Unhealthy - Chapter 49

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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 49. Variable

“Money. What’s the big deal with that? What’s a company anyway, why is everyone….”

Her back slid down against the wall. Hae-yeong collapsed along the cold wall surface, suffering like someone who had completely lost direction in life.

Unable to bear watching her like that, Taejun lifted Hae-yeong into his arms and moved her to sit on the bed.

“I don’t want to. I hate it all.”

Hae-yeong screamed and pounded Taejun’s chest with her fists.

But Taejun didn’t even flinch as he caught her wrists and pressed them down heavily onto the bed sheets. The overwhelming difference in strength constricted her.

“You have to watch, with your own eyes. Everything falling apart miserably.”

“Let go of this. Just kill me instead, kill me like you did to Dad!”

“Hae-yeong.”

Taejun’s voice sank coldly.

He settled over Hae-yeong’s struggling body like a shadow and gazed at her quietly.

“You have to stay alive and watch. Gi Chairman is still breathing just fine.”

“I, hic, don’t want to….”

Taejun roughly cupped her cheeks with his large hands and forced her to meet his gaze. Her tears flowed hotly between his fingers.

“Watch me fall apart too. That’s the only way your anger will be satisfied.”

Despite the crushing force in his grip, Hae-yeong moaned but couldn’t push Taejun away.

“Don’t forgive me.”

Taejun thought that since he was the one who had dragged Hae-yeong onto this board with unhealthy words and unhealthy schemes, the punishment was rightfully his to bear.

It was also a vicious curse directed at himself for leaving Hae-yeong alone before this hellish truth under the pretext of protection.

“I’ll put everything back in its place.”

Even with Taejun’s declaration-like resolve, Hae-yeong couldn’t steady her wavering heart.

Before the already twisted truth, she didn’t know where “its place” was, or whether her wounded soul could be whole even if she returned there, so Hae-yeong could only remain collapsed, clinging to Taejun’s hands.

***

Around the same time, inside Gi Chairman’s study, a suffocating sense of intimidation swirled.

As Gi Jae-jun’s pathetic excuses flowed wretchedly through the receiver, Gi Chairman’s brow furrowed deeply with murderous intent.

The report that Gi Taejun had already stopped by An Ji-min’s mansion and disappeared with Hae-yeong instantly severed Gi Chairman’s patience.

“Stupid fool. While you were wasting time lurking around that house’s threshold, Taejun must have finished everything.”

Gi Chairman’s roar echoed coldly through the space.

Jae-jun’s breathing beyond the receiver trembled thinly as if terrified, but the old man’s rage wasn’t generous enough to tolerate such servility.

The fact that Jiwon Group’s carefully built fortress was beginning to crack because of just one woman and a son blinded by misplaced affection roughly stimulated Gi Chairman’s senile greed.

The plan to eliminate the variable called An Ji-min and perfectly seize the massive inheritance assets remaining before Hae-yeong was flowing in the most dangerous direction due to Taejun’s intervention.

“Bring An Ji-min in. Use any means necessary to drag that woman by the scruff of her neck and bring her before me.”

The aged voice was low and dry, but the command contained within was ruthlessly resolute.

He had no intention of watching for even a moment as those who should be cowering and bowing under Jiwon Group’s authority dared to try to escape.

“If you can’t keep both An Hae-yeong and An Ji-min in my grasp, know that your position will also be erased from Jiwon. Beat up Taejun if you have to and bring that child back. This isn’t a suggestion, it’s a sentence.”

The call ended, and Gi Chairman’s eyes, left alone under the study’s lighting, flashed with greed and murderous intent.

Knowing better than anyone the destructive power of a single document stamped with An Ji-min’s seal, he was prepared to pour out all the darkness he possessed to neutralize whatever card Taejun might hold.

Meanwhile, Gi Jae-jun was pacing in front of An Ji-min’s mansion.

“That child Hae-yeong left with someone named Gi Taejun. We’ve finished all the talking we needed to do, so please don’t come looking again.”

He obsessively bit his nails while glancing at the darkened mansion. Fear had consumed his entire body to the point where he couldn’t even feel the pain of flesh being torn away.

Urged by Gi Chairman, he had returned here again to attempt contact with Hae-yeong, but all he got back was An Ji-min’s cold rebuke. That resolute voice that had blocked his path echoed in his ears like a hallucination for only a moment before he seemed to vividly hear Gi Chairman’s angry roar.

“Bring An Ji-min in. Use any means necessary to drag that woman by the scruff of her neck and bring her before me.”

How on earth was he supposed to grab An Ji-min by the scruff of her neck and bring her before Gi Chairman?

He couldn’t resort to violence carelessly, nor did he have any proper way to cajole her when she only came out hostile.

In frustration, he tried calling Hae-yeong, but couldn’t reach her.

“Damn it!”

His pride at having found this place before Gi Taejun was miserably trampled. It felt like Gi Taejun had laid traps in advance over every step he took.

Jae-jun struck the steering wheel hard as if venting his anger. The dull sound broke the silence, but the rage surging in his chest showed no signs of dying down.

“You seem to be seriously mistaken about something, so get a grip on your place first. You’re just a consumable used until you’re discarded.”

Had his clumsy attack been the root of the problem?

Gi Taejun’s warning that he was nothing more than Gi Chairman’s consumable seemed to pierce his mind, making him shudder involuntarily.

Those words were an undeniable truth, and that made them all the more humiliating.

The position he had crawled up to his entire life while reading Gi Chairman’s moods seemed to crumble like a sandcastle.

Jae-jun’s eyes burned red with hatred and fear.

He couldn’t be discarded like this. Even if he had to beat up Taejun, or grab someone by the hair to offer as sacrifice—whether An Hae-yeong or An Ji-min—he had to throw them before Gi Chairman.

That was the only way for him to survive.

***

The next afternoon, Seoul.

Hae-yeong was being led by Taejun’s hand toward the Hannam-dong family home.

As the familiar entrance gate began to appear outside the car window, Hae-yeong’s entire body visibly stiffened.

“I don’t want to go.”

She no longer wanted to return to that place.

Not only did she lack the confidence to face Gi Chairman, she didn’t even know what expression to make when seeing the murderer who killed her father.

In her heart, she wanted to strangle that bastard with her own hands, but knowing that bringing down someone hidden under the massive power of law and money wouldn’t be easy, Hae-yeong had pleaded with Taejun to let her report to the police.

However, at Taejun’s firm words that rushing in without proper evidence could backfire badly and that she should trust him for now, Hae-yeong was forced to take steps that she hated more than death.

Immediately after arriving at the Hannam-dong mansion, Taejun parked the car in the garage and got out alone.

Unable to get out or run away, frozen in place, Hae-yeong watched Taejun walk around the hood toward the passenger seat.

The passenger door opened, and Taejun unfastened Hae-yeong’s seatbelt.

“You don’t need to follow me out. I just brought you because I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

“…What are you going to do alone?”

“I’ve always been alone.”

At the heavy weight of that brief confession, Hae-yeong met his eyes directly for the first time instead of avoiding them.

In Taejun’s eyes lay a loneliness from the abyss deeper than determination.

“If I don’t come out even after thirty minutes, you can leave.”

Taejun suddenly pressed the car keys into Hae-yeong’s hand. Hae-yeong’s eyes trembled faintly as she sensed something ominous.

“Where are you going? Why might you not come out?”

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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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