#148

Even though the bathroom was cramped, it wasn’t so small that they couldn’t shower together. However, the water was colder than ice in the middle of summer, so they both shivered and quickly rinsed themselves before hurrying back to the room.

Without a word, they burrowed under the covers. The sheets felt damp from their hastily dried hair and bodies, but neither of them cared. After all, the bedding was already soaked with their semen, sweat, and bodily fluids.

“I wonder if Mansu and Mugang have eaten?”

The the man spoke as if the thought had just occurred to him.

“Of course, they have. What time do you think it is?”

At Tae-heun’s words, the man said, “I guess so?”

“But it’s amazing. Those fierce dogs wag their tails at Hyun-sook Noona.”

“Our dogs aren’t fierce.”

“That’s just what Ki-beom thinks.”

When Tae-heun insisted they were fierce, the man sulked.

“Well, they are smart. They barked at me for the first few days, but after that, they treated me like someone who had always lived there. And they guard the house well. When they chased after that motorcycle a few days ago, I thought it was a race.”

As he praised the dogs to appease the Man, he soon smiled and said, “They have kind hearts.”

“Mansu used to be Hyun-sook Noona’s dog.”

“Really? How did Ki-beom end up with him?”

“Noona left the village for a few months. I took care of him temporarily and ended up keeping him. That’s when I met Mugang too.”

The the man became enthusiastic as he talked about the dogs. Only then did Tae-heun realize that Mansu was the bigger one and Mugang was the smaller one.

Mugang was one of the puppies born to a stray dog, and Mansu had brought the dying Mugang home. The the man thought he would give the puppy some food and water before it died. There wasn’t a vet nearby, and stray puppies always died anyway, so he didn’t pay much attention.

But Mansu saved Mugang. He sat with Mugang all night, hugging and licking her. Miraculously, Mugang regained her strength and became an even braver dog than Mansu.

“Was Mansu a female?”

“No, he’s a male.”

“Oh, right. He had balls. What about Mugang?”

“She’s a female, but she had her uterus removed last year.”

The the man sadly recounted how Mugang almost died when her uterus came out while she was giving birth. It was dawn, and there was nowhere to get help, but a Mister from the village who helped deliver calves rushed over. Thanks to him, the puppies and Mugang survived.

“Was it Mansu’s puppy?”

“No, Mansu is neutered.”

“But he has balls?”

“He has them, but he can’t have puppies.”

“Oh, dear.”

The the man laughed at Tae-heun’s reaction.

“Anyway, Mugang’s life is full of ups and downs.”

“It is.”

As the conversation about the dogs wound down, the man asked, as if he had just remembered, “But how did he get into the chicken coop?”

“Who?”

“That the man from yesterday.”

“Ah.”

“Our dogs wouldn’t have let him get away with it.”

They were the same dogs that the police, who had barged into the house, were terrified of and begged to be kept away, so it was understandable that he would think that.

“He must have come down from the mountain. There were signs of digging.”

Tae-heun said what he had seen.

“I was curious, so I went in for a bit.”

“The mountain?”

“Yeah.”

“It must be really rough.”

“You can say that again. It was dizzying just looking at it.”

“I hope he wasn’t hurt.”

The the man said worriedly.

He was worried about the safety of an intruder who had secretly broken into his house, of all people. He was such a Man.

Tae-heun smiled. He laughed because the man was a good person, and because his concern was so absurd.

“Ki-beom, you’re so strange.”

He whispered this as he buried his lips in the Man’s neck. He kissed him lightly and closed his eyes. He hugged the Man.

The the man fell asleep in less than five minutes. He slept soundly. Tae-heun lay beside the man for another thirty minutes before getting out of bed. He got dressed and quietly left the inn room.

The lobby had no lighting except for the incandescent bulb above the small sign that read ‘Front Desk.’ It was doubtful whether there was anyone behind the closed door.

As instructed by the Helper, Tae-heun went to the public phone and gave a brief situation report. The situation report was a kind of daily report on what he had done from what time to what time, and whether there were any strange signs.

The intention was to check whether they were following their instructions properly, but the biggest reason was to calculate variables. Everything involved chance, and unexpected accidents could happen, so plans could be changed at any time. It was a job that required flexibility. To do so, they needed to keep in close contact with each other, but too frequent contact could be a hindrance, so they set aside specific times for this.

After briefly reporting his activities, Tae-heun went to the parking lot and got into the Korando. He took the small flashlight from the console box and quietly got out of the car with the yellow envelope. Then he used the emergency stairs instead of the main stairs.

The emergency stairs were too narrow. Fortunately, there were small windows between the floors, and the wind came in through the gaps, but the structure was perfect for suffocation. He doubted whether it was really an inn.

Tae-heun opened the window wide and settled on the emergency stairs between the third and fourth floors. Using the flashlight as a light, he reread the documents about Yoon Ki-beom and Galilla Orphanage. He started by reading the numbers, so he wouldn’t have to look at them again if possible. Once he memorized the numbers, the rest came naturally.

He started with the records about Yoon Ki-beom. They were materials that the meticulous Prosecutor Jeong had scraped together from various official documents. They included not only information about Yoon Ki-beom himself, but also about the people related to him, namely his parents, maternal uncle, and paternal uncle. By compiling the various records, it was possible to infer what his life had been like.

Yoon Ki-beom’s life didn’t start heading in an unfortunate direction from the point when Yoon Ki-beom’s younger brother, Yoon Eun-beom, was beaten to death by his Mother’s lover, Yong-shik. The beginning was Yoon Ki-beom’s Father. Yoon Jong-seok, Yoon Ki-beom’s Father, who had a wandering spirit, abandoned his wife and two children and lived freely on his own. In fact, they didn’t even know if he was alive or dead. Because her Husband suddenly left, Yoon Ki-beom’s Mother, Kim Eun-ok, had to take responsibility for the family’s livelihood.

Fortunately, they had a house and a small garden, or else she and her children would have starved to death. Kim Eun-ok took on every odd job in the neighborhood to raise her two sons.

The incident report referred to him as her lover, but since she was as good as without a Husband, he could be considered her boyfriend. Unfortunately, her boyfriend was a loafer. Like Kim Eun-ok’s Husband, he was of no help to the family’s livelihood, and instead, he frequented gambling dens with the money Kim Eun-ok earned.

The incident began when it was revealed that her boyfriend, Yong-shik, who had been pretending to be a Young man, was actually married. The incident records were so old and the report was so worn that many of the letters were difficult to read, but the situation was described in great detail for the time. The police officer who wrote the report was a patrolman named Oh Gwi-yong. Was he Detective Oh’s Father? Tae-heun thought as he read the next sentence.

As soon as Kim Eun-ok learned that Yong-shik was married, she shouted that they should break up immediately. But Yong-shik, who didn’t want to break up with Kim Eun-ok, only apologized and continued to cling to her. Unable to bear it any longer, Kim Eun-ok threatened him, saying, ‘If you don’t leave this house, I’ll go to your house and reveal this fact.’

Then, Yong-shik, who had been acting humble all along, became furious. He not only hit Kim Eun-ok but also took his anger out on the children. Kim Eun-ok didn’t expect Yong-shik, who had been kicked out of the house, to return.

At the time, the children, who were alone at home, were indiscriminately assaulted by Yong-shik. Yoon Ki-beom, who was quick on his feet, managed to escape, but Yoon Eun-beom couldn’t. When Kim Eun-ok found her child, Yoon Eun-beom was already unconscious, and Yong-shik had fled.

Yoon Eun-beom died three days later, and Yong-shik was arrested by the police. Yong-shik, who claimed innocence, was indicted for murder thanks to the tenacious investigation of Patrolman Oh Gwi-yong, but he was sentenced to only three years in prison for manslaughter.

Kim Eun-ok seemed to blame everything on herself. After her child died, she built a high wall that looked like an eyesore, and she cut herself off from the real world.

Yoon Ki-beom, who was left alone, was temporarily entrusted to his maternal uncle. However, it was revealed that his maternal uncle, who had been very kind to Yoon Ki-beom, was actually after the house and land, which were the only assets his Mother had, and the relationship between his Mother and maternal uncle deteriorated. In this dispute, Kwon Il-taek actively stepped in to help Kim Eun-ok.

It would have been good if Kim Eun-ok’s condition had improved around that time, but she completely lost her mind due to the discord with her trusted younger brother. She fought with the shaman who lived in the blue-roofed house, who had been close to her like a sister, almost every day, and to make matters worse, she would barge into any house day and night with a sickle or hoe and break the furniture, which often brought the police.

Eventually, Yoon Ki-beom lived with his Mother for about a month before being sent to his paternal uncle’s house. The problem was that his uncle’s family wasn’t in very good shape either. They already had five children, and adding Yoon Ki-beom to the mix was too much. The fact that his uncle was an alcoholic also contributed greatly to their poverty. In this house, his aunt barely made a living.

Then, the third child of his uncle’s family, a cousin who was a year younger than Yoon Ki-beom, suffered from an unknown illness, and not only Yoon Ki-beom but also his uncle’s children were sent to orphanages. Except for the Eldest daughter and Eldest son, who were seventeen and sixteen and could work in factories or restaurants after dropping out of school, and the sick third child, the two children who were elementary school students at the time and Yoon Ki-beom, who was about to enter middle school, went to different orphanages.

The place where Yoon Ki-beom was placed at that time was Galilla Orphanage. Unlike the children who were sent to orphanages near their home, it is not known why only Yoon Ki-beom went to Galilla in Ansan. It was only speculated that there was no place to take care of children as old as Yoon Ki-beom.

Prosecutor Jeong had a habit of organizing his thoughts by putting sticky notes on various parts of the documents, and there were traces of them here as well. He had told Tae-heun that this was the last time and that he should never get involved, but he was a funny guy anyway.

In any case, Yoon Ki-beom stayed at the orphanage for about a year before leaving. According to the records at the time of his discharge, Yoon Ki-beom was already close to 180 cm tall and had no disabilities. This meant that he had acquired a disability due to some accident after the age of sixteen. Perhaps it happened at the orphanage. It needed to be confirmed.

Yoon Ki-beom, who was sixteen years old, ran away from home instead of returning to his uncle’s house after leaving the orphanage. His uncle didn’t look for Yoon Ki-beom, but surprisingly, his aunt reported Yoon Ki-beom as a runaway. The aunt’s clumsy writing in the runaway report was full of affection. It was proof that the two were quite fond of each other.

Tae-heun sensed that she was the one who could ask about what kind of childhood Yoon Ki-beom had and how he had become disabled. He immediately memorized her name and resident registration number and checked her current residence.

Pyeongtaek City.

Prosecutor Jeong, you sly fox.

Even though Pyeongtaek and Ansan had been developed over the past few years, and there was no trace of the orphanage building, he must have deliberately pushed him into Pyeongtaek for this reason.

He could have just told him, but Prosecutor Jeong was being mysterious even in this situation, and Tae-heun laughed.

After that, Yoon Ki-beom frequently appeared in police records for minor offenses. Most of them were minor cases such as theft or assault, and all of them ended with a warning. That record was also the last one from the year he turned eighteen. After that, there were no records of Yoon Ki-beom for nearly three years.

Then, in the winter when he turned twenty, Yoon Ki-beom finally received his resident registration card. There was a record of him paying a fine. After that, he responded to a physical examination at the Military Manpower Administration for military enlistment.

The Divinity Test result document was intriguing. It was the first official record of Yoon Ki-beom’s disability. Moreover, his blood type had changed. Yoon Ki-beom, who had been type B, had become type O. This wasn’t a time when official documents could be easily found with a simple search, so no one had paid attention to Yoon Ki-beom’s blood type. Even if his blood type had changed, they wouldn’t have cared. Just a few years prior, mistakes in blood typing were common.

Tae-heun believed that the man had stolen Yoon Ki-beom’s identity at this point. Of course, the most likely scenario was that the two had met at the orphanage.

The last document related to Galilla Orphanage – perhaps the Man’s real name was written here.

With anticipation, Tae-heun opened the list of children who had been at the orphanage in 1983 and 1984, when Yoon Ki-beom was there. But the number was surprisingly small. There were clearly missing documents, including the complete list of orphanage residents, which even Prosecutor Jeong hadn’t been able to find.

First, he examined the children on the list. Their ages ranged from 13 to 18, and there was only one child the same age as Yoon Ki-beom: a girl.

Could it have been someone younger or older?

However, the heights and weights of the children listed in the documents were significantly different from Yoon Ki-beom’s. There were only three with type O blood. But it was too early to be disappointed. the children grow, after all.

Tae-heun selected only the boys and memorized the numbers.

Reading the poorly maintained documents in the dim light strained his eyes. Tae-heun stared at the blank ceiling before blinking.

Is the man still in Dreamland? What if he wakes up and looks for me?

As he was thinking this, his pager vibrated.

With anticipation, Tae-heun checked the voice message on his cell phone. He had hoped for a follow-up, like Lee Hyun-joon raiding Dongjam-ri only to find an empty house and regretting his actions, but instead, a dry, mechanical voice announced tomorrow’s schedule.

He was instructed to travel to Jinwi-myeon, Pyeongtaek, using national and local roads, as well as small village roads. He would travel from the motel to National Route 45 via local roads, have a meal at a restaurant in a village located at the entrance to the national highway, and then proceed to Jinwi-myeon, Pyeongtaek. It seemed he would have to go the long way around again.

Access to highways, toll gates, and interchanges was prohibited. Even stopping at rest stops was not allowed. The reason Prosecutor Jeong had included a restaurant stop was to solve both the need for bowel movements and hunger at once – a kind of solution and countermeasure. Plus, he could receive real-time reports.

Tae-heun yawned deeply and stretched. Drowsiness washed over him. Of all times to feel sleepy, he thought, maybe insomnia would have been better. With a bland thought, he went downstairs. He went to the parking lot, hid the document envelope under the Bamboo cushion on the driver’s seat, and then went back up the emergency stairs.

The sky visible through the small window had no stars or moon. The air that he felt with his nose in the pitch-black darkness was cold and damp.

He wanted to press his body against something hot and soft soon. Tae-heun hurried his pace. He hastened his steps to embrace the Man.

Chapter 149