TFN C27

Chapter 27

“A little while ago, the head of Team 3 said he couldn’t believe it and ended up drawing blood himself. Looked like he was going to run it through the lab. Anyway, they said you’re the one who brought that person in, right? Honestly, thanks to that person’s intervention, for the first time in years my headaches and tinnitus completely disappeared. The pain in my shoulders and back is gone too. I owe you. I’ll treat you to a proper meal sometime soon.”

“…It’s fine.”

The head of Team 2 chuckled and gave Cheongmun’s shoulder a light slap with his palm.

“Hey, don’t refuse me. Pass along my thanks to that person too. If I could thank them in person, it’d be even better, but I don’t have a way to contact them…”

“They said it isn’t something that warrants thanks, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

Noticing Wonhyo’s attempt to fish for contact information, Cheongmun cut him off without hesitation.

“That’s a bit disappointing. No, seriously, it feels like I’ve been reborn. If you say it’ll burden them, then I’ll leave it be, but ask anyway later on, okay? Tell them I’ll treat them to a full-course meal.”

With a humming tune under his breath, the head of Team 2 walked past Cheongmun.

Once he stepped into the office, someone immediately let out a startled yell.

“…Director, are you really okay? Because I was seriously terrified. Everyone’s in a frenzy right now.”

The deputy team leader whispered by his side, shoving the glowing screen of a phone toward him.

[Let’s all be considerate neighbors. (72)]

※ Notice: Anyone caught talking about work here will be kicked.

※ Notice: Messaging outside of work hours will not be tolerated.

-(Legal Affairs Team) Deputy Chief, what’s going on with Team 2’s director? I just ran into him in the break room and all he did was comment on the weather before walking off. Thought he got beaten by Team 1’s head the other day. Did his brain finally get scrambled?

-(Secretary Office, Inspector General) No, I heard he actually had an exorcism.

-(Legal Affairs Team) …Exorcism? What’s that supposed to mean?

-(R&D Equipment Team) Exorcism?

-(Secretary Office, Inspector General) I heard that a really powerful shaman who had come in as consultant for the Special Investigations Unit personally fixed him up and left.

-(Legal Affairs Team) “Fixed” or… “finished off”? People don’t change that much unless they’re on their deathbed.

-(Border Surveillance Team) What does it matter if he dies or not right now?

-(R&D Equipment Team) Then what does matter?

-(Border Surveillance Team) We’ve got a number of suspicious people inside the Bureau. Shouldn’t the first priority be to bring that person in and have them attempt exorcism on the rest?

-(Secretary Office, Inspector General) Wow.

-(System Operations Team) And how much per person would that be?

“You saw this, right? The inquiries are flooding in.”

The deputy wrapped his arms around his own torso and trembled visibly.

“I saw it with my own eyes, but the effect was unbelievable. Still, I wonder how much that person actually charges. If we organized a full-scale ritual and shoved all the suspicious people into it, at least ten could be exorcised at once. Doesn’t he have any thought of a one-time sweep like that?”

Cheongmun licked his lips with a faintly parched feeling and let out a sigh.

“What’s the progress on the forensic evidence analysis?”

“Eh? The evidence? Uh, Officer Kim is analyzing the video right now.”

The deputy quickly rattled off the update.

It seemed that quite a lot had already been uncovered in just the brief hour he had been away.

Listening to the report, Cheongmun made his way toward the meeting room where the video was currently under analysis.

He could wait in the office, but for some reason, he did not wish to run into the strangely mellowed head of Team 2 again.

“We captured the suspect on seven separate occasions. Using the casted shadows of nearby objects relative to the apartment as reference, we tracked the sun’s position and concluded the estimated times were between eleven a.m. and twelve noon. Taking the very first appearance as baseline and backtracking across alternating day and night cycles, we determined the intervals of reappearance followed this pattern.”

Cheongmun scanned the dates listed in the report.

“Between the first and second appearances, and again midway once, the interval shifts, but otherwise it’s consistently decreasing.”

Officer Kim, who handled the analysis, nodded.

“Exactly. Ten days between the second sighting and then, uniquely, a two-day increase between the fourth and fifth, otherwise it consistently shortened. The timeframe remained the same.”

“When I reviewed the CCTV obtained from the autopsy room since my arrival, nothing stood out.”

Officer Choi rubbed his weary eyes before darting them sideways.

“It’s not exactly possible to capture traces of a ghost on closed-circuit cameras, is it?”

His words hinted at whether they could ask Wonhyo for help, but Cheongmun recalled what he had been told previously.

“They said it can only be determined by visiting the site directly.”

“Ah… is that so.”

Choi’s voice fell into disappointment. At that, the deputy tilted his head.

“But isn’t entry to an autopsy room limited to authorized personnel?”

“If he’s brought in as a consulting investigator, wouldn’t that qualify as authorized?”

Officer Nam jumped into the discussion, only for Officer Kim to wrinkle his face.

“The real issue is whether the people in charge there actually recognize him as authorized.”

Even the police faced restrictions when trying to observe an autopsy.

As the squad chattered, Cheongmun idly tapped his finger against the table.

“Anything else you’ve uncovered?”

Officer Kim continued his briefing.

“We’re preparing e-fit sketches from the footage and will start canvassing to see if anyone recognizes the suspect. Also…”

Cheongmun gestured with his hand to prompt him to go on.

From across the table, Officer Lee raised his hand.

“I was thinking of conducting psychological profiling. But since this is the first time I’d be trying it on someone already dead, I’m unsure whether the standard guidelines even apply. If we say the entity’s a ‘vengeful spirit,’ then resentment is a given. But whether it stems from life or death is unclear. Using the same framework feels mismatched.”

Cheongmun tilted his head slightly, studying the composite sketch of the suspect’s face.

“When canvassing, make sure to include the period before the first appearance too. As for a psychological profile, hold back for now.”

Cheongmun remembered Wonhyo had questioned the idea of a vengeful spirit appearing in an autopsy room.

A vengeful spirit pursuing the deceased was ordinary enough. To have manifested specifically in the autopsy lab should have been taken as normal too—yet Wonhyo had said otherwise. That could only mean it stood out strongly enough to seem abnormal even to him.

“Is it common for an offender to linger around near the scene even after murdering a victim?”

Officer Lee frowned as if troubled.

“Well, if an offender hides the corpse and stays close by, it stems from anxiety: the fear they might be discovered when the body is found. Similar to how arsonists often hang around the scene of the fire to involve themselves. But continuing even after death, as a ghost—would that apply?”

“If the culprit is so easily identifiable once the body’s discovered, shouldn’t that have already come up in the canvassing? And it hasn’t.”

“Judging by the number and manner of wounds, it seems like the work of someone familiar with the victim. Plus, this is a revenge killing, right? Resentment doesn’t fester between strangers.”

Each officer spoke from the lens of their expertise, providing analysis.

Cheongmun listened carefully, constructing the shape of the suspect in his thoughts.

Most likely not a stranger, harboring resentment against the victim, watching and monitoring persistently before killing, and afterward even trailing the corpse into the autopsy room—his behavior suggested someone with paranoid or obsessive tendencies.

Though exceptions existed. Some offenders kill indiscriminately, leaving strong marks on corpses without any motiveless hatred.

Yet in this case, the sequence revealed carefully repeated reconnaissance, at least seven instances before execution. It resembled the precise steps of a plan. Still, what bothered him was that the times of these visits and the actual time of death did not align properly.

“Can you determine what exactly the victim was doing at the moments the suspect appeared?”

“Do you mean review only the time periods corresponding to the suspect’s visits?”

“Yes. First check if the victim had any repetitive behaviors at those times. Especially on the third and fourth days—confirm whether anything altered in their daily pattern.”

“Understood.”

The deputy nodded firmly.

Cheongmun assigned tasks for more granular analysis of the footage alongside timelines for interviews.

Even if the suspect was a ghost they could never arrest or interrogate, truth still needed to be uncovered—for the sake of the living.

It felt as though his body were drifting in water. Light as air—or was it heavy? His body soared like a balloon, then was sucked downward, crashing at some unseen point. At that instant, Wonhyo’s eyes snapped open.

What is this?

Something was wrong with his body.

He turned his gaze upward toward the shadow looming above. Someone was there.

A large, solid figure loomed, towering half a head over him.

‘How do I even recognize this?’

By oath, he should not know any other man’s body so clearly—or rather, no, there was exactly one body he did know. That person.

Wonhyo’s breath caught in his throat.

The man’s weight pressed him halfway down. Nothing crushing or painful, just the snug heaviness of pressure that felt oddly comforting.

Only then did Wonhyo realize he was lying flat instead of standing.

When he tried to hurriedly push himself upright, a broad hand came down against his shoulder.

Instead of resisting, he sank back quietly.

From above, the man’s polished, faintly vicious-looking eyes bore down on him.

He saw the man grip the mouth of his glove with his teeth.

With a tug, the black leather slipped off, baring long fingers, firm, warm with living heat. One of those fingers descended to gently graze Wonhyo’s cheek.