You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 601

“Seriously, why aren’t you answering?”

Jeong Ji-min’s face, contorted with the demand for answers, was a stark contrast to his demeanor when we first met him earlier today.

When he initially questioned the claims that Choi Jae-hoon had been murdered, I hadn’t realized the recording would contain such detailed information.

It seemed Jeong Ji-min had been desperately trying to deny the truth, even while knowing, deep down, that the accusations were valid.

“Mr. Jeong Ji-min.”

Kang Min-jae stopped the camera beside him and sat next to Jo Bong-joon.

“Even if the gas explosion was artificially induced, Mr. Jeong Ji-min, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“…….”

“The accident didn’t happen because of you.”

“I… I might have made Choi Jae-hoon refuse because I said I’d leave if he killed someone. D-d-didn’t you hear Choi Jae-hoon muttering alone in the last file? He said, ‘Should I just do it?’ Maybe he refused because of me, and those bastards killed Choi Jae-hoon because of it!”

It seemed he could no longer deny reality, something he had been struggling with since hearing the recording.

Jeong Ji-min clearly believed Choi Jae-hoon died because of him. He glanced at the camera, then took off Kang Min-jae’s jacket with trembling hands.

Kang Min-jae then said, “Didn’t you hear what he said after that? Choi Jae-hoon said he couldn’t do something like that no matter what. Even if it wasn’t for you, Choi Jae-hoon would have refused.”

“…Still, no matter how I think about it, I feel like I had a big impact. And listen to what the Chief of Staff, that son of a bitch, says. He tells him to break up with me because it seems like I don’t like Choi Jae-hoon that much. So, Choi Jae-hoon must have known I was a bastard when he died, right? So… Ha, the end is just so messed up. That Chief of Staff bastard knew Choi Jae-hoon was hitting me a lot… So, that’s why Choi Jae-hoon frantically grabbed a taxi and rushed home. That’s why he died.”

Jeong Ji-min kept rambling, his thoughts spiraling.

Kang Min-jae slowly blinked, needing a moment to organize his own thoughts.

“Even if it wasn’t you, Choi Jae-hoon would have done the same thing. Even if he was in a healthy relationship with a normal lover, Oh Jun-hong still installed a wiretap and invaded his privacy. It’s natural to be surprised and want to check. Moreover, being homosexual is a major weakness in our society [In South Korea, LGBTQ+ individuals often face discrimination and prejudice]. It’s understandable.”

“Still…”

“And it’s perfectly natural for you to say you wouldn’t leave as long as he didn’t kill anyone. Choi Jae-hoon asked first. He asked vaguely without explaining the detailed situation. Who would say they’d stay by someone’s side even if they killed someone in that situation?”

Jo Bong-joon added his perspective. As a fellow human, he understood the guilt Jeong Ji-min felt, but it was clear he was trying to carry a burden he didn’t need to bear.

“Don’t blame yourself. If you can’t shake the guilt, then wish for Choi Jae-hoon’s unfair death to be revealed to the world, that his accident was artificially caused, and that Wooshin was behind it.”

At Kang Min-jae’s words, Jeong Ji-min hung his head. I knew that these words might not fully penetrate the depths of his despair.

Jeong Ji-min wiped his damp eyes and checked the time.

“Did you finish filming?”

“Ah, yes. Just in case you’re worried, besides the places where we clapped to mark the editing points, we’ll cut out all the content that reveals Choi Jae-hoon and Jeong Ji-min’s personal information or private lives. In particular, we’ll mute the parts where Oh Jun-hong talks about Jeong Ji-min. We’ll only let it be known that Oh Jun-hong installed a wiretap in Choi Jae-hoon’s house to check his private life.”

“…Okay. I’m sure you’ll take care of it.”

“We’ll make sure you don’t come to the surface, Mr. Jeong Ji-min. Oh Jun-hong and Im Hyun-il won’t mention Choi Jae-hoon’s private life first either. Because that would be a complete disaster for them.”

At Jo Bong-joon’s explanation, Jeong Ji-min slowly nodded, then took off Kang Min-jae’s shirt and stood up.

“Then, please take care of it.”

After Jeong Ji-min left, I was lost in thought for a moment. Listening to his statement when I first met him, one question lingered.

Choi Jae-hoon called Im Hyun-il on the 9th, questioning ‘how he could order such a surgery,’ and he died on the 12th.

It seemed odd that Wooshin killed Choi Jae-hoon only three days after his initial refusal.

Wooshin wouldn’t have failed to consider the possibility of Choi Jae-hoon disclosing their plan to others during those three days.

But listening to the content now, Choi Jae-hoon truly refused on the 11th, and Wooshin thoroughly prepared for any disclosure through wiretapping.

“These bastards seem to have been preparing for a situation where they had to kill Choi Jae-hoon from the day they ordered him to perform organ transplant surgery, or even before that, don’t you think?”

Kang Min-jae voiced my own suspicions.

I thought the same, and so did Jo Bong-joon.

As we nodded heavily, Kang Min-jae frowned and said, “After deciding on the method of murder, they seem to have been constantly checking when the residents of the villa were most often away. So, they said those things to Choi Jae-hoon at that time, to make him have no choice but to go home.”

“They treat human lives like flies, those sons of bitches.”

Jo Bong-joon gritted his teeth.

* * *

[MOONBUCKS: Wow……

BabySquirrelJonghyun: Speechless

cownew: Insane…

ApolloFollower: These bastards were so thorough

lee min young: cownew hasn’t paid admission for a week, it must be because it’s a real nuclear bomb and he’s figuring out how to get out of it

ㅗ명화제약ㅗ: Wow… They just told a normal doctor to do organ trafficking and then killed him when he refused?;

Choi So-young: I’m worried about that close younger friend’s mental state… He must have been so surprised listening to the recording…]

As Jeong Ji-min’s story, using the pseudonym Seong Su-yong, and the playback of the recording he provided ended, many of the viewers who had been spamming ‘ㅋㅋㅋ’ or joking around quieted down.

There weren’t many people who actually died in the content we had reported so far. Both I and So-eun had near-death experiences, but we are still alive and well.

The only person who was actually killed by Wooshin that we covered was Lee Jung-chan. Even then, the atmosphere in the chat wasn’t somber because it was right after all his corruption was exposed.

I don’t think the violence Choi Jae-hoon inflicted on Jeong Ji-min can be justified. Nevertheless, he was still a victim of Wooshin’s ambition.

“Everyone, that recording started at 2:11 PM on the 12th and lasted for about 18 minutes. The recording ended right after Choi got into the taxi. And it takes about 15 minutes by car from the hospital to Choi’s house. There might be plus or minus depending on traffic conditions, but even adding that up, it’s 2:44 PM, right? And let’s say it takes about 3 minutes for the victim to get out in front of his house and go up to the third floor. Then it’s 2:47 PM. What time was the accident?”

Choi Jong-hyun circled an article reporting the gas explosion and said.

“The accident happened at exactly 2:56 PM. So, the victim exploded less than 10 minutes after arriving home. Shall we look at a few articles related to the gas explosion site at the time together?”

Choi Jong-hyun opened a few article screenshots. There was no one who smelled gas, and the gas concentration at the scene was very high.

“The on-site inspection revealed no traces of artificial damage to the gas pipes. So, there should have been a leak or something. But there’s no mention of any problems with the gas pipes. We also searched hard for articles containing the specific cause of the gas explosion, you know?”

Choi Jong-hyun zoomed in on the text of the article screenshots and showed them.

“It only says that it was presumed that there was a slight leak from the gas pipe, and that many cigarette butts were found inside the house. There were no CCTV cameras inside the villa, and the only thing that could be checked was the public CCTV. But there doesn’t seem to be any suspicious circumstances captured. There’s nothing special. The victim’s cell phone was completely destroyed due to the explosion. It’s vaguely presumed that the accident was caused by lighting a cigarette in a house where gas was leaking. So, the exact cause is unknown. The investigation was just closed at the level of presumption. The police said they would reinvestigate, so we’ll be able to hear about it soon, right? But the problem is this.”

A yellow highlighter was drawn over the article screenshot.

“No one smelled anything. There must be a lot of people here who have used city gas [Natural gas supplied to homes for heating and cooking]. You all know the smell of gas, right? Originally, gas is colorless and odorless. So, they deliberately add a malodorant [A substance added to a gas to give it a distinct, unpleasant smell] to give it a smell, so you can recognize it when gas leaks. Of course, there are gases that don’t have malodorants added. But those aren’t used in our daily lives.”

[ㅗ명화제약ㅗ: So, are you saying they used gas without a malodorant to prevent people from smelling it?

TeddyBear: ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ

Cha Joo-han: Seriously creepy

BringBackTheHandsomeLawyer: Well, if that much gas leaked in the house to cause such a big explosion, that dead doctor would have smelled it and felt something was wrong

ChoiJonghyun’sWig: So, they made it so you couldn’t smell it, so you wouldn’t recognize it, and then they exploded it?]

The file received from Jeong Ji-min was merely circumstantial. It was just a clue that these things happened before and after Choi Jae-hoon’s death, and that they might be related to his death.

With this file, we can’t prove that the gas explosion was a scheme by Wooshin to prevent their organ trafficking plan from spreading.

Nevertheless, the reason we’re revealing this on the broadcast is to pass the baton to the police.

Firstly, to let the world know how meticulously they have been preparing for organ trafficking, and to make the public pressure the police.

Secondly, to present the scope of the investigation for the police, who will inevitably hesitate even if they have been transferred to the Metropolitan Investigation Unit.

These are the two purposes.

“In addition to that. After the explosion, when they measured the gas concentration at the accident site, the gas concentration was high. So, that means that even though a fire started and exploded, there was still gas left, right? That means that a lot of gas leaked. But how is it that not a single person smelled anything?”

“The article said that cigarette butts were presumed to be the cause of the accident, right? So, let’s say Choi decided to smoke a cigarette after finding the wiretap in his house. But if he smelled gas, would he have smoked a cigarette? He wouldn’t have if he smelled it, right?”

“That’s right. Malodorants are made to have a foul odor. The purpose is to make people feel repulsed so they can recognize when gas is leaking. If that smell is vibrating, would anyone light a cigarette? So, doesn’t that mean there was no gas smell in the house? And if there was no smell, doesn’t that mean someone put gas that can’t be obtained in everyday life in that house?”

[ChoiJonghyun’sWig: There was a lot of gas in that house = fact

ChoiJonghyun’sWig: There was no smell = How do you get gas without a malodorant in everyday life? Someone put it there

ChoiJonghyun’sWig: There was a smell = But why light a cigarette? Why use fire even if it’s not a cigarette?

ChoiJonghyun’sWig: That’s itㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

Choi Jong-hyun, who was watching the chat, snapped his fingers and shouted.

“Choi Jong-hyun’s Wig, correct. Of course, I don’t have a wig, this is all my hair, but anyway! Is this not a murder?”