I’m Obsessed With the Suspect - Chapter 15

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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15

“You bastard. I told you to lay low with the fog, but you set my age as forty.”

[…]

At those words, Chamkkae’s mouth clamped shut and an awkward silence flowed.

And soon a loud burst of laughter poured out.

[Oh! Damn. How did you find out? Kyahahaha! I did it for realism, reeealism. Who would believe you’re a professor at your age… Wait… Is that what the code was about?]

“Yeah. The magpies called me grandpa.”

[Gahahaha! Ahahaha!]

“Hey, stop laughing and connect me to 29. Connect me to 29!”

At Yushin’s irritated nagging, Chamkkae answered with clicking mouse sounds.

[Ah, that’s hilarious. I’ll connect you right now, so teach me how to decode it too.]

“I’ll send you a text.”

[Okay. Connecting you right now.]

A short electronic sound began ringing in the earpiece on the other side.

Click. Crackle.

And thump. Thump. Cheong-a’s rapid heartbeat followed.

Yushin moved very quietly to listen to that sound while taking out his phone and starting to compose a message.

「Throw away the numbers and words. That’s probably a combination they agreed on beforehand」

「There’s no way to figure it out for now」

「Read the Morse code from the back」

Chamkkae’s reply arrived immediately.

「Chamkkae: MIAQDSHIANYDNRNATENASDAWRNAUPERE What is this??」

「Idiot. It’s French.」

「Chamkkae: MinYushin a quarante ans, un grandpere?」

「Yeah, shut up.」

For a moment there was no reply from Chamkkae.

He was probably running it through a translator.

Sure enough, the message sent shortly after was filled with Chamkkae’s laughter.

“Sesame: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL crazy Min Yusin 40-year-old grandpa LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL”

「Chamkkae: Wow, but how did you figure this out? There aren’t even French extension codes」

「My situation working at the same company as idiots who can’t figure this out is truly pitiful」

There was no further reply from Chamkkae.

Beyond the message, he was probably making a sly face and flipping his middle finger in curse. Very high probability.

‘I can see it without looking. Transparent bastard.’

Yushin furrowed his brow and lazily leaned back on the central sofa in his research lab. Then he closed his eyes tightly and listened to the sounds flowing from the earpiece.

Between the rapidly pounding heartbeats, Cheong-a’s voice occasionally rang out.

[…nonsense! …nervous… there and… suspicious… hey!]

Each time Cheong-a’s voice came in short bursts, the corners of Yushin’s mouth slowly spread into an arc.

“This is ridiculous, really.”

***

Crack.

The sound of opening a bottle cap echoed in the quiet research lab.

Cheong-a poured two vitamin pills from her hand into her mouth and gulped down the drink in one go.

“Ahh.”

It had already been several days since she started entering the research lab every dawn and consuming Yushin’s nutritional supplements.

‘There’s no reason to refuse the generosity he’s shown.’

She wiped the corners of her mouth and reflected on her phone call with Yeonhui from the payphone last night.

[Unnie. I was searching through the integrated narcotics management system just in case, you know? And there’s this dealer who has treatment records at Boksan University Hospital!]

She said that drug dealers from not only Incheon but all over the country had received treatment at Boksan University Hospital.

[He received treatment twice. Professor Yang Dongjun. And Professor Min Yoo-shin.]

−Then… at least one of them is likely to be part of the pipeline, right?

[It could be both of them.]

Yeonhui was definitely capable.

Not only that, but she also had a broad perspective when investigating cases, so she and Cheong-a worked perfectly together in solving cases.

Thanks to that, Cheong-a was able to precisely set two targets to focus on within Boksan University Hospital.

‘I really am lucky. I got into the rooms of these suspicious bastards right away, didn’t I? Heh.’

With that thought, Cheong-a slowly looked around Min Yoo-shin’s dirty research lab again today.

“What exactly are you trying to hide that you make your room look like this every other day, mister.”

She threw the empty nutritional supplement bottle into the trash and headed to Yang Dongjun’s research lab to finish the morning cleaning.

Actually, Yang Dongjun wasn’t exactly someone who kept his room very clean either.

On the central table were leftover cup noodles and pickled radish, lab coats hung on the coat hanger, and several cups of cold coffee sat on the desk.

Even so, compared to Min Yoo-shin’s room, this place was like heaven.

‘I’m thinking this is wonderful even while looking at this state.’

Cheong-a shook her head and rolled up her sleeves. Just as she was about to grab the coffee cup on the desk.

Cheong-a’s gaze lingered on Yang Dongjun’s desk for quite a while.

What caught her eye was a piece of paper with wrinkled stains from spilled coffee. It was yesterday afternoon’s outpatient clinic patient list.

“Huh…?”

Normally, she would have passed by without care.

It wasn’t particularly unusual for a patient treatment list to be on the desk.

However, among those small letters, there was one name that particularly caught Cheong-a’s attention.

XX/XX 10:30 / 900213 / 9002132 / M / Byeon Na-hun / cc. Dysphagia

Born February 13, 1990. Name: Byeon Na-hun. The patient’s diagnosis was dysphagia.

In Cheong-a’s mind, the face of Byeon Na-hun, who had been gulping dry saliva and frowning, instantly came to mind.

He was one of the droppers that Cheong-a had been chasing when she worked in the narcotics investigation unit a few years ago.

“Huh? Why is this bastard’s name here…?”

She was lost in thought for only a few seconds.

Cheong-a threw down the coffee cup she was holding and rushed out of the research lab.

And she started running down the corridor at full speed.

There was something she needed to check immediately.

The place she headed straight to was the general waste collection area at the back of the hospital.

There was no time to hesitate because it was dirty.

She put on gloves from her back pocket and started digging through the mountain of piled garbage. While constantly checking her watch.

Current time: 5:30 AM.

After the janitors’ morning work began, whenever she came here, it was always completely empty. That time was 6 AM. Before then, garbage trucks would come and haul away all the trash.

Before that, she had to find the garbage bag from Yang Dongjun’s room here.

There wasn’t much time left.

Cheong-a’s eyes lit up as she threw and turned over dozens of garbage piles while sweating profusely.

“Found it!”

She dragged a familiar garbage bag, presumably from Yang Dongjun’s room, to a corner and untied the knot. Then she started rummaging through it.

Inside was a considerable amount of shredded document pieces.

Cheong-a examined each piece of paper, looking for Yang Dongjun’s patient treatment list.

She rummaged through the finely shredded papers and scanned the letters. However, it wasn’t easy to even identify properly written names in the papers that had been through the shredder.

“Ugh. Shit. He really shredded them thoroughly!”

She memorized the letters written on the vertically long paper strips in order and drew them out in her mind, combining them with other papers.

Only after a long while was Cheong-a able to find several names.

“Ahn Iju. Choi… Eokgyu. Jo Areum…”

These were all names she had seen in the records during the drug investigation.

“…These bastards.”

Cheong-a let out a deep sigh and clenched the paper pieces in her hand tightly.

“They were running a line from here?”

***

[Ring, ring.]

[Ring, ring, ring.]

Yushin’s phone rang mercilessly as he had just entered the hospital basement parking lot. He glanced over to check the caller and answered the phone.

Chamkkae’s breathless voice poured out through the Bluetooth speaker.

[Mes! Mes! Why haven’t you been responding to communications! This is fucking urgent!]

Yushin, who had fixed his gaze on the rearview mirror to park, turned the steering wheel and answered indifferently.

“Speak quietly. I’m parking right now, so it’s on Bluetooth speaker.”

[This is an emergency…!]

Chamkkae’s voice became quieter, but it was a desperate voice as if he were shouting.

“What. Did the coins drop?”

[That’s not it. Are you kidding me. Meerkat just identified the straw!]

Thud!

His foot slipped off the brake pedal because he momentarily lost focus. Yushin’s car roughly collided with the wheel stopper on the parking lot floor, creating a loud noise.

Along with the heavy sound, Yushin grabbed the back of his neck.

*Straw: An insider or leak route that supplies drugs. Often refers specifically to those in the medical or pharmaceutical fields.

*Dropper: Slang referring to a drug courier or delivery person

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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