TL: EKID
The two people from the Dalian City safehouse drove me back to the park parking lot.
“We’re here. Get out.”
I took off the blindfold I was wearing. Looking around, I saw that I was in front of the public phone booth where I had gotten in the car yesterday. I had returned to the park after just one day.
As I got out of the van, the man with the sunglasses spoke to me.
“When you get back, log into the site first. And keep uploading the video information daily as usual.”
As soon as the man with sunglasses finished speaking, he drove off in the van without even looking back.
The Company said I’d be safe from China’s Ministry of State Security and the North Korea Reconnaissance General Bureau, but there’s something they don’t know. That is, the drug trafficking organization is involved in Old-man Choi’s death.
The place selling the drugs is the North Korea. And the one buying them?
Probably a Chinese criminal organization.
If the Suit Shop owner and Old-man Choi were killed by the drug trafficking organization, then I’m also in danger.
‘Nothing is certain yet.’
I can’t say for sure that I’ve been exposed. I only visited the Suit Shop once.
Anyway, since they’re telling me to go back to Dandong City, I have no choice but to go. I don’t have anywhere else to go.
The motorcycle I had parked at the park parking lot was still there.
I loaded the camera bag into the rear trunk and lit a cigarette.
In the end, I never said anything about the money bag or the drugs.
How much could it be?
I hadn’t had the presence of mind to count it, but the Boston bag was full of 100-dollar bills, so it must be an enormous amount.
I didn’t plan to sell the drugs. I was thinking of throwing them into the water at Hwanggeumpyong.
Trying to get rid of drugs is a crazy thing to do. It’s obvious that a Chinese criminal organization would track me down within a few days.
Pfft.
In the middle of all this, the thought of the bag full of dollars made me laugh.
“Crazy bastard!”
I set off for Dandong City.
After driving on the national highway for over two hours, a road sign appeared saying 17 km to Dandong City.
Soon after, Peace Gas Station came into view up ahead.
I pulled the motorcycle over to the roadside. On the right side, I saw a field of silver grass. The field looked as peaceful as always.
I tried to estimate where I had buried the money bag and the drugs.
I know exactly where it is. It’s a spot in the middle of the silver grass field, a little more raised than a baseball pitcher’s mound. The area around it has sparse silver grass, like the balding crown of a middle-aged man.
‘I probably won’t have to go there for a while.’
If I brought the money bag and the drugs to my ops room now, it would be the dumbest thing in the world.
Looking to the left at Peace Gas Station, it seemed to be operating normally today. I could see a young man standing next to the fuel pump.
I needed to refuel anyway. The fuel gauge needle was pointing to empty.
I drove the motorcycle into Peace Gas Station. I needed gas, but I was also curious to see how the station might have changed.
‘This must be why they say a criminal always returns to the scene.’
I entered the station like an ordinary customer and stopped the motorcycle in front of the pump. A young man in a gas station uniform approached me and spoke.
“How much would you like?”
“Fill it up.”
The young man who was pumping the gas looked like a part-timer.
While he was filling the tank, I looked around the station.
It had only been two days, but the gas station looked perfectly fine, as if there had never been a shootout. Only the darkened bloodstains on the station floor remained as evidence of that night.
“All done. It’s 50 yuan.”
Once the motorcycle was filled up, I paid via WeChat Pay.
“Thank you, sir.”
I left the gas station after receiving the young man’s farewell.
Suddenly, I felt a sense of life’s bleakness. Even when people die, the world goes on like nothing happened.
Many people died here, but the world hasn’t changed.
I rode the motorcycle toward Dandong City.
***
This time, I parked the motorcycle on the hill behind the commercial building. It was a little higher up from the alley where I had parked last time.
Wearing a backpack and holding a bag in my hand, I walked down the hill toward the commercial building where the ops room was located.
In the afternoon, the alley of the commercial building was quiet.
The shops were open and operating as usual, but there weren’t many customers visible in the alley.
The restaurant where Lingling worked was just as quiet. There was only one table with customers.
On the first floor of the commercial building, there was a storage space I use as a garage, and next to it were a barbershop and a real estate office. On the second and third floors were six cramped homes rented by poor people.
The residents of the second and third floors used the main entrance stairs connected to the restaurant alley, so they had no chance of running into me, who used the stairs in the back of the building.
I went up to the fourth floor using the back stairs of the building.
The entrance door looked just as I had left it. I retrieved the hair I had placed in the door crack. There was no trace of anyone opening the door after I left. I opened the entrance and stepped into the ops room.
‘It seems I really am doing something insignificant.’
The ops room was untouched. Less than an hour after returning, it was back to how it was before I left. The alarm system was operational again, an ENG camera was set up by the window, and the thermal surveillance equipment on the rooftop was functioning normally once more.
I also brought the motorcycle parked behind the hill into the garage.
Only one thing had changed from before. That was the fact that Old-man Choi, who used to go grocery shopping for me, was no longer here.
Looking at the clock, it was 2 p.m. I went outside to do the shopping. From now on, I’d have to get all the food myself.
The first place I went after leaving the ops room was the restaurant where Lingling worked.
Perhaps because lunch hour had passed, there were only two customers at the outdoor tables. The owner of the hardware store and the owner of the real estate office, both regulars at this restaurant, were drinking daytime alcohol with grilled Kaoyu.
As I sat down on a chair at the outdoor table, Lingling approached.
As expected, she was about 160cm tall with fair skin. Her hair was tied up but seemed to be shoulder-length. Lingling had a small face and well-proportioned figure. Maybe that’s why she didn’t seem short. Her chest was modest, but that only made her appear more intelligent.
‘She must be about 22 years old? Anyway, she looks good up close.’
As I was thinking that, Lingling’s voice reached me.
“What would you like to eat?”
My eyes met Lingling’s for the first time.
“Yeon-gil naengmyeon, please.”
The menu I definitely wanted to try at this restaurant was Yeon-gil naengmyeon.
“One Yeon-gil naengmyeon.”
It was the first time I had heard Lingling’s voice up close. She had a voice that suited her cute face.
As she turned away, my eyes followed her waist and hips.
Ahem.
At the sound of someone clearing their throat next to me, I turned my head to see the real estate owner glaring at me with an unpleasant expression.
“If you keep staring like that, you’ll burn a hole through her.”
“….”
I awkwardly fiddled with the chopsticks in the chopstick holder.
I had come out wearing a waist bag. Inside the bag were a Glock 17 and a magazine.
I didn’t know when the Suit Shop attackers might show up again, and I couldn’t face them empty-handed, so I brought the pistol with me. People would probably assume my waist bag held a wallet or cellphone.
Lingling brought out the naengmyeon.
It was a North Korean-style cold noodle dish topped with half a boiled egg, pork, and shredded cucumber.
‘I’ve only been eyeing this until now, and I finally get to try it.’
I tasted the broth first.
It wasn’t pheasant broth, seemed like it was made with pork. It was bland.
‘Still, it’s something to be able to eat naengmyeon.’
The noodles weren’t buckwheat but wheat flour, which was disappointing.
As I filled my mouth with noodles and chewed, I overheard a conversation at the next table.
“Did you hear about Old-man Choi?”
“What about him?”
“Ha, sounds like you didn’t hear. Old-man Choi got shot and died a few days ago.”
“What? How did that happen?”
“They say it happened during a robbery at the Suit Shop in downtown Dandong City. Both the owner of the Suit Shop and Old-man Choi were shot and killed.”
“What a terrible thing.”
The hardware store owner sitting at the next table was telling the real estate office owner about Old-man Choi.
“I mean, why would an old man like him go to a Suit Shop? Tsk tsk.”
“They say the Suit Shop owner was also an ethnic Korean like Old-man Choi.”
“Well, well, sounds like he just went to visit someone he knew and got caught up in something unlucky.”
“Rumor has it the robber at the Suit Shop was affiliated with the Black Dragon Society.”
“Black Dragon Society? Isn’t that the biggest gang in Liaoning Province? Why would such a big organization do something like robbing a Suit Shop?”
“Who knows. Some say it was about drugs, others say it was over a woman, but you can’t exactly ask the dead, right?”
“Did they catch the culprit?”
“If the culprit really is from Black Dragon Society, do you think the public security bureau can catch them?”
“What a messed-up world. How many shootings has it been this year already? Dandong City isn’t what it used to be.”
Thanks to the hardware store owner, I was able to hear about Old-man Choi.
The culprit belongs to Black Dragon Society…
Black Dragon Society is the largest gang in Liaoning Province, connected to the Triads, the biggest crime syndicate in China.
If, as the hardware store owner said, the people who attacked the Suit Shop were from Black Dragon Society, then the puzzle starts to come together.
Black Dragon Society, who buys and sells drugs from the North Korea, likely eliminated the Suit Shop owner who was investigating them.
Then what about Old-man Choi?
Did he really die just because he was unlucky and happened to be visiting?
Anyway, if the ones dealing drugs at Peace Gas Station were Black Dragon Society members, then they must now be desperately hunting for the money bag. The same goes for the North Korea, who lost their drugs.
‘This situation just got ugly. I’d better be extra careful for a while.’
Thanks to the hardware store owner, I picked up some valuable information.
The hardware store and real estate office owners, drinking in the afternoon, didn’t seem like they were planning to leave their seats anytime soon.
The hardware store owner was amusingly sharing what he knew about Black Dragon Society.
Even after finishing my naengmyeon, I stayed seated, completely absorbed in the hardware store owner’s stories.
“Aren’t you busy?”
“Huh?”
I must have been listening absentmindedly without realizing it.
The real estate office owner stared at me and spoke.
“Eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, now that’s a really bad habit.”
“Ah! Ah, my apologies.”
Startled by the real estate office owner’s words, I jumped up from my seat.
I paid the lady owner and left the restaurant.
Now it was time to go grocery shopping.
***
Behind the train station in Zhenxing District, Dandong City, there is a large cargo depot used for loading and unloading freight from trains.
The area around the freight depot is packed with factories and private logistics warehouses.
Around evening, one of the prefab warehouses in the logistics zone was brightly lit, with three sedans and two vans parked at the entrance.
Inside the prefab warehouse, about twenty Black Dragon Society members were gathered in small groups.
They were smoking cigarettes, waiting for the boss and the deputy boss to finish their meeting in the office on the second floor of the warehouse.
This prefab warehouse was the headquarters of Black Dragon Society’s Dandong City branch.
Upon entering the warehouse, a metal staircase stood on the left, and going up led to the office used by the branch chief on the second floor.
The office had large glass windows, allowing a view of the inside of the warehouse.
Tonight, everyone gathered at the Black Dragon Society Dandong branch had gloomy expressions.