#150

The directors’ reports continued. For over thirty minutes, it was nothing but useless drivel. They were getting paid exorbitant salaries and shitting out of their mouths. Lee Seok-doo inwardly clicked his tongue, thinking he had been too lenient, which was why they lacked urgency.

“President, Chief Lee, or rather, Lee Seon-jae, seems to have visited a temple in Yongin.”

Finally, Director Choi Dong-jik, in charge of the hunting dogs, brought up something worthwhile.

Lee Seok-doo had unleashed as many hunting dogs as possible. These were men trained directly by Choi Dong-jik, a former Special Forces operative, and four of them were particularly vicious, never letting go once they bit. Of course, he also mobilized all the clumsy stray dogs that weren’t even worth calling hunting dogs.

Just as the Chinese army had used human wave tactics in the Korean War, Lee Seok-doo employed the same strategy. He widely distributed Lee Seon-jae’s photo to organizations allied with him. Preferably recent photos, even ones showing his dick, so he could be recognized in saunas or bathhouses.

If he wanted to catch someone, he could catch them anywhere. Some were caught in kimbap shops, and some who had been living in huts in the mountains were caught after seven years. As long as they were in South Korea, no matter where or how long it took, he would catch them.

He had caught more dead than alive, but he wouldn’t be satisfied until he caught them, no matter what.

Lee Seok-doo still found it hard to admit that he was one step behind Prosecutor Jeong. He felt like he was going crazy with anger. Lee Hyun-joon, that son of a bitch. If he weren’t his son, he would have skinned him alive.

That damned bastard. That miserable wretch. Of all things, his only son was incredibly lazy. If that bastard had just answered the phone a little faster, or even just checked the document his secretary had reported, Lee Seon-jae wouldn’t have gotten away.

And Lee Seok-doo himself happened to be busy that week. He couldn’t be dragged around by the prosecution forever, so he was secretly lobbying, including using threats.

“A temple?”

“Yes. Yonghwasa Temple. Eagle’s Mother lives near there, and she apparently ran into him at the temple yesterday.”

“Tell me everything.”

Lee Seok-doo leaned forward, showing interest.

Choi Dong-jik then continued, looking triumphant. Apparently, Kang Dae-seong, Choi’s right-hand man, also known as Eagle, had heard about it this morning while talking to his mother.

Eagle, who prided himself on being the best of the hunting dogs, had warned his mother to be careful, in case he ran into Lee Seon-jae anywhere. He told her to let him know if she met anyone strange or unfamiliar. And just a day later, he got a response. The temple was so small, and the only tourists were fishermen, so it was hard not to notice two handsome young men visiting.

“Two?”

“Yes. There was another man with Lee Seon-jae.”

“Who?”

“It’s not certain, but it seems to be Yoon Ki-beom.”

“Yoon Ki-beom?”

“Yes.”

Lee Seok-doo frowned.

Lee Seon-jae was the type who would never make friends. If that country bumpkin was with him, he must have been threatened or bribed with money. Either way, that guy was pathetic. To be caught by the most unlucky bastard of all.

“So?”

“Eagle has taken his men and gone there now.”

He was one step behind again, but he had a good feeling about this. Maybe Seon-jae was still lurking around there.

“Did you report to Hyun-joon?”

“Of course. I heard the Vice President has already left.”

“Good. Well done.”

Lee Seok-doo was lost in thought.

Why Yongin, of all places?

What was there?

That bothered him more than the fact that he hadn’t gotten far.

Lee Seon-jae might have hidden a secret warehouse or hideout in Yongin. If there was evidence there that was detrimental to them, they would be screwed in no time. If things got any worse, not even Lee Seok-doo would be able to fix it.

No. If he caught that bastard, everything would be resolved. Lee Seok-doo shook his head vigorously. He could easily overtake Prosecutor Jeong. He had his own weapon, something no mere public official could imitate.

That was his ruthlessness. Lee Seok-doo prided himself on being the most ruthless man in the world. He would use that ruthlessness to surpass Prosecutor Jeong. He would capture Lee Seon-jae.

Of course, before that, he had to pray to the heavens. So yesterday at dawn, Lee Seok-doo had gone to the shaman. To the shaman who had said Lee Seon-jae was alive.

The Fairy of Oknyeo Peak, was it? The shaman with the sharply slanted eyes and bulging, spiteful cheeks had said that Lee Seok-doo was possessed by ghosts the first day they met. Six female ghosts, to be exact.

Lee Seok-doo had laughed. He had played with hundreds of women in his life, how could there only be six? So he had suspected she was a hack.

But she had proven him wrong. She was the most legitimate shaman he had ever met.

‘Lee Seon-jae will devour you. Kill him before that happens.’

She was extreme for a shaman. Lee Seok-doo had never met a shaman who told him to kill someone. They always just wrote charms and performed rituals, but the Fairy of Oknyeo Peak was the first to directly mention murder.

Lee Seok-doo also wanted to tear Lee Seon-jae to pieces and kill him. But he desperately needed him. He needed to tie him up for a few years, no, just one year, and extract everything he knew. Until then, he could never kill him. Because he was Il-gwang.

‘If you let him live, you will die.’

The shaman didn’t care.

‘Please, write me a charm.’

‘I don’t have those.’

Was she telling him to perform a ritual?

Lee Seok-doo knew the world of shamans inside and out. They made money from rituals. They bought houses, changed cars, and increased their wealth. No matter how skilled, this bitch was no different.

‘Then should I perform a ritual? How expensive should it be?’

He asked tentatively.

‘I told you, it’s not necessary.’

The shaman was firm.

‘Yes? Not necessary? What do you mean?’

At Lee Seok-doo’s question, the shaman raised one corner of her mouth in a smile. He didn’t like the way she seemed to be sneering at him. He thought she had gotten too big for her britches.

‘Rituals aren’t necessary either. President, go home and eat something delicious.’

The Fairy of Oknyeo Peak said this and tried to get up.

What a damn bitch.

How dare she say such a thing to him!

Lee Seok-doo reached out and grabbed the shaman’s hair. He shook her violently. The shaman screamed shrilly, but it was no use. The men he had brought were guarding the door.

He beat and beat the shaman until he felt better. Women never listened when you spoke nicely. If you treated them well, they should just gratefully accept it, but they always found fault or nagged.

In an instant, the shaman’s face was covered in blood. Bloody tears flowed from her torn eyes.

Lee Seok-doo pressed her face to the ground with his foot and asked.

‘Should I write a charm, or should I perform a ritual? If it’s effective, I can do both.’

The shaman spat out blood.

‘What will you do?’

When there was no answer, he stomped down hard. Then the shaman spat out blood and begged for her life. She showed him an ugly smile, saying she would do anything, whether it was a charm or a ritual.

‘You should have done that from the start. Let’s do it right away.’

Lee Seok-doo shouted outside. He told them to quickly clean up the shrine, and those who worked under the shaman ran in, crying out, “Fairy!” But they couldn’t dare to look at Lee Seok-doo, who had made their fairy like that.

The shaman wrote a charm, her hands trembling. Lee Seok-doo, who could read most charms, was ready to kill the shaman if she tried to play any tricks. But he smiled in satisfaction at the sight of her writing with such care.

The problem was the ritual. The shaman said that a big ritual required preparation. Lee Seok-doo knew that it would take at least two weeks, but he didn’t have that much time to wait.

He didn’t want to hear her talking about purification and all the things he already knew, so he raised his hand again. Then the shaman bowed and said she would do it tomorrow. Shamans and employees always tried to postpone what they could do right away. A beating was the best way to correct such bad habits.

Of course, he couldn’t raise his son that way. It was because of his wife, Lee Seok-doo’s only love. His wife was a woman who hated violence. She was a small, angelic woman, so there was no place to hit her. As a result, his only son was in such a state.

Lee Seon-jae had grown up just fine without being beaten.

Without realizing it, he compared Seon-jae to his son.

Lee Hyun-joon was more like his karma than his son. He happened to resemble his ugly appearance and the small frame of his mother. He was smart, but he only knew how to use his brains for petty things. If he had resembled him, he should have become at least a cold-blooded businessman or gangster, and if he had resembled his mother, he should have been a kind and good-hearted fellow. But Lee Hyun-joon lacked everything. In the midst of all that, he had somehow inherited his mother’s indecisiveness and his father’s inferiority complex.

He was a sight that only made him sigh. If it weren’t for Seon-jae, that bastard wouldn’t even be in the position of Vice President. He would have been drinking or doing drugs somewhere and died.

Ah, Lee Seon-jae. My adopted son.

It was a miracle that Seon-jae was born under those ugly parents. Why isn’t that guy my real son? He had such thoughts every time he saw him. He had cherished him.

No matter how hard he racked his brain, Lee Seok-doo couldn’t understand why Lee Seon-jae had betrayed him. Seon-jae was only thirty-one and an executive in the company. He had dozens of subordinates who bowed their heads at the slightest gesture, and he could command hundreds of members if he wanted to. He was close to prominent figures in the political and business world. He had the connections, wealth, status, and fame that others envied. He could have lived a life of luxury in the shadow of Il-gwang. But he had kicked it all away.

His wife’s death was clearly a great shock. But on the day he heard of his wife’s passing, Lee Seon-jae had been more composed than his son, who wasn’t very close to his mother. He hadn’t shed a single tear.

It was Seon-jae who had properly arranged the funeral, taking the place of himself and his son, who were mentally distraught from the shock. He was so thorough in his work that he couldn’t help but admire him. He had been so close to her that others mistook him for his wife’s real son, and he had followed his aunt, his wife, more than his own mother. How could he be like that? It was almost infuriating.

He was infuriating, yet also proud. He smiled contentedly as he watched Seon-jae greet the guests with an elegant posture, unlike his son, whose eyes were swollen from crying.

He was a guy who wouldn’t bleed a drop even if you stabbed him. He had jokingly said that even ghosts would be afraid and run away. You are like my real son. Die under me, even in death. He had said such things when he was drunk. At that time, Seon-jae had hated hearing him say the obvious.

That guy had changed his mind.

Why?

Lee Seok-doo had been agonizing ever since he heard the shaman’s words that Seon-jae was alive. But no matter how hard he racked his brain, he couldn’t figure it out.

Hyun-joon often provoked Lee Seon-jae, but Seon-jae always won. He had never seen his son win even an argument against Seon-jae. When he died, he would pass the company on to his son, but he was the type who would ruin the business in less than three years, so he was planning to keep Seon-jae by his side as an advisor.

Seon-jae knew that too. Lee Seon-jae knew that Hyun-joon would be a figurehead and that he would be the real owner of the company. Yet he betrayed him. He completely deceived him and hid. He changed his name and lived well.

The old saying that you shouldn’t take in a black-haired beast was absolutely true. Lee Seok-doo lamented.

Now was the time to take in that black-haired beast with his own hands.

The ambush was a complete failure. It was a pathetic excuse for an ambush, only managing to raid an empty country house. Moreover, the search was difficult. The village was swarming with police for some reason, making it impossible to roam around freely. Loan sharks, whose names even Lee Seok-doo knew, were gathering in the village.

Later, it was revealed that the person responsible for a scam estimated at nearly 50 billion won in Seoul alone was living in that village. The scale of the fraud was so massive that it was hard to believe it originated from an old man in the countryside. Even Lee Seok-doo was astonished.

Lee Seon-jae had been living there but disappeared. He was there just moments ago, but no one knew where he had gone. The man who lived with him said he had gone to Chungju to visit his sick uncle. Since Father went, the daughter must have gone with him.

It seemed too perfect, but they were traveling together.

If so, where did the country bumpkin’s daughter go?

If it’s Lee Seon-jae, he must have used the country bumpkin’s daughter as bait and hidden her somewhere.

Of course, all of this was possible because Jeong Jae-jin helped Lee Seon-jae. If they had been just a step faster, they could have caught Jeong Jae-jin as well. The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became.

Above all, he was even angrier that his own son had bought Jeong Jae-jin the time to do so.

Bang! Bang!

Lee Seok-doo slammed the table in a fit of rage. The coffee cup on the table fell over, spilling the black liquid.

Director Choi, who was sitting closest among the executives gathered in the conference room, cupped the coffee with both hands. Another person wiped the floor with a tissue, and yet another approached to wipe the black liquid that had stained Lee Seok-doo’s thigh.

Lee Seok-doo waved them away.

“Catch them. I want them caught by the end of this week, no matter what.”

“Yes, Chairman!”

They answered well. Except for Director Choi, they were all just spinning their wheels. He couldn’t stand seeing them play with his money. Lee Seok-doo scanned the faces of the directors. Each one of them had greasy faces.

“Catch them. Or I’ll start by catching your wives, lovers, and children. I’ll pluck out their eyeballs first, then extract and grind up their livers, gallbladders, and anything else useful, so you better be aware.”

Lee Seok-doo growled.

Instantly, the conference room was filled with silence. Not even the sound of swallowing or breathing could be heard.

“From now on, no one can leave here.”

The atmosphere in the room stirred. But no one protested.

Lee Seok-doo got up from his seat.

“Check your phones to see where your wives are. See if I’m lying.”

The faces of everyone except Director Choi turned pale.

With these words, Lee Seok-doo left the conference room. Director Choi followed him. Lee Seok-doo’s loyal followers locked the conference room door.

“You can’t go home either.”

He said the same to the terrified secretaries.

And it wasn’t just the secretaries. Everyone working under Il-gwang who wasn’t a hunting dog was confined to the building. Even a mere cleaning lady wouldn’t be able to leave until Lee Seon-jae was caught.

Whether they were executives, employees, or cleaning staff, if they wanted to live, if they wanted to get out of here, they would have to come up with something. Just as the hunting dog had obtained information from its mother, anyone who provided similar information would be rewarded handsomely. Whoever it was.

“Is the Eagle Dae-seong?”

“Yes, Chairman. Kang Dae-seong.”

“Reward him.”

“Yes.”

The heavy iron door closed behind Lee Seok-doo and Choi Dong-jik.

151 – Chapter Title Without Number