The Lawyer Who Reads Tomorrow - Chapter 139
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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 139
“Really, truly?”
Color returned to Yoo Pil-chang’s face.
“…Ahem, ahem.”
And he cleared his throat as if embarrassed by his own reaction.
Looking at him like this, he really did seem like the professor Mother used to describe.
“Yes. I can connect you with a new lawyer.”
“…What about you?”
There were a few lawyers known for this kind of work.
In terms of law firm size, Haeil where Lim Do-hyuk worked would be suitable, but not that one.
I’ll pass on that since Cheondong is involved.
Well, there were countless law firms in South Korea.
There were also colleagues I spent time with during my days at the Training Institute, so I could pick someone trustworthy among them.
However, Yoo Pil-chang seemed to have different thoughts as his expression darkened again.
“As I mentioned, I’m already the defense attorney for patient Lee Yeon-woo, so it would be difficult to take on Professor Yoo’s case as well.”
“…I see. Then…”
“However, I can help you unofficially. That is, if there really were problems with A Foundation as you said, Professor.”
“…”
“Because it means A Foundation is involved in what patient Lee Yeon-woo experienced.”
Professor Yoo Pil-chang nodded.
He opened the document envelope he had given me and pulled out several papers.
“The foundation… that is, A Foundation changed its name long ago.”
Yoo Pil-chang continued speaking while shuffling through the papers with his wrinkled hands.
“There was an incident.”
“An incident?”
“Yes. It was a case similar to what’s happening now… but back then it didn’t become a big topic. The internet wasn’t as developed as it is now…”
Professor Yoo Pil-chang blinked slowly as if recalling the past.
“Now the foundation is trying to pin everything on people like Kim Do-seop… Han Kyung-ho, and myself…”
“Please speak.”
“Back then, there was nothing like that. CCTV wasn’t as advanced as it is now, and being stuck in the countryside like this… secretly burying a few people in the middle of the night was-”
So then.
Even when Mother was alive.
“…not a difficult task. As long as you kept mouths shut well… And the Foundation.”
Yoo Pil-chang pressed his forehead hard with trembling hands.
Stories buried for a very long time began to slowly flow out.
“The Foundation has always… been good at such things. To a surprising degree…”
* * *
“Hospital Director! Wait a moment!”
It was already the third Hospital Director.
The Hospital Director that the Foundation had replaced.
Up to the second Hospital Director, they hadn’t violated medical ethics.
They endured as much as they could endure.
But the third one was different.
Yoo Pil-chang blocked the path of the Hospital Director who was walking quickly while breathing heavily.
“This person, really.”
“The patient in Room 402 was perfectly fine until yesterday. But this morning there was cardiac arrest? This doesn’t make sense. Something must have happened during the night-”
“Hey! What could have happened! Stop being ominous. My heart is weak so I can’t handle such talk!”
Yoo Pil-chang ran in front of the Hospital Director who was trying to move and once again blocked him with his body.
“The patients in Room 301 are also strange. Not just the private room patients, but the multi-bed room patients too. Their conditions are deteriorating too simultaneously. The patients in Room 206 are all just sleeping. There’s no record of any medicine being administered, and if we’re not careful, this could be a medical accident-”
“Professor Yoo!”
Finally, a loud shout burst out.
The Hospital Director put his hand on Yoo Pil-chang’s shoulder and moved his body as if dragging him to a corner.
The gazes of other staff members reached them frequently, but the Hospital Director’s low voice came first.
“Do you know how dangerous what you just said was? Huh? Professor Yoo. Those are patients you’re in charge of. That. You know?”
“That’s exactly why I’m telling you this. Whether orders I never gave were entered, or if there’s a problem with the system itself-”
“Oh my!”
The hospital director shouted angrily.
“Those patients are Professor Yoo’s patients. Don’t you understand what I mean? If problems arise, Professor Yoo will go down with them too.”
“All the instructions I gave are recorded. I’ve been monitoring the patients’ conditions throughout. These aren’t patients who should deteriorate this badly. They’re elderly, yes, but they’re not weaker than other patients.”
“That’s the problem! Huh? That’s how the elderly are originally. The elderly are people who could die at any time! You know all this, so why are you acting like this? Huh?”
“…Hospital Director.”
“If problems arise, Professor Yoo will be the first to get arrested. You understand? I’m going to record everything that happened today too.”
The hospital director roughly shoved Yoo Pil-chang’s shoulder and walked past him.
And. That night.
Yoo Pil-chang volunteered for overtime work and spent the entire night checking on patients.
‘What if someone is taking advantage of the darkness to do something wrong to the patients?’
He had to stop it.
In this hospital, there were patients who had come in trusting his name.
That fame and passion, the promise to take responsibility until the end lingered bitterly in his mouth.
‘This can’t happen.’
Yoo Pil-chang continued making rounds through the hospital ward.
Second floor and third floor, fourth floor. Up to the 5th floor.
At the very least, he had to check on the patients entrusted to him.
If he could get through tonight safely, he might be able to figure out the suspicious incidents that had been happening every day.
“…move, that doctor is really…”
His steps slowed.
His drowsy, blinking consciousness suddenly became coldly alert as if doused with cold water.
Yoo Pil-chang hid in a corner of the corridor and searched for the source of the voice.
Room 408? No. Room 409.
As he moved his body little by little, someone’s voice became more clearly audible.
“This is tedious, let’s just finish the work quickly and get some rest.”
“I heard that doctor still hasn’t left work?”
“What can he do… The foundation will take responsibility.”
The whispering sounds pierced his ears.
Yoo Pil-chang froze as he stared at the bed that the two men had wheeled out.
A bed covered with white cloth.
A name plate with one of Room 409’s patients’ names deleted.
“What are you doing right now?”
There was nothing to think about.
At his loudly burst out words, the gazes of the masked men gathered on him.
“Ah, we’re handling… no, moving a patient who went into cardiac arrest during treatment.”
At the words that flowed out nonchalantly, Yoo Pil-chang rushed over with quick steps to check on the patient.
The patient covered with white cloth was already dead.
When Yoo Pil-chang stepped back in shock, they covered the cloth again and began moving toward the elevator.
“What, what, what are you-”
“What do you mean what.”
The men who got on the elevator raised their voices mockingly.
“Don’t make unnecessary trouble for yourself, just have an interview with the Foundation lawyer tomorrow.”
“Wh, what did you say?”
“Professor Yoo Pil-chang, let’s keep things nice and easy. There’s always someone who has to make things troublesome.”
No, no.
That patient was perfectly fine until just yesterday.
They walked, they breathed, they had recovered a lot.
It was practically a patient who could be discharged.
But why?
When Yoo Pil-chang hurriedly chased after them, one of the men roughly pushed him away.
“Ugh!”
“Where do you think you’re getting on. We’re busy as hell.”
“I’ll, I’ll report-”
“Report?”
The elevator door opened again.
The man wearing the black mask handed the patient over to another person, then got off and grabbed Yoo Pil-chang by the collar.
“This guy still thinks he’s a doctor.”
“I, I am a… doctor…”
Smack-.
Pain enough to snap his head around rang through his skull.
Yoo Pil-chang groaned and covered his face.
The pain was so excessive that it could no longer even be called pain.
“Listen, Mr. Yoo. Let me give you some advice.”
“…Huh, ugh…”
“Unless you want to be admitted to this hospital with all your limbs cut off like a real patient.”
“…”
“Shut up and meet with the lawyer tomorrow. Huh? Fuck, the Foundation told us to treat you gently since you’re the face of our hospital.”
“…Ugh… urgh…”
“But if you fuck up the job again, I can’t guarantee anything anymore, got it?”
His eyes closed.
When he opened his eyes again, Yoo Pil-chang had been moved to his office.
* * *
“Are you saying that incident happened before it was renamed to A Foundation?”
Yoo Pil-chang nodded at my question.
His face was completely contorted as if recalling the previous pain.
Yoo Pil-chang rubbed his left cheek and slowly continued speaking.
“After that day… I called the guardians.”
“The guardians?”
“Yes. After I was dragged by that lawyer and suffered all kinds of humiliation.”
He pointed to the old papers in the document envelope.
Written pledges, non-disclosure agreements, and other ridiculous settlement agreements.
They were documents so thoroughly planned that he essentially couldn’t escape.
“…I thought this wouldn’t work.”
Mother is.
Mother always praised Professor Yoo Pil-chang.
Could Mother have been ‘disposed of’ in that way too?
But back then, Uncle was always by Mother’s side.
So, surely such a thing… no, that’s not right. Let me focus.
I pressed my hand against my chest that was pounding relentlessly and looked at him.
“I made dozens, hundreds of calls. Phone calls… maybe it could have been thousands.”
“…”
“I was already pushed out of the hospital anyway, and even though they called them my patients, they wouldn’t even give me a chance to see the patients.”
I see.
It seems Yoo Pil-chang was completely branded as a problem person after that day.
Even so, the fact that he called the guardians means he never gave up until the end.
“Please, take them away.”
“…”
“Especially the elderly. People who were practically abandoned. Not those who always had guardians with them, but rather. Those kinds of people the Foundation could easily dispose of.”
“…Unrelated persons must have been included too.”
“Yes. So at least those who could leave should leave. That’s how I made those calls.”
The result- I can guess without hearing it.
Just by looking at his devastated expression.
Yoo Pil-chang pointed with his finger at a yellowed piece of paper among the miscellaneous documents scattered around.
“Back then they said I violated patient management guidelines and demanded compensation.”
“…From the Foundation?”
“That’s right. From the Foundation… my name kept being used, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. But, even so… there was nothing I could do.”
“…”
“The patient guardians pretended not to hear what I said. Because this place was the cheapest. Whether it was their parents or family. They pretended not to know, and only I didn’t realize they had already ‘disposed of’ them.”
Ah.
I swallowed my breath at my own conflicted emotions.
In this case where victim and perpetrator had switched places,
the reason my pounding heart had calmed down even a little.
‘Mother had Uncle with her.’
So, at least she wouldn’t have been secretly ‘disposed of’ at night.
How can I express this feeling.
I am no longer Kim Wook-han,
and while living as Sung Tae-hyun, this is a feeling I should never experience.
Nevertheless, I wanted confirmation.
Mother’s safety.
That Mother had not been disposed of at that hospital.
Even though it was all already over.
“Good. Let’s organize this.”
I deliberately spoke to him in an even colder, more subdued tone.
Yoo Pil-chang nodded quietly.
As if he had poured out everything buried in his heart, his hands no longer trembled.
“That incident happened before it was renamed to A Foundation and A Nursing Hospital, right?”
“…Yes. But after the name change, it became more cunning. They started managing by dividing even the floors.”
…The 5th and 6th floors.
I already know about that from my own experience.
What happened to 404.
The previous incidents were buried before they could be properly investigated because they were too long ago.
But here is a witness.
A person who, even after the foundation’s name change, remained stuck on the 5th floor like a fossil, unable to prevent his name from being used.
“I’m already finished.”
Yoo Pil-chang said.
“I got a call today.”
He showed me an email that had arrived in his account.
『[Confidential] Notice of Foundation Internal Meeting Conclusion Regarding Professor Yoo Pil-chang』
To Professor Yoo Pil-chang.
We inform you that the following measures have been confirmed as a result of today’s joint meeting between the A Foundation Board of Directors and A Nursing Hospital Management regarding the A Nursing Hospital incident.
“Huh.”
To think they’ve already taken such swift measures.
It seems a manual for this kind of incident already existed.
1. The Professor’s medical authority will be suspended effective ■month ■day.
2. Access to patient records and prescription systems within the hospital ward will be immediately revoked.
3. Please submit a statement of defense to the Foundation’s Medical Ethics Committee within this week.
Furthermore, this Foundation is reviewing the possibility of civil and criminal damages due to internal confusion, and will proceed with reporting and measures to relevant agencies when necessary.
The purpose of pinning all responsibility for the incident on Professor Yoo was clear.
However.
‘There are too many victims.’
The incident was too big for an individual to handle.
“So this is the Foundation’s conclusion.”
Yoo Pil-chang nodded his head.
I examined the email’s contents once more.
The name of the person who wrote this email was stamped at the very bottom, like a signature.
“A Foundation Legal Department Lawyer Lee Kang-seok.”
…Lee Kang-seok?
That sounds like a name I’ve heard many times before.
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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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