Chapter 100.1: Who would be quicker? (1)
When Kang Chan arrived at the specialty coffee shop at 11 am, Kim Hyung-Jung was already sitting near the terrace and had opened the door of the smoking room.
He was wearing a gray suit and a shirt, but he still had scars all over his face. On his left index finger, he was wearing a cast.
“Mr. Manager!”
“Mr. Kang Chan!”
Kang Chan felt pity and worry, but he felt happiness first and foremost when he saw Kim Hyung-Jung.
“Aren’t you straining yourself too much?” Kang Chan asked.
“I’m okay. It doesn’t feel right to stay hospitalized for this kind of wound.” Kim Hyung-Jung raised his index finger that was in a cast.
“What do you want to drink? My treat,” Kang Chan suggested.
“Let’s order when Mr. Seok Kang-Ho gets here.”
That wasn’t a bad idea.
Just as Kang Chan sat down, Seok Kang-Ho got out of the taxi and walked toward them.
“Have you ordered yet?” Seok Kang-Ho asked Kang Chan.
“No. Order coffee for me.”
“Mr. Seok Kang-Ho, I hate to ask, but could you get me coffee as well? I’m injured and can’t move very well,” Kim Hyung-Jung requested.
“Of course, don't worry about it,” Seok Kang-Ho gave a straightforward answer, then walked to the counter to order.
“I’ve talked with Kim Tae-Jin,” Kim Hyung-Jung commented.
“What did he say?”
“I told him that I got a little wounded while on a business trip, but he made a fuss and said that he wanted to see me. I’m thinking of meeting him in the afternoon, but I still can’t make up my mind about what excuse to give. In our line of work, saying we got wounded immediately makes anyone think it happened during an operation.”
Kang Chan smiled lightly as Seok Kang-Ho came toward them with three cups of coffee on a tray.
“Now! Let’s drink coffee,” Seok Kang-Ho said.
Seok Kang-Ho placed the tray on the table, then looked at Kim Hyung-Jung while taking out a cigarette. “Getting to see you again feels good.”
“Thank you, Mr. Seok Kang-Ho. Thanks to you, I can still sit down with the two of you, have coffee, and smoke a cigarette.”
“Don’t mention it.”
It felt a little awkward, but things like this were often forgotten after a day or two.
“How did you two end up joining the Foreign Legion’s specialized team, though?” Kim Hyung-Jung asked, then brought his cup up to his lips while discreetly looking around their surroundings.
“We were prepared to go to Mongolia with just us two if we had to. Fortunately, this gentleman visited and pestered Lanok twice. He initially planned to go to Mongolia without me, but I caught him.”
Kim Hyung-Jung nodded in response to Seok Kang-Ho’s grumbling.
“That’s what I thought. The Director came to the hospital in person, and as he apologized about the information being leaked, he mentioned that he thought the Foreign Legion went to Mongolia because Mr. Kang Chan intervened.”
“Why would you give yourself a headache by thinking of things like that? We’re alive, so let’s just have a drink and shake it off once your wounds have healed.” Seok Kang-Ho then chewed on ice.
Kang Chan thought for a moment and made a decision. “Mr. Manager, I was told that the ‘Unicorn’ project is planned to be announced next week here in South Korea, so we expect the people in charge of it and the heads of the other countries’ Intelligence Bureaus to come here.”
Seok Kang-Ho stopped chewing on the ice, then discretely looked around their surroundings.
“It seems the European countries are planning to leak this information first, probably around tomorrow. Just this morning, I was informed that the South Korean government has also decided to cooperate,” Kang Chan continued.
“Whoo!” Kim Hyung-Jung pursed his lips, then deeply sighed. “It’s really happening.”
“You went through so much trouble for this.”
“That’s true. Still, I can’t help but be dumbfounded because it’s actually happening.”
“Even the Prime Minister said that it doesn’t feel real.”
“I feel the same way right now,” Kim Hyung-Jung said with a nod, then drank coffee.
“Are you going back to work immediately?” Kang Chan asked Kim Hyung-Jung.
“Lying down actually puts me in even more pain, so I decided to return to work tomorrow.”
Kang Chan felt as if a reliable ally had just returned.
“I heard that a lot of things had happened within the past few days.” Kim Hyung-Jung commented.
Since they were on the topic, Kang Chan explained everything starting from how he coincidentally met Yoon Bong-Sup while digging into Yang Jin-Woo’s past and how he met Cho Il-Kwon afterward.
“I want to go over and kill him right now, but I can’t make up my mind on what I should do about this,” Kang Chan said. He held up a cigarette, and Seok Kang-Ho and Kim Hyung-Jung also took out their own
“Let’s just twist his neck. Can’t all this be resolved if we just tell that fucker Smithen to find out when Yang Jin-Woo goes to which woman’s house so we can come over and kill him as he’s coming out of one of those houses?”
“That’s not a good way to settle this.” Kim Hyung-Jung shook his head in response to Seok Kang-Ho. “While it can be done because Mr. Kang Chan has criminal immunity, things get a bit more complicated with Yang Jin-Woo involved, but not because he’s a chaebol. It’s because he also has a lot of personal connections in Japan and China, and he has quite a lot of connections with worldwide figures that are related to sports as well. If we kill him, then it’ll become significantly burdensome for the government to take care of the aftermath.”
“Can’t we just avoid getting caught?” Seok Kang-Ho asked again.
You stupid fucker!
While Kang Chan rubbed his face in frustration, Kim Hyung-Jung carefully answered, “That’s true, but without a suspect, the police will have difficulties trying to cope with the criticism that will follow that. On the other hand, if people become aware of even a small clue, then that’ll also become a problem. With Yang Jin-Woo, it’s also difficult to control the press.”
“Hmph!”
“I’ll think about this some more as well. Mr. Kang Chan, we can’t stop you if you really want to do it, but we should try finishing it in a way that would give us minimal problems in the future.” Kim Hyung-Jung smiled, then looked at Kang Chan. “Let’s go. It’s a bit early, but I’ve been meaning to treat the two of you to lunch.”
“I’ll buy lunch,” Kang Chan interfered, but he couldn’t stop Kim Hyung-Jung.
Since it was a hot day, they decided to simply eat dumplings and naengmyeon. Afterward, Kim Hyung-Jung left first, saying that he was going to meet up with Kim Tae-Jin.
“If things go wrong, his emotions are going to last a long time,” Seok Kang-Ho commented afterward.
“Yeah.”
The sadness and despair that were in Kim Hyung-Jung’s eyes were the problems.
It would be better not to send a commander who had just lost a lot of his subordinates to the next battle. There had been numerous cases where the commander ended up dying because they went ahead with an impractical attack.
“What are you going to do now?” Kang Chan asked.
“I have to go to school. There’s quite a lot of documents that I have to take care of because next week is the first day of school.”
“Alright. I’ll be at home. That should keep me comfortable.”
“If you’re going to make a move because of Yang Jin-Woo, then you better take me along with you. Don’t act alone like last time.”
“Hey! As I said before—things ended up like that because I had just gone over to check who they were on that day.”
“Phew! Yang Jin-Woo you motherfucker! Son of a bitch!”
Seok Kang-Ho’s curses could be enough for anyone to misunderstand that Yang Jin-Woo had tried to kill Seok Kang-Ho’s family. After the incident at Mount Jiri, Seok Kang-Ho expressed a lot of anger over things that messed with their family.
“You should go to school with me if you’re bored.”
“It’s fine. I exercised long enough in the morning.”
“Jeez! Should I just resign and join Yoo Bi-Corp?”
“Didn’t you say that you don’t want to work there because there are no breaks?”
“That’s true.”
Seok Kang-Ho headed to school while smacking his lips in pity, and Kang Chan returned home.
He sat at his desk after changing into comfortable clothes, unable to come up with a viable way to beat up and catch Yang Jin-Woo.
‘Should I just kill this fucker?’ Kang Chan thought. It wasn’t easy, but if he and Seok Kang-Ho put their minds to it, it wouldn’t be impossible to accomplish.
“Whoo!” Kang Chan ran his fingers through his hair.
He couldn’t spend eternity looking for nice ways to settle this since Kang Dae-Kyung and Yoo Hye-Sook’s lives were on the line.
‘I’ll keep looking for a good plan until the end of this week. If I don’t come up with any, I’ll just kill him.’
In any case, Yang Jin-Woo was the one who started this fight.
Kang Chan didn’t turn on his computer. Every time he saw Yang Jin-Woo’s photo, he was reminded of the photos of Yoo Hye-Sook that he saw a few days ago. That made it hard to hold in his anger.
Being at home was great, except for the fact that it was a horrible place to smoke.
***
In the afternoon, the news channel and the internet started to report stories about the Eurasian rail.
With a provoking title like 'Enormous Business Changes World Economy Dynamics,' the new reports hinted that while it wasn't finalized, it was absolutely certain that it would happen. They also discussed the astronomical economic effects that would result from the Eurasian rail.
In addition, there were reports that said they were almost certain that North Korea was included, and the majority of the news stated that South Korea would likely be excluded. As Kang Chan listened to the news reports, he found them so convincing that even he thought, ‘Is South Korea really excluded from this?’
Kang Chan talked for a bit with Kim Tae-Jin and Kim Hyung-Jung, then spent time in the afternoon working out at home. His senses felt sharper than ever, not to mention his physical condition.
After a shower, he returned to his room and saw that Seok Kang-Ho had called him. Kang Chan immediately pressed the call button.
- Hello? It’s me.
“I was showering. Why did you call?”
- The acceptance letter and the scholarship certificate from the national university in France have arrived from the French embassy. An official document also came with it, asking the school to excuse you from classes because you’ll be getting lessons at the French cultural center starting from the second semester. The faculty office is in chaos right now, and the principal is foaming at the mouth and saying shit like we need to advertise this to the press. They’re even urgently stamping a certificate of commemoration because they want to give it to you in front of the entire student body at the opening ceremony.
“What’s a certificate of commendation?”
- It’s basically a certificate that the school awards you for being a good model student. It makes the school’s name look better or something as well, I guess?
The fuck? Model student? Making the school’s name better?
It felt as if centipedes were crawling on his back, even though he just listened to what was going to happen.
“Hey! I’m going to skip school on Monday, so cover it up yourself.”
“The school is just going to wait until Tuesday, then. I can somehow stop them from advertising it in the press by saying we have to confirm that with the French embassy first, but it’s going to be difficult for you to avoid receiving the certificate of commemoration in front of the entire student body. What are you doing for dinner? Let’s eat later after school.”
“Alright. In any case, let’s not go overboard.”
- I’ll call you after work.
Kang Chan got very annoyed, but he wouldn’t have to deal with it if he didn’t go to school. He was thinking of not attending school in the second semester anyway.
That was the end of his uncomfortable school life, at the very least. He even got a proper ID that the South Korean government gave him.
It felt as if a big part of his worry was being resolved.
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