Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 181

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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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A Rope of Conspiracy (1)
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“Does it matter if he’s a prosecutor or a street thug? They’re all the same, aren’t they? I’ll pay double. How about it?”
A few days later, in a small office bearing the sign of FLF Entertainment.
On the surface, it masqueraded as an entertainment agency, but its actual business was arranging overseas prostitution.
Representative Kim Hyun-bong stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray and stared ahead.
A man with a thick, unkempt beard sat across from him.
This man was someone who orchestrated contract killings through illegal immigrants.
Kill a person, smuggle out—and it’s over.
In South Korea, these men were like ghosts.
With no information about them, he was confident that once they fled overseas, they could never be caught.
But the man was hesitating. The target of the contract was a prosecutor.
“And his name is Seo Jin Kim, right?”
The man knew Seo Jin’s name too.
Seo Jin was the prosecutor who caught Jeo Hoo-an, the nephew of the Prosecutor General.
If information leaked even slightly, every escape route would be sealed off in an instant.
Even if the killer managed to escape safely, what came after was the real problem.
There was a possibility that every illegal immigrant in all of South Korea would be swept up.
That was power.
“…Do I really have to do this? He’s a prosecutor, you know? Those bastards don’t care when other people die, but when it’s their own business, they come down hard. You don’t know that?”
At the man’s hesitation, Representative Kim Hyun-bong furrowed his brow and spoke.
“I know. That’s why I don’t want to do it either. But this is a favor for our Qian Zhu. He says he’ll cut off the investment if we don’t, and I can’t ignore that.”
“You crazy bastard, you’re risking your life for investment?”
“Don’t you know? In this business, money is life. I’ll pay you three times the usual rate.”
The man shook his head while putting a cigarette to his lips.
“No.”
“What if we make it look like a traffic accident?”
“Still no. I’ll get caught.”
“Four times.”
“Still no.”
“Five times.”
At the mention of five times the usual payment, greed filled the man’s eyes.
But he didn’t answer hastily.
The man continued to deliberate for a long while.
The target was a prosecutor, and the backlash that would follow.
And then his resolve seemed to crystallize.
The man exhaled cigarette smoke along with a heavy sigh and opened his mouth.
“Seven times. And additional options.”
“Hey! Seven times the usual rate….”
“Then you do it yourselves.”
“Damn it!”
“There has to be hazard pay, right? I need at least that much to convince the guys.”
All this deliberation had been nothing but theater—a pretext to squeeze out more money.
Kim Hyun-bong knew it too, but he nodded with resignation and asked anyway.
“So, how are you planning to do it?”
“Going after a successful prosecutor and running? That’s impossible. One mistake and we all go down.”
“Then?”
“We’ll make it look like a drunken brawl. The law in this country is a joke anyway—unpremeditated murder with mitigating circumstances, diminished capacity from alcohol, we can get away with less than five years. You provide a lawyer, hire a broadcast producer to package him as a sympathetic character. Deal?”
Kim Hyun-bong began calculating in his head.
Seven times the usual rate, plus a lawyer, plus hiring a broadcast producer.
The expenses were mounting.
“There’s nothing left in it for me.”
“You doing it or not?”
“I have to. What choice do I have?”
The man continued with a bleak smile.
“Put down 50% upfront. I’ll handle it cleanly.”
“I understand, but if this gets exposed….”
“It won’t get exposed, but even if it does, nothing will trace back to you. There won’t be any connection whatsoever.”
“I trust you.”
“It’s a matter of trust. We’ve done business before, haven’t we?”
The two men shook hands.
A contract for Seo Jin’s murder had just been sealed.
With the handshake complete, the man turned and left.
He opened the door and exited the executive office.
Three thugs who had been waiting outside immediately filed into the office. Jang Seok-min was among them.
As Kim Hyun-bong lit a cigarette, Jang Seok-min, standing at the front, posed a question.
“Did the deal go well?”
“Well? Looks like I’m hemorrhaging cash. This is worse than I thought.”
“What’s the plan?”
“What do you mean?”
“Putting a hole in the prosecutor.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious. How do you take out a prosecutor, not some ordinary person?”
Jang Seok-min asked innocently, and Kim Hyun-bong harbored no suspicion.
Exhaling cigarette smoke, he relayed exactly what the man had said.
A fight with a drunk and an unpremeditated murder.
The illegal immigrant would claim he didn’t know the target was a prosecutor.
“These bastards are professionals at killing. They’ll smash a soju bottle and go for the femoral artery in the thigh. They’ll claim it happened in a drunken moment without intent to kill. Get a skilled lawyer and find a producer to spin the illegal immigrant’s image positively. Then he walks in under five years. Crazy bastards.”
Kim Hyun-bong burst into laughter.
All this time, he’d been agonizing over how to kill Seo Jin, but now he felt the exquisite relief of a nagging toothache finally gone.
Jang Seok-min laughed along with him in perfect unison.
But his thoughts were entirely different.
No matter how much of a thug Jang Seok-min was, he was still a South Korean citizen.
It bothered him that a South Korean prosecutor’s life hung in the balance at the hands of an illegal alien.
‘Five years? Seriously…’
Once Jang Seok-min stepped outside the office, he cautiously gauged the surroundings.
After confirming no one was nearby, he raised his phone to his ear.
The person on the other end was Seo Jin.
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“Yeah, thanks.”
I answered Jang Seok-min’s call.
Though his voice was grave, I felt no fear whatsoever.
I knew their plan inside and out.
Avoiding danger was second nature, and dismantling a gang of thugs was child’s play.
The only thing I needed to consider was how to avoid conflict with Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun.
If I climbed the ladder through the thugs, I’d reach Eom Seon-ju, who was Kim Young-jun’s Wife’s blood sibling and the Prosecutor General’s sister-in-law.
The moment I dragged Eom Seon-ju by the hair into the Prosecutor’s Office, there was a real chance Kim Young-jun would explode in fury.
‘He might misunderstand and think I was investigating his background.’
Now wasn’t the time to stand against Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun.
I had to hide my emotions completely and act as though I were on his side.
Showing hostility was something I’d do only once I had real power.
After a moment’s deliberation, I pushed myself up from my desk with my hands.
Then I headed toward Jang Ji-hyuk’s office.
“Would you like some coffee?”
Jang Ji-hyuk, buried under documents, looked up at the sound of my voice.
Dark circles hung beneath his eyes down to his jaw—the weight of excessive work.
Yet Jang Ji-hyuk masked his exhaustion with a faint smile.
“Coffee? You’re buying, right?”
“I’ll get you the most delicious coffee in the world.”
“Sounds good.”
Jang Ji-hyuk rose and followed me into the hallway.
But I wasn’t heading toward the elevator.
I walked straight ahead down the hallway.
“Aren’t we going outside? You said you’d buy coffee.”
“Yes, coffee.”
I was heading toward the break room at the end of the hallway.
Jang Ji-hyuk muttered, “Ah, I was just going to have a cigarette,” and followed after me.
When I pulled a canned coffee from the vending machine and handed it to him, Jang Ji-hyuk chuckled and cracked a joke.
“Canned coffee? Is that the most delicious thing in the world?”
“Isn’t coffee from a senior the best? That’s what I’ve always believed.”
“No, that’s not it. And are you an ordinary junior? I can’t exactly call someone who orders his senior around left and right an ordinary, cute junior, can I?”
“My apologies.”
“Never mind.”
Jang Ji-hyuk sat in a chair and sipped the canned coffee before asking.
“So, what’s going on?”
Whenever I came to him like this, there was always something.
Thinking this time would be no different, he asked.
“Those thugs from back then. I think it’s time we arrested them.”
“Why? Do you think the timing is right now?”
“Yes.”
Hearing my answer, Jang Ji-hyuk grinned.
The thought of being able to dispose of trash that deceived young students and trafficked them into overseas prostitution lifted his spirits.
Jang Ji-hyuk brought the coffee to his lips and spoke.
“That really is the most delicious coffee.”
Jang Ji-hyuk laughed in good humor and crushed the empty can. Then he tossed it into the trash and continued.
“Those thug bastards are in for a hellish night, but trash belongs in the trash bin, after all.”
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That evening.
Eom Seon-ju was on the phone with Kim Hyun-bong.
-The task you instructed me with then—I believe we can resolve it.
The terror plan against Seo Jin. Kim Hyun-bong appealed to Eom Seon-ju about how much effort he had invested.
Since the target was a prosecutor, hiring a cleaner had been genuinely difficult.
But because it was Eom Seon-ju’s instruction, he had done his absolute best.
Finally, he requested continued good investments going forward.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Eom Seon-ju smiled faintly and ended the call. Then, looking at the darkened phone, he murmured.
“The handsome bachelor… I’m sorry.”
From Kim Hyun-bong’s confident tone, one could predict it.
Seo Jin would die now.
Eom Seon-ju chuckled, thinking he would need to give a generous condolence gift.
Just then, Eom Seon-ju’s phone vibrated again.
Eom Seon-ju picked up the phone with a leisurely motion.
“Yeah, speak.”
-Director, I’ve found out. A prosecutor named Lee So-hee…
The moment Lee So-hee’s personal background came to light.
Even with Eom Seon-ju’s information network, she couldn’t uncover that Lee So-hee’s father was Baek Ki-ho, a member of parliament.
But.
-She grew up without material hardship, but it appears she lived with her mother without a father.
“Just the two of them?”
-Yes.
Eom Seon-ju’s eyes gleamed.
This was the moment the gossip from the restroom was confirmed as truth.
“You did a thorough job? I heard her father was in the securities industry?”
-All traces of her father have been erased, as if he never existed. In cases like this, there’s usually only one explanation. I believe she’s the child of an unmarried mother.
“What about her mother? Did she graduate from university?”
-High school education.
“What’s her occupation?”
-It appears she had no occupation.
As the voice on the other end continued, the smile playing at Eom Seon-ju’s lips grew deeper and deeper.
“A high school graduate with no job, and an unmarried mother at that, yet she lived without material hardship? The family must have been wealthy?”
-That doesn’t appear to be the case either.
Something smells off.
A suspicious smell.
What would be bitter to her sister was sweet as sesame to Eom Seon-ju.
Eom Seon-ju ended the call and immediately rose to her feet.
“Park, have the car ready.”
Eom Seon-ju intended to meet with her sister.
Congratulations could wait, but bad news needed to be shared as soon as possible, and sorrow needed to be divided together.
That was what she believed to be proper conduct between sisters.
The driver hurried to bring the car around, and Eom Seon-ju picked up her phone again.
The number she was calling was naturally her sister, Seo Jin’s Aunt.
When Seo Jin’s Aunt said “Hello?” from the other end of the line, Eom Seon-ju spoke in a warmer tone than usual.
“Sister, are you busy?”
-Something good happened? Did your land value go up?
“I have good news and bad news. I wanted to tell you about them. Do you have time?”
-Good news and bad news?
“Yes.”
The good news was the terror directed at Seo Jin.
The bad news was naturally about Lee So-hee.
Eom Seon-ju waited for a response, and her aunt hesitated for a moment.
Her aunt knew Eom Seon-ju’s nature well.
The bad news was sure to be more shocking.
After a brief pause, her aunt, who had been deliberating, finally answered.
-Alright, where should we meet?
A brilliant smile spread across Eom Seon-ju’s face.
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At that moment, at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
The parking lot was packed with prosecution service vans.
Investigators were boarding the vehicles, armed with crowbars, hammers, and various other metal implements.
The investigators’ expressions were different from usual—their eyes held a lethal intensity, anticipating danger.
The target was FLF Entertainment’s office.
Prosecutor Jang Ji-hyuk intended to deliver hell to those bastards.
“Did you request cooperation from the police?”
Prosecutor Jang Ji-hyuk shook his head at Seo Jin’s question.
“When catching gangster scum, you can’t have too many people knowing about it. They could hear about it from somewhere and flee, right? We’ll request cooperation during the raid. We need to sweep them all away without leaving a single one.”
“That’s right. We need to sweep them all away.”
Those bastards who tried to terrorize Seo Jin.
Eom Seon-ju and those gangsters.
Thugs who swagger around trusting in their petty money.
Tonight, they would disappear.

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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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