You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 554

“Ah, yes… I see.”

Cheon Jong-nam accepted the situation with unexpected composure.

Though he did look a bit bitter.

He probably felt sad that his free three meals a day, spent scratching his side and watching TV, were coming to an end.

“What’s with that expression? Aren’t you happy?”

“Happy? How can I be happy when I have to go to jail? I’m still human, you know…”

“Isn’t it a good thing that you’re finally paying for your crimes? Isn’t this the first step to cleaning up your trashy life?”

“……”

“Of course, it’s regrettable that trash like you will be eating and sleeping on the taxpayers’ dime, but I guess we can’t help it. What can we do when our prisons are so considerate of the inmates?”

When Cheon Jong-nam didn’t respond, Tae-shik, who was standing next to him, glared at him.

“Hey, old man. Is the lawyer wrong?”

“Ah, n-no!”

“Then why aren’t you answering?”

“I-I’m sorry. The lawyer is right about everything.”

“Of course. The lawyer never says anything wrong.”

Tae-shik patted Cheon Jong-nam’s shoulder.

It seemed like Cheon Jong-nam’s shoulders slumped a little more with each pat, but it must have been my imagination.

“S-so, when I go to the police station tomorrow… I just say everything as the lawyer told me, right?”

“No. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Y-yes? Changed your mind? Then what… You’re not telling me to take all the blame, are you? No matter what, I can’t do that…”

Cheon Jong-nam waved his hands in terror and took a step back.

What did I do to scare him so much?

“Let’s go with drowsy driving.”

“……Pardon?”

“Say you accidentally hit him because you were driving drowsy. I don’t think I need to give you a script. You must already have one prepared.”

Cheon Jong-nam stared at me with a bewildered expression.

“You’re not messing with me, are you?”

“Why would I bother coming all the way here just to mess with you?”

“Ah, that’s true…”

“Just say it was drowsy driving, no matter what. Oh, and don’t mention the guys who came to kill you at Munyeok. Just say you were scared and came out on your own.”

“Yes? But then… doesn’t that mean we can’t catch the guys who hired me to kill Lawyer Kang?”

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

I’ve delivered the message, so I should get going.

This place doesn’t exactly feel clean, so I don’t want to stay any longer.

“U-um, Lawyer Kang.”

I was about to open the door and leave when Cheon Jong-nam suddenly called out to me.

“What is it?”

“If I’m turning myself in tomorrow… well, I’ll only be eating prison food from now on, so could you maybe lift the 20,000 won limit just once? I really like *yangjangpi* [a Korean-Chinese dish of cold vegetables and seafood with a mustard sauce], and I want to eat it one last time before I go in…”

“I don’t understand.”

“Pardon?”

“If you’re only going to be eating prison food from now on, shouldn’t you get used to it now? Think of it as practice and eat meals under 5,000 won from now on.”

I already heard that setting the limit at 10,000 won per meal was generous, and now he wants 20,000 won?

With that money, Tae-shik could buy so many packs of ramen.

“They have 3,000 won *yangjangpi* at the convenience store. Should I tell them to buy you that?”

Tae-shik suddenly asked as I was about to get into the car.

“What’s with you suddenly showing such mercy?”

“Mercy? That stuff is terrible. I was expecting *yangjangpi*, but if it’s terrible, the disappointment will be huge. I should tell them to buy him that.”

Tae-shik chuckled and took out his phone.

Since when did he become so easily satisfied?

* * *

“Lawyer Cha Joo-han! It’s been so long!”

Anchor Jin Hye-kyung raised her hand as soon as she spotted me walking in.

I hadn’t even checked in with her since I contacted her when Wooshin tried to frame Chief Park’s eldest son for drug trafficking, so I didn’t expect her to be so happy to see me.

“It’s been a while.”

“You seem to have gotten even more handsome while I haven’t seen you. What’s your secret?”

Is Jin Hye-kyung also curious about what skincare products I use?

I hesitated about how to answer, but Jin Hye-kyung waved her hand.

“Just kidding. So, what scoop are you giving me today?”

To be honest, Yoon Se-yeon was the first face that came to mind, not Jin Hye-kyung.

Isn’t that obvious?

She always argues that she should be compensated with scoops because she’s always being exploited by me, and I prefer Yoon Se-yeon because communication is smoother.

But this is Wooshin’s doing, and *Iljung Daily* is clearly going to write articles attacking the children and college students at the orphanage.

If *Iljung Daily*, which broke the initial story, publishes articles attacking the children and college students, it will give them more power.

That won’t do.

“An incident occurred at the House of Angels, which belongs to the Wooshin Welfare Foundation.”

“I knew it would be Wooshin. If it’s the House of Angels, it sounds like an orphanage just from the name.”

“That’s right.”

“If it’s an incident that occurred at an orphanage, is it abuse?”

“No. A child who lived at the orphanage was arrested for drug use.”

Before I could even finish speaking, Jin Hye-kyung frowned.

“Arrested for drug use?”

I explained the overall situation to Jin Hye-kyung.

From Wooshin luring me out using a child from the House of Angels as bait to kill me, to the current situation.

Of course, I didn’t mention the organ trafficking or prostitution.

Even without that, Jin Hye-kyung knows well enough how much Wooshin dislikes me, so it should be enough.

Of course, it would be hard to imagine that their attempts to get rid of me would go as far as murder, so I also explained how I was kidnapped last year and miraculously survived.

“That’s insane. Why would they go that far…? I knew that Wooshin had been trying to stop you, but to try to kill you like this…”

“It’s probably because there are other misdeeds that I haven’t uncovered yet. They probably wanted to kill me before I dug them up.”

“So what else do you think is going on?”

“There has to be something.”

Jin Hye-kyung sighed deeply.

Judging by her lack of immediate reaction, I got the impression that she was calculating something.

“You don’t know anything? The broadcasts that Reporter Choi and Jo Bong-joon were doing stopped after the kidnapping, didn’t they? Isn’t that because you were investigating something?”

“That’s one of the reasons why we stopped, but I haven’t found anything concrete yet. I thought there might be something at the House of Angels, so I was trying to find out, but this incident happened.”

“I see. So, what kind of coverage do you want this time? You said that Wooshin is already preparing articles making it seem like the college students were bullying the children.”

“Yes. For the initial report, it would be enough to simply say that a teenager who lived at a certain orphanage ran away from home and was arrested for drug use shortly after.”

“Then Wooshin will seize the opportunity and claim that the college students were the reason why the child started using drugs, right?”

Jin Hye-kyung said with a worried expression.

“That’s why I’m asking you to do one more segment. Lawyer Kang was in a car accident a while ago. He suffered a subdural hemorrhage because of it. He almost died.”

“What? Is Lawyer Kang okay?”

“Fortunately, he’s been discharged from the hospital and is continuing to receive outpatient treatment, and thankfully, he’s doing well.”

“Oh, I see… I didn’t know at all… That’s a relief… But if it’s a subdural hemorrhage, isn’t that really serious?”

“Yes. The vehicle that hit him was a dump truck. And the dump truck driver has been refusing to cooperate with the police investigation, so a warrant has been issued for his arrest. We haven’t been able to contact him at all.”

“……Wait a minute. You said ‘hadn’t’ been able to contact him, not ‘haven’t’ been able to contact him, so does that mean you’ve been able to contact him now?”

She didn’t become an anchor for nothing.

She quickly caught on to even the slightest nuance and dug into it.

“That’s right. We managed to find him. He was running away pretty well without any help. Anyway, that driver will turn himself in tomorrow.”

I placed the USB on the table.

“This is CCTV footage from a store near the accident site. I was also at the accident site. So I’ve also included the footage from my car’s black box. The vehicle was originally trying to hit me, but Lawyer Kang appeared, so it hit Lawyer Kang instead. So it also shows the vehicle driving towards me. Use it for the report.”

“……So, could this also be a contract killing? Then, you’re saying that you advised the truck driver to confess to the contract killing?”

Jin Hye-kyung asked, sounding exhausted.

I nodded once.

“But it seems like he won’t admit to the contract killing. He’s stubborn. We don’t have any evidence of a contract killing either, so we can’t push him too hard right now, but we still need to prevent him from running away, so we strongly advised him to turn himself in. He’s insisting it was drowsy driving, so he’ll probably confess to that.”

“Hmph……”

“So I’d like you to do both of these reports on the news today. What’s the deadline for the video footage?”

“The sooner, the better for smooth progress, but for a case like this, it doesn’t matter if we film it right now.”

“Then please contact the reporters. As soon as our conversation is over, we should move to Jungdo’s office and get an interview with Lawyer Kang. I think it will be a hot topic. Since former President Kang Kwan-woong has already been assassinated, the ratings will be quite high if we report that Lawyer Kang was almost killed by a dump truck.”

Jin Hye-kyung took the USB, put it in her pocket, and took out her phone.

And it seemed like she was contacting a reporter as I had said.

She gave them the address of Jungdo’s office and urged them to come quickly with a camera.

After the hectic conversation ended, Jin Hye-kyung put down her phone and stared at me.

“They said they’re leaving right away, so it’ll take about 45 minutes to get to Seocho-dong. By the way, something so huge happened, but you’re so calculating.”

Her tone was slightly accusatory, as if she was blaming me.

“Is that so?”

I also felt an unbearable amount of anger due to the series of events and had been suffering from great guilt, but I didn’t want to reveal those emotions in front of Jin Hye-kyung.

Time had passed and I had become somewhat desensitized, and I had also learned to prevent my emotions from spiraling in a bad direction to some extent.

“Emotions don’t really help me with what I do. I feel great regret for the passing of the elder and the accident that Lawyer Kang suffered, but those are my personal feelings. I’m asking Anchor Jin for a favor right now, so wouldn’t it be better to focus on saying things that would appeal to Anchor Jin?”

“……That’s true.”

Jin Hye-kyung replied calmly.

Then she gulped down the coffee that had completely melted and gently placed it on the table.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s any reason for the higher-ups to cut this report with just this much. But you’re thinking of this as the first report, right? For example, you’re thinking of it as laying the groundwork.”

“That’s right. The key is the follow-up report. And it would be good to release that follow-up report on the same day that Wooshin releases the articles attacking the college students and children. That’ll probably be tomorrow. It looks like there’s no news yet.”

If the first report airs on News 9 today, they won’t be in a hurry even if they feel like they’ve been preempted.

They need the incident itself to be made public so they can reveal that Son Jung-min and Eom Seong-yoon have been bullied by college students.

They might even think it’s a good thing.

“What’s the content of the follow-up report? Are you trying to divert attention by revealing that the dump truck driver actually caused the accident with the intention of contract killing?”

“Yes. That’s right. Let’s move to our office for now. The reporters might come early.”

She obediently followed me outside.

She said she came by taxi, so she naturally rode in my car.

As the car Tae-shik was driving merged onto the main road, I glanced out the window.

“The purpose of the second report isn’t to divert attention.”

And I said to Jin Hye-kyung.

“What? Then why did you say that earlier…?”

“Someone was following us. They’ve been eavesdropping on our conversation since the cafe. See that black car behind us?”

Jin Hye-kyung’s eyes widened as if she couldn’t have imagined it.

She even whispered in a very low voice.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“There are no bugs in the car, so they can’t hear you even if you speak loudly.”

“Ah, I see.”

She smiled awkwardly.

“I deliberately brought them along. That’s why I met you at the cafe. You have no idea how much trouble I went through to bring them along without them noticing.”

They want me to be distracted by this. So I have to pretend to be.

Just as they’re looking for my carelessness, I’m also looking for theirs.

“The follow-up report will be about how the student who was arrested for drug use was used to deliver me and Lawyer Kang to the dump truck. And the point at which that student ran away from the House of Angels is also the same as when we were lured to the accident site. So that student didn’t run away because of the college students.”

Before, Jin Hye-kyung hinted that she had trouble because the director was worried that Wooshin would pull all the advertisements.

However, someone who doesn’t know much about the incident would find it difficult to infer that Wooshin was the one who used Son Jung-min to lure me to Munyeok.

So the director won’t stop this report either.

However, he will hesitate when it comes time to report that Wooshin is the one behind it.

But there’s no problem.

Once the stage is set, it doesn’t matter who reveals the culprit.

“Doesn’t Wooshin know that you know this?”

“No, they probably do.”

“Then why did you bother moving places and hiding it? You know this is the key anyway.”

“To be precise, I’m trying to make them think this is the key.”

“So you have another card up your sleeve? What is it?”

“It’s not completely ready yet, so I’ll let you know later.”

Anyway, it’s an unexpected public opinion battle after a long time.

Everyone’s been off the air for so long that their mouths must be itching, so they have a chance to be cocky after a long time.