Chapter 9
Even the people making contact.
And the accommodations they guide me to change every time.
He opened the door of a private house nestled between ordinary lamb skewer restaurants and went inside naturally.
How often has he been here?
He passed through the winding yard without hesitation, walked along the path between the wall and the house, entered the boiler room, and found a warehouse leading to the basement.
“He’s inside.”
The man, who looked like an office worker, said only that and walked back outside.
He opened the iron door, which looked old, with a creaking sound, and saw a table in the middle and two rocking chairs on either side.
A middle-aged woman sitting in the left chair, a woman in her 30s standing behind her, and a middle-aged man greeted Hyuk-min.
“Please, sit down.”
The person sitting in the chair must be the highest-ranking person, as she guided Hyuk-min to the rocking chair across from her.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you before. How did you know the contact phrase?”
“Because it’s not the first time.”
“No, it’s definitely the first time. Judging from the fact that there’s no information about you in our DB, it seems like you haven’t been active for very long. You need to tell us properly…”
“Do you want a proper answer?”
The middle-aged woman, whose words were cut off, looked momentarily flustered.
Then, just as she was about to open her mouth to say something, Hyuk-min interrupted her.
“Then treat me as your guest properly. Black Label Guild Leader Hwang Ji-young.”
“….!!”
The middle-aged woman’s eyes widened.
Forgetting what she was about to say, the middle-aged woman covered her mouth.
She slowly turned her head and looked at the woman in her 30s standing behind the chair that Hyuk-min was watching.
“Is that so?”
Everyone, including Hyuk-min, looked at the woman in her 30s.
More precisely, Hwang Ji-young, the guild leader of the information guild called Black Label.
“What could it be?”
Unlike the others, she gestured without a hint of surprise.
Then, the middle-aged woman sitting in the chair got up and bowed to Hwang Ji-young.
Hwang Ji-young sat in the chair as if it were natural.
Her gaze towards Hyuk-min sharpened.
“Your voice is full of confidence? Have we really met before? I’m usually good at remembering people.”
“It’s been a while, Guild Leader Hwang Ji-young.”
“I’ve never seen you before?”
Since she kept speaking informally, he responded informally as well.
“I guess not. But I know.”
“Hmm, I don’t know where you heard that name, but you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m not Hwang Ji-young.”
“Let’s not test each other. If you do that, I’ll have to limit what I can say.”
Hwang Ji-young’s eyebrows twitched.
He was too confident.
He seemed to know very well what kind of place Black Label was, yet he was acting like this in the center of their base.
She felt a moment of annoyance, but then she chuckled and leaned back in her chair.
“Your voice is confident this time too. You didn’t just hear it from somewhere?”
“Where else would I hear that name? Should I have heard it from the Two Wings behind you?”
Only then did her smile completely disappear.
“Why, are you flustered because I know the Wings too?”
The confidence that she was in a superior position was no longer on Hwang Ji-young’s face.
It was inevitable.
The guild leader of an information guild had no information about the person in front of her.
What’s more, this stranger knew so much about the Black Label Guild.
‘Even Hwang Ji-young can’t help but lose her composure.’
She must be flustered.
The leader of the information guild was being completely defeated in terms of information.
This time, Hyuk-min chuckled instead.
‘It’s a bit mischievous, but I have to be sure if I want to make an ally.’
He rocked back and forth in the rocking chair and crossed his legs.
Then, he dropped an even bigger bomb on the flustered Black Label.
“You’re looking for your husband and daughter, aren’t you?”
Swoosh.
Hwang Ji-young’s body moved so close that her butt almost came off the chair.
Her face wasn’t one of surprise or shock.
The expression on Hwang Ji-young’s face was one of anticipation.
“There’s information I’m looking for.”
“No! No, that’s not it. How do you know that?”
“Recently, a company called Jisu Construction received a request from a client named Jang Han-bit to build a department store at the Shrine. Bring me all the blueprints for that department store and anything strange about it.”
“How do you… How do you know that! Tell me that first.”
After her husband and daughter were mentioned, there was no more power struggle.
Hyuk-min had already taken the upper hand in this situation.
“If you bring it, I’ll tell you where your husband is now.”
“This isn’t the time to be so relaxed.”
When Hwang Ji-young raised her index finger from bottom to top, all the secret doors in the underground warehouse opened, revealing dozens of CCTV cameras inside.
Dozens of CCTV cameras were filming every corner of Lamb Skewer Street without any blind spots.
“With one gesture, you could die here. Do you also know that?”
Snap!
When Hwang Ji-young snapped her fingers, the middle-aged woman and man, the Two Wings of Black Label, whispered something into their radios.
At that moment.
Swoosh.
Everyone visible in the CCTV cameras simultaneously looked at the CCTV screens.
Men and women, from preschoolers to grandmothers picking up trash, to groups of office workers staggering as if drunk.
Without exception, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the CCTV screens at the same time, as if time had stopped.
“Creepy.”
He couldn’t help but get goosebumps at the sight he was seeing for the first time.
He had suspected it, but everything on Lamb Skewer Street was related to Black Label.
Moreover, they were trained to act with a snap of the fingers.
“You can’t leave here without my permission.”
“You haven’t changed. You still go crazy when you hear about your husband and daughter.”
“What?”
Despite seeing the crazy behavior, Hyuk-min nonchalantly got up from the rocking chair.
Then, Hyuk-min also wiped away his smile and glared at Hwang Ji-young.
“Hwang Ji-young, just be calm and listen carefully. You’re going to kill me? Do you know what will happen if I die? You’ll be kicking away the information about your husband and daughter that you’ve been waiting for.”
He took another step towards Hwang Ji-young.
“You might never find them for the rest of your life. What do you say? Are you going to do that?”
Swoosh.
He brought his face close, getting within a hand’s breadth of Hwang Ji-young.
At that moment, Hwang Ji-young’s eyes wavered.
‘That’s right. That’s the Hwang Ji-young I know.’
Hwang Ji-young was indeed a frightening person, with the alias of the Ice-Cold Queen of the Underworld.
She ran an information guild and a killer company at the same time, so Hwang Ji-young’s influence in Seoul was truly enormous.
Especially on Lamb Skewer Street, which could be said to be Black Label’s base, it was so easy for someone to disappear.
But such Hwang Ji-young had one very big weakness.
That was the mention of her husband and daughter.
Snap!
In the end, Hwang Ji-young snapped her fingers, avoiding Hyuk-min’s gaze.
Then, as if by magic, everyone in the CCTV cameras began to move again and resumed what they were doing.
“How long do I have?”
“Until 2 hours from now. How will we contact each other?”
When Hwang Ji-young gestured, the middle-aged male Wing took out a cell phone from his pocket and handed it over.
“You can’t make calls or send texts. Only receive.”
He put the phone he received on the rocking chair.
Then, he held out his hand again and said.
“Make it all possible.”
“There’s no such th…”
“That way, I’ll tell you the location of your husband if the deal goes well, right?”
Hwang Ji-young bit her lip.
Then, Hwang Ji-young hesitated for a moment and made a call somewhere.
“Prepare a VIP phone. Deliver it at the right time.”
“Guild Leader?”
“Guild Leader!”
The Two Wings began to whisper to Hwang Ji-young.
However, Hwang Ji-young couldn’t hear any of their words when it came to a matter involving her family.
“I’ll take care of it myself!”
With one shout, the Two Wings had to stop talking.
“Tell me the story. Then let’s talk in 2 hours.”
With that, Hyuk-min walked out the way he had come.
He had properly taken control of the information guild called Black Label.
= = =
It was truly amazing.
Black Label was a guild that held the undisputed number one ranking among information guilds throughout Seoul.
Their hideout on Lamb Skewer Street was like an impregnable fortress, as he had just seen.
But such Black Label was destroyed by Jang Han-bit’s Land Cleaning Guild, which was established later.
Of course, the Azure Lake Guild had helped, but the fact that such a hideout had been destroyed was quite shocking to Hyuk-min.
“Well, that’s a story from 10 years later.”
It was then that he was about to open the door to his house.
“Huff. Huff. Huff.”
He heard a rough panting sound from behind and turned around to see a man in perfect jogging attire holding out a cell phone.
He silently took the cell phone, and the man left to go jogging again as he had been doing.
“Ha.”
How many members were there?
And how far were Black Label’s members located?
It was so amazing that he couldn’t help but laugh.
This was because that man was an ordinary person who Hyuk-min had passed by every day when he returned to this neighborhood and left his house.
Even an ordinary person living in the same neighborhood was a member of Black Label.
Everyone except his family was suspicious, not just in the neighborhood.
“How did they destroy it?”
Then, it was natural that the fact that Black Label, which was on such a scale as he had thought earlier, had been destroyed became even more suspicious.
It was a situation that anyone would be afraid of, but Hyuk-min chuckled instead.
“I feel secure.”
Then, he opened the door and went inside as if nothing had happened.
= = =
It was 7:30 PM, and the sun was gradually setting.
The text message he had been waiting for arrived.
Buzz.
[Security is tighter than expected. I’ve determined that it’s not an ordinary construction site. I’ll find it by tomorrow morning no matter what.]
It wasn’t the text message he had expected.
Even now, in this distant past, Black Label was still an information guild in a high position.
Black Label was outstanding and had great abilities.
Even though it was only a short time, the fact that even the number one information guild in Seoul couldn’t find the information right away made him even more suspicious.
“What the hell are you planning, Jang Han-bit?”
He still didn’t know what dangers were lurking.
But one thing was certain.
That danger was definitely not small, and Hyuk-min’s family was included in that danger.
[I hope you find out as soon as possible.]
He sent a prompting text message and threw the cell phone on the bed.
Then, he quietly finished preparing to go out and left the house.
“Until tomorrow morning.”
The sun was just beginning to set.
There was a lot of time left until the next sunrise.
Hyuk-min didn’t want to miss this opportunity he had barely obtained.
“I’ll build up my strength until then.”
He immediately grabbed a passing taxi.
Then, he told the taxi driver his destination.
“Please take me to the Tower.”
The night was just beginning.
He had slept well this morning and was feeling refreshed.
He didn’t want to waste time.
The guys he had to face in the future were guilds on a scale that he couldn’t even dare to imagine right now.
‘You knew it, didn’t you? The war with those guys won’t end in a day or two.’
He quietly muttered to himself as he watched the setting sun through the rapidly passing window.
‘I’ll move forward step by step.’
The start of a revenge that would take at least several years.
It was okay even if it was slow.
Hyuk-min’s revenge would never go backwards.