You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 330

Although he paused for a moment at my words, upon reflection, his reaction could mean two things.

One, he wants to save his mother but also desires to enjoy a prosperous life as Go Sangjun’s son.

The other, he aims to remain a trustworthy son to Go Sangjun and take revenge on him.

I hope it’s the latter, but even if it’s the former, I can’t blame him.

Go Sangjun may not be a proper father, but he provides enough financial support, so if Chan-young remains an obedient son, he won’t have to worry about making a living for the rest of his life.

If his mother suddenly turns against his father, he might not enjoy the economic freedom he has been enjoying, so he wouldn’t like that.

So, he might try to persuade his mother, or he might want to stay in his father’s shadow even if he has to turn against his mother.

“I’m going to take everything from Go Sangjun. Everything that should go to his other children.”

Fortunately, Kim Chan-young’s true intentions were the latter.

“It will be a very difficult path.”

“I have to bear it. If I hire you as my lawyer, my mother and Go Sangjun will cross a point of no return. Then I will naturally be abandoned. I don’t care about the money. My mother has assets, and I earn enough to live on. But… then nothing will be resolved. I can’t get back the years I’ve suffered just because I had that kind of man as my father.”

He once said that his very existence was a wound to the children of Go Sangjun’s legal wife, so he was born with an original sin.

I don’t know who came first to Go Sangjun, his legal wife or Kim Hwa-young.

But Kim Hwa-young is young, so I assume she was Go Sangjun’s mistress after he was already married.

Simply put, both Go Sangjun, who had an affair while having a family, and Kim Hwa-young, the other woman, are equally at fault.

However, Kim Chan-young is different.

People cannot choose their parents at birth, and Kim Chan-young was born as the child of a mistress.

Besides, his resentment towards Go Sangjun isn’t simply because he was born from an affair.

He said that his mother had to live in hiding because of Go Sangjun.

I guess Go Sangjun demanded that she retire from the entertainment industry.

After that, it’s natural.

She developed a mental illness because Go Sangjun lives as the head of another family and is seen that way publicly, while she can’t even reveal that she has a husband or a child, let alone appear in public.

The gap between the ideal and reality must have tormented her, and she naturally clung to Go Sangjun to maintain her position as his mistress.

Perhaps Go Sangjun is using that obsession to keep her from leaving his side and making unnecessary revelations.

Kim Hwa-young is paying for the sin of coveting the head of another family through her current painful life.

Only Kim Chan-young is living a painful life, suffering without reason.

“Go Sangjun cherishes me quite a bit. Since the age gap between Go Yoon-sung and me isn’t that big, he compared us a lot. Especially when Go Yoon-sung went to jail because of you, he often said I was a waste. If I had been born as his wife’s child, he would have given Wooshin [likely referring to a company or position] to me.”

Kim Chan-young scoffed and said.

“When I was young, he often said he was lucky to have a son like me, who was mature and precocious… It’s funny. Did I want to be mature? I had no choice but to become precocious because I had to protect my mother. Of course, you might see my mother as just a mistress, but… she’s my mother. This is my mother. Just because she’s a mistress, just because she hurt someone, she shouldn’t have to bear a crime she didn’t commit.”

Kim Chan-young is right.

No one should pay for a crime they didn’t commit.

I think that applies to Go Sangjun as well.

Anyway, Go Sangjun has so many sins that he would have to be reincarnated several times to pay for them all.

“And damn… this might not even be a scratch to those bastards. They’re all living waiting for Go Sangjun to die. Even if Go Sangjun dies, I won’t officially inherit any of his wealth… So, yes?”

Kim Chan-young seemed impatient.

He wanted to hear from me that Kim Hwa-young was a one-sided victim in this case.

And he wanted to be acknowledged that his attitude of protecting his mother was not wrong.

He had a clear answer he wanted from me, and he was looking at me with trembling eyes because I wasn’t answering quickly.

“Just because your mother committed adultery doesn’t mean she should be punished for a murder she didn’t commit. Adultery should be applied to your mother. Of course, Go Sangjun too.”

If we hold out a few more years, the adultery law will be abolished, but it is still in effect now.

It’s legally a crime, so I can’t say it’s not a crime.

“But adultery is a crime that requires a complaint from the victim, so it doesn’t apply. The reason I’m saying this is that if your mother has to be punished, it should be legally. Did Go Sangjun tell your mother to retire from the entertainment industry?”

“Yes.”

“Did he make her live in hiding?”

“…Yes.”

“Did he not allow her to say you were his child anywhere?”

“…Yes. He did. I’m not even legally related to my mother. I’m my uncle’s child…”

Kim Chan-young covered his reddened eyes with his palms.

The voice I heard on the phone earlier, as if choked with tears, flowed out desperately.

“The pain you’ve suffered so far is a collaboration between Go Sangjun and your mother. Of course, Go Sangjun accounts for a much higher percentage. But if you want to forgive your mother and not forgive Go Sangjun, then do so.”

“……”

“I don’t want to consider the position of Go Sangjun’s children who suffered because of you and your mother. I can’t give you absolution, but even if I could, I don’t think I should give absolution for Go Sangjun because I can’t make a rational judgment about him.”

I want Go Sangjun to wander through hell miserably.

It is often said that democracy is a flower that grows by drinking blood.

I think Go Sangjun and Wooshin are monsters that grew by drinking blood.

People say I am objective and rational, but I am also someone who cannot be so about Wooshin.

“If you want any answer from me, this is my answer. I thought you might want to know what I think as a lawyer, so I answered. If you don’t mind a lawyer who doesn’t think Kim Hwa-young is a flawless victim, I’ll take the case.”

Kim Chan-young jumped up and walked towards the window.

With the curtains drawn, he was lost in thought, taking in the night view for a while.

If he were a complete stranger, I wouldn’t have bothered to say my thoughts at length.

However, I felt sorry for involving him since he was a student.

Even though he approached me first, I was the one who showed him that there were people who wanted to take down Wooshin.

During the Myunghwa Pharmaceutical case, he came to me as an insider, but he wouldn’t have been able to get involved if it weren’t for me.

No one would have believed that he had an uncle who was an insider at Myunghwa Pharmaceutical when he was just a student.

If it weren’t for my instigation, he would have appeared with Wooshin’s internal corruption documents in his thirties.

If I take the case, as long as Kim Chan-young’s will is firm, he will have to act as if he is at odds with his father in front of his father and secretly take care of his mother from behind.

Go Sangjun is not the kind of person who would embrace even his mistress if she opposes him.

That hard life will continue until Go Sangjun collapses or Kim Chan-young gets tired of that life and gives up.

I feel like I might be the one who made him live such a difficult life.

“……Please do that.”

After a long time, Kim Chan-young came back to me and said.

“Please take my case. And please, save my mother. I beg you.”

Kim Chan-young bowed deeply.

“If I had come to you earlier, would it have been proven by now that my mother is innocent?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thoroughly reviewed the case yet, so there’s no guarantee that I would win just because I took it a few days earlier. Especially since I don’t know what the prosecution has. Also, I can’t be sure if Go Sangjun really set a trap to get rid of your mother or if he’s really trying to save her. But if I put together what I know, it seems like there won’t be enough evidence. There was no evidence presented at the first trial, right?”

“Yes, there wasn’t until then.”

Of course, this applies under the assumption that Go Sangjun didn’t deliberately drive Kim Chan-young’s mother to her death.

If the prosecution secures someone’s testimony or something comes out of the autopsy, there’s no telling what will happen.

Anyway, Kim Hwa-young was the only one in that house at the estimated time of the housekeeper’s death.

I don’t know anything other than the outline, so there’s nothing I can say right now.

“If I take the case, Kangbyun and Secretary Oh will also be involved, so I have to share everything about your mother and Go Sangjun’s relationship. Is that okay?”

“Of course. Haha, it’s funny to say this, but when that happened to my mother, you were the first lawyer I thought of. Of course, you were already going through a hard time because of Go Sangjun… You don’t resent me for being the blood of the man who made you that way, do you?”

“I don’t.”

This case may be somewhat difficult for me.

Because I, as a lawyer, have a dislike for Go Sangjun, there is a possibility that I will not be able to judge the situation objectively.

Listening to Kim Chan-young now, it seems highly likely that Go Sangjun is trying to get rid of Kim Hwa-young, but that may not be the case.

Maybe Go Sangjun really wants to save Kim Hwa-young, and so he is diligently looking for the real culprit who killed the housekeeper, as he claims.

The culprit may not be someone who received Go Sangjun’s instructions, but someone who really had a bad relationship with the housekeeper.

And in the worst-case scenario, Kim Hwa-young might be the culprit.

Kim Chan-young may believe his mother’s words, but I, as a third party, have to consider all possibilities.

This is something that will be resolved when I meet Kim Hwa-young in person.

Anyway, I need to understand the situation objectively….

All of our office members hate Wooshin, so that’s a problem in itself.

“Even after you were cleared of the false charges, I thought you were the only lawyer I could trust right away. But I was worried about contacting you because it was all Go Sangjun’s fault that you ended up like that… In the meantime, your number seemed to have changed, and the office number said it was a non-existent number. I thought about contacting Reporter Choi, but I hesitated. So… I decided to trust Go Sangjun once and waited, believing that he had recruited the second-in-command of Taekwang [likely a powerful company or organization].”

Kim Chan-young smiled bitterly.

“I’m funny, right? Still, he’s the person my mother loved, and damn, they love each other, so I thought I’d trust him once…”

I understand.

No matter how much he resents Go Sangjun, he wanted to think that even if he wasn’t a good father to him, he would still be good to his mother.

Isn’t that what the relationship between parents and children is like?

“After the trial, I felt like I had been hit. Oh, no. Go Sangjun has no intention of saving my mother… So I came to you shamelessly. So, please understand. I beg you.”

“You don’t have to beg, I understand.”

In fact, I should be begging him to let me take the case.

“You can contact me at the number I called you from earlier, and please ask the people in the office to be especially careful about security. Go Sangjun might be watching.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you. Then I’ll really go.”

Kim Chan-young bowed and left the room with his bag.

Only after he left did I relax and lean deeply into the sofa.

My fingertips had been trembling slightly since earlier.

Is it because I encountered the same case as me?

The anxiety that seemed to shake from my stomach to my lungs did not subside easily.

I put my hand in my pocket, took out a small packet of medicine, and poured it into my mouth.

I opened the bottled water provided as an amenity, swallowed the pills, and waited for the medicine to take effect.

“……”

Having a mental illness is not a fault or a flaw.

But it’s definitely a bitch.