You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 306

Blood dripped and pooled on the floor.

Kang Min-jae frowned, but he didn’t release his grip on the blade.

The harder the man pushed, the more the blade dug into the already torn flesh, but Kang Min-jae didn’t loosen his hold.

If he let go, the meter reader would die.

“…What.”

The man looked at Kang Min-jae, puzzled.

He had clearly stabbed the meter reader with the knife.

And in a spot that would be fatal.

But the knife hadn’t pierced the meter reader’s body.

Because Kang Min-jae had grabbed the blade with his bare hands.

“Are you afraid he’s going to spill everything? Is that why you came to kill him to shut him up?”

Kang Min-jae gritted his teeth against the pain.

The man tried to yank the knife free, but Kang Min-jae stubbornly held on.

Blood seeped through the lines of his palm, streaming from every gap.

If he let go, the man would overpower him and stab the meter reader.

Even if he somehow managed to resist, he wouldn’t be able to stop the man from finding an opening to strike.

But the man didn’t seem willing to drop the knife.

He had lost his gun, had no other weapons, and was alone in enemy territory, not in good shape.

He couldn’t abandon his only weapon at a moment like this.

“…”

The man didn’t answer.

Instead, he kept trying to wrench the knife from Kang Min-jae’s hand.

Swish!

In a brief moment when Kang Min-jae’s strength wavered, the blade slipped.

A chillingly cold and sharp sensation bit into his skin where it met the blade.

Goosebumps erupted all over his body, and his hair stood on end.

The pain followed.

It felt like his fingers were burning, scorched by fire.

Barely able to move, the man tried to shove Kang Min-jae, who was blocking the meter reader, aside.

But Kang Min-jae threw himself at the man.

Even if his fighting skills weren’t exceptional, he was tall and solidly built.

When the man dropped the knife and stumbled, Kang Min-jae seized the opportunity to climb on top of him.

He wanted to throw a punch, but his bleeding right hand wouldn’t cooperate, and a left-handed punch wouldn’t do enough damage.

Instead, Kang Min-jae pinned the man’s shoulder to the ground and shouted.

“What the fuck! Why are you going this far!”

He had planned all this, intending to trap the man from the start.

Because these were the kind of guys you couldn’t catch any other way.

He had already figured out that the man’s ultimate goal wasn’t just to retrieve the meter reader.

They were trying to kill him from the beginning.

It was easier than taking him alive, and wasn’t it an opportunity to prove to Wooshin how suitable he was for subcontracting by directly eliminating his subordinate?

Above all, it was the most certain method.

A sure way to prevent the meter reader from opening his mouth, and even if he did, to prevent any further leaks of information.

All of that was factored into his calculations.

But still, he couldn’t look at this situation calmly.

It all felt so senseless.

The man’s choice, his actions, all of it.

“Do you have to live doing this kind of thing? Killing people? Even killing your own colleagues?! Is there a reason to live like this, even killing such a young kid?!”

Kang Min-jae shouted, but the man didn’t even pretend to listen; his expression remained blank, like a machine.

Instead of answering, he used his core strength to unbalance Kang Min-jae and throw him to the side.

He quickly grabbed the dropped knife and lunged towards the meter reader.

The meter reader, handcuffed with both hands and feet, the cuffs secured to the floor, couldn’t move and could only stare blankly as the man raised the knife.

Then,

Clang!

A strange sound rang out.

And at the same time, the man collapsed.

“Hey! What the fuck is this! Are you okay? Huh?”

“You’re bleeding! A lot!”

Kang Min-jae turned his head urgently at the sudden, familiar voices.

Choi Jong-hyun and Jo Bong-joon stood there, each holding a frying pan, panting.

“Did you hit him with that?”

“Yeah, so?”

It was too big to be called a frying pan; it was more like a wok, but it seemed they had hit him squarely.

His body, already exhausted from the fight with Tae-shik, clearly couldn’t withstand being struck in a vital spot.

It was fortunate at this desperate moment.

But,

“No, why are you guys here? I told you to leave!”

Why were these guys here?

He instinctively questioned them rather than feeling relieved.

“We left. But we came back. If I hadn’t come, you would have been screwed. What do you mean, leave? You wanna die?”

“No, that’s true, but why did you come back!”

“Let’s talk about that later. This bastard seems to be unconscious. Shouldn’t we do something quickly?”

Jo Bong-joon said, tying the fallen man’s hands behind his back.

Hearing those words, Kang Min-jae quickly put the spare handcuffs from the veranda on him, covered his eyes and mouth, and placed him next to the meter reader.

“Uh, what should we do now? Min-jae, you’re bleeding too much, wait. We have to stop the bleeding!”

When Choi Jong-hyun took out a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it tightly around Kang Min-jae’s hand, Kang Min-jae groaned faintly in pain.

“Ugh… It hurts.”

“You need to go to the hospital first!”

“Tae-shik was also stabbed with a knife. Tae-shik also needs to go… No, all of Tae-shik’s employees need to go…”

But if they went to the hospital like this, the medical staff would surely think a mass assault had occurred and report it to the police.

While Kang Min-jae was worrying, Sang-gil’s voice was heard from beyond the veranda.

“Lawyer! Tae-shik *hyung* [older brother/respected male figure] has a secret hospital he goes to! Let’s move there!”

Sang-gil was the first to come to his senses and was looking after the employees among the men sprawled outside.

Of course, there were occasionally Hanlim Corporation guys who tried to get up, groaning, but Sang-gil expertly sent them back to dreamland by hitting the back of their heads with his elbow.

“What about these two bastards? We need to decide quickly. We can’t stay here long.”

“That’s right. Reinforcements might be coming here,”

“They won’t come.”

It was the meter reader who cut off Kang Min-jae’s words.

He said, fixing his gaze on the unconscious ‘Shoulder Buddy’.

“They won’t come. This is all the personnel there is. Wooshin doesn’t help us.”

“…Did you just say Wooshin?”

When Kang Min-jae asked, the meter reader closed his mouth as if he had let something slip.

But there was hope.

It was the first time they had heard the meter reader’s voice, and above all, the fact that the word Wooshin came out of his mouth was a huge step forward.

“Then I’ll move Tae-shik and Sang-gil first, so will Bong-joon move those two guys with Min-jae? Ha, there aren’t many people in good shape, but there are a lot of guys to move. It’s a mess, really.”

Choi Jong-hyun said, approaching Tae-shik, who was leaning against the wall and clutching his stomach.

“Tae-shik, can you hold on a bit?”

“Keuh, yes… But can’t I just not move? Hmph, I’ve found the most painless position right now and I’m staying in that position, but you keep pretending to support me and moving me, so it hurts like hell?”

“You talk too much. Are you going to bleed out and die here? Or go to the hospital.”

“I have to go…”

-Are you there…|-

At that time, a familiar voice was heard from outside the room.

Kang Min-jae momentarily took a defensive stance but soon smiled when he saw who it was.

“Secretary Oh!”

It was Secretary Oh, who came with his hands full of saline solution and bandages.

He opened his mouth, speechless, after seeing the many men sprawled in the room.

But only for a moment.

He soon found Tae-shik bleeding, handed Choi Jong-hyun the bandages and two bottles of saline solution he was carrying, and entered the veranda.

“I came after receiving a call from the lawyer.”

“The lawyer?”

He hadn’t breathed a word to Cha Joo-han about today’s events, so how did he know and send him here?

He would be furious if he knew.

He started to worry more about that than his sore hand.

“Don’t worry. The lawyer doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“Then how did you send Secretary Oh here?”

“I got a call, and he asked me what was going on, saying that Lawyer Kang seemed to be doing something physical.”

Secretary Oh sat in front of Kang Min-jae and unwrapped the handkerchief from his blood-soaked hand.

“Oh my, you’re hurt so badly. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Anyway, so?”

“It’s going to hurt a bit.”

“Aaaagh!”

Kang Min-jae screamed, shaking his feet wildly in the air as Secretary Oh poured saline solution on his hand.

“I need to stitch this up.”

“So, did you tell him?”

“I pretended not to know. So I said you must be at home, without saying that Lawyer Kang didn’t include me because I’m old.”

It was true that he had told him not to come today because he was worried, but he didn’t know he had taken it so deeply to heart.

Kang Min-jae made an embarrassed expression, and Secretary Oh smiled and replied.

“He said he knew I was lying, even if he didn’t know what it was, so he told me to go and help if I knew where it was. He said that if Lawyer Kang caused an accident, he had to finish it properly. So I called Lawyer Kang, but he didn’t answer, but Choi the reporter did.”

Secretary Oh answered, wrapping a clean bandage around the affected area.

“Choi the reporter said he thought we would need medicine, so I bought it. But I didn’t know it would be such a mess. You said you were confident you wouldn’t get hurt? But you got hurt like this? Looking at the wound, it looks like you grabbed the knife with your hand. I really didn’t want to say this, but are you crazy, Lawyer?”

As he tied the bandage, Kang Min-jae withdrew his hand and smiled awkwardly.

When he first established this plan, only Secretary Oh opposed it.

First, it was too dangerous; second, it could cause problems later; and third, Cha Joo-han wouldn’t stand still.

They were all right, but there was no more certain way than this.

Even if they couldn’t get a statement from the meter reader or ‘Shoulder Buddy’, it was meaningless to find evidence and bring it to the police if they couldn’t catch ‘Shoulder Buddy’.

The meter reader and ‘Shoulder Buddy’ were all people who had to be judged in the realm of law, and they were all the real culprits who would prove Cha Joo-han’s innocence.

Above all, wasn’t it because he had prevented the meter reader from being stabbed that he was able to see him open his mouth little by little like this?

If he had stood by and watched the meter reader die and only thought about catching ‘Shoulder Buddy’, he wouldn’t have dreamed of the meter reader’s statement.

He had come this far with the single-minded determination to clear Cha Joo-han’s name.

Kang Min-jae didn’t want to give up anything.

He didn’t want to make the injuries of Tae-shik and his family, who had trusted him for this, in vain.

Rather, he felt resentful and incompetent for being such a scholar who could only watch from inside the veranda without being able to fight together, but wasn’t this his share?

“Why did you grab the knife with your hand? Can you move your hand? What if you can’t use your hand like this!”

“It hurts so I can’t move it well… I’ll try to move it once. Ugh, ugh.”

Kang Min-jae frowned as if trying to move his hand.

The entire forearm trembled, but not even a fingertip moved.

“You’re not moving it?!”

Secretary Oh turned pale and jumped up.

“Actually, I’m moving it.”

When Kang Min-jae bent the tips of his index finger and thumb, Secretary Oh sighed, touching his forehead.

“Haa… If you were really my child, I would have hit you on the head.”

“I’m really okay, Secretary. I just need to heal the wound. That bastard was trying to stab the meter reader, so should I have just let him?”

If the meter reader really died, and if ‘Shoulder Buddy’, who had achieved his purpose, disappeared or committed suicide, everything would be in vain.

The meter reader and ‘Shoulder Buddy’ are all those who must be judged in the realm of law, and they are all the real criminals who will prove Cha Joo-han’s innocence.

Above all, wasn’t it because he had prevented the meter reader from being stabbed that he was able to see him open his mouth little by little like this?

If he had stood by and watched the meter reader die and only thought about catching ‘Shoulder Buddy’, he wouldn’t have dreamed of the meter reader’s statement.

He had come this far with the single-minded determination to clear Cha Joo-han’s name.

Kang Min-jae didn’t want to give up anything.

He didn’t want to make the injuries of Tae-shik and his family, who had trusted him for this, in vain.

Rather, he felt resentful and incompetent for being such a scholar who could only watch from inside the veranda without being able to fight together, but wasn’t this his share?

“Let’s talk about it later. Tae-shik said there’s a place he’s scouted, so let’s move those two bastards there and the rest to that secret hospital, Secretary.”

Choi Jong-hyun shouted, dusting off his hands after finishing Tae-shik’s first aid.

Then Kang Min-jae shook his head.

“No. Then who will watch those two? First, me and Secretary together…”

“It’s okay.”

Sang-gil, who was helping his colleagues into the car one by one, said, raising a sprawled employee.

“Among our kids, there are some who ate something wrong yesterday and had diarrhea in the morning. They contacted me saying they were all better, so I told them to come over here. Lawyer, you go to the hospital too. Wouldn’t it be okay if the secretary and these broadcasting *hyung* [older brother/respected male figure] go here?”

It was a moment when Sang-gil’s leadership shone.