Chapter 13

Hearing the two of them say that, Seoyun felt at least a little reassured. Even so, the unease in one corner of her heart did not disappear completely.

That night. The image of Jiho’s back as he followed the men who had not looked like professors kept lingering painfully in her chest.

“Where is that project being carried out? Couldn’t I just see Jiho for a moment before I go?”

“Uh, well…. like we said earlier, it’s a project where security is important. So even we can’t go there. Really, please don’t worry. If we get in touch with Jiho, we’ll definitely tell him to call you, noona.”

“Ah…. I see. Thank you.”

In front of Jaeyun and Jaehyeon, who forced smiles onto their faces, Seoyun had no choice but to turn away weakly.

“Hey…. Is this really right?”

“Wow, that bastard. So he lied to his sister and said he was working on a project?”

“Seriously. What the hell is going on?”

The moment Seoyun moved out of earshot, Jaeyun and Jaehyeon’s expressions darkened as well. They too had been unable to contact Jiho.

The last time they had seen him. There had been no detailed explanation written on the note that had come out from Jaeyun’s hoodie.

That he would be unreachable for the time being. That if his sister came looking for him, they were not to say anything. And a mathematical formula for changing the bunker entrance password every week. That was all.

“Where the hell is this bastard right now, and what is he doing?”

“I’m uneasy too. You saw those men following Song Jiho that time, right?”

“Couldn’t it have something to do with that thing he said about the Daejeong Electronics server on the day he totally lost it because of his sister? Ha…. Is that bastard really going to end up in handcuffs?”

Jaeyun and Jaehyeon exchanged uneasy looks. But there was nothing the two of them could do right now. They had no choice but to do exactly as Jiho had written in the note.

***

The reason Ijun boarded a plane after postponing all his scheduled engagements was the distressing news that had come from Switzerland.

A somber mood fell over the entire household.

Myeonguk, who had developed angina after that incident; his mother Miho, who, whenever bouts of depression returned, would stay shut inside her darkened bedroom for days; even his younger brother Hanjun, who had come to live while carefully hiding his bright and cheerful nature.

The passing of six years had not healed the family in the slightest.

Because their tragedy was still ongoing.

The household employees, ignorant of the details, could do nothing but hold their breath and watch the moods of the family they served.

Miho went every month to see Hyejun, but at times like this, Myeonguk, worried about Miho’s health, would rather prevent her from going. That left Ijun with no choice but to step in.

It was the duty of the eldest son.

The place he reached after nearly fourteen hours on a plane and several more hours driving through the roads beyond was ‘Ruhe Nursing Home,’ a building set like a painting against a backdrop of mountains and a lake.

This was where Cha Hyejun, the youngest child and only daughter of the Daejeong Group, who was known to have gone abroad to study since high school, was staying.

In exchange for Myeonguk replacing the heating and cooling systems for the entire nursing home, Hyejun was receiving exclusive care alone in a VIP room, and her whereabouts were being kept in the strictest confidence.

Had it already been half a year since the last time Ijun had come to see Hyejun?

Because of his packed schedule, seeing Hyejun had always ended in brief visits, but even so, she had been in considerably better condition then.

[Thank you for coming such a long way.]

[How is Hyejun.]

The expressions on the medical staff dedicated to Hyejun’s care were not good. The attending physician, who knew Ijun personally, guided him without a word.

It was not the comfortable room where she usually stayed, but an isolation room surrounded by stark white walls.

Hyejun, her two arms restrained in a straitjacket, was fast asleep on the bed. Her face was so pale it looked as if every drop of blood had drained from it, her jawline was thin and sharp, and even her lips were chapped white. She looked like a dead person, and Ijun felt as though his heart had dropped out of his chest.

Unable to move, Ijun stared into the room through the small window, the rims of his eyes reddening.

Hyejun, who was eight years younger than Ijun, had, quite literally, been a child he practically raised on his back. When she was sleepy, he had carried her piggyback. He had pushed her stroller. He had fed her formula.

Hyejun had been a bright and cheerful child. She had grown up receiving overflowing love from her parents and her two older brothers in a family that lacked for nothing, and there had not been a single crooked corner in her. Like a flower in full bloom, blossoming wide under abundant sunlight.

A younger sister who laughed easily and cried easily, cute and lovable.

Seeing how much Hyejun had changed crushed Ijun’s heart.

[What happened.]

Until Hyejun woke, Ijun faced the medical staff in the VIP lounge and did not hide the sharpness of his emotions.

Hyejun’s self-harm was something that had not happened for nearly two years. There had been times when her psychological state was good and times when it worsened, but she had also been recovering little by little.

So this sudden news of an incident was completely unexpected.

Before the guardian who poured enormous sums into Hyejun’s protection and treatment every year, the entire dedicated medical staff could not lift their heads.

[Well…. there was a gardener we hired not long ago. Hyejun likes the garden she carefully tended, so…….]

[So?]

At the nurse’s hesitant manner as she continued speaking, Ijun suppressed the anger rising inside him.

[The day before his first day of work, he came to greet the hospital. He had dressed up, thinking he was being considerate…. and came wearing a suit.]

[Ha….]

[We are sorry. He is an employee who always works in standard work clothes, and it was our mistake that we failed to warn him in advance.]

In other words, Hyejun had seen that employee’s necktie and gone into a fit.

Ijun dragged a hand down his face. His lips kept trembling, and the corners of his eyes were twisting.

It had seemed as though she was getting better, but Hyejun still had not escaped.

From the horrific memory of that day….

Back then, Hyejun had been sixteen.

A lively high school girl who would burst into bright laughter at the sight of even a pebble rolling by.

It was not as though there could ever be an appropriate age for someone to suffer such a thing, but Hyejun had still been far too young. That much greater was the family’s shock and rage.

Astonishingly, the perpetrator had been Myeonguk’s half-brother, in other words, Ijun’s uncle.

Cha Ganguk, the illegitimate son of the Daejeong family, had only been able to set foot in the family home at the age of twenty-three. He had a pretty face that took after his birth mother, and thin eyes that gave him a dangerous look.

Perhaps out of guilt for not having taken him in earlier, their grandfather, Chairman Cha Suung, had coddled Ganguk.

Ganguk’s inborn nature was immoral and vicious, and he was promiscuous as well. The bitterness of growing up in those circumstances and the inferiority complex of having only half a lineage had only poured oil over a man who had already twisted as far as he could twist.

With money and power at his back, he went around committing every kind of filthy act. Alcohol, drugs, and even a vile obsession with young women. And because Suung never hesitated to clean up after Ganguk, the rift between Myeonguk and Suung, whose natures had already differed greatly, only deepened further.

The deepest root of Ganguk’s inferiority complex was probably Myeonguk, the legitimate eldest son. But no one had imagined that, no matter how evil a man was, he would commit the crime of assaulting his own niece.

The day it happened was when Hyejun, after finishing her midterms, had gone to the department store with a friend. That day, Ganguk happened to run into her, and as if he had been waiting for the chance, he lured Hyejun away and dragged her to a hotel.

The sight of his younger sister there, her wrists bound with a necktie, covered in blood. A nightmarish memory that came back vividly no matter how desperately he wanted to erase it.

After that day, Hyejun lost that radiant self forever.

As soon as her body recovered, Hyejun received psychiatric treatment, but it did little good. The flashbacks caused by severe trauma, along with the fits and self-harm, continued without stop.

In the end, she had to leave the environment that reminded her of the incident and receive treatment from specialized medical staff in a distant foreign country.

And they had thought that decision was working.

There were several reasons they had left Ganguk untouched without even informing Suung of the incident. If, even after hearing of such a thing, Suung still tried to protect Ganguk, then not only would they fail to get the punishment they wanted, it could bring about a split across the entire Daejeong family.

And for Hyejun, the fact that everyone in the family knew about the incident would have become even greater damage.

That was why they had needed to respond more carefully. Especially because Myeonguk had already been struggling to protect his standing within the group thanks to Suung, who kept strengthening Ganguk’s position.

Ijun and Hanjun, both at the age when their blood still ran especially hot, had been furious, but they realized they could not inflict the punishment they wanted.

And the whole family held its breath and waited for the right time.

It was not that they had given up.

They were enduring.

For a surer and far more devastating retribution.

A fury like a mass of fire that would never be forgotten or die down.

Whenever he occasionally came face to face with Ganguk, Ijun was tormented by the urge to drive a sharp knife into the back of his neck.

Ijun had been gathering, one by one, the evil and filthy traces of Ganguk’s deeds.

With the intention of one day casting him down to the very bottom of hell.