You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 484

#484

My hunch proved correct.

Immediately after his call with Lim Hyun-il, Choi Jae-hoon vented his emotions in his blog, and some passages strongly suggested organ trafficking.

Lim Hyun-il had instructed Choi Jae-hoon to extract organs from a patient who wasn’t brain-dead, a request Choi Jae-hoon refused.

The diary Choi Jae-hoon left behind seethed with anger towards Lim Hyun-il. Aside from sections where he verified information, the rest was filled with curses and insults directed at Lim Hyun-il.

Therefore, it remained unclear whether Choi Jae-hoon refused due to ethical objections to taking organs from a living person, or out of fear of being abandoned by Jung Ji-min.

Even though he suspected Lim Hyun-il’s involvement in organ trafficking, he only framed it as ‘hurting his pride,’ without explicitly condemning it as immoral.

Furthermore, his question to Jung Ji-min that day—’Do you know what I gave up for you?’—suggested he was deeply conflicted in that operating room after receiving Lim Hyun-il’s order.

However, the diary’s context suggests he didn’t initially consider the surgery an order from the hospital itself.

In other words, he was weighing whether to follow Lim Hyun-il’s instructions and secure a comfortable position in the hospital, or to refuse to kill someone and risk losing Jung Ji-min.

In any case, Lim Hyun-il, observing Choi Jae-hoon’s hesitation and ultimate refusal, didn’t attempt to persuade or pressure him. Instead, he seemed to accept the situation, saying, ‘Then it can’t be helped.’

Reviewing the call records from the 9th, Lim Hyun-il initiated the call to Choi Jae-hoon.

Presumably, he called to gauge any shift in Choi Jae-hoon’s feelings and anticipate his future reaction to the given instructions.

Since Choi Jae-hoon had retorted, ‘How could you ask me to do such a surgery?’, Lim Hyun-il likely concluded, ‘Choi Jae-hoon isn’t going to work out after all.’

Lim Hyun-il would have reported this to the organ trafficking business manager, leading to the decision to eliminate Choi Jae-hoon.

This information can serve as a starting point to raise public awareness about the suspicious circumstances surrounding Choi Jae-hoon’s death.

Heo Min-woo could also leverage this to prompt a serious police investigation into Lim Hyun-il.

Of course, there might be orders to suppress the case along the way.

Clearly, this is beneficial for me.

However, something still bothers me.

‘What happened to the person lying in that operating room back then?’

The thought that the person might be a child from the House of Angels keeps nagging at me.

We’re still monitoring the children at the House of Angels through the university student association, and we haven’t received any reports of anyone going abroad for studies or disappearing.

But wouldn’t it be even more suspicious if they grabbed someone else, not from the House of Angels, and placed them there at a time like this?

If we’re monitoring the House of Angels, and they deliberately diverted our attention, does that imply another group ‘procures’ scapegoats for Woo-shin?

Surely not.

There’s no need to go that far, is there?

After all, new missing persons cases continue to emerge across South Korea.

Since the House of Angels is already under surveillance, they might be quietly kidnapping suitable individuals whenever necessary to divert attention.

I don’t want to think this way, but I’d prefer that scenario.

If I believed another group existed solely for sacrifice, like the House of Angels, I’d abandon the special investigation and everything else, douse Go Sang-joon in oil, and set him ablaze.

‘First, I need to set that aside and consider whether that person could still be alive…’

I stood before the whiteboard, marker in hand.

And I began writing down my thoughts as they surfaced.

The 9th, the date of the diary entry, is three days before the accident.

And now it’s the 22nd, ten days after the gas explosion.

To pinpoint when Lim Hyun-il instructed Choi Jae-hoon to perform the surgery, I need to examine Choi Jae-hoon’s actions leading up to it.

According to Yoon Se-yeon’s information from a resident at Woo-shin Hospital, Choi Jae-hoon had a blind date four days before the accident.

That places the blind date on the 8th.

The 8th was a weekday, and traditionally, blind dates occur in the evening, after work.

Even with a twisted sense of ethics, Choi Jae-hoon wouldn’t have been able to enjoy a blind date while harboring anger towards Lim Hyun-il for essentially ordering him to commit murder under the guise of surgery.

Since he seemed to intensely dislike showing his agitation, the same would apply to his blind date.

Therefore, Lim Hyun-il instructed Choi Jae-hoon to perform the organ extraction sometime between the end of the blind date on the evening of the 8th and the morning of the 9th.

So, where did this happen?

It probably wasn’t Woo-shin Hospital.

Given that the gas explosion occurred only three days after Lim Hyun-il deemed Choi Jae-hoon unsuitable for the organ trafficking business, he would have worried about Choi Jae-hoon leaking information in the meantime.

Besides, the hospital isn’t a place where the lights go out at night; he would have been seen.

Lim Hyun-il likely took Choi Jae-hoon to another location.

Therefore, Choi Jae-hoon likely believed Lim Hyun-il was personally ordering the organ extraction, not acting on behalf of the hospital.

Then, after dismissing Choi Jae-hoon, did Lim Hyun-il perform the organ extraction himself?

“Hmm…”

No, I don’t think so.

They’re conducting organ transplant surgeries in Japan.

Kim Chan-young and Go Yoon-sung both received heart transplants at Okashima Hospital, right?

The reason they go all the way to Okashima Hospital is clearly to avoid getting caught doing such things in Korea.

But Choi Jae-hoon didn’t go to Japan that day.

Even if he went straight to the airport after the blind date, took a plane, arrived in Japan, traveled to Okashima Hospital, and returned to Korea, there wouldn’t be enough time.

If there were immigration records, Heo Min-woo would have already told me.

If it was somewhere in Korea besides Woo-shin Hospital, finding that location might reveal new evidence of the organ trafficking business.

Anyway, Heo Min-woo can find Choi Jae-hoon’s location that day by checking his cell phone GPS or the car’s black box.

Ah, but they might have prevented that by turning off his cell phone or using another vehicle.

In any case, it’s clear that the person in the operating room was scheduled to have their organs extracted in Korea.

So why did that person have to have their organs extracted in Korea exceptionally?

The possibilities fall into two categories:

1. They needed an organ transplant and wanted to test Choi Jae-hoon simultaneously.

2. It was solely to test Choi Jae-hoon, with no other reason.

In case 1, if an organ transplant was needed, Lim Hyun-il would have immediately extracted the victim’s organs after Choi Jae-hoon’s test.

Then that person would have died, of course.

But if an organ transplant was needed, it means there was a request from a customer.

In that case, they would have provided the best care, wouldn’t they be treated with utmost care in leading hospitals?

If such facilities existed in Korea, Go Yoon-sung and Kim Chan-young wouldn’t have needed to go to Okashima Hospital in the first place.

Above all, if such a facility existed, they’d prioritize its security even more than Okashima Hospital, and they wouldn’t have taken Choi Jae-hoon, who wasn’t even confirmed to join the business, to such a place.

It’s also possible they extracted the organs there and immediately sent them to Okashima Hospital by plane, but that would leave an official record.

Even if they could overcome all these obstacles to send it to Japan, it’s still a significant risk because, while it varies by organ, the preservation limit is usually around 24 hours at most, except for kidneys.

However, in case 2, if it was simply for testing purposes, there would be no need to kill them once the results were in, so they might have sent them back alive.

Since they would have been under anesthesia, they wouldn’t remember where they were or what threats they faced.

They’re the kind of guys who would kill someone for no reason and react with ‘So what?’, but they’re also businessmen.

Each person is a resource, so there’s no reason to kill them without a purpose.

They can gain more profit by tearing off everything from organs to corneas and distributing them to ‘customers’.

I think case 2 is more likely.

Then, could they be alive?

I took a few steps back from the whiteboard, now stained black, and stared at it silently.

My head is spinning, but I need to do what I can, starting with what I have to do.

─Oh, Attorney Cha.

Even though it was past 1 a.m., Choi Jong-hyun seemed to be awake.

He answered the phone with a clear voice as soon as I called.

─Did you find anything? I heard all the conversations with that Jung Ji-min. Wow, I never thought Choi Jae-hoon would reject Lim Hyun-il’s offer because of Jung Ji-min. Seriously.

“Are you looking at the blog?”

─It’s been a few days since I received the files, so of course, I’ve seen quite a bit. But when I thought about it, there’s no need to look at the diary Choi Jae-hoon wrote in 2005 right now. It might be helpful in finding out if the professor who was there before Lim Hyun-il was also involved in organ trafficking. So I’m leaving that to Jung-woo and looking at the diaries he wrote after Lim Hyun-il came to the main hospital.

“Then have you seen the diary from the 9th? I’m talking about the 9th of this month. Three days before the accident.”

─The 9th? I haven’t gotten that far yet. No, I thought I’d catch up quickly because Officer Heo said it was about once or twice a week, but that’s not the case. That’s just the average, and after Lim Hyun-il came to the main hospital, it’s basically four or five a week. There were days when he uploaded several a day.

“Then when you hang up, read the diary from the 9th first. And there’s something you need to confirm.”

─What is it?

“Have you received any contact from the president of the university student association that volunteers at the House of Angels?”

─The association president? No, I haven’t received any separate contact. I would have told you right away if I had.

“As you’ll see in the diary from the 9th, I have a feeling that one of the children from the House of Angels has disappeared. Or rather, they might have disappeared and reappeared. If no one has disappeared from the House of Angels, additional investigation is needed.”

─Why, were they called in for someone’s transplant surgery? But didn’t Choi Jae-hoon refuse the surgery? That’s what it sounded like from what Jung Ji-min said. You said the 9th, right? I’ll have to take a look now.

“I think we need to check as soon as possible, so please contact the association president and ask them. It doesn’t have to be for the purpose of studying abroad, but please check if there are any children who have missed even a single class for any reason. And if there are any children who have missed class, what did the House of Angels say was the reason, from what day were they absent, and when did they return? Everything.”