Chapter 19

Gwichang had zeroed in on the detail that the crates of unopened liquor bottles in the cargo bed remained untouched. For a degenerate like that to buy booze outside and haul it up the mountain, there was no other purpose than drinking himself into a stupor at home. Yet the bottle count remained unchanged. The only reason a gambling addict would leave freshly bought liquor unopened and sprint back to the den that had just kicked him out within an hour was discovering a fresh source of cash. Ordering his men to dismantle the vehicle, Gwichang had raced back to the neighborhood.

‘We tore it apart and found a concealed compartment behind the engine block. It’s tight, but a skinny frame could squeeze inside if curled up.’

Though they moved to seize him immediately, Im Gyun-il had already finished shuttling the auction guests and vanished into the labyrinthine alleys. Had he received a hefty lump sum from Lee Hee-joong, there would have been no need for him to drag himself up here today to ferry guests for pocket change. His presence here meant he hadn’t received his money.

‘Where’s Geum Seoul?’

‘He should have just reached the house. Our men are stationed in the perimeter.’

Gwichang had never expected Lee Hee-joong to show up here in person. Instead, he had constructed an alternate hypothesis: What if Lee Hee-joong had indeed hidden as Geum Seoul claimed, but grew impatient and attempted to flee on his own? If he had successfully brokered a deal to hitch a ride down the mountain and let slip mention of the errand boy who harbored him, that smuggler would naturally assume Geum Seoul had been paid handsomely for his silence.

In that case, wouldn’t the smuggler want to hunt Geum Seoul down? More precisely, feeling he had done all the heavy lifting, he would want to rob whatever bounty the kid had received. Especially when his target was Geum Seoul—the lowest, most defenseless bottom-feeder in the entire district. That had been Gwichang’s deduction.

While collaring Im Gyun-il sooner would have been ideal, the bottom line was that Geum Seoul was unscathed. And yet—

“Come with me, please.”

Yu Jeong-ham collected Geum Seoul and led him away toward the alley. Gwichang merely stood where he was, watching Seoul’s slowly receding back with an unchanged expression. From Geum Seoul’s hand, the dirt-caked pebble dropped with a soft tap.

Geum Seoul had performed his role flawlessly, and the rat who smuggled Lee Hee-joong was in custody. So why on earth was a foul, sour vexation churning in his gut, grating against his nerves as though he had chewed on bitter thistle? Gwichang popped open his silver cigarette case.

Until now, Lee Hee-joong had been blessed with sheer luck. How he had crossed paths with Im Gyun-il would be extracted in the interrogation cell, but considering the runner slipped past the perimeter at six-thirty and Gwichang arrived just before seven, they had missed each other by a razor-thin margin of less than thirty minutes.

Yet that was not the root of his irritation. Countless anomalies, variables, and edge cases were things he had witnessed ad nauseam throughout his career. Factoring those in and resolving them was simply his job. Biting down on a hand-rolled cigarette, he flicked his lighter.

Gwichang exhaled a cloud of smoke with a bitter scoff. “Hmph. But this sure feels like total shit.”

Those pitch-black eyes—swallowing all color and light—fell upon the jagged glass shard lying on the dirt. And then, once more, upon the round back of Geum Seoul’s head. The rancid alpha pheromones drifting beneath his nose. Geum Seoul, pinned helplessly beneath that stench. Even taking a deep breath now, not a trace of that sweet, crisp verdancy remained. The catalyst for this churning disgust gnawing at his innards—

“Is it that kid?” he muttered under his breath. That pathetic little runt is the reason? Narrowing one eye in a tight squint, the man stared unblinkingly at Geum Seoul.

***

Gwak Chun-young, CEO of Iljang Trading, was a renowned gemstone connoisseur who amassed stones of various grades and kept them displayed under tight lock and key within his private estate. Far from stopping at inanimate crystals, he hoarded gemstone omegas as his personal playthings, with rumors widely circulating that Lee Hee-joong was his particular favorite. And that very Lee Hee-joong had bashed Gwak Chun-young’s skull from behind, fleeing with crucial materials: the secret ledger recording the illicit transactions between Noh Pil-gyu and Gwak Chun-young.

Gwak Chun-young was searching the city for Lee Hee-joong as well, furious over losing his prize. He might command a formidable syndicate, but even his intelligence network could not compete with Gwichang’s unit.

There had been multiple calculations behind posing as operatives from Iljang Trading upon their initial arrival. Securing the docile compliance of the locals had been primary, sowing chaos among the real Iljang goons who would eventually show up was another, but above all, the Ghost’s quip—Doesn’t it sound fun?—had carried the greatest weight. Remembering that preposterous moment, Yu Jeong-ham swallowed a heavy sigh.

Im Gyun-il blubbered a tearful defense in a mangled slur. “I-I’m thaying… I jutht took him down there, that’th all…!”

Before Yu Jeong-ham’s eyes, Im Gyun-il blubbered a tearful defense in a mangled, garbled slur. Blood pooled heavily in his shredded mouth, spilling in sickening gobs with every word. Where had everything gone so catastrophically wrong? He couldn’t begin to fathom it. All he had done was ferry the brat, beat him a little to shake loose a few gems, and, upon finding them worthless for gambling, sell him off to some opportunist near the den.

“I jutht did what I wath told…!” he screamed.

He had burned through expensive fuel without earning a single cent, and the fortune Geum Seoul was supposedly holding hadn’t even been touched. One of his eyes was swollen shut to the point of total blindness. Even through his drunken stupor, the agonizing torment was so overwhelming that Im Gyun-il pleaded toward Yu Jeong-ham before him.

“Ah, fuck’s sake. That’s grating on my ears.”

Yet the reply came from the man leaning against the back wall, lighting the tip of a hand-rolled cigarette. Surreal features. A breezy, nonchalant timbre that made Im Gyun-il’s shoulders seize in terror.

Honestly speaking, brawls and beatings were commonplace while bouncing between gambling dens. Getting pummeled and stomped was an occasional hazard of the trade. Yet the sole reason he had walked away with all four limbs intact—including his right hand—was that he had spent his life steering clear of bastards like that.

Lunatics of that breed were lethal. Earlier, under the threat that lifting his forehead from his knees for a fraction of a second would result in his facial skin being peeled off, he had ridden in the car doubled over all the way down the mountain. The destination had been this basement, and the one who commenced the interrogation had not been that smiling demon, but the relatively civilized man before him. Nor had Im Gyun-il kept his mouth shut. The moment two punches slammed into his face, he had spilled everything.

‘If you fail to answer our questions from here on out, things will get unpleasant.’

‘Ask whatever you want! I’ll tell you everything. Everything!’

Im Gyun-il had complied immediately. And yet—while he was behaving like an obedient angel—that lunatic, snapping black latex gloves over his fingers with a crisp snap-snap, had strolled casually forward.

‘Hi there, minnow.’

A refreshingly bright opening greeting. Asking with a brazen smirk whether he had talked nicely had been staggering enough—considering he had just watched him get pummeled until his eye nearly ruptured! But what followed had been infinitely more monstrous.

‘That was a conversation. From here on out, it’s procedure.’

And with that, he had clamped straight onto his front teeth.

‘Raise your left hand if it hurts.’

Having tied both hands to the chair, he had uttered that mocking line while wrenching the man’s jaw, snapping his front incisors with sharp, sickening crunches—snap, crack—reducing Im Gyun-il to screaming for Almighty God through torrents of tears.

Gwichang chided him with a cruel smile. “Told you to raise your hand, didn’t I?”

Anyone who could wrench out another man’s teeth by hand and then speak such nonsense afterward was no ordinary psychopath. Im Gyun-il had already confessed everything he knew and could not imagine what else they wanted from him.

Instantly reduced to a state where his tongue lolled freely through gaping gaps even with his lips pressed shut, Im Gyun-il could only wail in hysterical shrieks. Yet even that frantic squirming froze dead before the deputy director’s casual motions. Lining up all eight bloody teeth neatly in a row on the table for him to see, uncapping a water bottle with a crunch, and pouring it over his gloved hands to rinse them right above Im Gyun-il’s head, Gwichang had already pushed Im Gyun-il far past the threshold of mortal terror.

“It’th true… I thwore everything, that’th all of it… pleathe…!” the captive pleaded.

Even as this ghastly black comedy unfolded in torrents of blood, Gwichang exhaled a plume of dense smoke from immaculate features, casting his eyes downward.

“Yeah,” Gwichang said, exhaling a thin plume of smoke. “Should I believe you?”

“Yeth… pleathe, thir…!”

“Or should I not?” Gwichang asked with a smirk.

“I’m thpeaking the truth…!”

Tilting his head playfully, Gwichang asked, “Believe you?”

“Yeth… sob…”

“Or not?” Gwichang drawled.

While the man lounged crookedly tossing out wordplay, Im Gyun-il struggled to hack up the thick clots of blood gushing from the eight raw sockets in his gums. Was he going to bleed to death? To survive, should he open his mouth, keep it shut, swallow the blood, or spit it out? Pure animal instinct screamed that pleading for mercy from the monster before him was his only shot at tomorrow.

The man who had punched him upon arrival was an angel by comparison. At least Yu Jeong-ham wouldn’t rip teeth out indiscriminately. That detective seemed focused on extracting intelligence, whereas this freak—

Shrugging lightly, Gwichang murmured, “Beats me.”

Tossing out the words as breezily as if deciding on weekend plans, the deputy director dropped his cigarette and approached with buoyant strides. Trembling in convulsions against his bound wrists, Im Gyun-il watched in horror as Gwichang pulled up inches from his face.

“Guh—!”

Im Gyun-il gasped in fresh horror, his face drenched in water, tears, and gore. Sweeping the row of teeth from the table into his palm, the man seized Im Gyun-il’s jaw and dumped the entire handful of bloody teeth back into his open mouth.

Leaning down close, Gwichang whispered, “Hey. There’s something I’m fucking curious about.”

“Mmph! Mmmph!”

“Back there,” Gwichang said softly.

A vice-like hand sealed Im Gyun-il’s mouth so he could not spit the broken teeth out. Blood and saliva gathered rapidly behind Gwichang’s palm, swelling his cheeks.

His dark eyes bored into the swollen face. “Why did you blast your pheromones?”

His face leaned in close. Those languid, half-lidded eyes held a distinct focus, yet looked utterly devoid of human soul. Through vision blurred with tears, Im Gyun-il shivered in frantic incomprehension.

Gwichang asked with chilling calm, “Were you planning to fuck Geum Seoul?”

At that sudden, jarring non sequitur, Yu Jeong-ham—standing a pace back—stole a glance at his superior, taking care not to betray his shock.

“Mmmph!”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Gwichang warned, tapping the swollen jaw. “You’re dropping teeth.”

Creeps of Im Gyun-il’s caliber were inherently loose-lipped. While coherent logic was too much to expect from a brain rotted with booze and gambling, they folded instantly under raw violence. Lacking the convictions to endure prolonged torture, a light twist of the screws was all it took for them to spill intelligence like links of sausage to save their own hides.