Kang Taewon looked down at the lifeless body with limp limbs.
Even so, he didn’t stop battering the inside of the colon with his fist.
At that moment, Shin Heesung grabbed Kang Taewon’s arm and stopped him.
“Pull it out now. I’m going to wash my cumslut.”
“Every damn time it’s my cumslut, my cumslut. Cut the crippled talk. When the hell was this ever yours, what the fuck are you babbling about.”
Sneering, Kang Taewon deliberately jerked upward the fist he had shoved into the colon.
At that, the unconscious body bobbed up like a fish and sank back down.
Shin Heesung’s gaze grew a tier sharper.
Kang Taewon shot back with a look that seemed to challenge him to do his worst.
Just as the war of nerves between the two was reaching its tightest pitch:
Lee Dohoon and Han Jihyuk, who had been absent due to a gate subjugation report, walked side by side into the living room.
Seeing the scene unfolding through the open bathroom door, Han Jihyuk stared at the two for a moment before speaking.
“Stop wasting useless time and come out.”
“I need to have a showdown with this bastard Shin Heesung right now, you know? Even if it’s you, Han Jihyuk, don’t think about getting in my way. I’m planning to slice this bastard Shin Heesung’s throat.”
“Koo Hyukjun and Go Yeonwoo. I found a lead regarding the two of them.”
“……What?”
Han Jihyuk walked right past Kang Taewon, who asked back as if he had misheard.
Seeing Han Jihyuk and Lee Dohoon seated on the living room sofa through the open bathroom door, Kang Taewon and Shin Heesung exchanged glances.
“Ha, fuck.”
Chewing on a curse, Kang Taewon abruptly yanked out the fist he had buried in the colon.
As if pulling the inner walls along with it, the hole stretched open in a round shape and refused to close.
The hole exposing its red, raw flesh was endlessly greedy.
Kang Taewon wanted to torment Go Yeonwoo more, but he forced down the impulse and rose to his feet.
Then, looking toward Shin Heesung, he said:
“You sort it out yourself and come out.”
With that sharp parting shot, Kang Taewon left the bathroom and headed toward the center of the living room.
Glancing briefly at Han Jihyuk and Lee Dohoon, who were already seated, Kang Taewon took an empty spot himself.
Even then, he didn’t forget to grumble.
“What is it you found out that you’re making such a fuss telling us to come out.”
The answer didn’t come from Han Jihyuk, but from Lee Dohoon.
“Well, Koo Hyukjun and our Yeonwoo. It turns out they weren’t meeting for the first time, you see?”
“What kind of dogshit is that?”
Kang Taewon furrowed his brows as if he couldn’t understand.
“Ah, to be precise, I suppose you could say they were already acquainted.”
“Stop dropping the subject and talk properly, will you?”
“Our Yeonwoo came from an orphanage, right? Naturally, he grew up in an orphanage.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything.”
When Kang Taewon growled out of impatience, Lee Dohoon shrugged his shoulders and said:
“Well, and quite coincidentally, the person who was sponsoring the orphanage where Yeonwoo stayed was none other than Koo Hyukjun?”
“What? Is that true?”
“I checked it several times and it’s right. It’s information we dug up with great difficulty, so there’s no way it’s wrong.”
“So what exact connection is that supposed to be?”
Staring at Kang Taewon, who was still scowling in incomprehension, Lee Dohoon added:
“But isn’t it quite strange? Given the likes of our Yeonwoo’s face, anyone would have wanted to adopt him, yet no one ever took him away.”
“Are you saying that bastard Koo Hyukjun interfered or something?”
“No. On the contrary, they say he helped. So that adoption procedures could be processed. Isn’t that funny?”
“So you’re saying Koo Hyukjun’s original purpose in sponsoring the orphanage from the start was to adopt a kid, or some crap like that?”
“To be precise, the family backing Koo Hyukjun needed a child. Someone suitable to put out frontable appearance-wise.”
Kang Taewon ran a rough hand through his hair and said:
“Where the hell is that fucking family.”
“I don’t know that either. They’ve got far too many backers in the shadows.”
“Fuck, you’ve got to be kidding me. That’s what you should have found out!”
Exploding at last, Kang Taewon glared with wide eyes and shouted, but Lee Dohoon merely shrugged indifferently.
“Wouldn’t it be more important first to find out why Yeonwoo wasn’t adopted into that family, huh? Our stupid Taewon.”
“Watch your mouth before I rip it apart, keep it in check.”
“Right, our Taewon is dumb so I have to humor him. What can you do.”
In truth, Kang Taewon wasn’t the only one on edge in this room.
Lee Dohoon was merely taking out his own twisted mood on Kang Taewon.
Quietly listening amidst the growling pair, Han Jihyuk finally spoke up.
“In conclusion, what we need to figure out first here is the identity of the child who was adopted into that family instead of Go Yeonwoo.”
That way, we can fully untangle this web of intertwined relationships.
Lee Hyunjae looked down at the document envelope he had just received from the trade.
It was information he had finally obtained after feeling the limit of his patience due to a lack of progress in the investigation.
He had even made a certain kind of deal with the family he had left of his own accord, yet to think that even they would struggle to find the materials.
It had taken a considerable amount of time because the security clearance for information related to Go Yeonwoo was unimaginably high.
At first, it had started with trying to get the ability evaluation test data.
But the problem was that there was nothing unusual about the data.
The figures shown in the data were all true, and no circumstances of manipulation were found.
Even when he tried diagnosing it using an item, the result was the same.
Since he was blocked from the very start, Lee Hyunjae decided to alter his route slightly.
By digging into Go Yeonwoo’s past.
However, this also had a problem.
The records at the orphanage facility where Go Yeonwoo, an orphan, had stayed until middle school were almost entirely lost.
And they were wiped clean as if someone had intentionally erased them.
He couldn’t even find the identities of the director who ran the orphanage at the time or the staff who worked there.
It was a situation that was as pitch-black as it could get.
The more Lee Hyunjae investigated Go Yeonwoo, the more he felt like he was sinking into a quagmire.
So, for the time being, he left the orphanage matter to his family and investigated the other side. Specifically, he investigated Woo Jiyoo.
Fortunately, finding information about Woo Jiyoo was not as difficult as finding information about Go Yeonwoo.
Of course, that did not mean it was an easy investigation.
