The Lawyer Who Reads Tomorrow - Chapter 126
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 126
“Caregiver…?”
Was there such a person?
I had never heard of one. Never seen one either.
404, who seemed to be in a panic, was just blinking at me without saying anything.
“There was a caregiver?”
Another blink.
A caregiver.
I hadn’t seen one even when coming from the desk to this hospital room today.
I had only seen Manager Han Kyung-ho’s irritated face several times.
“Since when have they been here?”
[404]: From the beginning…? That…
[404]: When I was transferred? Ah, my memory is a bit jumbled
[404]: When I was transferred from the nursing home, they asked if I wanted to use a caregiver
[404]: I was too sleepy then too…
[404]: Anyway, I said I understood and that I would use one
[404]: And then a caregiver came…
“Wait.”
I could just look for them.
They’d be somewhere in the hospital anyway.
But this uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away.
These types of incidents generally had common patterns.
I hoped this wasn’t one of those.
[404]: Where are you going???
404 urgently opened the chat window and held me back.
[404]: I might have been mistaken, that caregiver, I wasn’t originally in this hospital room but somewhere else
[404]: Damn, I don’t know what’s going on either right now;
[404]: But they might still be there
“Why don’t you ask? Do you know the contact information?”
At those words, 404 shook his head with difficulty.
“You don’t know?”
…I thought he was a cunning guy, but that’s not it either.
He doesn’t even know the contact information of the caregiver he hired with his own money. Does that make sense?
Perhaps noticing my reproachful gaze, 404 began to protest.
[404]: That’s not it, I was really sleepy
[404]: I was so damn sleepy that I just slept all the time, and honestly someone said they’d connect me with a good caregiver
“Who?”
[404]: How would I know!!!
He really is a child.
This kid truly knew nothing about his own safety.
How on earth did Hwan raise this child?
“I’ll go look for now.”
[404]: Shit; but what if I was mistaken
[404]: Let me check the account again, seriously I might have seen it wrong
“Idiot.”
In the end, harsh words burst out.
[404]: ㅠ I can’t argue against this one
“You said the account was empty. Print out the transaction history. See where it went. Get ready to hand it over to the police.”
[404]: No! Ah! Hey
“What now.”
404 rolled his eyes around and grabbed onto me again.
[404]: I’m not really; on good terms with the police;
[404]: What if Young Master gets arrested?
“Stupid bastard.”
How could that be possible.
Countless calculations ran through my head.
What the hell was making this bastard find it so difficult to respond?
It was a stark contrast to the guy who had been running wild and bringing back the materials he wanted all this time.
He’s acting like he’s not even the same person.
“You laundered your identity, didn’t you.”
[404]: ….
To think that I, a lawyer, would be forced to point out something like this.
Even when I was a judge, no. It’s something I’ve never said in my entire life as a legal professional.
I felt a strange sensation.
“You took all the money in coins too. Got something to hide?”
[404] :….
“What would come out if we searched you?”
[404]: If you searched me, maybe some dust would come out….
“Never mind that, just tell me who introduced you. That caregiver.”
At my firmly cut words, 404 rolled his eyes weakly as if deflated.
[404]: I don’t know, just someone who moved me from the nursing home? An employee?
“What did they look like?”
[404] :…Just… a person?
Forget it.
I left him behind and walked out the door.
* * *
“Ah… a caregiver?”
The employee at the desk smiled awkwardly and opened her mouth.
“Wait a moment… you’re asking about patient Lee Yeon-woo, correct?”
When I nodded, she tapped the keyboard a few times, then let out a short sigh as if troubled.
“Um, in the case of patient Lee Yeon-woo’s caregiver, it was a private contract…”
“Is that so?”
“Ah, yes. They’re not a hospital employee. It seems like a separate contract was made, but since they’re not our hospital staff, there’s nothing we can verify for you…”
Of course.
This is not a good situation.
404 didn’t even have proper memories.
I could tell without even looking how easy prey 404 would have been, unable to move and constantly sleeping.
“4… no, patient Lee Yeon-woo, why was she constantly sleeping?”
When I suddenly changed the topic and asked, the employee smiled awkwardly as if in a difficult position.
“Ah, I think we mentioned this in the morning…”
“Yes.”
“She had… seizures.”
“Are there records remaining?”
“Oh, yes. Everything should be recorded. You don’t need to worry about that.”
Her firm answer was actually more worrying.
“Was the reason for transferring from the original nursing home to this hospital also because of seizures?”
She let out a troubled sigh.
Now other staff members’ gazes were also starting to turn this way.
The other guardians in the lobby were the same.
She thought for a moment, then pointed to a counseling room on one side and said.
“Well, since… there are other people here, would it be alright if we continued helping you in the counseling room?”
“Let’s do that.”
The employee carefully stood up from her seat.
* * *
“As I mentioned again, the caregiver that the patient personally hired is outside our authority…”
Inside the counseling room.
The employee sitting across from me with a table between us carefully opened her mouth.
“That’s fine. However, the fact that the caregiver who was supposedly personally hired isn’t visible today seems to indicate they didn’t come to work.”
“Ah, yes… As I already mentioned, it’s not under our jurisdiction so we can’t confirm it, but… I think such cases could happen.”
An ambiguous answer.
“Well, fine.”
I cut it short and made eye contact with her.
“However, patient Lee Yeon-woo, didn’t you say she moved hospital rooms once even within this hospital?”
At those words, her expression stiffened slightly.
There’s definitely something there.
The fact that 404 kept sleeping was also something that happened within this hospital.
So they too cannot be free from responsibility.
“Um… Yes. That’s right.”
“When exactly was that?”
“That’s…”
The employee hesitated.
“From what I heard from Manager Han Kyung-ho earlier, it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago.”
Moreover, when I first arrived, the way the employee was watching me nervously while suddenly talking to someone on the phone was also suspicious.
…Was it from the 5th floor to the third floor?
I remembered because the woman making the phone call kept watching me nervously, which was unnaturally strange.
‘Han Kyung-ho was the same way.’
He too got angry saying 404 wouldn’t listen to him.
But later he eventually confessed that he wasn’t her attending physician from the beginning, that he suddenly became responsible for 404 as his patient and got angry, and that the part about her not listening was also something he heard through rumors.
“Yes… But I’m not sure what relationship that has with the caregiver you mentioned earlier…”
She’s deflecting.
Good, I just need to find out.
I could understand the employee’s defensive attitude as well.
“On the hospital bill detailed statement I paid earlier.”
“Ah… yes.”
“All the room charges up until now are listed as VIP.”
“….”
“First, is this accurate information?”
“….”
“The question seems a bit difficult for you to understand.”
Even at my sarcastic remark, the employee bit her lips and remained silent.
If she had come out brazenly, I might not have known.
However, her current attitude was quite suspicious.
I spread the receipt I had shown 404 in front of her again.
“I heard she was continuously sleeping due to seizures, and that sedatives were injected.”
“….”
“It’s not on this statement.”
“Th, that’s….”
So this was the problem.
The hospital bill I had paid first after following Han Kyung-ho downstairs.
And the hospital bill detailed statement that came with it.
There wasn’t even a trace of sedatives, let alone common sleeping pills.
Instead, what was recorded were VIP room charges, unnecessary non-covered nutritional supplements, and rehabilitation treatment records.
“Um… guardian, that’s not-”
“You said she was continuously sleeping due to seizures, so why is rehabilitation treatment listed?”
“…I need to check this fact too, but… the patient wasn’t continuously sleeping… whenever she woke up, if there’s a record of using rehabilitation treatment, naturally it would be-”
“Fine. There’s no need to say more. If rehabilitation treatment was done, there should be video footage of patient Lee Yeon-woo moving to the treatment room.”
“….”
“There’s even a record of rehabilitation treatment yesterday. I’m glad there should be CCTV footage remaining.”
The employee’s lips twitched.
Her eyes rolled around here and there in empty air, as if looking for a way to break through the situation.
“Or I could report this directly to the police station. In suspicious situations, taking appropriate measures to protect my client is also part of my job.”
The employee couldn’t even manage an awkward smile anymore.
Cases where places like this inflate costs to rip people off, yeah. It’s rare, but I’ve seen it occasionally.
Even when I was based at the court, I’d heard about it from other team cases.
If I hadn’t known, that would be one thing, but now that I’d found out, I couldn’t just turn a blind eye.
“It’s, it’s not really my responsibility… and well…”
She glanced at me as if asking for understanding, then turned her head.
From the way she was fiddling with her mobile phone, it seemed she was looking for another person in charge.
“…You said you were looking for… the caregiver…”
That’s right.
Though a new issue had come up.
“The doctor who was originally in charge of patient Lee Yeon-woo says he’d like to see you briefly…”
This hospital is turning out to be more interesting than I thought.
Now that their heads were on the chopping block, they were finally trying to give proper answers.
I stood up from my seat to follow her.
* * *
“You’re looking for a caregiver…? Is that correct?”
The person I met was an elderly doctor.
A face with countless wrinkles beneath snow-white hair.
Murky brown eyes that had lost their light, their original color faded.
[Yoo Pil-chang]
Unlike Section Chief Han Kyung-ho, there was no separate title listed.
All I could see was just one name on the name tag attached to his white coat.
“…Professor Yoo Pil-chang… is that correct?”
A long-forgotten name slipped out between my lips.
Could another name like this exist?
A memory that had been wearing away from not being brought out for so long awakened in pale colors and swept through my mind.
“Hmm… Do you know me?”
How could I not know you.
The employee who had brought me here looked back and forth between Professor Yoo Pil-chang and me, then quietly closed the door and left.
I briefly blocked the memories that were seeping out and sat down across from him, pretending to be nonchalant.
The worn, faded sofa was in a completely different league from what I had seen in the lobby on the first floor.
As if time had stopped only in this place, Professor Yoo Pil-chang’s office was no different from before.
“…No, that’s not it. I think I’ve seen you before on the news… or something.”
“Ah, that’s possible.”
The Old Professor spoke quietly and waved his wrinkled hand through the air a few times.
As if his former fame meant nothing at all.
I felt as if the ground was faintly sinking beneath me.
No, right now Professor Yoo Pil-chang is not the same doctor who watched over Mother’s final moments.
Why did I come here again.
Right, that was it.
The caregiver.
And…
“I heard you’ve been continuously taking care of patient Lee Yeon-woo.”
“…That’s right.”
If that was the case, I had to put my personal feelings aside even more.
The story I was about to bring up was something I never could have imagined the Professor Yoo Pil-chang I knew would do.
I slowly exhaled and looked at him.
Sure enough, despite being aged by the years, his face from back then still remained.
“There’s something I’d like to ask you.”
The Old Man nodded as if telling me to speak.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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