Party
“Enough with the greetings. Let’s deal with the urgent matter first.”
“Is this about that reporter named Gu Yongjin?”
“Correct. That journalist from KBC has apparently obtained information about the collusion between Gwangsaenggyo and myself. He was planning to broadcast it.”
Kyungsoo added,
“We managed to barely stop the report by giving the right amount of pressure to Editor-in-Chief Bae Dongbin, but we can’t let our guard down.”
“But where exactly is the source of the information coming from?”
In response to Manhyeong’s question, Jinyong answered,
“Yeonghoda is looking into that, so leave it to them. For now, finding Gu Yongjin and taking care of him is more important.”
Jinyong poured wine into his empty glass.
“First, we’ll offer him money. Tell him there’s nothing to gain by running a story like this, so he should give up and reveal where he got the information.”
“Do you think he’ll listen just because we make an offer?”
At Manhyeong’s question, Jinyong lifted his wine glass and slowly swirled the liquid inside.
“An ordinary person would at least hesitate. Honestly, in this day and age, who would risk their own safety and their family’s just to cling to some belief that isn’t worth a single won? In a world where people would sell their own parents and children for money?”
Jinyong took a sip of wine and continued.
“After that, we’ll push him toward giving in. It’s important to clearly show him that holding onto his pathetic beliefs won’t change anything.”
“But there are always lunatics who value their beliefs more than money,” Kyungsoo pointed out.
Jinyong nodded slowly.
“True. In those unavoidable cases…”
He let the wine glass slip from his hand. It shattered on the floor with a loud crash, and the red wine spilled across the ground like blood.
“We’ll make them pay the price for those shabby beliefs.”
Manhyeong asked Jinyong,
“If that doesn’t work, couldn’t we just go after his family?”
“There’s no need to waste effort when dealing with just the man himself would suffice,” Jinyong replied, his expression stern as he looked at both men. “Would you bother worrying about the family of a single mosquito you’re trying to kill?”
Manhyeong and Kyungsoo fell silent.
“I just gave orders to Yeonghoda to locate Gu Yongjin. We should hear back soon.”
At that moment, someone knocked on the door.
“Hm, maybe the news is already here… Come in.”
At Jinyong’s command, a man entered and reported to him. He was Lee Myeonggang, the leader of Yeonghoda—the private military organization Cha Jinyong secretly operated.
Chief Enforcer of Yeonghoda
Former North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau operative
“We have located Gu Yongjin.”
“Report.”
“The broadcasting station says he hasn’t shown up for work since yesterday and they can’t reach him.”
“So you still haven’t found him?” Jinyong narrowed his eyes and glared at Myeonggang.
“We have secured information that Gu Yongjin is currently at a friend’s house in Suwon.”
“Hmm… Suwon…”
Jinyong fell silent for a moment before giving an order to Myeonggang.
“Then send plenty of men to Suwon. Remember, the first step is always to try persuasion.”
“Understood.”
“If it looks like he won’t be persuaded, you may dispose of him immediately.”
Myeonggang bowed at the waist toward Jinyong and answered,
“Yes, Assemblyman.”