The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 241

Unaware that his coat collar was undone, Moon Seokil silently listened to his colleagues discussing the shadow.

‘Doesn’t he seem clueless?’

‘He does. He never seemed to notice anything back then either,’

Kim Inrang and Jeong Sangtae, arms crossed, wore serious expressions.

Kang Heonchang grumbled,

‘Wow, you guys had something like that happen and didn’t say anything?’

‘You didn’t say anything either, you punk. They say you die if you talk about it, do you have the guts to blabber about it with your life on the line?’ Kim Inrang retorted, and everyone nodded heavily.

Nothing is more precious than life.

Having witnessed a supernatural phenomenon firsthand, they couldn’t exactly test whether talking about it would lead to death or not.

‘Let’s go.’

The group was about to follow Moon Seokil towards Jo Seulchan’s house when…

‘Stop!’

Yes, sir.

The group froze in place.

‘Ah, it’s cold, but please wait there for a moment.’

Jinhyuk, retracting his outstretched arm, awkwardly stepped inside the gate.

The difference from the morning was immediately apparent.

‘Footprints.’

It was the trace of someone entering and leaving through the gate. Though not clear due to the thin layer of snow, it was still visible to the naked eye.

‘Did someone come after I left for the hospital?’

He looked back.

They were cleverly mixed with the footprints of the paramedics and Jinhyuk, making them impossible to distinguish at a glance.

A creepy situation that would normally make one’s skin crawl, but Jinhyuk’s eyes blazed with fire.

‘It’s not a burglar.’

The footprints led somewhere other than the rooms.

He followed the tracks in the snow.

The space between the wall of the kitchen area and the temporary outer wall made of slate.

The wavy slate was made using cement and asbestos, making it cost-effective and efficient. That was probably why Jo Seulchan had used slate to create a partition to block the drafts, like the ‘Udegi’ [a windbreak structure] in Ulleungdo.

There was a briquette boiler there.

Click-.

It was daytime, but it was dark, so he turned on the incandescent light.

Jinhyuk’s eyes narrowed with doubt as he checked the briquette boiler.

‘This isn’t all burned?’

The bottom part was burned and discolored like sand, but a briquette on top was left black and carelessly placed, and next to it, a completely ashed briquette lay broken.

There was no way the frugal Jo Seulchan would waste like this.

Using a short iron rod, he opened the briquette inlet of the boiler.

Whoosh-. A damp, acrid smell of fire rose up.

There was no warmth at all, indicating it had gone out a while ago.

He took out the briquette from the top with the briquette tongs, and then the one in the middle.

The top briquette was intact, and the middle one was about 1/3 burned.

Checking the bottom one, most of it had burned and turned to ash.

‘Did they take out a good briquette and put in a wet one…?’

Reasoning must be based on facts.

Jinhyuk, lacking knowledge about briquettes, realized he needed an advisor.

He called Moon Seokil, who was waiting outside.

‘Could you send someone who knows about briquette heating? And could the other uncles check if there are any strange footprints under their eyes?’

– Just a moment.

The sound of murmuring voices could be heard.

– I’ll send Inrang. But footprints, what are you trying to find?

‘Traces of intrusion.’

Kim Inrang, who quickly arrived at the boiler, grabbed his chin.

‘Hmm-. The air vents are important for briquettes.’

Kim Inrang, squatting down, carefully examined the lower front.

‘They’re almost all open. That means it’s supposed to burn fast, right? Usually, you open them wide when you first light it, and then adjust them after a while-.’

Unhelpful words flowed out, but he waited patiently.

Because you never know when an important clue might appear.

‘You can’t know who adjusted the air vents or when, but it wasn’t done by the person living here. On a day like yesterday, the basic thing is to set it to less than half so that the briquette fire lasts until morning.’

‘How about this?’

Jinhyuk pointed to the two briquettes scattered on the floor.

‘What time does Seulchan usually go to bed?’

‘He’d go to bed early because of his grandmother.’

‘It’s not certain, so just keep it in mind. The burning speed of briquettes varies depending on the environment.’

Jinhyuk nodded with a serious face.

Even if it’s not certain, he knew how important the opinion of someone who knows better is.

‘Let’s see. It was cold yesterday, so if we assume the air vents were two-thirds open, and roughly eight hours for two briquettes… no, we can say ten hours. Since the one on top burned only this much…’

Kim Inrang, frowning, counted on his fingers and moved his lips.

He seemed to be calculating the time.

‘Around six in the morning?’

‘Are you saying they changed it then?’

‘That’s what it would have been like when I lived in Seoul. My mother was quite the miser.’

Ah, Kim Inrang had said that he lived alone with his mother in a place that was no different from a rural village on the outskirts of Seoul. Now, he was living in the house that Park Daesoon had abandoned, after repairing it.

‘Look at this. It’s dry because of the fire, but it’s heavy and like this, like this-.’

As Kim Inrang touched the briquette with his gloved hand, pieces fell off like a crumbly castella [a type of sponge cake]. It was the briquette that was in the top of the boiler.

‘This means it dried quickly because of the heat. Briquettes need to be naturally dried to be used as fuel. If you burn something like this right away, you get a lot of briquette gas. And the briquette fire goes out quickly.’

It matched what the doctor at the medical center had said.

It seemed like he had inhaled a lethal dose in a short time.

‘It can only be seen as someone did it on purpose…’

Unless it was a suicide attempt, like the doctor said.

You can’t know what’s in a person’s heart, but Jinhyuk wanted to believe that Jo Seulchan wasn’t that kind of friend.

A guy who thinks so much of his grandmother, and studies design, machinery, and architecture until he falls asleep, would take his own life?

It’s more realistic to say that Janggun stopped eating raw fish.

‘I think so too…’

Kim Inrang muttered in agreement, looking up.

‘Jinhyuk, look at this.’

Following Kim Inrang’s finger, he saw the flue.

It was a flue that looked like it had been recently worked on, with silver tape neatly wrapped around it. It was a trace of Jo Seulchan working on it while preparing for winter.

‘Isn’t it strange?’

‘Yes…’

It’s called a ‘bongchang’ [a small, sealed window].

A window made by drilling a hole in the wall and sealing it with paper from the inside.

It was either used as a flue for a stove inside before the boiler was installed and then blocked, or it was a window used for lighting purposes from the beginning.

That wasn’t important.

‘It’s very strange.’

Jinhyuk muttered in an emotionless voice.

The boiler flue was going through the bongchang and into the interior.

*

‘Hah…’

To calm his heart, which was about to beat uncontrollably, he held his breath for a moment.

Beyond the hole in the slate outer wall where the flue used to be, the blue sky was visible, as if it had never snowed. Was the freedom drawn in prison this faint? It was a color that gave him a breath of fresh air.

‘Jinhyuk, can you come here?’

‘Yes.’

He turned the corner and headed to where Kim Inrang was.

Kim Inrang was already pointing out suspicious things one by one, like a detective.

‘Hey…, this…’

Kim Inrang was holding a clump of blue tape.

‘It’s new. Someone left it behind. And here, the paint on the tape. It came off this door.’

It meant that blue tape had been applied to the side door facing the backyard.

‘I thought it was to keep out the drafts? But looking at it again, it’s new. It hasn’t been on for long.’

It was something that could have been dismissed as trash on the floor, but Kim Inrang had found it without missing it.

Jinhyuk had to admit that insight from experience was as important as intelligence. If he had tried to solve it alone, he would have filled his head with countless question marks.

‘Come here.’

He followed Kim Inrang to where there was a small window.

‘They didn’t remove it here.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Probably for the same reason as the flue.’

While he was trying to grasp the meaning of those words, Kim Inrang shrugged.

‘They must have been in a hurry. They only dealt with what was visible.’

‘Ah…’

It meant that they hadn’t noticed the flue and the window, which were much higher than a person’s height. They must have had a narrow field of vision because they were in a hurry.

Whoever did it, the intention behind applying the tape was obvious.

‘There wouldn’t be any fingerprints, right?’

‘Even if there were, it would be hard to find. And fingerprints are only needed when you hand it over to the police, right?’

That’s right. I said something unnecessary. Jinhyuk, with a blank face, closed his eyes tightly.

It was so hot that it felt like fire would burst out of his eye sockets if he kept them open.

‘If they were going to kill him, would they have needed to do it this way?’

‘Wouldn’t it be to make it look like an accident? They removed the tape they put on that door over there. In my dumb opinion, it doesn’t seem like something they did suddenly. What do you call it… impulsive?’

‘It was planned…?’

‘Yeah. It means it would be a headache if it was revealed as a crime.’

‘Then they came back to remove the traces…’

Jinhyuk, nervously tearing off the blue tape attached to the window and glaring at it, closed his mouth. When he realized that the reason for the footprints in the yard was to remove evidence, the human disgust that he had barely erased from his mind began to rear its head.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I need to look outside.’

He crossed the yard and went out the gate.

Moon Seokil, who was digging through the snow in the field to find the footprints Jinhyuk had requested, approached.

‘There are footprints in the field, but-.’

‘They’re probably mine.’

‘Yeah.’

He examined the fence.

He ran his hand over the rough cement bricks, glaring at them like an enemy.

When he turned the corner and took two steps, he saw the dirt-stained fence.

It was where someone had stepped to climb over the fence.

Based on the dirt-stained area, he slowly turned his body towards the field.

He moved his gaze and drew a straight line starting from his toes.

At the end of that line, he met the field bank, and on it, the illusion of the early morning spread like a heat haze.

‘It was those bastards?’

There were two of them.

Because he hadn’t suspected a murder attempt at all, he hadn’t thought to suspect them. He had just thought they were residents going to work, as he was crying like a fool while hugging Jo Seulchan.

He squatted down and swept the accumulated snow with his hand.

Moon Seokil, who was watching Jinhyuk, and the others helped Jinhyuk.

It didn’t take long to find the footprints in the field. Who knew that the dirt field in March would be so helpful.

‘Footprints.’

‘Safety shoe prints, right?’

At Jeong Sangtae’s remark, Moon Seokil nodded.

Kang Heonchang, who had spread his hand flat on the ground, added,

‘Hyung, there are two. One is 280, and the other is 275.’

Kim Inrang, who was listening to the conversation, made a ‘pffft’ sound.

‘They’re some good-looking guys?’

Moon Seokil cleared the snow from where Jinhyuk was standing.

His movements were as careful as an archaeologist.

‘One of them waited here.’

‘Jinhyuk, where are you going?’

At Jeong Sangtae’s shout, the group followed Jinhyuk.

Jinhyuk reached the gate and lowered his head until his ear touched the ground.

He thought there would be a protruding footprint among the footprints scattered on the snow.

‘Right, they must have come this way when they came back.’

Kim Inrang, crumpling the clump of blue tape in his hand, gritted his teeth.

‘They were clumsy in their hasty cleanup, but they’re not amateurs.’

‘They mixed it well.’

They had overlapped the footprints with those of the emergency personnel from Se In Medical Center so that it was impossible to tell what was what.

They were either intelligent enough to consider every possibility, or they were used to this kind of thing.

He gave up on his lingering feelings and headed to where the footprints were found.

Recalling the straight line he had drawn in his mind earlier, he walked along it.

He reached the field bank where they had stood and cleared the snow again.

‘It’s difficult this way. There are many other ways.’

‘Yes. I believe you can catch them. But it’s easier to identify them if there’s a lot of evidence.’

Moon Seokil kept his mouth shut.

It was the right thing to say, no matter how many times he said it.

‘For example, cigarette butts…’

Having said that, Jinhyuk held up a cigarette butt that was half-burned.

Moon Seokil squinted.

‘Is there a cigarette like this?’

‘XiLi. It seems to be a Chinese cigarette.’

XiLi.

The name was clearly engraved in red on the filter.

‘They didn’t have a Chinese accent. But it’ll be easier to identify them when we catch them later, right?’

‘Hmm. It’s a good clue.’

Moon Seokil, raising one corner of his mouth, nodded.

There were quite a few people who had come from China living in Taeyang County, but it was rare to find someone who smoked that kind of cigarette.

He stood up, dusted off his hands, and focused everyone’s attention.

‘This is probably the first time I’ve asked the four of you to do something at the same time, right? Those guys…’

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

‘Please catch them.’

‘Okay.’

With a short answer and a nod, Moon Seokil’s jaw tightened.

The look in Jinhyuk’s eyes as he looked at him was similar to Hong Gijun when he was ordering the cleanup of the gangsters.