Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 209

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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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“Why are you scowling like that? I’m happy to see you after so long.”
It was the Interrogation Room. Jang Ji-hyuk was supposed to come, but Seo Jin appeared out of nowhere.
Seo Jin grinned widely, but Kim Yun-hwan continued to furrow his brow and growl.
“You know, right? No matter how much you rage, I’m not going to Prison. The trial will drag on, and once things quiet down, I’ll walk out with a not guilty verdict. So just leave. I don’t even want to look at you.”
“What, you’re suspecting me again?”
“I said leave.”
Seo Jin exhaled a long sigh and shook his head.
“Brother, think about it. What could I have possibly done about your case? Think about it—I was the one who told you the drug investigation was coming, wasn’t I? And how would I even know you were out with a woman? Yet you suspect me and hate me? That’s ridiculous.”
“Hah….”
As Kim Yun-hwan clutched his head, Seo Jin’s expression turned slightly bitter. He placed cigarettes and a lighter on the table and continued speaking.
“Stop suspecting me and just smoke.”
“Damn it….”
A hollow curse escaped Kim Yun-hwan’s lips. He put a cigarette in his mouth and looked at Seo Jin.
“So, why did you come?”
“Actually, I’ve wanted to see your face for a while now, but our relationship is complicated, you know? There are people watching. So I’m here now. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not the only reason you came looking for me, is it?”
Kim Yun-hwan knows quite a lot about Seo Jin.
If he came like this, there had to be some reason.
Seo Jin answered without hiding anything.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
Seo Jin placed his phone on the table. Kim Yun-hwan picked it up and checked the screen.
On the display was the Jirashi that Kim Yun-hwan had seen before.
In other words, that he was not Kim Young-jun’s son.
Kim Yun-hwan’s face twisted in an instant.
“Why are you showing me this!”
“This Jirashi is spreading quite widely. I think almost everyone who matters knows about it by now. So we need to get a test done without your uncle knowing….”
Seo Jin already knows the test results.
But that was something he investigated on his own, something he can’t reveal to anyone. The moment it comes to light, his life could be over.
So Seo Jin is trying to find out through Kim Yun-hwan.
And he plans to guide the results so that Kim Young-jun accidentally discovers them.
He will bring that family to ruin.
“Let’s get tested.”
Kim Yun-hwan’s eyes twisted.
He slammed the table with his fist—’Bang!’—and shouted.
“You bastard, you need to confirm it!”
Kim Yun-hwan’s emotions are becoming turbulent.
In moments like this, you have to pretend to get excited too, pushing his mind further into confusion.
Seo Jin also slammed the table—Bang! Bang! Bang!—and spoke.
“Who cares what anyone says? I said a test, not confirmation! The presidential election is coming soon. What if this Jirashi gets into the Ruling Party’s hands? What if those bastards latch onto your uncle?”
“…!”
“Wait until then to run tests? Even then, I won’t believe the results. Those people will cling to whatever narrative they want. No matter what the truth is, they’ll twist it into a lie! That’s why we need to have the test results ready before they can sink their teeth into anything!”
As my voice rose, Kim Yun-hwan bit his lip and countered.
“Fine, let’s say that’s true. But why does it have to be you who does it?”
“Are you asking because you don’t know? I’m a prosecutor! My life gets easier if my uncle survives!”
“You bastard!”
“Don’t call me that. If you hesitate and something happens to my uncle….”
“What if something happens!”
“I won’t forgive you. It’d be the same as ruining my life.”
My eyes turned cold and lethal.
Kim Yun-hwan said nothing more. Ash from his cigarette simply grew longer in his hand.
I took in every one of his movements.
His hand trembled faintly.
He was anxious.
Doubt was eating at him.
He was wondering if I might not actually be Kim Young-jun’s son.
I could feel all of those emotions laid bare.
‘This is as far as it goes.’
I had anticipated this.
Kim Yun-hwan wouldn’t proceed with the test through me.
He would definitely try to call someone he trusted to verify it himself.
The reason I came here was to plant a seed of doubt in Kim Yun-hwan’s mind.
I pushed off the table and stood. Then I spoke in a hollow voice.
“Sorry. I didn’t think about how you’d feel.”
As I turned my body toward the Interrogation Room door, Kim Yun-hwan said nothing.
He simply kept smoking.
Then, the moment I grasped the doorknob, he opened his mouth.
“Wait.”
A smile played at my lips.
I hadn’t expected him to reach out so quickly.
It meant Kim Yun-hwan was also wrestling with the question of his relationship to Kim Young-jun.
And when I turned back to face him, the smile at my lips vanished without a trace.
“What?”
“Let’s just use one phone call.”
I smiled and approached the table again.
“Go ahead.”
“I’ll be outside.”
“Got it. I’ll watch from outside and come in once the call ends.”
As I stepped out, Kim Yun-hwan brought his phone to his ear.
“Mom, it’s me. No, never mind, I’m fine. There’s a phone in my room drawer. Password is 1231. Find me a contact named Jang Seok-min in there. And put the housekeeper on. Who else would it be? The woman who does the housework!”
And outside the Interrogation Room.
I was observing Kim Yun-hwan’s every move.
The face he’d shown in front of Kim Yun-hwan was gone. I stared at him with eyes so cold they were chilling.
Kim Yun-hwan kept his head bowed while making a call, as if terrified even a whisper might escape his lips.
The moment the call ended, he’d delete the outgoing number without hesitation.
But watching him, I smiled quietly to myself.
‘No matter how much you hide it… I can see exactly who you’ll call, what you’ll do. It’s all transparent to me.’
Kim Yun-hwan didn’t trust me. But he was anxious—that much was certain.
He wanted to know the truth.
So he was trying to call Jang Seok-min, the only one he could somewhat trust, the one he believed was his subordinate.
*
*
*
“I brought the hair samples.”
That night, I met with Jang Seok-min.
Jang Seok-min placed a plastic bag containing hair strands and a toothbrush on the table.
“A toothbrush?”
“When Yun-hwan went home, the housekeeper there gave it to me.”
I chuckled softly.
I’d been curious how Kim Yun-hwan would obtain Kim Young-jun’s DNA, but for him, it was effortless.
“Good work.”
“So what do we do now?”
In response to Jang Seok-min’s question, I handed him a business card.
The card belonged to the person who’d conducted Kim Yun-hwan’s genetic test before.
“Take this and visit this person. They’ll run the test. After that, just do as I tell you. And the toothbrush—the housekeeper gave it to you, right?”
“Yes. When I said Yun-hwan was a friend, she just handed it over.”
In that moment, I saw my eyes gleam with a cruelty that made Jang Seok-min flinch.
It was truly terrifying.
And I felt Jang Seok-min’s reaction.
It wasn’t anger directed at him, but I felt sorry anyway.
“Let’s eat.”
I smiled gently and picked up a spoon.
Jang Seok-min also picked up his spoon and glanced at me again.
‘The prosecutor’s expression really is…’
Jang Seok-min found it fascinating how I could appear as a handsome, gentle young man one moment, then wear an expression as demonic as the devil itself the next.
*
*
*
After parting with Jang Seok-min, I returned home immediately.
Then I pushed open the bookshelf and stared at the hastily scrawled writing inside.
There was much I still hadn’t deciphered, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was writing down far more new information than what I’d recorded before.
Of course, there might be something decisive hidden in my old notes, but I could uncover that slowly.
I picked up my pen and circled the name Eom Seon-ju, Kim Young-jun’s Wife’s younger brother, recalling what she’d said not long ago.
Ever since Eom Seon-ju’s arrest, I’d been meeting with her consistently, and she’d told me this.
-Your stepmother… she’s always been like that since childhood. A woman full of secrets. But she still has plenty of them now, doesn’t she? What are they? Sorry, I can’t tell you. The urge to kill her rose all the way to my throat, but that’s my insurance policy.
I had no expectation that Kim Yun-hwan or Eom Seon-ju would serve actual prison time.
No—I believed that even if they did, they’d escape quickly.
‘But…’
I recalled another thing Eom Seon-ju had said. Something she’d mentioned in passing.
-Where do you think my sister’s Pandora’s box is? When we were young, she hid it under her pillow, locked away tight.
The expression on Eom Seon-ju’s face as she said it—she was looking at me with contempt.
She knew, but I didn’t. That was what her look conveyed.
But I could find a hint in what Eom Seon-ju had said.
That remark meant Kim Young-jun’s Wife still kept her shameful secrets hidden nearby.
‘Where…’
I began sketching the layout of Kim Young-jun’s House on the empty wall space.
On the second floor: bedrooms, a bathroom, and a dressing room.
‘On the first floor…’
Where would she hide her secrets?
‘It has to be inside the house.’
*
*
*
A few days later, I found my way to Kim Young-jun’s House.
Today was when Kim Young-jun and his wife were attending a social gathering together.
I’d called Kim Yu-mi on the way, and she’d made a sad face, saying she was on duty today too.
Which meant only the housekeeping woman was home at Kim Young-jun’s House.
Standing at the door and pressing the doorbell, I heard the woman’s voice: “Who is it?”
“Hello? Kim Yun-hwan asked me to pick something up for him.”
“Come in.”
The housekeeping woman let me in without any suspicion.
After all, just days before, I’d asked her to secretly bring me Kim Young-jun’s toothbrush and other strange favors.
As I passed the woman and entered the house beyond the gate, I asked her.
“Is Kim Yun-hwan’s room unlocked?”
“Yes.”
I’d prepared an answer in case she asked what I was picking up—”He said there’s a book he was reading”—but the woman didn’t ask anything at all.
I headed straight to the second floor, glancing back at the woman casually.
She was stretching and walking toward the kitchen.
‘She won’t come up.’
The only time the woman came to the second floor was during her morning cleaning.
I never set foot in this place at any other time.
It’s where expensive valuables are kept, and I want to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.
After climbing to the second floor, I passed Kim Yun-hwan’s room and approached Kim Young-jun’s Wife’s Dressing Room.
This space belonged solely to Kim Young-jun’s Wife, and no one else ever entered it.
Not Kim Young-jun, and not even Kim Yu-mi.
If someone wanted to hide something, this would be the place to do it.
I grasped the doorknob of the Dressing Room without hesitation and turned it.
The door creaked open, and as befitted a dressing room, an enormous collection of clothing greeted me.
All of it was expensive luxury brands—not a single label I recognized.
I began pushing the clothes hanging on the racks aside, searching for anything suspicious.
‘A place where I can easily tell if something is safely stored without checking it frequently. Is there a safe installed? Or…’
As I was moving the clothes, I paused mid-motion.
‘Huh?’
Three suitcases came into view.
Two luxury designer suitcases and one that looked decades old.
I reached toward the worn suitcase and pulled it out.
It felt quite heavy, as if something substantial was packed inside.
I tried to open it, but the suitcase was locked.
A four-digit passcode.
I entered Kim Young-jun’s Wife’s birthday. Nothing. Then I tried Kim Yun-hwan’s, Kim Yu-mi’s, and even Kim Young-jun’s birthdays, along with their anniversary. Still nothing.
‘Could it be…’
I picked up my phone and sent a message to Investigator Lee Dong-young.
-You know that person I asked you to investigate before?
Long ago, I had once asked Investigator Lee Dong-young to look up the personal information of Kim Young-jun’s Wife’s ex-boyfriend.
-Could you find out their date of birth?
A reply came quickly.
That person’s birthday was August 17th.
I entered 0817 into the suitcase’s passcode.
And with a click, the suitcase opened.

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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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