Chapter 37

Chapter 37. Cautious Men

Maybe it was because I'd finally stepped into the hot Philippine air myself.

Only then did it truly hit me that the enormous Oh Su had vanished without leaving even a speck behind.

The clues that had seemed vague all this time had actually been screaming the truth at me.

A cemetery filled with children.

Oh Su's desperate breathing.

And a Philippine factory that didn't appear anywhere on Top Prime's official website.

They were illegally employing children.

Working them nearly to death.

And when the children died, they were disposed of and placed in that columbarium.

I still didn't know why they bothered putting the bodies in a columbarium at all.

But now was the time to accept at least one thing as certain.

Children were being illegally employed and forced into labor harsh enough to kill them.

I asked Moon Pil-su to take special care of Serin.

Then I boarded a fishing boat heading toward Navotas.

I had to pay quite a bit.

The embassy said Oh Su's permitted stay in the Philippines still had plenty of time remaining, so nobody had been investigating his whereabouts.

That meant there was nothing they could tell me in advance.

"Ah, he went to Navotas? Then you were right to call us instead of the local police. ...No, maybe that's not exactly true either. Anyway... if you lost contact with him after he went there, this could be serious."

"Why?"

The embassy employee didn't have much actual information.

Still, he somehow managed to make my already complicated thoughts even worse.

"That area is nationally famous for crime. It's close to Manila, so they've tried cleaning it up several times. But it seems to be connected to some criminal organization. It keeps surviving, and there have been tourist kidnappings and... well. People are generally told not to go anywhere near it."

Then Oh Su had probably been kidnapped.

How long had it been since our last call?

Four days already.

If he hadn't eaten during that entire time, he could already be dead.

At this point, I almost had to hope he'd merely been kidnapped.

The embassy had no investigative manpower of its own.

All they could promise was to request an international investigation through the Korean police.

As if that would work.

It wasn't like the Philippines had no police.

And if this criminal group already had officials under control, then the local investigation would probably consist of pretending to search and calling it a day.

Still, there was one fortunate thing.

Oh Su had given me a clue about how to approach this so-called human factory.

I stayed on the phone with the embassy employee while reaching the Navotas slum cemetery.

I walked around until I reached the farthest corner, toward the coast.

There, I found the exact section from the spam photograph.

The color arrangement matched.

So did the concrete posts.

Now that I looked more carefully, they weren't barricades at all.

They were posts used to tie fishing boats.

Only one thing was different from the photograph.

Nicole's grave wasn't there.

In the spam photograph, Nicole's compartment had been around the middle of the third level.

Right now, that space was completely open, like an empty cubby.

Was she safe?

Or had she been placed there and later removed?

I couldn't know for certain.

All I could do was enter the human factory.

"Hey, has anyone seen a fat man around here a few days ago?"

Just as Oh Su had described, children were running and playing all over the cemetery.

I asked them in English.

Oh Su had somehow gotten those children to speak to him and guide him to their workplace.

If I did the same, I might learn something.

"Why?"

A boy who looked around fourteen asked from where he was sitting.

"That man is my friend. He suddenly disappeared after coming here, and his family is extremely worried."

"A fat Korean man?"

"Have you seen him?"

The boy shook his head.

"Then... there's a factory around here with a lot of children working there, right? My nephew is there, and I need to meet him, but I don't know where it is. Could you show me?"

The boy nodded once.

Then he stood and gestured for me to follow.

He didn't have a thumb.

"Heyyy, Kim Hyun-su, get out of the shot! Gyeong-a needs to hit ten thousand followers today!"

"Let me be in it too!"

"Get your ugly face out of here already~."

The scene being filmed showed the characters sightseeing around a Cebu beach at night and established their everyday relationships.

Serin, playing Su-hyeon, was filming Gyeong-a with the night sea behind her.

Hyun-su kept wandering into the frame from behind and interrupting the shot.

Faced with the overwhelming closeness between those two, Gyeong-a could only smile awkwardly.

She kept trying to join in.

But it wasn't easy.

"Cut! Good work. Everyone's acting well!"

Especially Kim Serin.

Normally, Serin looked elegant and almost aristocratic.

Her voice was gentle too.

Moon Pil-su had originally thought she didn't suit Su-hyeon very well.

But once filming began, his opinion changed.

Su-hyeon could be annoying one moment, rough the next, then suddenly serious.

Serin fit those shifts surprisingly well.

"Is that all for today?"

"Of course. It's already past ten. Since our actors came all the way to Cebu, shouldn't they enjoy the hotel a little?"

"Nice~."

Seo-hyung smiled in relief and began wrapping up.

Moon Pil-su spoke cheerfully too.

But inside, he felt uneasy.

Because of Serin's acting.

As he'd already noticed, Serin was talented.

But serious, quiet acting suited her especially well.

Han Seo-hyung's voice was slightly light.

Serin's voice, on the other hand, had depth and resonance.

It sounded good.

That voice would perfectly suit Gyeong-a, who dreamed of becoming an announcer.

Was it too late to switch Serin from supporting actress to lead?

No.

It was still possible.

Kim Chang-bae, the head of KBC Production Division 2, had recently fallen from power because of a sexual-entertainment scandal.

The Drama Center wasn't the only department affected.

The entire Production Division 2 had been thrown into chaos.

There was even a chance the drama could lose its broadcast slot and be uploaded only to Nutube.

In any case, after Kim Chang-bae was fired, contracts for projects he'd launched were being revised one after another.

If Moon Pil-su acted now, he could switch the lead role from Seo-hyung to Serin without too much trouble.

Should he really do it?

Han Seo-hyung looked the way she did, but she also had a nasty temper.

If she found out she'd been pushed into a supporting role, she would absolutely cause a scene.

But if he could endure that, there wasn't much else stopping him.

If he was going to make the decision, it had to be now.

While putting away equipment, Moon Pil-su quietly watched Serin and Seo-hyung.

Seo-hyung was glaring with a sour expression as male lead Jung Ho-yeon spoke with Serin.

Maybe Pil-su only thought she looked annoyed because he himself was considering replacing her.

Or maybe she genuinely was annoyed.

First, he needed Universe's opinion.

He called Director Kwon Dae-hun.

For some reason, Dae-hun didn't answer.

Should he call that manager, Do Jun-hyeok?

Unfortunately, he still didn't have Jun-hyeok's number.

Pil-su entered Oh Su's number again.

He'd already called ten times.

Not once had Oh Su answered.

Still, trying one more time was better than doing nothing and going to sleep.

There was always a chance he'd answer.

Pil-su pressed the call button and quietly listened.

Once.

Twice.

Eight rings.

As expected, no answer.

Just as he was about to give up and end the call, it suddenly connected.

"Huh? Hello? Hey, Deok-su. Why haven't you answered any of my calls?"

"H-Hah... Hah... H-Hello."

"Hey, it's Moon Pil-su. What the hell have you been doing lately?"

"What...? You're changing Serin... Serin to the lead...? Hah, hah..."

Oh Su answered the phone after apparently losing at least ten kilograms over the last few days.

"What? Serin is becoming the lead? The Gyeong-a role?"

I asked excitedly after hearing the shocking news.

Oh Su immediately hung up.

"We're barely staying alive here... God, I'm dying. Hah, hah..."

"Why did you hang up? Is it true she's becoming the lead? Director Moon said that?"

"I don't know... Even when hammering one nail, a person should think carefully first. But he just does whatever he wants..."

Oh Su spoke with half-dead eyes.

We'd already been running for almost an hour.

Honestly, I was almost dead too.

But if he still had enough strength to complain, then apparently he could run a little longer.

"Stop there! Little kitties...!"

The gangsters chasing us shouted from behind.

"Still, I really thought I was going to die in there... Mr. Do Jun-hyeok, aren't you being too cruel? I came here because of you, and you didn't even come help me right away. I know you had a schedule, but is that more important than someone's life?"

Oh Su poured out complaints like a drunk man.

"Of course not... but if someone starts talking about a human factory, who would believe him? I thought you got drunk, went walking, and started saying nonsense. And does that place really look like a 'human factory' to you, CEO?"

The boy I met in Navotas had guided me to a Top Prime factory.

It wasn't literally a factory that manufactured human beings.

But it was inhuman enough.

The children older than eight didn't look physically normal.

Some had untreated wounds.

Others clearly suffered from malnutrition.

Along one wall, children lay inside storage spaces like chicken cages, sleeping so deeply they looked dead.

The scene wasn't very different from the apartment-style cemetery in Navotas.

The children worked in three shifts making products.

It was obvious who those products were for.

Top Prime.

The children cut seat belts to equal lengths.

They coated the cut edges.

Then they fed the material into heating equipment and stuck their hands into narrow pipes to pull the finished items out.

The pipes were so small that if their hands were just slightly larger, their thumbs would've caught and prevented them from reaching inside.

Heating recycled materials was necessary.

But instead of replacing the cheap machinery, they'd simply kept cutting off children's thumbs so they could continue using it.

Anyway, I'd recorded as much of the factory as possible on my phone to preserve evidence.

I also interviewed the children.

Then, at some point, someone moved quickly and slammed something hard against my right arm while I was holding the phone.

My arm hadn't moved properly since then.

It was probably broken.

Fortunately, I didn't lose consciousness.

I picked up the phone again and ran.

That was when I found Oh Su.

And we'd been running together ever since.

"I'm telling you, it really is a human factory. They kidnap children who can barely speak, bring them here, raise them as machine parts, then throw them away when they die from illness. The ones who at least end up in the columbarium are the lucky ones."

Apparently, children whose identities could be officially verified were registered with the authorities as legal workers.

That allowed the company to maintain a legitimate-looking business.

Children whose identities couldn't be verified were simply treated as slaves.

Of course, even registered children were basically slaves.

The only real difference was that when they died, the company was legally required to provide some kind of funeral.

"The factory just burns the body, puts the ashes in a container, and sticks it in the cemetery. That's their funeral. If that isn't a human factory, what is?"

"Well, when you put it that way..."

At that moment, one of the people chasing us shouted something.

Something flew quickly through the air and struck Oh Su's shoulder.

"What's this in my shoulder?"

I looked closely.

A nail.

"I think they're firing a modified nail gun."

I lifted his collar while speaking.

Oh Su collapsed with a thud.

He'd passed out.

Those bastards knew what they were doing.

Very cautious nail placement.

If you're trying to bring down a duo, take out the bigger one first.

Then his partner can't carry him away.

We were in serious trouble.

I couldn't leave Oh Su behind.

He had lost around ten kilograms, but that didn't mean he was suddenly easy to carry.

Before I got turned into wallpaper by a nail gun, I raised both hands.

My right arm tingled painfully as I lifted it.

The gangsters kept approaching without lowering their nail guns.

Fortunately, I didn't have to experience my entire life flashing before my eyes.

A black diplomatic vehicle suddenly swung around the corner and lightly plowed into the group chasing us.

"I'm terribly sorry. We made you run for almost an hour. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. But our CEO is injured."

An embassy employee rushed over and checked Oh Su.

Blood slowly leaked from where the nail had hit him.

Still, his back rose and fell slightly.

He was breathing.

"Hah. Fortunately..."

"Is our CEO okay?"

"Yes. It seems he's the type who normally keeps plenty of reserves stored on his body."

Thank goodness.

The pale-faced embassy staff and the foreign reporters they'd brought with them carefully lifted Oh Su.

Watching them carry him away, I finally felt like we'd truly survived.

Only then did the strength leave my legs.