Chapter 63 – Bloody Diary (1)
At the time when Baesung Trading was in chaos…
Kim Sang-hoon, once the personal secretary to former Chairman Bae Young-chul but now left out in the cold, visited a quiet PC café on the outskirts of Seoul in broad daylight.
【Caller ID Restricted】
【If you want to find the ledger, ○○ month ○○ day, 14:00. Machun-dong ○○ PC Café. Pay for a one-hour pass and knock on the door of the left stall in the men’s restroom. Make sure you come alone.】
He had received a strange message on his phone.
But the ledger left behind by Chairman Bae Young-chul was Kim Sang-hoon’s last hope.
Originally, it had been entrusted to him to pass on to the eldest son, Bae Sung-hwan, but since he never knew when he might be discarded by Baesung Trading, he held onto it tightly.
That very ledger had been stolen on the night before the shareholders’ meeting.
“…Is this the place?”
Following the instructions in the message, Kim Sang-hoon bought a one-hour pass and entered the men’s restroom.
The left stall door was firmly shut.
Swallowing hard, Kim Sang-hoon nervously raised his hand.
Knock—knock—
With the sound of knocking, the lock inside clicked open. The door slowly opened, and Kim Sang-hoon turned pale at what he saw inside.
“Y-You are…! Guhk!”
A hand shot out, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him inside.
Thud—thud thud—
For a moment, the stall was noisy, then suddenly fell silent. A short while later, the door opened again, and Kim Sang-hoon stepped out as if nothing had happened.
The anxious look had completely vanished. Quietly closing the restroom door, he calmly adjusted his clothes in front of the mirror.
“What a filthy-looking face.”
A thin voice slipped from Kim Sang-hoon’s lips, followed by a smirk, before he returned to the PC area and sat down.
As the monitor lit up, Kim Sang-hoon took a USB from his pocket and plugged it into the computer.
“It’s plugged in.”
Though no one was nearby, he spoke as if answering someone.
From then on, Kim Sang-hoon merely rested his hands on the keyboard, only pretending to type.
The screen flickered rapidly as if connecting somewhere, and the photos inside the USB were uploaded.
“It’s done, right?”
It didn’t take long to finish.
After pulling out the USB and slipping it back into his pocket, Kim Sang-hoon stood and returned to the men’s restroom. A little later, he came running out, disheveled and flustered.
His previously neat clothing, straightened before the mirror, was now in complete disarray.
“W-What? Was I dreaming?”
The thin voice had returned to normal as well.
When he first entered the restroom, the stall door had opened, and he had seen a face identical to his own. The instant he saw it, he lost consciousness, and when he awoke, he was inside the stall.
Feeling uneasy, Kim Sang-hoon checked his phone and belongings in his pockets. Then, in his left pants pocket, he found a USB he had never seen before.
“Why is this here…? Don’t tell me…”
Muttering, he returned to the seat he had paid for upon entering the PC café. Plugging the USB back in, he checked the contents and found scans of parts of Bae Young-chul’s secret ledger.
“Are they playing with me? Still… if I have this much…”
Some details of dealings with powerful figures were missing from the scans.
But even with that, if he played it right, it might be enough to secure the retirement money he wanted.
Bzzzt—Bzzzt—
Just then, a call came in from one of his subordinates.
[Manager! Something big has happened!]
“What is it?”
[Someone uploaded photos of the ledger’s contents on the internet under the title ‘Baesung Trading Gate.’]
Kim Sang-hoon’s face drained of color.
“…Is that true? Where was it posted?”
His subordinate sent the link by message. Ending the call quickly, Kim Sang-hoon entered the site and checked the contents.
His hands began trembling, and he dropped his phone on the desk.
They were the exact same scanned images from the USB.
“H-How could this be…?”
Kim Sang-hoon realized he had walked straight into a trap. He hastily pocketed the USB and rushed out of the PC café.
* * *
【Baesung Trading Gate? Bribery ledger listing names of high-ranking court, prosecution, and police officials has been exposed… The ledger is presumed to have been written personally by recently deceased Chairman Bae Young-chul… The identity of the informant remains unknown…】
【The prosecution has refused to give a clear answer on whether an investigation will proceed… claiming the authenticity of the ledger is uncertain…】
The scanned images of the ledger hadn’t appeared in just one place.
They were being posted on public interest reporting boards and countless anonymous community sites, as if copy-pasted one after another.
And as more and more people began sharing it, blocking it became impossible.
Even the press had no choice but to continue issuing breaking news as they scrambled to keep up.
Bang—!
Meanwhile, seeing such reports, Kwak Chi-young, the head of TSF’s Korea branch, slammed his fist onto the desk.
【Baesung Trading — ▼34,700(KRW)】
The stock of Baesung Trading, already on a steady decline, should have stabilized before dropping below 50,000 won when the second son Bae Sung-wook became chairman.
But with the ledger scandal breaking out, the stock ultimately plunged by 58%.
“Still haven’t found out who leaked the ledger?!”
Right now, the biggest culprit of all was the ledger.
At that question, Oh Han-seong, who had been checking his phone, immediately answered the call that came in.
“By tracing the IP, we checked the PC café CCTV. It was Manager Kim Sang-hoon, Chairman Bae Young-chul’s secretary.”
As soon as the existence of the ledger became known, he had moved.
On the Machun-dong PC café CCTV, Kim Sang-hoon was clearly captured sitting at a desk doing something.
“What? Kim Sang-hoon? Did Chairman Bae entrust that man with the ledger? But why would he pull a stunt like this now…?”
With Chairman Bae Young-chul dead, it was pointless for Kim Sang-hoon to disclose the ledger.
If he was greedy, it would’ve been smarter to use it to squeeze money instead.
“We’ve tracked his whereabouts. He’s currently on the move to Incheon Airport.”
“Running after making a mess? Whatever it takes, catch him and drag him in front of me.”
“Anticipating that, I’ve already given instructions to a team waiting near Incheon Airport.”
Kwak Chi-young ground his teeth.
The initial funds poured into securing Baesung Trading and its affiliates’ stock had been 100 billion won. Including affiliate shares later, it exceeded 300 billion.
If this mess wasn’t contained, not only would swallowing Baesung Trading be impossible, but even recovering the principal would fail.
“This has gotten disgustingly tangled.”
“What should we do about Baesung Trading stock?”
“First, we need to secure the ledger. With that, we can pressure the people involved and calm this situation.”
Kwak Chi-young already knew Chairman Bae had connections with high-ranking figures in government institutions and politicians.
Of course, anyone would keep a ledger like that for future use. But he couldn’t believe it had been so poorly managed as to be exposed like this.
“We’ll find it no matter what.”
“Tch! Instead of picking up the rice cake that was thrown to us to eat easily, we’re rolling it in the dirt…”
Oh Han-seong quickly realized why Kwak Chi-young said that.
“Because of CEO Baek Shin-woo, is that it?”
“Who else? It’s nothing but humiliation.”
Hearing his muttering, Oh Han-seong felt a hint of doubt.
“This situation… do you think CEO Baek really knew nothing about it?”
At that loaded question, Kwak Chi-young furrowed his brow.
“What are you implying by asking that?”
“We haven’t identified CEO Baek’s information sources yet, but judging by what he’s pulled off so far, the reach is broad enough to extend beyond Korea to overseas.”
Just seeing how Telecom was acquired by Livio Soft was evidence enough.
“And so?”
“He even knew Bae Sung-hwan wasn’t Chairman Bae Young-chul’s biological son. But for him to not anticipate Baesung Trading’s bribery ledger… it feels strange.”
It was the same as saying Baek Shin-woo was suspicious.
Kwak Chi-young glared at him.
“So you’re suggesting CEO Baek deliberately withheld that information to corner us?”
“Given how things turned out, we can’t completely rule it out.”
Kwak Chi-young snorted.
“Hmph, if you had known everything about Bae Sung-hwan and the ledger, what would you have done?”
“That’s…”
Unable to answer, Oh Han-seong fell silent. Kwak Chi-young continued.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t have used it the way you expect. I would’ve swallowed Baesung Trading even more easily. But of course, that’s assuming I had secured both Bae Sung-hwan and the ledger.”
“…That’s true.”
“And what grudge would CEO Baek have against us to pull something like that? Sure, we targeted him and Im Hee-yeon, but it’s not like he knows the people behind it.”
Oh Han-seong thought of another possibility.
“Haven’t you also considered the idea that someone might be backing CEO Baek? If they’re the ones aiming at us, it’s not entirely impossible.”
“That thought crossed my mind… but looking at his actions so far, it’s hard to believe anyone is behind him.”
“But Nam In-hwang and Moon Tae-beom, who moved against CEO Baek, disappeared. We can’t dismiss the ones who dealt with them.”
There had been no trace of them since their tracker signals vanished over the East Sea.
Their safehouses had been under long-term surveillance, but no one ever showed up.
With no other movements found afterward, it was impossible to gauge the opponent’s intent.
“Maybe they want to establish ties with CEO Baek.”
“Did they contact him?”
“He hasn’t met anyone, has he?”
“He constantly shakes off surveillance, and with Myung In-chul’s Special Security Team 2 tailing as well, confirming anything is difficult.”
“This is getting complicated… too complicated.”
“Oh, one more report. On the morning of Baesung Trading’s shareholders’ meeting, someone broke into the headquarters building.”
Kwak Chi-young’s expression hardened instantly.
“…An intruder? For what purpose?”
“Not confirmed. Since Bae Sung-hwan’s side didn’t make it into a case because of the shareholders’ meeting, no stolen items were recorded.”
“And what else?”
“A security team member, apparently involved in a scuffle with the intruder, was found on the 37th floor and transported to the hospital. But that guard’s identity is suspicious.”
Oh Han-seong handed a tablet to Kwak Chi-young as he explained.
“On paper, his name is Kim Cheol-soo, but his real identity is Ahn Deok-chil… he has three prior violent convictions and grew up in a gang in Busan. In that world, because of the long knife scar on the back of his neck, he’s called ‘Guillotine.’”
“A grand character indeed. But more important is why he went so far as to launder his identity to infiltrate Baesung Trading’s security team.”
“I thought the same. And while checking, I found that someone visited Ahn Deok-chil’s hospital room.”
The tablet screen shifted from Ahn Deok-chil’s profile to a photo.
The moment he saw the photo, Kwak Chi-young’s expression turned colder than ever.
“…Who is this?”
—
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