Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 63

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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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An Unsolvable Problem (5)
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“The Police Chief and the Violent Crimes Team Leader?”
Ji Se-heon and Han Jung-ah stared in disbelief, their mouths agape.
Seo Jin had gone to meet the victim’s sibling and suddenly raided a sex trafficking operation.
But he didn’t stop there—he was going after the police.
Without context, it was an unexpectedly extreme situation.
“It’s a bribery ledger.”
Seo Jin placed the ledger he’d brought before Ji Se-heon.
Ji Se-heon hurriedly examined the ledger.
Everyone from ordinary civil servants to police officers, even military personnel.
If this broke, it would become a massive scandal of serious proportions.
“Ha….”
Ji Se-heon clutched his head.
But wait.
Color gradually returned to his face.
And then.
“This demonic bastard. Did your ancestors visit you in a dream?”
Ji Se-heon slammed the ledger down with his palm with a sharp crack.
And then.
“Bring him in.”
He summed it up in one phrase.
Shortly after.
Seo Jin left, and Han Jung-ah opened her mouth as she looked at the ledger.
“…But will the Prosecutor General approve this?”
Jo Yong-jun was only looking for an opportunity to resign over his son’s murder case.
Literally a tiger with its teeth knocked out.
But a tiger is still a tiger.
One must not underestimate it.
“The Police Chief and he are on good terms, aren’t they? If you tell him to cut off the tail appropriately….”
“No, he’ll actually be pleased.”
“Sir?”
Jo Yong-jun was being tormented by his son’s situation.
Reporters were coming and going, and portal news sites were filled with criticism.
“But if it comes out that the Police Chief was protecting the pimp….”
The arrows of blame would find a new target.
“A chance to retire quietly.”
Ji Se-heon chuckled and put a cigarette in his mouth.
An arrest warrant was issued for the Police Chief.
Rumors spread like wildfire, and people whispered among themselves.
“Have you ever heard of a rookie grabbing the Police Chief by the collar? It’s the first time I’ve heard of it since the seventies.”
“But how did he manage it?”
“The labor office was actually a sex trafficking operation.”
“So how did he figure that out? I walk past there every day and never noticed.”
“Some people just have sharper eyes.”
“Sigh… Maybe I should try playing detective too?”
The prosecutors stood with cigarettes dangling from their lips, gazing out the window.
They could see reporters rushing out frantically.
Soon a van pulled up in front of them, and investigators dragged out the Police Chief and the Violent Crimes Team Leader.
Reporters swarmed toward them.
“Is it true you covered for the establishment’s operations?”
“You passed along the names and phone numbers of police vice squad officers?”
“They say you received 500,000 won each time you tipped them off about raids!”
“Please say something!”
And I was heading toward the interrogation room.
Click.
As I opened the door and stepped inside, I saw Lee So-hee and Seo Dong-seok, the victim’s brother, sitting across from each other.
Lee So-hee shook her head toward me.
Seo Dong-seok kept his mouth firmly shut.
No matter how much coaxing or persuasion, he remained silent as if he’d never learned to speak in the first place.
“I’ll take it from here.”
Lee So-hee rose without resistance.
As she brushed past me, she opened her mouth.
“I’ll be watching from outside.”
“Got it.”
Lee So-hee was curious about how I would make Seo Dong-seok talk.
She had a feeling that if it was me, I would definitely make him confess the truth.
Wanting to see that, she moved behind the glass partition.
But then.
“Oh? Hello there.”
A familiar figure stood on the other side of the glass partition.
It was Chief Prosecutor Lee Myung-soo.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“You were watching?”
“Teaching people to speak when they’ve got selective mutism—that’s always the hardest part, isn’t it?”
He was referring to Seo Dong-seok, who kept his mouth clamped shut.
Lee So-hee nodded.
And she felt embarrassed.
I hadn’t heard anything from Seo Dong-seok.
She exhaled a sigh and opened her mouth.
“I’m curious what Prosecutor Kim would do.”
“That bastard? No special technique. He’s just damn cunning.”
“Pardon?”
“He plays dumb and vacant until someone’s backed into a corner, then throws the evidence right at them when he sees his chance.”
“Isn’t that a technique?”
Prosecutor Lee Myung-soo shook his head and spoke firmly.
“It’s experience.”
Experience isn’t something you can acquire through knowledge alone.
You have to crawl through the dirt and struggle to fill that gap.
But Seo Jin is still young.
His experience is no different from Lee So-hee’s.
Prosecutor Lee Myung-soo smiled faintly as he looked at Lee So-hee.
“That’s why he’s such a peculiar fellow.”
Something that can’t be explained by logic or theory.
From Prosecutor Lee Myung-soo’s perspective, that was Seo Jin.
Seo Dong-seok harbored venom.
He believed that if he kept silent, everything would be buried as a secret.
If his sister’s past came to light….
‘It can’t happen.’
My sister Shin Ji-min had been famous since childhood for her pretty face.
Delinquents swarmed around her, and she took to alcohol, cigarettes, and inhalants.
She stole money from friends and committed acts of violence.
Once, she even made the news under the name “group assault by high school girls.”
The world was horrified when she stripped a friend’s clothes, filmed a video, and beat her nearly to death.
‘If only I’d been arrested back then….’
The Judge gave Shin Ji-min, who shed tears of remorse, a light sentence of suspended execution.
At that time, Shin Ji-min wasn’t truly remorseful—she thought, ‘So this is all they can do to me?’
And Shin Ji-min’s rampage became unstoppable.
She began recruiting younger girls and started operating as a pimp for compensated dating.
Upon reaching adulthood, she met Chuncheon’s most notorious delinquent and dove into the sex trafficking business in earnest.
If all of that came to light, Seo Dong-seok would be finished too.
Because Seo Dong-seok was complicit!
It was Seo Dong-seok who secretly introduced minors to Shin Ji-min without the Boss knowing.
To bury that fact….
‘My sister just has to die like this.’
Seo Dong-seok slowly raised his head.
The prosecutor sitting across from him hasn’t said a word this whole time.
Just staring directly at his face.
‘If I cook this bastard right, I can hand him over. After all, they’re trying to catch a serial killer.’
Seo Dong-seok saw me as malleable.
It was the same when we met at the Coffee Shop during the day.
The female prosecutor did all the talking while I sat quietly.
Moreover, even when arrested by the Police, I protected him.
In the vehicle heading to the District Prosecutor’s Office, I asked something sensitive, but that was all.
Seo Dong-seok broke the silence and opened his mouth.
“I don’t know anything.”
“….”
“And could you really please stop? I’d be happy if the culprit is caught, but until then our family has to suffer. It’s only recently that Mother and Father have been smiling. But now that news of my sister has come up again, laughter has disappeared from our home. So please stop. I’m begging you. Please….”
His voice was desperate.
It seemed as though one touch would send tears streaming down his face.
“A dutiful son, aren’t you?”
“Pardon?”
“You must have been close with your sister?”
“Ah, yes.”
He answered first.
But Seo Dong-seok sensed the atmosphere had shifted.
I was smiling.
‘What is this?’
When he felt something had gone wrong, I pulled out a red notebook and unfolded it on the table.
Seo Dong-seok recognized it instantly.
A sex trafficking ledger.
‘W-why is this here?’
While the sex trafficking operation was destroyed and the Police Chief and Team Leader were brought in, Seo Dong-seok had been locked up here.
So he didn’t know what was happening outside.
But seeing the notebook, everything suddenly made sense.
Everything was falling apart.
I tapped the sex trafficking ledger with my finger and opened my mouth.
“You may not know anything, but you’d recognize your sister’s handwriting, wouldn’t you?”
“Ah… yes.”
“It’s your sister’s handwriting, isn’t it?”
“…Did my sister do something like this?”
All Seo Dong-seok could do was deny it.
But in that moment, my expression changed completely.
With eyes like a demon, I glared at Seo Dong-seok and slowly leaned forward.
“You’re playing dumb.”
“…!”
My voice was distinctly different from before.
Seo Dong-seok stared at me with startled eyes.
Seo Jin’s voice continued.
“The Violent Crimes Team Leader is sitting in the interrogation room next door. He told me there’s a punk who deals with minors. He said that’s you.”
“…!”
“I heard you kept separate ledgers for the minors. And those ledgers will surface soon too. Your house is included in the search warrant. Whether it’s burner phones or ledgers, they’ll turn up.”
Those standing at the edge of a cliff share the same desperation.
They grasp at straws.
The Violent Crimes Team Leader wanted to live, so he gave Seo Jin information.
And Seo Dong-seok’s heart was freezing over.
He was terrified of a life rotting away in prison.
Whether it would be one year or ten years, he didn’t know.
Seo Dong-seok trembled violently, swallowing dry saliva.
Watching him, Seo Jin leisurely interlaced his fingers and opened his mouth.
“Violation of the Act on the Protection of Children and Adolescents Against Sexual Abuse—life imprisonment or at least five years. Even after release, you won’t be free. Your personal information will be disclosed to residents, and you’ll wear a tracking device on your ankle. You’ll be pointed at forever.”
“…!”
“There’s one way to survive. Make your sister the bad person. ‘She made me do it all. I just did what I was told.’ Then you’d be out in about three years.”
It seemed like an escape route to him.
Seo Dong-seok opened his mouth urgently.
“Y-yes! I just did what I was told! My sister, since she was young….”
“Enough. Who killed her?”
“What?”
“Who killed her?”
“I-I really don’t know! I even searched my sister’s phone, and there was nothing! I’m serious!”
Seo Jin leaned closer toward him.
“Did she have a boyfriend?”
“Of course she did? She played with all of them!”
“Do you know who he was?”
“There were… too many to know. It wasn’t just one or two!”
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Bang!
The door burst open.
It was a Solo Apartment—Seo Dong-seok’s residence.
Investigators flooded in and set down prosecution boxes.
Everything in the house would be packed into those boxes.
Lee So-hee stood there.
She shook her head.
She wondered if she should be this involved when she wasn’t even part of Criminal Division 2.
But since she was already here, she looked around.
After Shin Ji-min was killed, her parents had moved elsewhere.
So this place is used by Seo Dong-seok alone.
It’s incredibly filthy—he hasn’t cleaned in ages.
Soju bottles stacked everywhere, cigarette butts discarded haphazardly.
Lee So-hee entered the room and opened the desk drawer.
Cigarette butts filled it as if it were an ashtray.
“Ugh…”
Lee So-hee brushed off her hand and shifted her gaze elsewhere.
Then.
“Found the phones!”
At an investigator’s shout, Lee So-hee headed in that direction.
Two phones.
Both burner phones used by Seo Dong-seok and Shin Ji-min.
Lee So-hee picked up Shin Ji-min’s phone and checked the messages first.
But there was nothing.
Everything was related to sex trafficking.
Lee So-hee pressed through the phone again.
An enormous number of contacts were saved in the address book.
At that moment, Seo Jin walked down the hallway carrying stacks of documents.
He stopped at an interrogation room.
Opening the door and stepping inside, the Violent Crimes Team Leader sat with his head in his hands.
He blinked when he saw Seo Jin holding the thick stack of documents.
“What’s that?”
“Time to work.”
Seo Jin slammed the documents down on the table.
Then, placing his hand on the documents, he spoke.
“These are all the suspects you’ve put on your list so far. I’ll ask about each one, so please answer well.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know better than anyone, don’t you? You’ll help with the investigation, right?”
“Ha!”
The Team Leader stared at Seo Jin with a bewildered expression.
But Seo Jin paid him no mind and flipped through the documents, speaking.
“I’ll set up a bed for you, so get some rest here tonight before you leave.”
When Seo Jin even placed cigarettes on the table, the Team Leader didn’t refuse.
An interrogation room was naturally more comfortable than the detention center.
And he could smoke here.
Seo Jin continued flipping through the documents.
The one he’d seen through psychometry had a solid build.
So he ruled out the thin ones.
Finally, based on the message that came to Lee So-hee—that is, the address book from Shin Ji-min’s phone—he completed the final sorting.
“Nam Taek-hyun—why was this guy excluded from the suspect list?”
“I was in training when the missing person report for Shin Ji-min came in.”
“Pardon? Training?”
“I’m a soldier. A soldier.”
If he was a soldier, the Hardware Store Owner wouldn’t have suspected him.
Another pass, then.
“What about Park Myung-hun?”
“That bastard….”
The back-and-forth questioning alone consumed considerable time.
The Violent Crimes Team Leader lit a cigarette and studied Seo Jin.
‘So his name is Seo Jin?’
The Team Leader’s life was finished now.
But Seo Jin had caught the Team Leader and even the Police Chief.
That alone was an extraordinary feat.
As long as he didn’t stumble from here on, this accomplishment alone would serve as a fast pass for his entire career.
‘But the Serial Killer?’
All that had been discovered were bones—a murder with no evidence.
The man who’d turned the police department upside down wouldn’t be ridiculed for failing to solve even this much.
And though such thoughts shouldn’t cross his mind, Shin Ji-min was someone who deserved to die anyway.
He didn’t think it was necessary to go this far.
Yet Seo Jin was meticulously examining each photograph, his concentration absolute.
‘Why is he pushing this hard?’
Moreover.
‘You’ll never find him.’
This was a case the Team Leader had been handling for months.
But he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the perpetrator’s trail.
‘And you think you can?’
He himself, who’d been grinding through this profession for decades, had come up empty.
For someone who’d just set foot in law enforcement to suddenly find the killer made no sense whatsoever.
The Team Leader smiled faintly and exhaled cigarette smoke.
‘Go ahead and try.’
That was when it happened.
The door opened and Lee So-hee entered.
“I brought it.”
Lee So-hee set Shin Ji-min’s mobile phone down before Seo Jin.
“Thanks.”
Seo Jin immediately seized Shin Ji-min’s phone in his hand.

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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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