Chapter – 19
Chung-ah grabbed a nurse who was passing by and asked in a stuttering voice.
“E-excuse me, ma’am!”
“Yes?”
“By any chance, were you just talking about Professor Min Yu-shin? The transfer… order?”
The nurses in scrubs all nodded in unison.
“Yes. The professor got his transfer order to Gumi, effective today.”
“Th-thank you.”
Chung-ah bowed her head in thanks.
Then, she ran towards Yu-shin’s room.
“Hah…!”
A bitter laugh burst out at the sight that unfolded before her eyes.
The reason was that the research lab, which had been like hell, was suddenly spotlessly clean.
The piles of books that had been stacked like the stone pagoda of Mireuksa Temple were neatly arranged on the bookshelves. Not only were the piles of documents that had been scattered all over the room gone, but even the scrubs on the sofa had vanished without a trace.
Even the heavy dumbbells had been meticulously packed away, leaving her speechless.
Chung-ah’s gaze stared intently at the clock.
“It’s not even 7 yet.”
The time she had been trapped in the on-call room wasn’t that long. Yet, he had time to clean up that entire mess and leave?
She was the one who had spent hours every day tidying up all those things. Seeing the room become immaculate in an instant, she was dumbfounded.
If he could clean the room this quickly…
‘On purpose. Did he mess up the room?’
Only now could Chung-ah discern Yu-shin’s true intentions. The fact that he had deliberately messed up the room every single day to keep her stuck here.
The daily accumulation of trash and mess wasn’t to hide something.
It was merely a trick, pretending something was there just to keep her trapped in this place.
“Crazy. That lunatic.”
An incredulous, loud laugh burst out.
Chung-ah looked around the room and headed towards Yu-shin’s desk. She saw that the lock on the third drawer, which was always firmly locked, was gone.
Reaching out to open it, she found a single slip of paper inside. On it, written in very crooked handwriting, was this:
I’ll enjoy the buckwheat tea.
But that’s not swelling.
I was just born bigㅋㅋ
The tips of Chung-ah’s ears turned red again without resistance.
“Is he really insane?”
For a moment, Chung-ah, holding the note, roared and tore it to shreds. Then, immediately startled, she screamed.
“Ah! No! Snap out of it, Kim Chung-ah!”
Sobbing, she gathered and clutched the torn pieces of paper.
If she wanted to compare the handwriting or even try to lift fingerprints from the paper, she shouldn’t have torn it up like this…
Chung-ah tearfully and carefully gathered the tattered paper pieces in her hand.
“Sob. I really hate Min Yu-shin.”
***
Clackety-clack.
Line 1 was always like that, but today the train felt especially shaky. Maybe it felt that way because her mind was in turmoil.
Chung-ah had just thrown her resignation letter at the head nurse and run out of the hospital. Her phone in her back pocket kept vibrating.
“Sigh…”
The one calling was Park In-gyu.
Without tiring, he had already called several times. However, answering was quite impossible in this situation.
“Ah, hyung. Stop calling.”
She was told her phone was being tapped.
There was no way to know what information was flowing where, or how much. In this situation, sharing her movements through a call was out of the question.
「Park In-gyu: Hey! I heard you quit?ㅋㅋ Coming back today? To celebrate quitting, hyung’s treating you to pork belly and sojuㄱㄱ」
Looking at her phone, Chung-ah muttered to herself instead of the reply she couldn’t send to In-gyu.
“Yeah, sorry. Eat alone. I’m busy tonight.”
She was on the Line 1 train bound for Jongno, the main police headquarters, not the Central Division.
***
Wearing a light sky blue jumper, a short white t-shirt, and wide-legged black slacks, Chung-ah stared blankly at the cafe entrance.
Inside the cafe, sunlight streamed in brightly.
She was the only one with a gloomy face and outfit.
Chung-ah stuffed both hands deep into her pockets and put a straw in her mouth. While sipping the Americano, she fidgeted with her hands in her pockets.
“Sigh…”
There was a mountain of things to investigate. Time passing made her anxious. Because the sunlight was unusually pleasant and the coffee tasted good, her mind felt even more unsettled.
Ding-a-ling.
The wind chime hanging at the cafe entrance rang, followed by the click-clack of high heels.
Chung-ah, biting the straw with her front teeth, looked up.
Before her eyes, a woman in a figure-hugging office look with a loose cardigan draped over it looked around. Spotting Chung-ah, her mouth curved into a wide smile reaching her ears.
“Unniiiieee!”
The one running over, her curly hair flying, was Officer In Yeon-hee from the main headquarters. Smiling brightly, she waved a black device she pulled from her cardigan pocket.
“Noise?”
“Yeah! It’s on, so they can’t eavesdrop. Hand over the bug you brought.”
Instead of asking how she was, asking if she had turned on the noise generator and then naturally asking for the bug was rather amusing.
Chung-ah gave a wry smile, pulled out her phone, and slid it across the table.
Taking the phone, Yeon-hee alternated looking at the black machine in her hand and the phone, then tilted her head in confusion.
“Unnie. This device only eavesdrops during calls? Hmm…”
“What do you mean?”
“Uh, unnie. Did you not know you have a bug on you right now?”
“What?”
Chung-ah shot up from her seat and felt all over her body.
But there was nothing unusual. All she had brought from the hospital were the torn pieces of paper from Min Yu-shin’s note.
Yeon-hee brought the machine close to Chung-ah’s body and began scanning.
Starting from her pants pockets up to her jumper, the machine, which had been blinking faster as it moved upward, began flashing frantically without mercy as it reached her chest area.
“……”
“Why is it doing this?”
“Unnie, did you put a bug inside your clothes? Uh, what? Who could put a bug there? This is suspicious!”
“Yeon-hee, make some sense.”
“Or… did you eat it?”
As absurd talk continued, laughter burst out.
“Why do you keep saying that. I haven’t even eaten properly today. I barely had one energy drink in the early morning… Gasp!”
In an instant, Chung-ah’s face turned pale as she looked at Yeon-hee.
“Wow. I’m insane. I think I really ate a bug…”
“Why did you eat it?”
“I thought it was a vitamin, a vitamin.”
Chung-ah was the type who diligently took anything considered good for the body, even if it tasted bad. Knowing her nature, Yeon-hee shook her head with a pitiful expression.
“But I’ve been taking that every day…?”
“……”
Chung-ah grabbed her head.
A thousand firecrackers were going off inside her.
That damn Min Yu-shin!
The reason he said, as if doing her a favor, that it was okay for her to take his energy drink was to feed her a bug!
This made the reason why Min Yu-shin and Yang Dong-jun were both at the headquarters this morning perfectly clear. They must have eavesdropped on the information she dug up from the trash heap and made the first move.
Crazy man.
Crazy Min Yu-shin!
Chung-ah picked up her coffee cup and downed the remaining Americano in one go. Yeon-hee, who had been quietly looking at the machine, muttered.
“Ah. The signal’s gone. It probably shorted out from being soaked in coffee.”
“……”
Shaking her head, Yeon-hee tapped Chung-ah’s phone panel to unlock it.
She had never even told her the phone password. Yet, under the expert’s fingertips, it was disarmed in an instant, opening all her information and switching to the developer screen.
“Seeing you even ate a bug, something must have happened at the hospital, right?”
“Yeah. Yang Dong-jun was the straw. I vaguely overheard the meeting place and code for the drug dealers, but…”
Yeon-hee opened an app installed on the phone and examined it, speaking in a nonchalant voice.
“What? Those vague hints. If you’ve confirmed it, just put together a team and go catch them.”
“There’s one more problem.”
Yeon-hee’s head shot up.
“What problem?”
“Min Yu-shin.”
Yeon-hee’s big eyes blinked, looking at Chung-ah.
Then she grinned brightly.
“Ah, unnie. That person is not suspicious, I tell you.”
“Yeon-hee.”
Chung-ah let out a deep sigh and clutched her head.
“The one who made me eat the bug was Min Yu-shin.”
“……What?!”
Yeon-hee hurriedly took out her own phone, pulled up the website of Buksan University Hospital, and then accessed the government’s integrated network to check Min Yu-shin’s information once more.
Her eyes moved rapidly as she scanned Yu-shin’s records.
“No, that’s weird? Really, why would he? What’s lacking for a professor with a bright future?”
“He spread bugs disguised as energy drinks through a pharmaceutical company. There must be dozens, no, hundreds of them. They were piled up like mountains in every professor’s research lab.”
“……What?”
