You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 305

“Attorney Cha, are you out here trying to smoke again today?”

I turned my head at Chief Kang’s voice from behind.

He was approaching me with a tray holding two teacups.

I thought he would be busy with the Justice and Freedom Party after Lee Se-hwa’s election was confirmed, but other than spending about an hour in Kang Kwan-woong’s study, he was no different from usual.

It seemed he still remembered what I said when Kang Min-jae suddenly ran out to Hwagun Reservoir at night, and he even had time to tease me playfully.

“Not today.”

I replied briefly.

Chief Kang chuckled and placed a teacup in front of me.

“Min-jae is late today. It’s already dawn. I thought he would watch the election coverage, but he’s not home. Representative Lee Se-hwa, or should I call her President-elect Lee Se-hwa now? Anyway, it seems so certain that she’ll be elected that he’s just not watching.”

“Or he might be watching it somewhere else.”

It was already dawn, just before sunrise.

I had been watching television for hours.

It was a tedious broadcast filled with experts’ opinions on what to expect and what to worry about from Lee Se-hwa’s government, but I still listened carefully.

The outcome of this presidential election was a pretty important factor for me.

It’s now seven years before 2018, when I lived. Back then, I struggled to catch Wooshin without knowing anything, and that’s when I saw meaningful results. Knowing what I know now, I expect things to progress a little faster than then.

So, the time to start moving in earnest to put the Wooshin owner family in jail will probably still be when Lee Se-hwa is the head of the executive branch.

Even if obstacles arise and it’s not possible by then, I have to hurry and adjust to that timeline.

I don’t know what kind of steps Lee Se-hwa will take after becoming president, but anyway, aren’t we on friendly terms?

More than anything, judging from our previous conversation, she didn’t seem to want to be swayed by the chaebols [large family-owned conglomerates, often wielding significant economic and political power].

Besides, isn’t she friendly with the Hanyoung Group, which is in competition with the Wooshin Group?

To take advantage of all the helpful factors, I can’t miss this administration.

If I miss this administration, even if the Justice and Freedom Party succeeds in re-election, I don’t know if the new president will be on friendly terms with me.

There are many cases where even within the same party, relationships are bad.

Even the Minwoo Party was divided into Lee Jung-chan’s faction and Kang Jong-myung’s faction, and they fought.

Lee Se-hwa had already publicly announced to her aides that she would put me in the election camp, so if I miss the opportunity, there might be disadvantages that didn’t exist before.

“You seem to be deep in thought.”

“Chief Kang, you seem to say that to me often.”

“Because you often look like it. What were you thinking about today? Finally worried about Min-jae?”

“That’s not it.”

“Haa, but I’m a little worried today. It’s the first time he’s been out until this hour without saying where he was going.”

“Even during his wild days?”

“No, except for then.”

Chief Kang fiddled with his phone.

He wanted to call Kang Min-jae, but he seemed to be holding back because he was afraid of being treated like a nag.

I placed my hand on Chief Kang’s phone.

“I’ll call him. He’s never called me a nag.”

The time from when Lee Se-hwa is elected president until she retires is the golden time to put the Koh family, including Koh Sang-joon, in jail.

Even if I start working on it right now, it’s not enough, so I can’t waste time hiding here like this.

Right now, all I can do here is keep suggesting the direction of the investigation to them, and to suggest that direction, I need information.

But Kang Min-jae hasn’t shared any information with me for the past few days.

What can I do when I don’t know anything?

What’s certain is that he’s not out playing around right now, so it seems like he’s caught a clue and is out investigating.

If he’s not telling me because he’s worried I’ll be tormented by false hope, I don’t care, I have to hear it now, even if I have to force him.

I called Kang Min-jae.

-The customer is not answering the phone…

But even after the ringing tone continued for nearly a minute, he didn’t answer.

It’s time to sleep, but if that’s the case, he would have come in and be sleeping.

Where the hell is he and what is he doing?

“He’s not answering?”

“That’s right.”

I handed the phone back to Chief Kang, and just in case he was deliberately avoiding Chief Kang’s calls, I called him again with a burner phone.

-The customer is not…

The result was the same.

If I called around this time, he would have answered even if he was sleeping because it would be noisy.

Could something be wrong?

I hesitated for a moment and then called Choi Jong-hyun.

The connection tone continued for a long time again.

Could Choi Jong-hyun be doing something with Jo Bong-joon?

-Oh, Attorney Cha. Are you still awake? Or are you already up? I thought you wouldn’t be asleep because you were watching the election coverage.

“Reporter Choi.”

Just as I was suspecting, Choi Jong-hyun answered the phone.

He seemed to have answered the phone somewhat urgently, and his voice was awkward.

-What’s wrong, why?

“I have something to ask you.”

-What is it?

“Are you with Attorney Kang right now?”

-Min-jae?

He asked back once, then was silent for a moment.

But I could hear someone whispering in a voice too small to understand.

It was definitely Kang Min-jae or Jo Bong-joon.

“Reporter Choi.”

-Ah, I’m not with Min-jae. Why?

This makes me want to suspect him.

“You are with him.”

-No. To be exact, I’m not with him.

“To be exact, you say?”

-Haa, damn it… So, I mean, Min-jae and I aren’t in the same space right now. Min-jae is with Tae-shik right now.”

“Why Tae-shik?”

-They have something to do together…

“It must be something physical.”

To have something to do with Tae-shik, isn’t it obvious?

If he had simply gone to hear about the investigation he had entrusted, he wouldn’t have said ‘they have something to do together.’

Just saying that he went to request an investigation or went to receive a report would have been enough to explain Kang Min-jae’s current situation to me without telling me.

But if they’re doing something together, there’s a high probability that it’s something physical.

Like when they went to kidnap the meter reader.

“What’s going on right now?”

-We don’t really know. We just came to see if there’s anything to write about on the broadcast…

“You know nothing.”

-…

They’re not the kind of people who would just follow along if Kang Min-jae told them to go without telling them anything.

I felt annoyed.

“I know you want to be considerate of me. But this is my job, and it’s something I need to know. I’m the one who wants to clear my name the most. Do you think I’d get in the way?”

-Yeah.

“…What did you just say?”

-I said you might get in the way. I’ll contact you later. We’re busy too. I’m hanging up!

With those words, the phone hung up.

I put down the phone with the screen off and crossed my arms.

It seems certain that he’s doing something to clear my name, but he thinks I might get in the way.

“What’s wrong?”

Chief Kang, who had confirmed that my expression was not good, asked worriedly.

If it’s something I might get in the way of, it’s usually something that’s considered reckless or has a high probability of failure.

I always think about the possibility of failure, and I usually proceed only when there is a overwhelmingly high chance of success.

But I don’t always oppose it just because there’s a high chance of failure.

If the return value isn’t high, it doesn’t matter if I fail.

So, what Kang Min-jae is doing with Tae-shik has a high probability of failure, and the return value when it fails is also high.

I called Choi Jong-hyun again, but he didn’t answer, and neither did Jo Bong-joon.

“Attorney Kang seems to be doing something, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Min-jae is?”

Kang Min-jae, what the hell are you doing?

* * *

‘Shoulder to Shoulder’ looked down at Tae-shik, who had fallen to the floor, pressing his hand tightly against his side where blood was gushing out.

He looked completely different from before when he was showing signs of difficulty breathing.

Sang-gil, who had stopped looking for rope after hearing Kang Min-jae’s scream-like shout and Tae-shik’s groan, jumped up.

“Hyungnim! [Term of respect for an older male]”

The first thing he saw was Tae-shik’s white shirt stained with blood.

As Sang-gil tried to run to Tae-shik, Tae-shik grabbed his wound and pointed in the direction of the veranda, shouting.

“You idiot! Look over there, cough, look over there!”

The man was already approaching the veranda, and Kang Min-jae, who had realized that Tae-shik had been stabbed and was about to come out of the veranda to go to him, also stopped walking.

The man seemed to be thinking of going into the veranda and stabbing the meter reader to death directly with a knife.

Kang Min-jae, who was inside the veranda, quickly looked around and brought an old burlap sack and wedged it into the door frame.

Since there was no lock inside due to the structure of the veranda, it was the best he could do now.

But the bulletproof glass was heavily cracked from being shot, and it seemed like he could break it as much as he wanted if he tried to break the glass.

It was a touch-and-go situation.

It would be too late to run.

Sang-gil stared at the gun in his hand for a moment.

It seemed like he could shoot, but was he allowed to shoot?

He had been in countless fights like this, but he had never shot a gun before.

Even Sang-gil had received a military exemption due to his dark history of going to juvenile detention, so he had never handled a firearm other than the ones in the arcade.

“Damn it, I don’t know!”

Sang-gil decided to try to do what the man had done earlier.

The man must have thought that breaking the old burlap sack would be faster than breaking the glass, so he roughly repeated pushing the veranda door.

Fortunately, he wasn’t moving his legs because he was putting in the effort, so it didn’t seem difficult to aim.

Sang-gil aimed the gun at the man’s leg and cocked it in that state.

Then he closed his eyes tightly and pulled the trigger.

Click! Click, click, click!

“Damn it, there are no bullets!”

At the same time as Sang-gil’s shout, the burlap sack that Kang Min-jae had hung on the door frame broke with a cracking sound.

The door opened easily, and the man quickly entered the veranda with his knife raised.

Hoping to ensure the safety of the meter reader, Kang Min-jae stood in front of the meter reader.

However, the man was about to stab even Kang Min-jae, the grandson of the former president, if he got in the way.

“Damn it, Attorney Kang! Attorney Kang, just come this way! It’s dangerous!”

Sang-gil shouted as he threw away the gun and ran.

He had struggled to secure the meter reader, but that didn’t mean Kang Min-jae could get hurt!

Damn it, in this case, before that bastard hurts Kang Min-jae, he should just cover that bastard from behind…

“Ugh!”

“Where are you going, you bastard…”

But one of the Hanlim Corporation guys who had fallen on the way tenaciously grabbed Sang-gil’s ankle and knocked him over.

“Attorney Kang!”

At that time, Tae-shik shouted like a wailing beast.

Tae-shik, who was holding his bleeding stomach, seemed to be in a panic, and Sang-gil, who was unable to move because his ankle was caught, reflexively looked at Kang Min-jae in response to Tae-shik’s reaction.

“Attorney Kang!”

The man raised his knife in the air, and a sharp pain pierced Kang Min-jae’s skin.