Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 132

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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One Thing (2)
Detective Jin Yu-kyung, called by name by Seo Jin, wore a genuinely bewildered expression.
‘…You know me?’
Detective Jin Yu-kyung also knew Seo Jin.
But only through the media.
They had never actually met, let alone had a conversation.
Yet Seo Jin’s gaze was different.
It felt as though he already knew her.
‘What is this?’
Detective Jin Yu-kyung blinked, staring blankly at Seo Jin.
Seo Jin smiled faintly and opened his mouth.
“My apologies. I should have introduced myself first. I’m Prosecutor Seo Jin from the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office.”
“I’m Detective Jin Yu-kyung from Gangnam Police Station. But how did you…?”
“That’s….”
When Seo Jin was Seo Jun-kyung, he worked at the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office and frequently received Detective Jin Yu-kyung’s assistance.
Detective Jin Yu-kyung was fearless, someone who was perfectly suited for police work.
She had even caught powerful figures alongside Seo Jun-kyung.
The soju glasses they shared still felt vivid in my memory, but it was difficult to speak of being reborn from death.
So I was hesitating for a moment when Profiler Jung Min-woo approached rapidly and wedged himself between Seo Jin and Detective Jin Yu-kyung.
Then, looking at Seo Jin, he growled in a low voice.
“Prosecutor.”
Jung Min-woo glared at Seo Jin with a contorted expression.
His eyes gleamed with the desire to pick a fight.
As Seo Jin narrowed his eyes, the man continued speaking.
“I’d like to hear the evidence that this isn’t an acquaintance murder.”
Jung Min-woo was a profiler.
Yet Seo Jin had directly contradicted his hypothesis.
Moreover, he had done so in front of all the other police officers, without offering any reason, simply declaring outright, “It’s not an acquaintance murder.”
Jung Min-woo felt as though Seo Jin had treated him like a fool.
“I’m curious. What scientific basis did you use to make such a statement, Prosecutor?”
Seo Jin examined Jung Min-woo.
The hand holding the mobile phone seemed oddly stiff.
It was clear he was deliberately shielding the screen.
‘Recording?’
He wanted to preserve Seo Jin’s voice.
‘How transparent.’
Seo Jin could see through his actions clearly.
Seo Jin was a prosecutor who had become somewhat renowned for consecutively solving cold cases.
He had even earned strange nicknames like detective.
At the same time, he had become a target of criticism in the profiler community.
One reason I faced criticism was the fireplace murder case that occurred in Chuncheon.
Profilers examined that case and made their assessments.
[Document]-The perpetrator is a highly educated man in his mid-thirties.
[Document]-He either lives or has lived near the crime scene.
[Document]-He has memories of abuse during childhood.
But when they caught him, he turned out to be a soldier in his mid-twenties.
The profilers’ predictions were completely off the mark.
That’s why Jung Min-woo was hoping Seo Jin would slip up.
If Seo Jin was wrong and his prediction proved correct, he would undoubtedly earn the title of the profiler who defeated the unsolved cases specialist prosecutor.
Seo Jin shook his head.
I wanted to humor the man’s pride, but this was a crime scene.
I couldn’t waste time on pointless matters.
Besides, Detective Jin Yu-kyung was watching.
I had come to meet her and needed to demonstrate my abilities.
“So you’re curious about what evidence I used to deduce the case?”
Jung Min-woo licked his dry lips as he envisioned the blueprint.
If word got out that he’d defeated Seo Jin, his television appearances would become far more frequent.
Then he could live a wealthy life on appearance fees and lecture honorariums alone, without needing to visit crime scenes like this.
An officetel overlooking the Han River, a luxury foreign car worth hundreds of millions of won—those things were beginning to materialize before his eyes.
Later, when he released the recording, it didn’t matter what the Prosecutor’s Office or Police said—as long as he made plenty of money.
‘Thank you, Seo Jin.’
Jung Min-woo scanned the scene with his eyes.
It was to confirm one last time if there was anything he’d missed.
But it was as expected.
Unless the perpetrator was an acquaintance, a scene like this would be difficult to create.
The door had been opened willingly, and there were no signs of struggle at the initial murder.
A one-sided knife attack.
Jung Min-woo grinned widely and shifted his gaze to Seo Jin.
‘Let’s see your show.’
And then Seo Jin opened his mouth.
“Jung Min-woo, you’ve been assuming the perpetrator is the victim’s boyfriend or a stalker, haven’t you?”
“Yes, even if not necessarily a boyfriend, I’m treating it as an impulsive murder by an acquaintance. After committing the murder, the perpetrator panicked and set a fire to hide the evidence.”
Jung Min-woo spoke with confidence.
But Seo Jin shook his head.
“If it were an acquaintance, the victim would have been stabbed in the back. She would have turned her body when told to come in.”
“…!”
“The perpetrator would have also committed the murder with the door closed. No matter how impulsive, he would have considered maximum soundproofing.”
“…!”
“But the victim—let’s call her the homeowner for convenience—was stabbed while backing away. The moment the other person opened the door, they swung the knife.”
Jung Min-woo was taken aback.
I hurried to examine the autopsy photographs.
Seo Jin was right.
‘The back is clean.’
The wounds were only on the abdomen and arms.
But it’s difficult to prove those wounds didn’t come from an acquaintance.
Jung Min-woo chuckled and spoke.
“Prosecutor, it seems you lack experience in these matters, but impulsive murders often involve stabbing the moment the door opens. And the perpetrator is definitely an acquaintance. Otherwise, why would they have opened the door?”
“It was premeditated murder.”
“Pardon?”
“He was impersonating a delivery worker.”
Seo Jin began slowly recounting what he had witnessed through psychometry.
The third floor was the owner’s residence, while the first and second floors were divided into studio apartments that were rented out.
But within just a few hours, eleven calls came in.
“For one reason—Unit 201 was too loud. Complaints came in asking for it to be quieted, and the landlord went down to warn them.”
Unit 201 was occupied by a female tenant and her boyfriend.
The woman wanted to break up with him, and they were fighting intensely over it.
She was smashing furniture and holding a knife.
The landlord came down and issued a warning in that situation.
“The landlord threatened to call the police if they didn’t quiet down. That’s when the target of his anger shifted. From the woman to the landlord.”
The boyfriend warned the woman, saying “If you break up with me, I’ll kill everyone.”
The woman naturally ignored him, and the man left the apartment with a surge of rage.
A knife in his hand.
“The man was forced out of the woman’s apartment into the hallway. He hid the knife in his jacket and smoked a cigarette. He must have wanted to kill someone. That’s when he saw the landlord’s daughter tearing off a flyer to order chicken.”
“…!”
“He followed her at an appropriate time toward the landlord’s unit. He rang the doorbell and said ‘Delivery.’ And they opened the door without suspicion.”
The moment the door opened, the man swung the knife.
“Once, twice. He slashed the arm and stabbed the abdomen.”
“Ha! The reason for murdering an entire family was just because the girlfriend was told to be quiet and that the police would be called during their fight?”
“There are even more absurd cases than this.”
Detective Jin Yu-kyung nudged the officer next to her and said, “Find the tenant in Unit 201.”
Jung Min-woo then pulled out the victim’s call history and examined it.
‘Damn.’
The chicken delivery was correct, and the call from the tenant was also correct.
But that alone isn’t enough to identify the perpetrator.
“…Prosecutor, that’s speculation. Fiction. If we catch criminals that way, everyone in the world becomes an innocent victim, don’t you know? Profiling requires examining the crime scene and the perpetrator’s psychological state….”
“On the way up here, I heard from the tenants about what happened last night. Some people saw the landlord’s daughter tearing off a flyer and going upstairs, and the boyfriend lingering in front of the common entrance following her. Does that explain how this isn’t fiction?”
“Still….”
Jung Min-woo’s slender thread of hope was now just one thing.
That the real culprit was someone else, or better yet, just a robber.
But that wish fell through.
The sound of a police officer rushing up the stairs reached us.
It was the same officer Jin Yu-kyung had sent earlier.
“Y-yes, Prosecutor Seo Jin was right! The boyfriend left after fighting like that, and there was a fire! But he’s not answering calls right now!”
But it wasn’t over.
Jin Yu-kyung’s phone vibrated.
“Yes, Jin Yu-kyung…. Yes, I understand.”
Jung Min-woo blinked, studying Jin Yu-kyung carefully.
And as Jin Yu-kyung put her phone away, she opened her mouth.
“Looks like he was caught rather absurdly.”
“…!”
Jung Min-woo’s eyes sparkled.
“W-who? Just a robber?”
“Prosecutor Seo Jin was right. It was the tenant’s boyfriend.”
The bastard was shamelessly brazen.
After committing the crime, he drank.
“After getting completely drunk, he casually went to a karaoke room and called a hostess.”
He boasted to the hostess, “I just killed someone.”
The hostess didn’t believe him.
After all, customers spouting nonsense weren’t uncommon.
The hostess went to a motel with him.
“When she woke up in the morning, she saw blood on his clothes and got scared, so she reported it.”
After finishing her explanation, Jin Yu-kyung looked at Seo Jin with a peculiar glint in her eyes.
It was before the case would be handed over to the prosecution.
Yet with just simple questioning and a look at the scene, he’d seen through everything.
‘…Is that even possible?’
Jung Min-woo’s face was creased with severity.
I’d lost completely.
My speculation had been laughably off the mark.
‘But….’
Still, I thought there was something I could work with.
The voice recording was on my phone, and if I edited it this way and that….
But that was when it happened.
Seo Jin snatched the phone from my hand.
While I stammered “Huh? Huh?” in confusion, he deleted the recording file and opened his mouth.
“Illegal recording—I’ll let it slide this time, but don’t do this again.”
“H-how….”
“How did I know? Your grip was unnatural. You were pointing the microphone part of the phone at me.”
Jung Min-woo, who had been staring wide-eyed for a moment, hung his head low.
There was only one thing I could say now.
“…I-I’m sorry.”
*
*
*
“I apologize for taking up your time.”
Seo Jin sat across from Detective Jin Yu-kyung at a coffee shop.
The detective had just apprehended a suspect and had little time to spare.
“How do you know me?”
Detective Jin Yu-kyung was curious about how Seo Jin knew her.
Seo Jin smiled faintly.
“I was with Investigator Lee Dong-young in Gangwon Province.”
At the mention of Investigator Lee Dong-young’s name, Detective Jin Yu-kyung’s expression turned bitter.
From Seo Jun-kyung to Lee Dong-young, everyone who had been there with her had vanished.
Seo Jun-kyung was murdered, and Lee Dong-young was exiled.
Only Jin Yu-kyung remained in Seoul.
As Detective Jin Yu-kyung picked up her coffee, remembering those two people, that was when it happened.
“Investigator Lee Dong-young told me what case you were investigating.”
“…!”
Seo Jin pulled out his phone and placed it on the table.
A snippet of an article appeared on the screen.
Drunk Driving in the Rain, Six-Year-Old Child in Coma
Detective Jin Yu-kyung’s face went pale.
Her lips trembled slightly.
She couldn’t utter a single word.
With eyes a different shade of cold than before, she glared at Seo Jin and spoke in a frigid voice.
“What are you trying to do?”
The six-year-old child was Detective Jin Yu-kyung’s son.
Her husband had died at the scene.
Her husband, who would take their son to his parents’ house on weekends when Detective Jin Yu-kyung was busy, even on days off.
He had waved his hand saying, “I’ll be back, Mom. See you tonight.”
But that was the end.
It rained heavily, and an accident occurred.
Drunk driving, no less.
“I heard your husband didn’t usually drink. Yet he drove drunk with your son in the car? From Chungcheong Province all the way to Seoul?”
“I asked what he was doing.”
“But according to the investigation results, your husband’s blood alcohol level was already at a state of intoxication, and the conclusion was that he hit the guardrail alone.”
“What are you doing?!”
Detective Jin Yu-kyung didn’t want to hear this.
But Seo Jin continued regardless.
“Yet it’s strange, isn’t it? The dashcam conveniently malfunctioned, and fragments of a foreign luxury car—uncommon on Korean roads—were found. That foreign car, the person driving it, there’s only one in all of South Korea. Shin Jong-seo, the CEO of Shinma Electronics.”
Shin Jong-seo was the third son of Shin Moo-hak, the chairman of Shinma Group.
“Shin Jong-seo has more than enough ability to cover up cases. Even overwhelming evidence becomes useless before him.”
“…!”
“You’ve already seen my capabilities alongside Jung Min-woo earlier. And you know I’m fearless—you witnessed it when I took down that pseudo-religious cult. I even put Shin Il-seung away not long ago.”
Jin Yu-kyung was the person who knew Shin Jong-seo best.
She had quietly gathered evidence to avenge her husband and restore his honor.
Even now, she was likely moving beneath the surface, hidden from their eyes.
Seo Jin intended to use that evidence to destroy Shin Jong-seo.
And to seize everything Shin Jong-seo possessed.
“Shin Jong-seo doesn’t seem like much anyway. Let’s kill him, Shin Jong-seo.”

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