#201

Yoon Ki-beom was arrested on charges of kidnapping, murdering, and abandoning the corpse of Kim Cheol-soo.

Ki-beom didn’t know who Kim Cheol-soo was. But he had a hunch. He must be one of the people Father had assured him would never be discovered. But someone must have found evidence.

Indeed, one couldn’t live with sin. Look at the head of the orphanage, who seemed to be living well while exploiting children his whole life. He paid for his sins with his life in prison. Of course, Father hadn’t even been punished for a tenth of his sins.

Ki-beom hated the detectives. His arm hurt, and even though they knew he had surgery and was wearing a cast, they still handcuffed him. In front of the child, in front of his daughter.

He didn’t even want to talk to the detectives.

Their cocky, threatening tone, as if saying he was a rat in a trap.

Those arrogant faces, the bloodshot and yellowing whites of their eyes. And their fishy smiles.

If it were when he was young, maybe, but he wasn’t scared at all.

Ki-beom had been through too much to be afraid of them.

To Ki-beom, the police were just bystanders who took money from the head of the orphanage and turned a blind eye to all the evil deeds that happened there.

In Ki-beom’s world, they were neither justice, nor the people’s support, nor the hope and guide for the common people. They did nothing even when babies were openly bought and sold, when girls got pregnant and died giving birth to produce those babies, when boys were sold to factories and worked to death before being buried in the ground.

Instead, they took money from the head of the orphanage and stuffed their bellies with free dinners. The head of the police force went to great lengths to participate in Special Activities, where he tried to relieve his sexual desires by handcuffing boys and girls the same age as his own daughters and sons.

The police Ki-beom knew had never done anything for the orphans, not even as much as a toenail’s worth.

But for a citizen named Kim Cheol-soo, they spared no effort in investigating for nearly 15 years.

Ki-beom knew nothing about Kim Cheol-soo, but he knew that he couldn’t have been a good person. Among the civilians Father had dealt with, there was only one good person. Only that Mister had tried to save them and died.

The rest, well, it must have been for money.

Come to think of it, the reason that Mister died was also because of Ki-beom hyung. Ki-beom hyung was clever and cunning. In just three months after entering the orphanage, he knew who the real power was and quickly figured out what he had to do to be praised.

The first thing he did when he came to the orphanage was to snitch on the Mister. Because of that, the Mister was caught by Father and disappeared without a trace.

The orphanage’s henchman. The betrayer of them all.

That was the true nature of Yoon Ki-beom.

Perhaps the orphanage was heaven to Yoon Ki-beom. It must have been his little kingdom.

Normally, the head and vice-head of the orphanage prostrated themselves at his feet, and the doctors and nurses became his hands and feet, taking care of him with utmost devotion. Also, during Special Activities, high-ranking officials whose names were well-known flattered Yoon Ki-beom to please him. There were plenty of people who offered him the equivalent of a month’s salary for an average office worker as pocket money, even if he acted arrogantly.

That’s right. Heaven.

Ki-beom smiled without realizing it as he thought of the dead Ki-beom hyung.

He ended up receiving the shell of Yoon Ki-beom, who only had a name left. He didn’t want it, but there was no way to refuse. He didn’t want it, but he became a cripple, and he never wanted it, but he received Yoon Ki-beom’s album, bankbook, and identity. Because he looked exactly like Yoon Ki-beom, because he could mimic his voice, manner of speaking, and behavior like a doppelganger, he was forced to live as Yoon Ki-beom. He even pretended to be Yoon Ki-beom in front of Teacher Choi.

He spent sleepless nights worrying whether Teacher Choi would be fooled, but the way Teacher Choi looked at him was different from when she looked at Shim Kang-woo. There was pity and sorrow in her eyes. She couldn’t tolerate Yoon Ki-beom, who limped like him, and cried every time they met. She gave him pocket money but also loathed him. It happened all three times. After that, she never looked for Ki-beom again.

Why did she give him the child?

Ki-beom still couldn’t understand Father’s decision. He wasn’t that generous of a person. How much money was each child worth, and he gave Ki-beom a precious girl for free.

If it weren’t for the child, Ki-beom would have stopped pretending to be the dead Yoon Ki-beom. But Father allowed it. He gave Maria’s the child to Ki-beom.

His siblings who knew Pastor Father and Pastor’s wife Mother. How did a friend who had spent a longing childhood together end up in Galilla? Ki-beom was happy to see Maria, but also felt sorry for her. It was painful to see her pregnant every year.

At twenty, Maria, whom he believed would have left the orphanage like him, appeared with Father. She handed the child to Ki-beom with a smiling face.

Father said.

‘If you don’t raise her, I’ll take her to Galilla. I’ll raise her there myself.’

At those words, Ki-beom, no, Shim Kang-woo, vowed to live as Yoon Ki-beom for the rest of his life. He couldn’t send the child to that hell. He couldn’t leave her in Father’s hands, no matter what.

‘Do you promise you’ll never take her away?’

‘Of course. Have you ever seen Father break a promise?’

‘No.’

‘Believe me. This the child is your the child. Go and raise her well.’

Maria nodded. She smiled with tears in her eyes.

She whispered that she was entrusting the child to him because it was him, that she was relieved and would go her own way. She also said she was sorry. But she never told him who the child’s father was.

the child resembled Maria, but somehow he saw the dead Yoon Ki-beom. Teacher Choi’s face overlapped. That meant she also resembled Shim Kang-woo.

Ki-beom looked down at the child, who resembled him. A newborn, less than a month old, was received by Shim Kang-woo, who had just turned twenty. the child looked down at the child.

‘I am your Father.’

That’s how Shim Kang-woo became Yoon Ki-beom.

He became the child’s Father.

At that moment, for the first time, Kang-woo wanted to be Yoon Ki-beom. Shim Kang-woo, an orphan with no one to turn to, had nothing, but Yoon Ki-beom had a house to live in, a hometown to return to, and relatives to rely on. Although he was dead, he had a family and memories left in his album, so he believed it was a good choice for the child.

Ki-beom had never regretted that choice since. Farming, which he was doing for the first time in his life, was hard, but it wasn’t even close to being as hard as being in the orphanage. He quickly got used to the hard work.

But he could never get used to his crippled leg, no matter how hard he tried. He could have fixed it if he had really tried, but he couldn’t. He was Yoon Ki-beom, the crippled Yoon Ki-beom, so he couldn’t do that. The temptation to fix his leg tested him a dozen times a day, but Ki-beom fought it off with all his might.

When his leg hurt so much that he couldn’t take it anymore, he looked at the child. the child grabbed Ki-beom’s dirty, rough fingers with her small, dainty hands. She smiled brightly at Ki-beom. She said, “Mama.” Then the pain disappeared as if it had been washed away. The temptation receded.

My the child. Our Ji-hye. A gift from Maria. A miracle from God.

Even when the room felt like a tomb, when getting up at 4:30 in the morning was difficult, when he was lonely because he had no friends his age, when he was ostracized and ignored by his neighbors, it was the child who lifted Ki-beom up every time.

“Hey, you son of a bitch, are your ears plugged?”

The detective in front of him slammed the table, annoyed.

That broke his train of thought.

He wasn’t scared at all by the fierce eyes glaring at him and the curse words at the end of the rough breaths.

Police, my ass.

“Oh, you! You’re not lowering your eyes? Where do you think you are, staring straight ahead like that!”

Another person shouted loud enough to burst his eardrums.

Ki-beom quickly lowered his head. And he closed his ears as he had done in the orphanage.

He mustn’t hear anything. He mustn’t say anything.

I didn’t kill a person named Kim Cheol-soo. I am innocent.

Ki-beom repeated the same words in his mind as if chanting a spell.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. Just as he was thinking that his butt hurt, food came out. When they asked him what he wanted, he answered seolleongtang. He had seen everyone order it in a drama he had watched once. The seolleongtang was delicious, and the coffee mix was sweet.

Just when he thought the interrogation was about to start again, a gentleman in a suit appeared.

“I am Park Soo-nam, the lawyer who will defend Yoon Ki-beom.”

He said he was a lawyer hired by Tae-heun, no, Lee Seon-jae. The detectives sighed when the lawyer appeared. The atmosphere inside the interrogation room changed.

“Can you leave us alone for a moment?”

When the lawyer requested in a low, resonant voice, the detectives left the room.

“Five minutes.”

“Five minutes is enough. Thank you.”

The lawyer was polite.

Ki-beom thought he must be a great person.

“There’s no need to be nervous.”

The lawyer smiled at Ki-beom.

He gave the impression of a warm grandfather, but his eyes were sharp.

“Here.”

The lawyer handed him a piece of paper about half the size of his palm.

It was a memo written by Tae-heun himself. He wasn’t used to the name Seon-jae yet. He should call him Seon-jae soon, Seon-jae would like that. Even in this situation, Ki-beom was anxious to make a good impression on Tae-heun.

He unfolded the paper.

Shim Kang-woo

Ki-beom couldn’t believe his eyes.

He thought he was hallucinating. So he rubbed his eyes and looked at the note again.

Shim Kang-woo.

The paper still had these three letters written on it. His heart sank. The first thought that came to his mind wasn’t how Tae-heun knew this.

What if Father sees it?

Ki-beom frowned and put the note in his mouth and chewed it up before the lawyer could stop him.

The lawyer looked at Ki-beom with a bewildered expression. But he quickly regained his composure and told Ki-beom what he should and shouldn’t say.

He said that it was best not to say anything, and if he really wanted to say something, he shouldn’t say yes or no. He told him to do that while he was figuring out the case.

“I didn’t kill him.”

Ki-beom said. Then the lawyer smiled with just the corners of his mouth and said, “Good. Just do that.”

“I really didn’t.”

“Yes. Good.”

The lawyer repeated the same words and handed him the documents.

Was it because he had seen the name Shim Kang-woo?

All the letters written on the documents the lawyer handed him looked like Shim Kang-woo. No matter how much he rubbed his eyes and blinked, it was the same. He couldn’t put strength in his fingers, so he kept dropping the pen.

Get a grip!

When he scolded himself, he finally managed to put strength in his fingers. But the letters didn’t change. The paper was all written with Shim Kang-woo. Before he lost strength in his fingers, he quickly signed where the lawyer told him to sign. He also put his fingerprint where he was told to put his fingerprint.

“Now everything is done. Just trust me and do as I say.”

The lawyer said in a very gentle and kind voice, then picked up the documents and got up from his seat.

“Excuse me, Lawyer, my the child…”

“Ah. Look at me, losing my mind. the child is doing well, of course. Lee Seon-jae is taking very good care of her. So don’t worry about the child, and let’s overcome this together.”

Ki-beom kept losing his focus. He didn’t know what they were trying to overcome, so he just blinked, and when it seemed like the lawyer was asking for an answer, he nodded. He also habitually said, “Thank you.” Then the lawyer left the room with a satisfied smile. The detectives came back into the room where the lawyer had left.

“Shim Kang-woo!”

Ki-beom was so surprised by the detective’s call that he almost jumped up. When he looked up at the detectives with a confused expression, they looked down at Ki-beom with bewildered faces.

“Why? Do you want to go to the bathroom?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you asking if you want to go to the bathroom?”

He was annoyed.

Ki-beom quickly shook his head. He must have misheard.

Even so, he still couldn’t figure out what was going on. How did Tae-heun know that name? It was strange that even Oh Dae-ho Hyung, who was a detective, didn’t know who he was. Did he know because he was a gangster? Can gangsters even know things like that? No, no. In Ki-beom’s common sense, that didn’t seem possible.

He must have seen it wrong in the first place.

Ki-beom concluded that he wasn’t in his right mind and had seen things. He regretted licking his pasty mouth, wishing he hadn’t eaten the note.

202 – Chapter 202