Chapter 13

The address pointed to an old commercial building in Yeoksam-dong.

On the narrow one-way street, there was nothing but shuttered shops and rows of garbage bags.

Just a hundred meters away, the signs of bars and restaurants flashed day and night, but the light that reached this far was faint.

After looking around, Iheon examined the building again.

It was an old five-story commercial building above ground. Most of the signs that had covered the outer walls were gone, leaving only traces behind, and through the dust-covered windows, the empty interior was clearly visible.

Scheduled for redevelopment.

No unauthorized entry.

A banner hung across the front of the building fluttered in the hot wind.

The main door was blocked with a thick iron chain and padlock. Inside the glass doors, discarded fixtures and furniture left behind ahead of demolition were piled up carelessly.

Jei checked the screen of her phone.

“The address says the first basement floor of this building.”

From the front, no entrance leading downward was visible.

While Iheon examined the front of the building, Jei approached the old directory board standing beside the main door.

The names of the tenant businesses had all been removed, but their traces remained faintly.

After staring at the directory for a while, Jei turned her head to the right side of the building.

“I think it’s this way.”

“What is?”

“In the case of basement businesses, they often have a separate entrance for customers.”

Without waiting for an answer, Jei stepped into the narrow alley on the right and, as if familiar with it, went around to the back.

“See? I was right, wasn’t I?”

At the rear side of the building was a staircase leading underground.

A black awning hung long over the stairs, and on the wall remained the marks of a sign that had been torn off.

The entrance was hidden at the back of the building, in a place difficult to find unless one deliberately came looking.

The stairs, fairly wide, curved so that the door at the bottom could not be seen at a glance. All the lights installed along the wall were off.

Jei immediately pulled out a pocket camera and began filming. Just as she was about to step down first while lighting the way below with the screen, Iheon grabbed her forearm.

“Are you crazy?”

“Huh?”

Jei turned to him with a face that did not understand.

He could not tell whether she was fearless or simply unable to recognize danger as danger.

Iheon, dumbfounded, pulled her back up from the stairs.

“Without even knowing what’s down there, you just go ahead?”

“I was just going to film the entrance first……”

“Ha……”

The address had been sent by the culprit himself. There was no telling what was down there or who might be waiting. And yet Jei thrust her camera forward like a reporter arriving at an investigative scene.

“Stay behind me.”

“Don’t worry about me. When you’re doing investigative work, you go to places far worse than this all the time, you know? Honestly, I’m not scared of people at all. Ghosts are what scare me.”

“…….”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Isn’t it true? You can run from a person, but a ghost is something I can’t do anything about—”

Ghosts, my ass. Facing a woman who did not understand what the actual problem was, Iheon could only sigh in frustration.

“Jei.”

“Yes.”

It seemed he would have to hammer this one thing into that small brain so she could never forget it.

“If you consider me your husband, at least, then I have a duty to protect you. Because you’re my wife.”

He spoke with his face hardened stiffly, as if warning her. Jei, who had been about to protest that that was not what she meant, met his fierce eyes and shut her mouth tight.

“If you don’t understand, memorize it.”

Turning his back, Iheon turned on his phone flashlight and shone it down the stairs. Miscellaneous household trash lay neglected all over the stairs, covered in dust.

“Hold on.”

Jei took his hand without complaint. Compared to his long, thick-knuckled hand, hers was thin and slender, but she laced her fingers between his so as not to lose him.

Lighting her steps for her, he descended one stair at a time.

Past the point where the stairs turned, the basement door came into view. It was a soundproof door through which the interior could not be seen.

Stopping before the door, Iheon this time shone the light on the floor. Footprints were stamped across the thick layer of dust.

“Do you see the footprints here?”

“Could they be the workers’? They look like they were made recently.”

The traces were clear enough to expose the floor. Judging by the differing sizes and stride lengths, it seemed at least two people had come and gone. The footprints in the dust were captured exactly by the pocket camera in Jei’s hand.

“Just in case, don’t leave my back.”

Having warned Jei once more, Iheon pulled open the firmly closed door.

The moment the gap opened, the air trapped inside pushed out. The damp, acrid air was full of the smell of old cigarettes and the stench of alcohol soaked into everything.

With the power cut, the interior was so dark that he could barely see a single step ahead. Without crossing the threshold, he swept the inside with the light of his phone.

Near the entrance was a counter that looked as if it had been used as a register. Beyond it, doors with numbers attached lined a long corridor.

He strained his hearing and examined the inside, wondering if anyone might be there. No presence could be felt.

“Let’s go in for now. Watch your step.”

With Iheon casting the flashlight wide, Jei followed right behind him.

The air, unventilated for a long time, was stale. With every exhale, dust seemed to cling inside his nose.

Iheon shone the light along both sides of the corridor.

The wallpaper, blotched with dark mold, was peeling and lifting in places.

“Iheon, do you see that?”

About halfway down the corridor, a pale light caught at the edge of their vision.

Through the narrow gap of the door at the very end, a yellowish light flickered at irregular intervals.

Iheon raised his index finger to his lips and turned off his phone flashlight.

As the surroundings plunged into darkness in an instant, the light leaking through the door gap became all the clearer.

It was candlelight.

Iheon and Jei slowed their steps and quietly approached the door from which the light leaked.

Just in case, he checked for any presence inside, but no sound came.

Iheon pushed the lower part of the door with the toe of his shoe. The door, which had been slightly open, let out a creak—the sound of a hinge twisting—and slowly opened its mouth.

As the door opened wider, the yellowish light wavering inside spread long into the corridor.

The room retained the exact appearance of a typical entertainment bar.

Leather sofas lined the walls, and in the center was a square table. Cobwebs hung from the light fixture suspended from the ceiling.

In the room of about five pyeong, no space where someone could hide was visible. Nevertheless, the lit candle flickered unsteadily.

And on the table where the candle burned, something had been placed. Looking closely, it was a black box tied with a red ribbon.

The ribbon, reflecting the candlelight, gleamed unusually. It was a shape utterly unsuited to the old, dingy atmosphere of this place.

“This—I suppose they left it for us to find?”

“Modest for a gift. I thought there might be a corpse hidden inside.”

Iheon twisted his lips without taking his eyes off the box.

Muerte had probably planned in advance even the process of them coming here and discovering that box.

The sight of them entering the stage he had set, holding their breath and muffling their footsteps in tension.

He felt as if he were being played by the bastard, but he could not let Jei wander through a place like this alone.

“Let’s get out for now.”

“We haven’t even checked what’s inside this.”

“There’s no need to check it here, is there.”

“That’s true, but……”

“Just take the box. I don’t think there’s any need to look around here further.”

“What about the other rooms?”

“I saw the footprints on the way in. Other than this room, there were no traces particularly worth noting. And.”

His chin gestured toward the candle burning its black wick.

“The fact that more than half the candle remains means it wasn’t lit long ago.”

“…….”

“If it was lit just before we arrived, we can’t rule out the possibility that the bastard is still here.”

* * *

On the way out of the underground establishment and back to the paid parking lot, the two did not say much.

Before getting into the car, Iheon checked his surroundings. It was late, so there were quite a few empty spaces, but no conspicuous person or vehicle idling with its engine on was in sight.

Only after putting Jei in the passenger seat first did he get into the driver’s seat.

When Iheon turned on the interior light on the ceiling, the yellow glow fell over the black box resting on Jei’s lap.