Surviving as a Rogue Hospital Director - Chapter 135

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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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Episode 135.
Park Ha-rin felt a sting at Beom-jun’s words and her mouth went dry. With nothing left to say, she thrust out her lower lip.
She had brushed it off as fine simply to avoid making a fuss. If she just kept quiet, everything would pass over smoothly, she thought.
“Surely you’re not handling the accounting the same way?”
At Beom-jun’s question, Ha-rin searched for something to chew instead of answering.
But the biscuits she always nibbled on when words failed her were nowhere to be found.
‘Right. The director cleared them all out.’
When Beom-jun had visited the Emergency Room yesterday, he’d told her not to eat snacks and to have proper meals, taking back all the biscuits she’d been carrying and giving them to the associate director.
With nothing to occupy her mouth, Ha-rin bit her tongue.
“….”
As he observed her reaction, Beom-jun recalled the Hidden Quest.
[Hidden Quest: The First Voice]
The stagnant atmosphere requires a new breeze.
Make someone who has been silent speak their opinion openly.
Reward: One Talent Contract.
One person was needed to break through this culture of hush-hush. From that one person, everything that had been buried would surface.
Beom-jun realized that Ha-rin was also a candidate for the quest.
‘I assumed it would be someone exposing the Uigwonhoe, but thinking about it, there’s no reason it has to be, is there?’
The Uigwonhoe members, including Kang Se-ra, had such strong loyalty that he was troubled. But come to think of it, the quest never mentioned the Uigwonhoe at all.
‘If there’s someone at Korea University Hospital who’s been silent, then lucky me. Okay, I’ll target Team Leader Park Ha-rin.’
While Beom-jun and Ha-rin were talking, Kang Se-ra quietly left her seat. Whether she was busy or simply perceptive.
And aligned with Beom-jun’s thinking, a status window appeared.
[Park Ha-rin has been designated as a Hidden Quest target.]
[Her silence is connected to Korea University Hospital’s finances.]
The status window gave Beom-jun a hint—pushing him forward as if to complete the Hidden Quest.
This was the moment.
Beom-jun’s mind raced.
‘So there’s something dirty in Korea University Hospital’s finances? And Ha-rin’s been hushing it up.’
She was the person managing the hospital’s money—every penny coming in and going out.
Regrettably, the numbers didn’t seem transparent.
“I was asking whether you handle the accounting the same way.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
When Beom-jun opened the conversation, Ha-rin immediately played dumb and deflected.
Unlike her short answer, her pupils trembled nervously from side to side. Her status had shifted from patient to subordinate employee, and she wavered.
“It seems you say ‘I’m fine’ out of habit. Usually, when someone faints, we investigate the cause.”
“That’s because I already knew the reason. I was told as a child that I had Vasovagal Syncope.”
Ha-rin offered her own explanation, but Beom-jun’s next words left her speechless.
“Professor Kang examined you and made the confirmed diagnosis, so how can Team Leader Park be so certain? If you’d truly understood it, you wouldn’t have collapsed in the first place.”
“….”
She realized that her overconfidence in her own health meant she’d been jumping to conclusions ahead of the doctor.
She had fainted as a child and heard the term Vasovagal Syncope, but the Tilt Table Test today was her first time.
Kang Se-ra had said that Vasovagal Syncope could typically be diagnosed by symptoms alone, but until now it had been more of a strong guess.
Even after fainting a few times, Ha-rin had felt fine, so she’d expected the same result this time.
‘If yesterday’s work had ended just a little sooner. If I’d collapsed on the way home, things might have turned out very differently.’
A traffic accident, a head injury—the outcome would have been far worse.
Ha-rin realized that all the things she’d glossed over were finally surfacing. ‘I know all about it,’ ‘this much should be fine,’ she’d told herself.
As time passed, the boundary between thinking you understood something and truly knowing it became blurred,
and you let your guard down.
“You’re right. I was presumptuous. I’ll be more careful going forward.”
Ha-rin, who had been maintaining her silence, readily admitted it. The more she listened, the more Beom-jun’s words rang true.
But Beom-jun wasn’t finished.
“Team Leader Park, were there any line items you simply glossed over during the settlement process?”
Ha-rin felt a sting at his words.
And she bowed her head deeply. Because there was something catching her.
It was one of the reasons she’d been stressed during settlement reports lately. Or perhaps the biggest reason.
‘No, I didn’t just gloss over them—I know about them. Wait, is that the same as glossing over?’
Ha-rin sighed inwardly.
She wasn’t sure how many years now. At least five.
Six hundred million won. Every year, 600 million won vanished from Korea University Hospital’s accounts. Once it passed through Director Han Myeong-jae.
In the beginning, Ha-rin had deliberately left gaps in the approval documents to signal the problem to Gu Hui-jeong. But instead, the other woman corrected the errors and said nothing.
Ha-rin concluded that the associate director was covering for the director’s misdeeds, and after that, she filled in the holes that the director left instead of the associate director.
Juggling the budget that mysteriously disappeared from Korea University Hospital each year.
Ha-rin had tried to understand director Han’s circumstances on her own, of which she knew nothing. Turning a blind eye, pretending ignorance, telling herself it would be okay.
And so she had become essentially an accomplice to the director’s embezzlement. For years, she’d kept the secret with him.
Every year, eluding the accounting team’s scrutiny, she’d finish the settlement report alone. And each time, the existential dread would wash over her—how much longer could she do this?
“Burying something won’t make it disappear forever. Once everything comes to light, it’s too late. But there’s always a chance to prevent it before that happens.”
Beom-jun told Ha-rin that she still had an opportunity. That it wasn’t too late.
His words sounded sweet to her, which is why they frightened her all the more. Accustomed to being inside the pit, she didn’t know what lay outside it, but she’d convinced herself that inside the hole wasn’t so bad.
Ha-rin bit her tongue. Then she chewed her lower lip.
Ha-rin was still too afraid to take the hand Beom-jun was offering.
But then the bed curtain slid open.
Whoosh.
The one who opened it was Gu Hui-jeong.
“Phew, just made it. I thought you’d already been discharged. But I had to see your face before I left. Director, why are you keeping a sick girl here? I heard you approved her sick leave.”
“I came to wish her a good recovery. And to tell her that her sick leave approval has gone through.”
Hui-jeong scolded Beom-jun while wrapping her arms around Ha-rin.
“Wishing her well, my foot. You were saying something unnecessary.”
“Come on in quickly. You’re late.”
“Oh, a meeting came up. I’ve left the report for approval, so please look at it later.”
Before approaching Ha-rin, Beom-jun had given the associate director a heads-up. That Ha-rin would go straight on sick leave once discharged.
He thought it would help to have the associate director present while talking with Ha-rin. The two had such a close bond it could create a synergy.
“You knew I was being discharged today?”
“Yeah. The director told me. He said you’re taking sick leave starting today. Ha-rin. Don’t worry about anything and just get plenty of rest, okay?”
Ha-rin looked back and forth between Beom-jun and Hui-jeong. It was still an unfamiliar pairing.
They seemed to bicker, but they didn’t. Above all, the associate director never mixed words with people she disliked. The mere fact that they were in the same space together meant they were quite close.
‘The director is keeping separate contact with her.’
On top of that, the director had informed the associate director in advance that she’d be discharged today.
“I think it’s good to get Ha-rin back soon. Oh, and I heard earlier—there’s nothing Ha-rin just glosses over. How meticulous she is!”
“It’s an important matter, so we can’t leave it unsaid. We need to address it properly.”
At Beom-jun’s words, the associate director’s tone became slightly sharper.
The associate director remained as she always was. But the director, listening to her, was different.
Calm and composed. A far cry from the old days when they’d fight together and let things escalate.
This made Ha-rin wonder if the associate director’s heart had opened as well.
How the associate director had managed the director, no one knew better than Ha-rin herself, except for the associate director.
‘How could she do that? She was always trying to drive the director out of Korea University Hospital.’
Honestly, Ha-rin would never have endured it. She might have hated her forever. Yet the director seemed to have already forgiven the associate director.
It was something that should have been impossible by Ha-rin’s understanding, and yet it was already happening.
That was when the wall Ha-rin had built so firmly in her heart began to crack.
She couldn’t do this anymore. Her body and mind cried out in protest.
“For Team Leader Park’s sake, it was something that needed to be said. If we just let it slide, it will become a major disaster later.”
“Why are you speaking ill of her?”
“Speaking ill? How is this speaking ill?”
As the conversation with the associate director continued, Beom-jun began to grow irritated.
‘Did I bring her here for nothing? I thought she’d help, but if not Ha-rin, who else can I use for the Hidden Quest?’
The associate director was being overly emotional at the sight of someone she cared for in pain.
But if he let this moment slip away, it would take a long time before Ha-rin returned to work. A slight sense of regret. Beom-jun clicked his tongue.
Then the quiet Ha-rin opened her mouth.
“…Yes, you’re right. The director is right. I tampered with the ledger.”
‘Got her!’
At Ha-rin’s confession, Beom-jun’s fist clenched tight.
“The settlement wouldn’t balance. Actually, it was like that almost every year. Once it passed through the director, the numbers didn’t match.”
Ha-rin’s mouth, which had been firmly sealed, finally opened. Her voice trembled as a single tear fell.
“I’m sorry, Director.”
After her brief but heavy confession, tears streamed down Ha-rin’s face. After that came no excuses, no explanations.
At Ha-rin’s confession, Hui-jeong was taken aback. She, who had been trying to comfort Ha-rin, suddenly felt awkward and didn’t know what to do.
That was when Beom-jun stepped forward and ruffled the crown of Ha-rin’s bowed head.
“That must have been hard. Why did you carry all that alone?”
Having completed the quest, Beom-jun was in high spirits. He consoled Ha-rin cheerfully.
Above Ha-rin’s head, in Beom-jun’s field of vision, a status window floated.
[Hidden Quest completed.]
[Hidden Quest: The First Voice]
[You have obtained a ‘Talent Contract’ as a reward.]
But at Beom-jun’s words, Ha-rin felt as though she had been forgiven for all those long years. Now it was truly going to be okay.
She thought of the files organized in her office. The original files documenting Korea University Hospital’s budget before her hand touched them. Files she had carefully collected over more than five years.

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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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