Chapter 7

Swish. Rustle.

Sniffle.

Amid the crunch of footsteps over weeds, packed earth, and broken masonry, the faint sound of a young man suppressing a sniffle threaded through the night. Nine o’clock. Evening had long since deepened into full darkness. Roughly ten imposing men followed behind Geum Seoul as he led the way.

“How did you know, sir?” Yu Jeong-ham asked, genuine admiration in his voice.

Yu Jeong-ham had watched the entire exchange from just behind his superior. Now Geum Seoul hurried ahead, working hard to lengthen his stride as the distance stretched along the road, while the broad-shouldered men behind him kept pace without the slightest strain. Jeong-ham waited attentively for his superior’s explanation.

Without breaking stride, Gwichang scoffed. “If you still can’t tell after all those years eating service rations, write your letter of resignation.”

“My apologies, sir,” Jeong-ham murmured, hanging his head.

At the brisk reprimand, Yu Jeong-ham bowed his head politely. His boss was right. Instead of seeing through the truth, they had been interrogating an innocent man while the actual culprit stood right in front of them. Still, Jeong-ham felt a measure of grievance. Everyone except Gwichang had ruled Geum Seoul out. He himself had been leaning heavily toward the idea that Lee Hee-joong had died in some ditch while trying to flee alone.

That was exactly why he was burning to hear the reasoning behind Gwichang’s uncannily accurate deduction. Braced for a mouthful of curses, Yu Jeong-ham waited. Only after Geum Seoul and the rest of the squad had disappeared farther down the road did the deputy director finally offer a concise explanation.

“It’s all fake.”

Jeong-ham blinked in confusion. “What?”

The bumpy, crooked nose, the protruding upper jaw with its braces, the thick belly and soft love handles—all of it was fabricated. Gwichang had known from the moment Geum Seoul came down from the second floor that morning.

Like many people forced to pinch every penny, whether by choice or circumstance, Geum Seoul appeared to cut his own hair. It fluffed unevenly in places, but the back was trimmed short enough to keep cool, leaving the fair curves of his ears half-exposed and suggesting frequent work with scissors. The messy bangs hanging forward into his eyes, by contrast, were conspicuously neglected.

At a glance, the lopsided nose showed the clumsy marks of a prosthetic. The middle of the deliberately crooked bridge bulged as though something beneath it were pushing outward, which meant his natural nose was almost certainly high and straight.

The most glaring giveaway, however, was the protruding teeth. Orthodontic treatment in a neighborhood where people struggled to afford food stood out on its own. Quacks might be plentiful, but caring enough about appearance to get braces clashed badly with the shaggy hair and dirt-streaked cheeks that suggested complete neglect. More telling still, the instant Park Gil-pyeong struck him across the face, Geum Seoul had clamped his mouth shut—as if terrified that something might loosen and spill out.

Even in a heat wave, the sheer amount he sweated was unnatural for such a small frame. The way he staggered and fell so easily suggested padding far heavier than his natural weight could comfortably carry, yet he kept hauling it around even after dark.

To Gwichang’s discerning eye, it had been obvious.

“The person who hired us is his parents.”

Lee Hee-joong, the man they were tracking, was an orphan. He had scraped by as a freelancer through sheer luck before catching the eye of Iljang Trading’s CEO, Gwak Chun-young, then spent years living indulgently under his roof. Considering the things Lee Hee-joong had done during that life, the idea of devoted “parents” waiting for him fit even less. Even so, Gwichang had chosen to bait Geum Seoul with that particular, emotionally manipulative lie—

—“I’m sorry! I took him to the room just like you told me to, Boss! At dawn!”

—because he remembered what he had seen that morning. Even while taking a beating from his boss, the youth had groveled profusely and performed innocence as though he were utterly blameless. The begging had plainly been an act. In other words, a few punches or even a broken bone would not necessarily produce a useful confession. A boy like that might cry and apologize, but his mouth would stay shut, which made him far more troublesome than most.

Naturally, beating him to the brink of death or cutting off a few fingers and toes would make him talk eventually, but Gwichang happened to be in a good mood today. Rather than waste physical effort, he had chosen the easier route: gentle coaxing.

Seoul curled into himself, his voice trembling in desperation. “He told me… he had to go to his parents…”

Of course, he had not expected it to work quite this well. Lee Hee-joong had evidently used his parents as an excuse when begging for help, so Gwichang’s offhand lie happened to dovetail perfectly with the plea. Pure luck.

Gwichang drew a deep breath. The scent of real trees and grass—something impossible to find in Seoul—mingled with the acrid dust drifting from the abandoned shacks and brushed faintly past his nose.

That was exactly why he felt so good. The neural headache that had been wringing his brain dry for days had begun to ease almost as soon as he entered this town.

“Deputy Director, you really ought to find a mate and settle down soon,” Yu Jeong-ham ventured boldly.

It was one of the recurring insolent remarks Yu Jeong-ham occasionally dared toss his way. Injections and suppressants had made modern life comfortable regardless of second gender, but ruts still came on schedule. Even with regular injections, there was no stopping the intervals between them from gradually shortening.

If Gwichang spent his rut the usual way instead of suppressing it with drugs, he would remain fine for at least six months. The problem was that his work allowed him no proper vacation at all. Every thread led back to his superior, Director Noh Pil-gyu. That bastard was the reason Gwichang found himself stationed out here in the first place.

“Yu Jeong-ham.” Gwichang’s voice dropped into an icy drawl.

“Yes, Deputy Director,” Jeong-ham answered at once.

Gwichang glanced toward the trail ahead. “He looks like the type who’d be damn good at running. Keep a sharp eye on him.”

“Understood, sir. I’ll issue the order.”

“Cut the bullshit about issuing orders,” Gwichang snapped. “You do it yourself.”

“Y-yes, sir…” Jeong-ham shrank back.

Denied the answer he had wanted about what, exactly, was fake, Yu Jeong-ham answered diligently instead of pressing the matter. His mind, however, kept scrambling to connect the dots.

Earlier that morning, his boss had ordered him to find out two specific things:

When Park Gil-pyeong had begun running auctions, and whether Geum Seoul had been born in this town. Jeong-ham had assumed the questions were simply part of narrowing down suspects, but perhaps those answers were exactly what had allowed Gwichang to identify Geum Seoul as the culprit. He racked his brain, then eventually abandoned the puzzle. What mattered was that they had secured a lead. Far more tangled complications still lay ahead.

***

For the past twenty years, the political landscape had known scarcely a moment of genuine stability. War, civil unrest, and riots had been fixtures since the nation’s founding, but domestic friction had only worsened with time, allowing neglected poverty to multiply. By the time countless citizens had been driven into destitution and hardship had become an inherited legacy, the wealthy had dwindled into an elite minority. Then, after a staggering fifteen years, a legitimate government was finally inaugurated through constitutional order rather than another emergency coup d’état.

Yet the country was still nowhere near peace. Creases set in over decades could not be ironed smooth in a single year. The administration had only just finished its preparatory stage and begun shaking out the worst of those crumpled corners, driving lawbreakers ever deeper into secluded fringes in order to survive. The same was true of Gwichang and his operatives, who followed hot on their heels.

At present, Gwichang had two targets in his sights: Gwak Chun-young, CEO of Iljang Trading, and Director Noh Pil-gyu, Gwichang’s immediate superior. The two were tied together by illicit, under-the-table dealings.

A year earlier, the moment Noh Pil-gyu took the team-leader post, he had brazenly made the rounds among people of power. The leader of the opposition party and several newspaper presidents were among them, but Gwichang’s real quarry was Gwak Chun-young, CEO of Iljang Trading. Gwichang had already secured evidence of logistics laundering and illegal arms trafficking and had been waiting for his chance. With Noh Pil-gyu—who flew into a rage at the mere mention of Iljang Trading—sitting directly above him, however, an open investigation was impossible. Gwichang intended to sever Noh Pil-gyu’s head once and for all.

A few days earlier, a report had come in from an operative planted on Gwak Chun-young’s side: Lee Hee-joong, the gemstone omega living with Gwak Chun-young, had fled with the secret ledger documenting the two men’s illicit dealings. Why Lee Hee-joong had run was irrelevant. The ledger was tangible proof of collusion between Noh Pil-gyu and Gwak Chun-young, and Gwichang had to recover it. It was the kind of opportunity that might never come twice.

“…”

Having spent years at his side, Yu Jeong-ham could read his superior’s moods with fair accuracy. The only reason a man blessed with a face like that had plunged into this line of work and rolled through the dirt under the moniker of “the Ghost” was his twisted, razor-edged temperament. Rather than enhancing his striking features, that disposition seemed forever determined to chip away at their appeal.

Crude as his tongue could be, Gwichang was not an indiscriminately brutal savage. When necessary, he could adapt with eerie smoothness, coaxing people with a finesse befitting his phantom-like nickname. Of course, there were also times when he charged in recklessly and opened fire without warning—a reliable sign that his rut was approaching.

Gwichang looked down at him coldly. “What are you staring at?”

“Y-yes, sir. My apologies,” Jeong-ham stammered, averting his gaze.

After snapping the frigid reprimand at his daydreaming subordinate, Gwichang rummaged through his pockets and drew out a cigarette case. Back in Seoul, he usually wore a jacket or tactical vest, so being reduced to a few pockets for all his essentials was irritatingly inconvenient. The moment he slid a cigarette from the silver case, Yu Jeong-ham struck a flame for him. Gwichang exhaled a cloud of gray smoke carrying its distinctive aroma, then reached into his pocket again.

“When did you pick that up, sir?” Jeong-ham asked curiously.

Resting alone in Gwichang’s broad palm was an absurdly tiny stone—the very gem the little rat had dropped earlier.

More precisely, it was a gemstone omega’s tear. While it welled in the eye or clung to skin, it looked like an ordinary transparent drop of water; the instant it left the body, however, it was said to harden into a tiny pebble. That matched the intelligence exactly. Only this one was opaque, murky, and misshapen, as though it held no value at all.

“Check the grade,” Gwichang ordered, turning the pebble between his fingers.

Jeong-ham gave an immediate nod. “Yes, sir.”

“How long will it take?” Gwichang asked.

“Less than sixty seconds,” Jeong-ham replied promptly. “Once I transmit the hologram to the analysts at headquarters, they’ll appraise it immediately.”

Yu Jeong-ham drew out a palm-sized tablet, and a pale white glow spread over the darkness around them. Meanwhile, Gwichang looked back toward the path where his subordinates had vanished. The sky, faintly blue not long ago, was now pitch-black. Moths swarmed thickly around the yellow bulb behind them.

What had Geum Seoul been promised? What benefit had driven him to smuggle Lee Hee-joong out? Gwichang’s thoughts stayed fixed on that question. He put no faith at all in the claim that the youth had helped merely because the runaway “had to get back to his parents.” To begin with, the boy himself was a fabrication.

Park Gil-pyeong had entered the gemstone-auction racket fifteen years ago. Seven years earlier, after his uncle was murdered, he had moved into this area to take over the business. Geum Seoul had been thirteen at the time—one year after arriving in this town holding his mother’s hand.

That meant Geum Seoul had been hiding his true appearance since he was twelve. His mother reportedly died the following year. In other words, from that point onward he had worn a false face and thick silicone padding every single day. That was no ordinary feat for a child.

After Park Gil-pyeong violated Lee Hee-joong, the runaway had undoubtedly tried to coax Geum Seoul while Seoul guided him upstairs. Gwichang gave some weight to Park Gil-pyeong’s and the villagers’ insistence that “Geum Seoul isn’t capable of such things.” If he had ever smuggled runaways out before, then as the person who guided every newcomer to their room, he would have been the first suspect in a village this claustrophobically small.

So Geum Seoul must have acted for some specific personal gain. Had they agreed to split the money once the ledger was ransomed? Or had Lee Hee-joong promised to get him out of this wasteland?

Tap.

Just as Gwichang tapped ash from his cigarette, the sounds of movement that had disappeared beyond the ridge began swelling again. This time, instead of Geum Seoul leading the way, one of the operatives emerged in front. He strode toward them in long, urgent steps, then broke into a run. Gwichang had already expected bad news. Sure enough, the moment the man came within earshot, he raised his voice.

The operative shouted as he reached them, “The place is empty, sir! Looks like he ran off!”

Gwichang shifted his gaze. Far behind the others, Geum Seoul was bent double and gasping, evidently exhausted from scrambling to keep up with strides far longer than his own. Even from this distance, Gwichang could see him wheezing. Then, without warning, the boy pitched forward and folded to the ground.

“Well, fuck me. This just gets more interesting by the second.”

A smile touched Gwichang’s lips. Above him, the dark sky tangled wildly through black branches that bore not a single leaf, even in the dead of summer.