The Lawyer Who Reads Tomorrow - Chapter 35

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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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Episode 35

 

 

It was just as I was taking out my mobile phone.

 

“…!”

 

A siren wailed, tearing through the silence.

At the warning sound growing fiercer as it approached from not far away, Hwan’s leisurely face contorted for the first time.

 

“…Damn it. Lawyer Sung Tae-hyun.”

 

I wouldn’t say it was intentional.

Though I had set up several safety measures, I never thought he’d actually bring a police car.

 

I stopped the thoughts I was having inside.

And slowly put my mobile phone back into my pocket.

 

“Shall we change the topic of conversation?”

 

At the smile hanging on my lips, Hwan let out a bitter laugh and exhaled.

 

“You got me.”

“Didn’t you say those words earlier?”

 

The pupils of Noh Hae-min and Sage, who still didn’t know what was happening, shook.

Even so, Sage’s shoulders, which had been trembling like aspen leaves, were now straight.

 

“That you would save me.”

 

The siren sound was getting closer and closer.

 

Hwan hurriedly took out his mobile phone from his pocket.

The back door was open, and the drum that Noh Hae-min had found earlier was toppled over and rolling around.

Half-burned papers and pitch-black ash scattered in the air.

 

I looked at the papers where Hwan’s gaze was fixed and spoke gently.

 

“This time I’ll make the proposal.”

“…What.”

 

Hwan was now breathing roughly as if enraged.

The man’s atmosphere, mixed with shadows of leisure and labor, crumbled in an instant.

Even so, he answered me faithfully and didn’t stop walking.

 

Screeeech-.

 

The parking sound was loud, whoever was driving.

Red and blue lights flashed, illuminating the front window of the abandoned building.

 

“I’ll save you.”

“….”

“If you can run away, then run.”

 

I raised the corners of my mouth in a sneer and spoke to the back of Hwan’s head as he disappeared into the darkness.

 

“If you want to blow things up, bring everything you have and come to this side.”

 

Of course, I welcome it.

Whether that damn gangster bastard will obediently come with the evidence in hand is another matter.

Anyway, we know each other’s phone numbers, right?

 

Hwan had already left.

As I turned around after seeing him off, a familiar and loud voice echoed behind me.

 

“…Hyung-!”

 

It was the sound of insurance I had prepared in advance.

 

* * *

 

‘I’m about to do something a bit dangerous.’

 

At first, I hadn’t planned to escalate things this far.

 

If it had been just me, I wouldn’t have bothered calling Sung Tae-jun, but this time Noh Hae-min and Sage were with me too.

So in the end, I had contacted Sung Tae-jun in advance as insurance.

 

‘What is it.’

 

Naturally, he wasn’t easy to deal with.

 

‘I’ll send you messages every 10 minutes.’

‘Why?’

‘If no message comes even after 10 minutes pass, come to the address I sent you. Alone.’

 

However, the unexpected part was the police car.

 

It was just to prevent any unforeseen danger,

but who knew he’d make such a flashy entrance with a police car.

 

Now I won’t be able to face ‘Hwan’ again.

 

Either he stands in court, or he comes to me with the evidence.

There are only two choices.

 

“Hyung!”

 

While I was thinking for a moment, Sung Tae-jun approached with quick steps and grabbed my shoulder.

Sung Tae-jun’s face was completely contorted as he ignored Noh Hae-min and Sage as if they weren’t even visible.

 

“Hey, calm down.”

 

My words meant to calm him down only seemed to fuel his anger instead.

Sung Tae-jun shouted with his face flushed red from excitement.

 

“Are you really crazy?!”

“I’m not crazy.”

“You said you lost your memory, and now you’ve lost your fear too?”

 

He seemed quite angry.

 

Since we hadn’t contacted each other separately after meeting at the office before, I didn’t know Sung Tae-jun had this kind of character.

I gently patted Sung Tae-jun’s back, whose large build made him seem even more menacing.

 

“You arrived just in time, so it ended well.”

“Ended? It’s over? Hyung! What the hell are you going around doing!”

 

Sage was sitting slumped down as if the strength had left his legs.

 

It must have been a tough day for him too.

And it wasn’t even over yet.

 

The person called Hwan was the one who handled the most violent acts among those deeply connected to Ellus.

 

But such a person appeared alone in an abandoned building after everyone had withdrawn?

Besides the things that hadn’t been sorted out yet due to hasty handling…

 

Right,

there was definitely something quite suspicious going on.

 

“There’s definitely something more.”

 

Though it was a ruin, it was still a usable building.

I passed by Sung Tae-jun, who was now letting out a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded, and went outside.

Then I put the plastic bottle I had secretly thrown into the flower bed earlier back into my bag.

 

“…What’s that again… No, hyung. Stop now. Let’s quit.”

 

He must have recognized Sage inside the building.

Sung Tae-jun whispered with his voice lowered considerably.

 

“Hyung, you’re a lawyer, not a police officer. I told you not to contact Lim Do-hyuk, and now you’re going around doing this kind of thing-“

 

Where would it be.

What did they hide.

 

If they sent back Hwan, a key figure, to patrol the building again, there’s something more.

Besides the plastic bottles carelessly hidden inside the wall,

at least a clue that could reveal Shin Da-ye’s whereabouts.

 

Or.

 

“Hyung, can you hear me? Stop it. I don’t know who that bastard you were talking to earlier was, but he’s definitely bad news-“

 

I passed by the noisily chattering Sung Tae-jun and entered the building again.

Noh Hae-min and Sage’s gazes immediately focused on me.

 

“Mr. Sage.”

“…Y-yes?”

“Which floor were you confined on?”

 

A five-story building with no elevator.

 

Since a large quantity of plastic bottles had spilled out from the wall on the first floor, where would be next?

If Sage knew where Shin Da-ye had been confined, it would be good to search around that room.

 

Moreover, since the police had come, it would take some time before Hwan and other Ellus figures would come back to this abandoned building.

 

“Third floor… fourth floor…? I don’t remember clearly…”

 

Sage looked confused.

 

Memory distortion.

It’s a reaction commonly seen in victims with trauma.

 

Time, space, and even distance could all be tangled up, so it’s more like traces of sensation rather than actual memory.

 

“Good. Let’s think about when you escaped. Let’s slowly trace back which direction you ran out.”

 

Sage, with his pale face, nodded.

I didn’t want to push a victim this hard either, if I could help it.

But just circling around inaccurate sections would be close to a waste of time.

 

“…I came out through this back door here… and before that, I turned my body like this…”

 

Sage slowly began to retrace his memories.

Sung Tae-jun, who had become quiet, followed behind me.

It was an attitude like a protest, saying he would watch what I was doing.

 

“I’m sure I came down these stairs. Probably about three more times…”

 

Sage went up the stairs as if entranced.

If the first floor was close to being spotlessly clean, the higher we went, the messier the corridors became.

 

As expected, it seemed they planned to come back later and clean up more thoroughly.

 

“This is…”

 

It was quite a sight.

 

Water bottles that who knows who might have drunk from, carelessly abandoned syringes and needles were mixed in among the trash that filled the corridor.

 

Sung Tae-jun’s expression gradually hardened coldly.

 

“Hyung, this is really dangerous. If illegal medical procedures are involved—”

“Shh.”

 

When I quietly hushed the whispering Sung Tae-jun, he pressed his lips tightly together with a displeased expression.

 

Sage, who had been walking ahead of us, suddenly stopped.

 

“…Is there something you remember?”

“Here… the ventilation fan is running.”

 

Sage bit his lips as if enduring pain.

Indeed, when I looked where he was pointing, a faint breeze was blowing from near the ceiling on the wall.

A ventilation fan running alone in an abandoned building with no electricity.

Even for a setting, it was surprising.

 

“I could feel the wind…”

“Wind… you say?”

“Yes. So… the room where I was, where I was confined, had no window either…”

 

…Right.

Now I think I understood the identity of this strange sense of unease.

 

The unease I hadn’t felt on the first floor earlier.

This building—the first floor has windows and doors in each connected room like other buildings.

 

But the atmosphere changed as we went to the upper floors.

There were no windows connecting the outside and inside.

 

The windows that seemed to exist normally from outside the building couldn’t be found from inside—it was that kind of structure.

 

“…They’ve covered everything up. You can’t even ventilate like this.”

 

Sage nodded at Noh Hae-min’s words, spoken as if chewing them.

 

“But I kept… feeling the wind. So, here… this wall. Even without a door, somewhere… somewhere…”

 

Sage approached the strange wall where the ventilation fan was running.

 

Looking closely, the sense of unease grew stronger.

Unlike the first floor, this was a narrow corridor.

Ventilation fans built into the structure in irregular intervals.

 

However, among them, the only ventilation fan that was running, even faintly, was this one in front of the wall that Sage had found.

 

“Here… probably, somewhere… there’s a door, an entrance…”

“Please calm down.”

 

Sung Tae-jun, who had grasped the situation, grabbed Sage’s shoulder and made him step back.

 

“If there’s no door, we can make one.”

 

Then he began kicking the wall with loud banging sounds.

The impact was strong enough to shake the plastic surrounding the small ventilation fan.

 

However, the wall didn’t break through.

It was a trick with a different structure from the false wall where we’d found the plastic bottle on the first floor.

 

“…Here, I think it’s here… no, here… probably, here… someone…”

 

When the wall wouldn’t break through, Sage, seized by panic, began pounding various parts of the wall while sobbing.

 

“Here, this is the right place… probably… when I, when I came out, I just had to press one button. From inside, just a button…”

 

It wouldn’t break through physically.

That meant there must be some electrical device, like how the ventilation fan was running.

 

But there was no visible device.

Certainly not something like a door lock.

 

“Could you step aside for a moment?”

 

At my request, Noh Hae-min led Sage to the side.

 

It was a pitch-black wall.

The intention was transparent—to not allow even a single point of reflected light despite having no windows.

 

I ran my hands down the wall in order, starting from the top.

As expected, there was nothing that caught. However.

 

“…Found it.”

 

At the very bottom of the wall where it met the ground.

There was a very small pedal protruding, so small it wouldn’t be visible even if you looked closely.

Due to being the same color as the ground, it was structured to be difficult to find in a corridor without a single light.

 

“What? What? Did you find it?”

 

As Noh Hae-min rushed over urgently, I pressed down firmly on the pedal on the floor.

 

Whirrrrr—.

 

The wall that hadn’t broken through even with Sung Tae-jun’s kicks began to slide smoothly to the side, as if it had been a door from the beginning.

 

“Ugh, the smell.”

 

The moment the door opened halfway.

A smell like something that had been stagnant and rotting for a long time hit like a slap to the face.

Noh Hae-min covered his nose as if he couldn’t bear it and staggered backward.

 

“Huh, huk… huh…”

 

Sage crumpled to the ground, curling up his body.

 

“Da, Da…”

 

Unfinished words lingered over Sage’s lips.

 

Shin Da-ye.

The woman he had been searching for so desperately was lying there in a horrific state.

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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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