PEN Vol 3 Ch. 3

Sejin’s exaggerated comment didn’t make sense.

Letting out a chuckle, Cheon Sejoo clarified.

“And it’s not like they can’t do anything without me. It’s just that there are things only I can handle. They do their own jobs just fine.”

“Then why don’t you teach them how to do the things you do so they don’t bother you at times like this?”

It was the kind of remark only someone unaware of what Cheon Sejoo actually did could make. Just like Han Jonghyun, who had once arrogantly claimed that he could do Cheon Sejoo’s job without knowing anything, Sejin also didn’t know what his work entailed, so he made similar assumptions.

Cheon Sejoo smirked and added.

“There are some things in this world that are irreplaceable. Some tasks must be done by a specific person. This is my job. Even if someone else could do it, it’s still mine to handle.”

“That’s ridiculous. Work is work. It’s all the same.”

Talking to Sejin felt like talking to a kid. But since no one would ever truly understand Cheon Sejoo’s position, it didn’t really bother him. He didn’t expect anyone to understand him, so there was no point in trying to explain further to convince Sejin.

“Yeah, sure.”

He gave a half-hearted response, and Sejin fell silent, apparently having no interest in pushing the matter.

In that silence, the two headed towards Gangdong-gu. As they passed by the Shinsa Capital building, Sejin tilted his head slightly, and it wasn’t until they stopped in front of the workshop that he turned to look at Cheon Sejoo as if he understood.

Now that he thought about it, Sejin had only met Cheon Sejoo once in Shinsa Capital. When Sejin had been homeless, he thought it was strange not to see Cheon Sejoo around much, but it turned out there were two offices.

“Do you work here?”

“Hmm, kind of.”

Cheon Sejoo casually nodded and checked his watch, tapping his fingers as if he was calculating something. After a moment, he turned to Sejin and spoke.

“I’ll be back quickly, so just wait here for about 30 minutes. Listen to music, the radio, whatever. If you’re sleepy, take a nap.”

“Okay.”

Sejin nodded obediently.

Cheon Sejoo found it strange.

Since when did he start listening to me so well?

Feeling a sudden wave of emotion, he looked at him with renewed eyes as he reached out and ruffled Sejin’s hair before getting out of the car. He entered the building, passed through the door with the number pad, and then unlocked the second door using the eye recognition scanner before heading straight up to the second floor.

“You’re here?”

“Manager!”

“Finally, you’re here.”

Moon Sunhyuk, Gu Haewoong, and Seo Jinyoung greeted him with enthusiasm. The inside was a mess. There were bloodstained towels scattered on the table, and some strange chanting was echoing through the office.

Haewoong, furious at being injured by a lowlife thug from Chinatown, was still fuming, and because of that, Moon Sunhyuk was struggling to staunch his wound, and his bleeding wouldn’t stop.

Meanwhile, Seo Jinyoung was attempting to calm Haewoong down by showing him a video of a monk rhythmically tapping a wooden gong on his phone. The strange chanting Cheon Sejoo had heard turned out to be the melody chanted by the monk of a Buddhist scripture, the Heart Sutra.

“Mahā prajñāpāramitā hṛdaya sūtra, Avalokiteśvara bodhisattva…”

Hearing the chant reverberate in his ears, Cheon Sejoo ordered them to turn it off, took off his jacket, and rolled up his sleeves as he walked further into the office. After going into the bathroom to wash his hands thoroughly, he returned to find a first-aid kit placed on the table.

“Lie down.”

Following Cheon Sejoo’s command, Haewoong, who was breathing heavily, lay down sideways on the sofa. After disinfecting his hands with alcohol, Cheon Sejoo put on a pair of sterile nitrile gloves that had been prepared and sat down by the table. As soon as he was in place, Sunhyuk removed the towel he had been pressing against Haewoong’s head.

Even though quite some time had passed since he was injured, blood was still oozing from the wound. Cheon Sejoo wiped away the blood with a sterile gauze pad and inspected the wound. Fortunately, the wound wasn’t too deep.

“It’s just a surface cut.”

“See! I told you! I don’t need to go to the hospital! Now let me get back to that b*stard!”

As soon as Cheon Sejoo finished speaking, Haewoong shouted in frustration, his eyes blazing as if he were ready to rip apart the guy who had dared to cut his scalp.

Seeing Haewoong like this, Cheon Sejoo gave Sunhyuk a signal. Immediately understanding the gesture, Moon Sunhyuk quickly grabbed a fresh towel and placed it over Haewoong’s head and eyes.

“Just stay quiet while I stitch you up. If you keep yapping, I’ll sew it up in the shape of a d!ck.”

“Ah, seriously, Manager! Hurry up!”

While Haewoong, unaware of the situation, continued to complain, Cheon Sejoo pulled out a small glass vial from the first aid kit. After drawing the liquid into a syringe, which Seo Jinyoung handed him, he injected it into Haewoong, who had been babbling.

It was a sedative.

The first priority was to stop the bleeding, and for that, he needed to calm Haewoong down.

“Manager, that b*stard called me a son of a bitch…”

Haewoong’s voice, which had been tattling on Cheon Sejoo, suddenly cut off. His rough breathing gradually slowed, and as his heart rate decreased, the flow of blood began to ease as well. Only then did Cheon Sejoo spray a coagulant over the wound and take out a needle and thread.

Although the wound was only a little over 2 cm, it had bled profusely. The head tends to bleed a lot from even minor cuts, but Haewoong’s frantic thrashing had made it worse.

With quick, practiced hands, Cheon Sejoo stitched up the torn skin. There was no need for the stitches to look neat, and since he had done this plenty of times before, the whole process was over in less than 20 minutes after he had entered the office.

Snap.

Tying off and cutting the end of the thread, Cheon Sejoo straightened up and checked the time. Out of the 30 minutes he had told Sejin to wait, 10 minutes remained, and there was still one more thing to take care of within that time.

“Take him up to the 4th floor, put him to sleep, and make sure he doesn’t throw any more tantrums.”

“Got it, don’t worry.”

Seo Jinyoung smiled broadly and nodded at Cheon Sejoo’s command.

In their slang, “throwing a tantrum” referred to Haewoong’s anger management issues. Jinyoung carried Haewoong out of the office, while Cheon Sejoo walked over to a cabinet and turned to Sunhyuk.

“You okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Can you move?”

“No problem at all.”

Sunhyuk put on a confident expression as if asking to be entrusted with more. As Cheon Sejoo wrapped a brace around his hand, he eyed Sunhyuk up and down. If Haewoong had been cut on the head with a scalpel, it meant they had fought at close range. What concerned Cheon Sejoo was that Moon Sunhyuk was the type of person who never show if he was injured, so it kept bothering him.

“What’s this?”

Noticing a tear on Sunhyuk’s right shoulder, Cheon Sejoo reached out and pulled his clothes aside to reveal a small cut. The bleeding had stopped long ago, but considering the kind of damage the thug had done with the scalpel, Cheon Sejoo tossed him some antibiotics.

Without a word, Sunhyuk swallowed up the two pills without water and asked Cheon Sejoo.

“Shall I go in with you?”

“Wait at the entrance. You said only one of them woke up, right? The other one shouldn’t be awake yet, but if he is, you handle it.”

“Understood. Here, sir.”

“No need. This is nothing.”

Sunhyuk tried to hand Cheon Sejoo a stab-proof vest, but he waved it off. Moving without it was far more comfortable. Wearing that thing would only slow him down.

Stretching to loosen his stiff muscles after driving and stitching up Haewoong’s head, Cheon Sejoo opened the office door and stepped out. He descended the stairs toward the workshop, aware of another person’s footsteps following behind him. It was Jinyoung, who had returned after taking Haewoong upstairs.

When they reached the workshop, they first entered the observation room next to it. This room had a large, special glass window that allowed them to monitor what was happening inside the workshop. As soon as they stepped in, Cheon Sejoo smirked coldly.

“This b*stard’s using his head.”

Cabinets were lined up in front of the observation room window. The thug had figured out the glass was one-way and had moved the cabinets to block their view. As a result, the only thing Cheon Sejoo and the others could see was the concrete floor soaked with something through the gaps between the cabinets. It was impossible to tell if the other guy had regained consciousness or if the thug was still the only one awake.

It was an unexpected situation.

Cheon Sejoo’s voice turned cold as he asked.

“What was it like earlier?”

“He only rummaged around where the tools are.”

“And his condition?”

“When I saw Haewoong bleeding, I slammed him against the wall. I had to get Haewoong out right away, so I couldn’t check thoroughly, but he shouldn’t be in good shape.”

“He better not be…”

Haewoong had his scalp cut open, so it wouldn’t make sense if the thug was completely unscathed. Cheon Sejoo let out a cynical chuckle and tapped on the glass window.

Tap, tap.

The soft sound echoed, followed by a loud crash from inside as if something had fallen. The rat trapped inside the cage seemed to be very startled. Because of concerns about leaving evidence, there were no CCTV cameras inside the workshop. This meant they had no way to check the thug’s current condition or what he had been up to.

Cheon Sejoo could feel his blood run cold from the tension and slowly exhaled. He untied a leather bundle he had brought down from upstairs, pulling out a sharpened sashimi knife inside. As he gripped and released the handle, getting a feel for it, he turned to Sunhyuk, gave him a nod with his chin, and spoke to Jinyoung.

“You stay here. If I’m not out in 10 minutes, contact Manager Chae.”

“Yes, sir. Be careful.”

Jinyoung responded, nodding firmly.

Cheon Sejoo left the observation room and headed toward the workshop. Standing in front of the door, he signaled to Sunhyuk. Sunhyuk brought his eyes to the panel next to the steel door, and with a soft beep, the lock clicked open.

Cheon Sejoo flung the door open and stepped inside, with Sunhyuk following closely behind and shutting the door.

“Come at me, you b*stards!”

As soon as they entered, the ethnic Korean-Chinese thug wielding a monkey wrench^[1] charged at them, his eyes wild.

Cheon Sejoo quickly dodged and scanned the room.

Luckily, only one of them was awake. The other thug still seemed to be under the effects of the sedative, lying on the floor like a corpse.

With only one awake, it wouldn’t be difficult

One mouth to spill the information was enough.

Having made up his mind, Cheon Sejoo swung the knife without hesitation.