You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 66

You Are Defended – Episode 66

The words “exam leak” hung in the air, silencing the office.

Kang Min-jae’s eyes widened as he meticulously examined the sections I’d indicated on the chart, while Tae-shik’s trembling legs seemed to find a bit more purchase.

Even after careful consideration, the only explanation that fit the facts was an exam leak.

If we operate under the assumption that a teacher at Jangmyeong High School is feeding exam questions to Kim Hak-seong, everything clicks into place.

His exclusive tutoring of Jangmyeong High School students, the unbelievable surge in his students’ rankings despite only focusing on math, the annual production of a top student from his ranks, and those top students consistently achieving perfect scores across all subjects…

The coincidences are too numerous to dismiss Kim Hak-seong’s success as mere skill.

“…I think you’re right,” Kang Min-jae said, setting down the file. “Even the top students often miss a question or two on internal exams, which are frequently harder than the [Korean] college entrance exam. Perfect scores across the board are rare.”

“Lee Hyuk-min’s unbroken streak of first place, achieved with a suspiciously low amount of studying, makes sense if Kim Hak-seong is leaking the exam questions,” I added.

“Right. But… what do we do about this?”

The fact that the superintendent’s son had been consistently topping the school through leaked exams was a scandal of immense proportions.

If proven, Lee Hyuk-min would be expelled, and his father would be dismissed for leaking the exam questions in his capacity as superintendent.

Moreover, in Korea, where educational fervor burns intensely, the matter wouldn’t simply end there.

The connection between the superintendent and the principal would be scrutinized, and all the special treatment Jangmyeong High School had afforded Lee Hyuk-min would be exposed.

That would be the moment the Lee Hyuk-min kingdom crumbled.

Just as the students who once complained about Uhm Seok-dae’s corruption changed their tune when a new teacher stripped him of his authority, the same would happen here.

What if the school could no longer protect Lee Hyuk-min, and he was dishonorably expelled?

The other students would no longer fear him and would come forward with testimonies about all the incidents that had occurred.

“We have to blow this wide open,” I said, meeting Kang Min-jae’s gaze.

“How?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I have to figure that out.”

“What’s certain is that we need to catch them in the act of leaking the exam.”

The picture forming in my mind was clear.

After securing evidence of the leak, we had to let them proceed with the exam as planned.

In other words, we needed to capture the leak in progress, but without alerting the teacher involved that they’d been caught.

A simple raid would be insufficient; if the person clammed up, we’d have no way of tracing where the leaked questions were headed.

The exam leak would become a hot topic, but Lee Hyuk-min might slip through our fingers like an eel.

However, if we secured the evidence covertly and then exposed the incident after the exam, the situation would change dramatically.

With the media and police focused on the case, further leaks would be difficult.

And with the perpetrator already under suspicion, finding another teacher willing to risk their career would be a challenge.

At that point, Lee Hyuk-min would have to take the exam without the leaked answers, and his grades would inevitably plummet.

If we then revealed the long-term pattern of exam leaks through Kim Hak-seong and identified Lee Hyuk-min and his group as recipients of his tutoring, they wouldn’t be able to escape the consequences.

“Ha, but raiding the scene will be tough… With this much circumstantial evidence, wouldn’t it be better to leak it to the media?” Kang Min-jae suggested after a long pause.

He was right; if we handed this data to reporter Yoon Se-yeon and asked her to write an article, the situation would likely develop on its own.

However, we didn’t have time to wait for that process to unfold.

The wheels of Korean public institutions turn slowly.

Information is passed up the chain of command, decisions are made, and only then does action occur.

If our sole aim was to achieve justice, we might be able to wait.

But we were also committed to protecting Park Jin-cheol and ensuring that Lee Hyuk-min, the perpetrator of school violence, was punished.

The exam leak was merely a stepping stone to exposing the broader issue of school violence.

“That would take too long. Jin-cheol will be discharged in two months, and Lee Hyuk-min needs to be identified by then to ensure Jin-cheol’s safe return to school.”

Above all, we couldn’t risk the investigation being compromised by external influences.

I didn’t believe the superintendent’s position was that powerful, but what if Lee Hyuk-min’s father had powerful connections?

“What resources do we have to raid the scene…? Kim Hak-seong won’t go directly into the school to retrieve the exam questions; he’ll receive them from a teacher… Should we investigate Kim Hak-seong’s background and raid the scene based on that?”

I shook my head. If they were using intermediaries or other methods, that approach wouldn’t work.

“What means do we have to catch them in the act?”

Timing was the challenge; we didn’t know when the exam questions would be stolen.

“The easiest way is to identify the perpetrator and follow them.”

“How do we identify them? There are so many teachers at Jangmyeong High School,” Kang Min-jae said, rubbing his forehead.

Tae-shik, who had been silent until now, spoke up. “I’m asking because I don’t know, but can all teachers see the exam papers for other subjects?”

At his words, Kang Min-jae grabbed his cell phone and began tapping furiously.

He held the phone to his ear and said, “I have a friend who’s a high school teacher. I’ll ask him.”

“Ask him about the exam question preparation period too.”

“Yes.”

Kang Min-jae stepped out onto the veranda to make the call. He returned a short while later and said, “The teacher in charge of a subject only sees their own subject’s exam. They can’t see the others. Only the head of the academic affairs department, the vice-principal, and the principal can see all the exam papers. They say only those three know the password to the cabinet containing the exams until right before the test.”

I nodded.

The pool of suspects had narrowed.

Principal, vice-principal, or head of academic affairs.

“We can’t determine which one it is in the current situation. We don’t know who it will be.”

“Isn’t the principal the most suspicious? They say he’s friends with Lee Hyuk-min’s father.”

“That’s true, but if we focus on the principal and it turns out to be the vice-principal or the head of academic affairs, we’ll miss our chance.”

“Right. And following all three of them would be difficult, right?”

Kang turned to Tae-shik. “How many people do we have available?”

Tae-shik counted on his fingers.

“Right now, Sang-gil is tailing Lee Hyuk-min, and Dae-cheol is tailing Kim Hak-seong. Besides them, there are about four of you, but we’re also handling other cases, so we’re short on manpower. And we don’t know when the exam leak will happen, and we can’t follow them into the school. It would be doable if we were focusing on just one person…”

Kang Min-jae sighed at Tae-shik’s words.

“It would be easier if it wasn’t a school…”

“When did Kang’s friend say the exam question preparation period ends?”

“He said they completely finish preparing the exam questions two weeks before the exam.”

I leaned back into the sofa.

If the exam question preparation is completed two weeks before the exam, then the period during which the exam questions can be leaked is also two weeks.

That meant we had two weeks left.

“The suspects have been narrowed down, so we have no choice but to identify one of them and tail them. Looking at this chart, the grades of the students who received tutoring from Kim Hak-seong have been entered since 2003. Is there nothing before that?”

“I don’t know if he tutored before that, but the grades have only risen like this since 2003. I heard from the broker that the instructors in that industry were a bit suspicious of Kim Hak-seong, so they started compiling data.”

“Really? Then we should assume that there has been an exam leak since 2003.”

I carefully examined the ages of the Jangmyeong High School teachers.

“The principal is retiring next year, so he’ll be able to live comfortably on his pension. The vice-principal is a bit further from retirement, so he might be in line to become the principal. The head of academic affairs is a bit older. He only has three years left until retirement.”

It’s always best to suspect the person with the strongest motive.

If we simply associate it with Lee Hyuk-min, the principal is the most suspicious.

However, from a career perspective, the head of academic affairs, who was the latest to be promoted, was also suspicious.

Retirement was just around the corner, but he hadn’t even become the vice-principal.

It wouldn’t be surprising if he decided to take all the money he could before retiring.

And there might be circumstances surrounding the vice-principal as well.

All three of them were suspicious enough if you put your mind to it.

“If they’ve been leaking exam questions for six years, not just once… If any of those three get caught, they’ll be unconditionally dismissed and won’t be able to receive their civil servant pension. Why would they start such a risky venture?”

Kang Min-jae crossed his arms and pondered for a long time before speaking.

“Were they being threatened?”

“If they were being threatened, it should have stopped after the first time.”

“…That’s true.”

“Did they need money urgently?”

As I muttered, Kang Min-jae tilted his head and replied.

“Um… If they needed money urgently, teachers can get loans easily. Was it necessary to take this risk for years?”

Internal regular exams are held four times a year, and there are three grade levels.

Even if they only did it in 2003, 12 exam papers would have been leaked.

Assuming they received 10 million won [approximately $7,500 USD] per paper, they would make a huge sum of 120 million won [approximately $90,000 USD] in just one year.

A large sum of money that must be obtained even at the risk of being dismissed, versus a stable life that would continue if they retired without any problems.

What if the perpetrator was in a situation where they had to choose between the two?

“If the perpetrator needed a lot of money, as you said, that could be the case.”

When people become desperate for money, they first go to the bank.

If the money borrowed from the bank isn’t enough, they ask acquaintances and borrow money.

What they choose in the end is mainly the third financial sector [private loan companies with higher interest rates].

However, the stories of people who have taken out loans from the third financial sector are rarely positive.

There are countless loan companies that don’t comply with the legal interest rate, and the interest grows more than the principal even if they haven’t used it for a few days.

Even if they try to prevent that, a teacher’s salary is limited.

They can’t have side businesses.

There aren’t many ways for a teacher to make a lot of money.

The only business a teacher can do in this neighborhood with high academic fever is…

The exam paper business.

They are receiving a lot of money by guaranteeing their stable job and comfortable retirement.

Let’s assume that the perpetrator who leaked the exam questions for the first time in 2003 was lucky enough not to get caught and got a large sum of money in their hands.

After putting out the urgent fire, the following year, 2004…

Now the perpetrator has learned an easy way to make a lot of money.

They hadn’t been caught once, and everything was perfect.

If the crime continued naturally in 2004, 2005, and up to 2008 like that…

“If they were taking this much risk, we should assume that they have already done everything they can to get money.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then they probably went to a loan company at some point.”

“Haha, hahahahaha!”

At the words “loan company,” Tae-shik burst out laughing and started wandering around the office.

As if this were a musical stage, he stopped in front of us, spreading his arms and laughing to his heart’s content, and said.

“Loan companies are my specialty.”

“Can you find out if any of the principal, vice-principal, or head of academic affairs borrowed money from a loan company?”