The Cop Is Too Strong [EN]: Chapter 210

< #210. If You Resist, You Get Hit. >

A five-year-old child doesn’t understand complex situations in concrete, precise terms. However, they are acutely sensitive to their mother’s emotions.

To a child, their mother is their entire world.

The child saw their mother’s desperate struggle and, the instant she lifted them, saw the worry vanish from her eyes.

Falling from a chair hurts a lot, so they imagine how much it would hurt down there. But it was okay as long as their mother wasn’t suffering.

That’s what the child thought.

It’s okay to let go; I’m still here, always.

“Gasp.”

Kang Seon-ju was startled as if someone had dumped ice water on her. It felt like lightning had struck her head.

She hurriedly hugged her son, slumped onto the veranda floor, and wept like an animal.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Mommy’s sorry, Mommy….”

Squeak-

The son silently clutched at his mother’s clothes with his tiny hands. He pretended to be okay, but he was actually scared. He didn’t want to let go.

Kang Seon-ju felt the warmth of her son, whom she had taken to the brink of despair with her own hands, and sobbed quietly for a long time.

The son’s eyes also turned red, and he patted his mother, whispering softly.

“Mommy, I’ll eat well, and I’ll clean up my toys, Mommy, don’t cry.”

“Huuuh-”

Looking at her son’s sparkling eyes, her heart ached. She couldn’t bear to meet his eyes, reminded of the terrible thing she had almost done.

Knock knock.

Just then, someone knocked on the front door. Seon-ju wondered if it was a Happiness Dream employee and held her breath, staying still.

Knock knock-

-Hello. Ms. Kang Seon-ju, we’re from SCV Channel.

‘···SCV Channel?’

She had never heard of that channel before. Seon-ju took her son’s hand, went to the front door, and looked outside through the peephole.

A woman in a suit with her hair neatly tied back and wearing silver-rimmed glasses was standing there. Next to her was a man who was a little shorter and more petite than the woman.

Seon-ju put the chain on the door and opened it slightly.

“···Who are you?”

The silver-rimmed woman bowed her head.

“Hello. I’m Harumi, a reporter from the sniper broadcasting channel SCV. Do you have a moment to talk?”

Seon-ju looked back and forth between the woman and the man through the crack in the door. She wondered if it was a new kind of cult trying to preach.

“No, I’m busy, thank you for your trouble.”

As Seon-ju was about to close the door, Haru quickly continued.

“Happiness Dream, do you know it?”

Thud-

The movement to close the door stopped. She slightly opened the door again and asked Haru.

“Who are you people?”

This time, Joksae, the acting expert who had been standing back, stepped forward instead of Haru.

He had an ordinary appearance, but his neat attire made him seem trustworthy.

“We are interviewing victims who have been harmed by Happiness Dream. We want to help you.”

Joksae gave a trustworthy, kind smile. Kang Seon-ju looked back and forth between him and Haru, then unlocked the door and opened it wide.

She thought that maybe this could be the way for her and her son to survive, so she decided to listen to what they had to say.

Haru and Joksae told her about the information they had gathered through Haesu and the content that the hideout team had investigated separately, revealing the purpose of their visit.

“···So we need a detailed interview with Ms. Kang Seon-ju. How they approached you, what actions and contracts they forced you into.”

At Joksae’s explanation, Kang Seon-ju looked down at her son, who had fallen asleep in her arms, and shed tears. Although she had been deceived by those devilish people, she couldn’t confess her sin of making such an inhuman choice.

Joksae’s eyebrows twitched at the sight. Acting starts with observing others. Having naturally learned to act for a living, Joksae was good at catching other people’s emotions.

He quickly understood the situation by looking at the data he had investigated so far and Kang Seon-ju’s actions and emotions.

“Happiness Dream is the worst company. They exploit people’s vulnerabilities when they are most desperate, leading them to make terrible choices. At the end of that is nothing but living hell, and we believe that our visit here today is the last chance for Ms. Kang Seon-ju to recover.”

“Last chance···.”

Kang Seon-ju quietly looked down at her sleeping son for a long time, then raised her head to look at Joksae and opened her mouth, her voice heavy with emotion.

A sense of determination settled in her desolate eyes.

“I originally had debt with a credit card company, and after a while of not paying it off, I got a call from them. Happiness Dream···.”

* * *

In front of the whiteboard in Violent Crimes Unit 4.

Shin Haesu wrote with a marker as she spoke.

“···Happiness Dream offers to pay off the debt and even provide loans if living expenses are short. Nine out of ten people who are living in hell today accept. If you buy a used car at an inflated price with a loan, you get the money, the credit card debt is paid off, and Happiness Dream gets the debt. With an amount inflated several times over.”

“Those sons of bitches. But if they lend money to people who can’t afford to pay it back anyway, what do they get? Do they take organs or something?”

Haesu nodded.

“Yes.”

“···What?”

“It’s not certain, but we suspect they receive payments in various ways. They drag them into the company and use them like slaves for minimum wage, sell young women to businesses, and we suspect organ trafficking. And···.”

Oh Gyeong’s eyes widened at the unimaginable conclusion.

“What else is there?”

“Insurance fraud is suspected. Life insurance, the victims’ families··· or even the victims themselves; 17 deaths have been confirmed.”

“I, is that possible?”

There was no need to answer, and she didn’t ask to hear an answer.

Oh Gyeong was in shock, staring at the floor, then raised her head.

“But, Haesu, where did you find out all this stuff? We were running around together.”

“That’s what I’m saying?”

“I was right next to her the whole time; I don’t know.”

Oh Gyeong, as well as Muscle Monster and the rookie, widened their eyes and waited for an answer. But Haesu closed the marker cap with a blank expression and replied.

“I have a capable informant.”

“Tch, what have I been doing? Without a single informant···.”

With a bitter face, Oh Gyeong got up from her seat, looked at the youngest members next to Haesu, and opened her mouth.

“Guys, do you know who the real bad guys are? Rich guys who don’t pay their money? Scammers who take money from rich guys? No, the real bastards are these Happiness Dream guys who push people off the cliff when they have nowhere else to turn.”

Muscle Monster put his hands together as if impressed and nodded deeply. His arms didn’t even touch his armpits, but his sincerity was conveyed in his attitude.

Oh Gyeong made eye contact with Haesu once, then looked forward again and continued.

“Let’s go, let’s run around and secure evidence and destroy those Happiness Dream bastards!”

“Destroy them!!”

“Kill them all!!”

“Azuah!!”

Violent Crimes Unit 4 shouted and left the Violent Crimes Unit office. Other Violent Crimes Unit detectives trembled as they watched them.

“Ugh, I can never get used to those guys.”

“I don’t know if this is a gangster office or a detective office.”

-Ack!

“Oh my god, is that a human voice or an animal?”

The detectives shook their heads at the shouts of Violent Crimes Unit 4, which could be heard even outside the office.

* * *

The loan scams that Happiness Dream was committing, which were intricately intertwined, were difficult to expose.

They cleverly manipulated the victims into believing that they had made the choice knowingly, creating a sense of complicity just by taking out insurance, so they never reported it even when they were suffering.

But once they started digging, people who had been waiting for a lifeline from the bottom opened their mouths, and evidence collection went more smoothly than expected.

Underground parking lot of HS Life Insurance Gangjin Branch.

A middle-aged woman dressed in luxury clothes approaches a sedan worth over 200 million won [approximately $150,000 USD].

Beep- Click.

Just before opening the car door, someone approached and grabbed it to prevent it from opening.

The woman narrowed her brows and turned her head to look at the man who had approached. He was burly, muscular, and had a fierce look.

“What is it?”

He smiled and asked.

“Insurance planner Kim Mi-young?”

“Yes. Who are you?”

Muscle Monster, U Gang-cheol, showed his police badge.

“I’m U Gang-cheol, an investigator from Violent Crimes Unit 4 of the Gangjin Police Station. Please come with me for a moment.”

Thwack!

Kim Mi-young slapped Muscle Monster’s arm roughly and frowned. Her eyes glanced at the parking lot exit.

“What is it? Do you have a warrant? I’m a busy person! I make ten times your salary!”

Muscle Monster maintained his smile, grabbed her arm again, and said.

“It’s not a request, it’s a summons. Either way, insurance fraud will be proven within two days, and if you refuse to testify now, your sentence will only increase. Come with me while I’m being nice.”

“Y, you···!”

Muscle Monster’s tone was full of conviction. Kim Mi-young, who dealt with many people, quickly noticed this and followed him with a frustrated expression.

‘Which bastard reported me? Happiness Kimbap CEO Kim? Or that stupid divorcee Kang Seon-ju?’

* * *

Inside the ‘Sharon Flower’ flower shop.

A middle-aged man received a bouquet of flowers from the flower shop owner and smelled them.

“Nice. Please charge me.”

“Yes, your wife will be happy.”

“I hope she doesn’t tell me to exchange them for money.”

“Haha, payment is complete here.”

“Okay, sell a lot~”

As the middle-aged man left the flower shop and walked to his parked car, a man approached him closely. The middle-aged man glanced at him with strange eyes because the distance was so close, and continued walking.

Then the man said in a passing tone.

“Looks like you have something good going on.”

The middle-aged man stopped and turned to the man. The man was tall, muscular, and had many scars, so he looked like a gangster at a glance.

“What are you? Which gang are you from? Did you come to get me?”

The man, Shin Haesu, shook his head with his hands behind his back.

“No, I came to deliver bad news. You’re Detective Kang Sang-cheol in charge of the Moon Ji-han death case, right?”

“What are you?”

The middle-aged man stopped and questioned him.

Haesu looked down at him with cold eyes and said.

“I’m a violent crime detective who came to catch corrupt cops.”

* * *

In front of a prefabricated single-story building located on the outskirts of Gangjin City.

Sports cars and luxury foreign cars that don’t match the shabby building are lined up.

Inside the building was an open-plan office with partitions that weren’t properly set up.

There, dozens of young people were holding phones, and the air was filled with so much cigarette smoke that it obstructed their vision.

“···No, so! Give me the money, give me the money! If you don’t have money, don’t borrow it, huh?!”

“···Aish, seriously, your kid being sick is your problem! If you don’t have money, make up for it with your body, I’ll connect you, lady? You have the body for it, lady, huh? If you hustle for three months, you can pay it all off. I guarantee it.”

“···So we’re going to help you. If you buy a used car from us, we’ll pay off that debt, and we can give you about 5 million won [approximately $3,700 USD] for living expenses. Yes, that’s right, we’re looking out for your situation. The money you borrowed from us? You can pay it back slowly.”

Someone is holding the phone and swearing, and someone is tempting them with sweet words.

At that time, a woman who looked to be in her early 20s looked around and got up from her seat.

“Huh? Our pretty Joo Sombi, where are you going?”

Because there were very few young women, several men were always watching her.

Among them was her team leader.

Joo Sombi was flustered by the team leader’s question and answered in a barely audible voice.

“T, t, toilet.”

“Again? You went 30 minutes ago, are you going again? Ah, that time of the month?”

“Ah ah··· Yes.”

“Okay, okay, hurry back, there’s no team leader like this. If it was the next team, they would have told you to just change it in your seat.”

He shamelessly spits out words that could be offensive and packages them as if he is being sensible and considerate.

Joo Sombi bowed her head and headed towards the entrance. The team leader called her back at the sight.

“Huh? That’s the entrance?”

Joo Sombi paused, pretended not to hear the team leader’s words, and headed for the entrance.

“Team leader, th, one person isn’t answering-”

“What? Which fearless bastard is it?”

The team leader, who was about to get up and approach, returned to his seat.

With trembling hands, Sombi opened the number door lock that could only be opened by pressing the number, and also opened the regular iron door on the outside.

This place locks the doors on the inside with a double lock. Only the team leader knows the password.

To get in and out, someone has to open the locked door.

Creak-

When she opened the door, several men in black clothes were standing in front of the door.

The man with a sturdy build at the forefront of them, Oh Gyeong, made eye contact with Joo Sombi, nodded once, and moved his steps inside.

Thud thud thud thud

As the men in black clothes poured into the office, the people who were on the phone inside froze.

The team leader who had spoken to Joo Sombi a moment ago said.

“Wh, what are you guys?!”

Oh Gyeong ignored his words, stood in the middle, and looked around the smoky office.

“Ha, you’re catching raccoons as a group [a Korean idiom for ‘working together on something shady’], I need to quit smoking too.”

Oh Gyeong raised both hands and clapped twice loudly, then continued.

“Okay, our shitty Happiness Dream employees, we are arresting you on the spot on charges of fraud, murder conspiracy, and organ trafficking. Stop sucking honey while ripping off others and stick your back to the cold prison floor. If you resist, you’ll get your ass beat, so line up nicely and come out.”