Jiwoon hurriedly stuffed the medicine bottle back into his pocket and, with trembling hands, messaged his account number to his mother.
“Mother, I sent it. You can just put it in there…!”
Han Jiwoon’s eyes shone abnormally as he looked at his mother.
He looked like someone filled with madness.
His mother looked down at the phone screen and then at Jiwoon for a moment before speaking to him again.
“…The amount is too large, so I think I’ll have to contact the bank directly to process it. Wait here for a moment.”
She stood up slowly and walked out of the room.
Jiwoon exhaled a sigh of relief as he watched her back.
He was saved.
One billion won was enough.
He was already drafting a new plan in his head.
‘I’ll set aside 500 million from the billion as escape funds… and use the remaining 500 million to destroy that bastard Seo Yoonwoo again. Should I just kidnap him this time and lock him away somewhere nobody knows? I’ll hire some skilled Alphas to lie in wait, have them handle him, and then sell him off to some island. Yes, that’s it. My heart won’t be satisfied until I see that beta’s handsome face twisted in terror with my own eyes.’
A bitter smile played on his lips.
He spent about 30 minutes lost in his own delusions.
His mother still hadn’t returned.
Sensing something strange in the absolute silence, Jiwoon cautiously opened the door to find her.
And at that moment, he froze at the sight before his eyes.
Standing in front of the door, smiling brightly at him, was his older brother, Han Jehoon.
“Br… Brother?!”
“It’s been a while, little brother. I didn’t know you’d be so happy to see me.”
Jehoon’s voice was soft as always, but his eyes were shining coldly.
Men with sturdy physiques appeared from behind him, grabbing Jiwoon’s arms in an instant and rendering him unable to move.
“What is this, Brother! Let me go right now!”
Jiwoon screamed and struggled, but Jehoon only gave a relaxed smile.
“You should have lived a good life, Jiwoon. You caused so much trouble for so many people using that drug without even knowing how it was made.”
Jehoon was smiling, but it was a smile that sent shivers down the viewer’s spine.
“I quite like the idea of karma. So… the wicked must be punished accordingly, right?”
With a fresh face, Jehoon snapped his fingers like an orchestra conductor.
The men began dragging Jiwoon away.
From far down the hallway, their mother stood watching them silently.
As soon as Jiwoon saw his mother, he realized with a lightning bolt of clarity that she had handed him over to Jehoon. In a final act of desperation, he shrieked at her.
“How could you…! How could you sell your own son! You’re not even a mother! You devilish woman! Aaaagh!!!”
But his mother’s eyes remained empty of any emotion.
Like shards of broken glass, they were hollow eyes that could not reflect any light.
The house, swept once again by a storm, was left in a heavy silence, with only the faint dust left behind by Jiwoon’s dragging body swirling chaotically.
“I will handle it cleanly, Mother. I apologize for the disturbance.”
Jehoon stepped up to his mother’s side, smiling brightly again, and took her arm to lead her into the room like a loyal servant escorting royalty.
After helping her sit in the rocking chair she always used, he knelt respectfully before her and kissed the back of her lifeless hand.
“Mother, please be happy. Finally, our long-awaited revenge is right in front of us. Once everything is over, let’s leave this dreary house and go somewhere warm and sunny with fresh air.”
Jehoon’s voice was endlessly sweet and tender, but she showed no reaction to his words.
As if she couldn’t hear anything, she simply stared blankly out the window. Jehoon looked at her with a mix of sorrow and pity for a brief moment, then turned and quietly left the room.
Click.
The door closed, and silence remained in the room.
Outside, bare branches swayed helplessly in the winter wind, and it looked as if cold snow would pour down from the gray sky at any moment.
Everything was a dry and desolate landscape.
For the first time in a very long time, a single hot tear rolled down her thin cheek and fell onto her thigh, but she didn’t even twitch.
No one could know if the reason for that tear was sorrow, relief, or a nihilism that transcended it all.
From the day Yoonwoo heard the news of Han Jiwoon’s arrest, the situation moved at a dizzying pace.
Dojin’s grandfather, Chairman Choi Jintae of the N Ilbo, moved as promised.
Under his orders, the N Ilbo and other major media outlets began to extensively expose the existence and dangers of the illegal drug developed and secretly distributed by Chairman Han Sangjin of H Pharmaceutical.
What was initially dismissed as an urban legend or a typical conglomerate scandal became an uncontrollable wildfire once it was revealed that the drug was designed to “manipulate Transgenics through pheromones and forcibly subordinate them to specific targets.”
It was a crime against humanity that trampled on human dignity and free will, far beyond a simple illegal drug. Society was shocked and enraged.
In particular, because most powerful politicians, business figures, and beloved celebrities were Transgenics, they reacted even more sensitively to this case, demanding a thorough investigation and punishment for those involved.
They appeared on TV every day, all shouting that this case must be investigated thoroughly.
A sense of terror, “I could have been a victim of that drug too,” spread throughout society.
In this situation, Chairman Choi Jintae went beyond simple media coverage, mobilizing all his connections and influence to raise the pressure on H Pharmaceutical and Han Sangjin to the highest level.
His anger seemed to go beyond his affection for his grandson, appearing like a resolute will to establish social justice.
H Pharmaceutical’s stock price plummeted, and consumers launched a boycott campaign against their products.
Every time the news was turned on, it was all about H Pharmaceutical and Chairman Han Sangjin, and internet communities were flooded with posts condemning his misdeeds.
The image of a company once respected for the slogan of being responsible for national health fell into the abyss in an instant.
All kinds of civic and human rights organizations issued statements condemning H Pharmaceutical, and voices of concern erupted from the international community as well.
Cornered, Chairman Han Sangjin panicked and began playing the media.
His claim was that the drug in question was a failure created during the research process a long time ago and that it had been entirely discarded without ever having been distributed to the public.
However, his shameless lies did not last long.
This was because Cha Joowon stepped forward for a victim interview.
In front of the cameras of all the media outlets, he testified in a calm but firm voice about the fact that he had been injected with the drug by the H Pharmaceutical youngest son, Han Jiwoon, and how his life had been ruined by it.
His interview caused a massive ripple effect.
His fall from a successful Alpha CEO, his painful past, and his relationship with Han Jiwoon were all laid bare to the public.
Everyone who knew him was shocked, but Joowon faithfully responded to all the interviews, silently bearing the sympathetic gazes and the criticism poured out from some quarters, as if to take responsibility for his choices.
His courageous testimony dealt a decisive blow to Chairman Han Sangjin’s lies.
As if pouring oil on the fire, Han Jehoon released all the evidence of Chairman Han Sangjin’s corruption, which he had been collecting for years, to the prosecution and the media simultaneously.
Everything was revealed to the world: not only massive embezzlement and breach of trust but also the fact that illegal transgenic experiments were being conducted in an underground laboratory operated secretly without official records.
Then, literally the whole country was in an uproar.
The entire nation rose up to demand his arrest and the complete collapse of H Pharmaceutical.
The front of the H Pharmaceutical headquarters was filled with protesters every day, and even the forces that had supported him until now turned their backs on him.
Eventually, the prosecution launched a massive search and seizure of H Pharmaceutical and began an arrest investigation into Chairman Han Sangjin.
The massive pharmaceutical company H Pharmaceutical, which once moved the South Korean economy, was pushed to the verge of bankruptcy, unable to withstand the uncontrollable criticism, investigative pressure, and the endless stock price crashes and contract cancellations.
Chairman Han Sangjin and Han Jiwoon were arrested and left to wait for the judgment of the law.
Their downfall was a futile and predictable ending, much like a cheap melodrama.
It was recorded as a symbolic event that showed how terrible the consequences of an individual’s twisted desires could be, and that justice would always prevail.
