Chapter 10. The Mastermind Behind the Dumpling Scandal
The next day.
Harok was waiting in front of the elevator to meet Han Munyeon, head of the National Police Agency's Drug and Organized Crime Investigation Division.
Yu Seongun had said that when he met him last time, Han Munyeon completely denied everything about celebrity drug use.
Police officers were always like that.
If you asked them anything, they automatically pretended not to know.
Judging from what the police said, South Korea was always a peaceful country where absolutely nothing ever happened.
Back when Harok was a trainee, he'd been chewed out more than once for believing what the police told him and reporting it as fact.
To become an excellent crime reporter, it was essential to learn how to filter police statements properly.
When asking questions, you had to speak as though you already knew everything.
And whenever the police let something slip, you had to pretend you had no interest in it, as though it wasn't even worth an article.
The moment you showed too much interest, you risked beating the grass and startling the snake.
Reporting for the social affairs department required the same care as polishing a precious glass bottle.
Harok was confident he could make Han Munyeon talk.
If Harok spoke as though he already knew everything, how could the man keep avoiding his questions?
Just then...
Ring, ring.
No Seokgil.
Huh? Why is this hyung calling me?
"Hyung, how have you been?"
"Yeah, Reporter Baek. Are you busy right now?"
"No. Go ahead. I'm not busy at all."
"It's been a while since we've seen each other. I thought we could meet and catch up."
No Seokgil.
Harok had become close to him back when No Seokgil was head of the Crime Prevention Division at Cheongnyangni Police Station.
He was famous as an information broker with contacts planted throughout the police organization.
During promotion season, if you asked No Seokgil who was going to move up, his answer was almost always correct.
For someone like that to ask for a meeting meant he had something important to say.
"You're still at Cheongnyangni Police Station, right?"
"Our Reporter Baek has gotten some experience under his belt and already gotten lazy."
"Pardon?"
"I transferred to Bangbae Police Station last year. Gangnam really is better."
Ah.
Bangbae Police Station was across the river, but it wasn't particularly far.
And as it happened, Han Munyeon was away that day, so Harok had already wasted his trip.
Fine. I'll meet No Seokgil first.
Harok left the National Police Agency and took public transportation to Bangbae Police Station.
As soon as he arrived, he headed straight for the Crime Prevention Division chief's office.
"Hyung, have you been well?"
Harok and No Seokgil clasped hands tightly as though they were long-lost relatives finally reuniting.
The two began chatting warmly about old cases.
"Remember that pimp murder case?"
"Of course."
"Didn't you throw up after seeing the body?"
"Please delete embarrassing history like that from your memory."
"Hahaha!"
About ten minutes later, the conversation naturally shifted to the garbage dumpling scandal.
"I read your article, Reporter Baek. You hit our police pretty hard. Take it easy on us."
"If I'd written everything I actually wanted to write, the commissioner would've lost his head."
No Seokgil lifted the coffee cup in front of him and took a sip.
"...Do you think they did it on purpose? Investigations get messy sometimes. People push things a little too far."
Rustle.
Harok took a cigarette from his pack and lit it.
"But with the garbage dumpling case, it feels like the police went after them aggressively from the very beginning. You only have to think about it for a moment to realize that the ends of pickled radishes are edible..."
"There was plenty of talk inside the police too. People were saying Choi Cheonsik was pushing things too hard."
There was already criticism inside the police?
That meant Choi Cheonsik had continued pushing the investigation despite all of it.
"Do you know Chief Choi Cheonsik well?"
No Seokgil waved both hands strongly.
"How could someone of my humble background know an elite from the Korean National Police University?"
Harok was almost certain that meant he did know him well.
But if No Seokgil didn't want to talk, there was no point pressing him further.
Once the dumpling scandal ended, Choi Cheonsik would have to take responsibility one way or another.
He had practically destroyed perfectly healthy companies, after all.
"But there's something else..."
No Seokgil carefully set his coffee cup down on the table.
It seemed he was finally getting to the real reason he'd called Harok.
"I read through your article, and there's one part where I think you missed the point."
"What do you mean?"
Criticizing a journalist's article was a dangerous act that wounded a journalist's pride.
No Seokgil knew that better than anyone.
And yet...
"I couldn't see the 'why.' Why did they choose the dumpling market in particular?"
Come to think of it, Harok really had failed to ask that question.
Why had the police caused a scandal in the dumpling industry?
There were countless kinds of processed foods.
Why dumplings?
"Did you know this case originally started in the Foreign Affairs Division?"
Harok had never heard that before.
Even when he searched his memories from his previous life, nothing came up.
"It started in Foreign Affairs, but on orders from above, it was transferred to the Investigation Planning Division."
Judging from No Seokgil's tone, there was clearly more to the story.
Orders from above?
Who exactly did he mean?
"Who gave those orders? Are you saying there's actually some mastermind behind this?"
No Seokgil paused for a moment, then the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
"I just heard something somewhere."
"From whom?"
No Seokgil smiled faintly, as though Harok had finally taken the bait.
"Have you heard of Samho Foods?"
Of course he had.
In his previous life, Harok had remained single until forty.
Meal kits and ready-made foods had been one of his main sources of energy.
And among them, he'd used Samho Foods products more than almost any other brand.
"I live alone. I know them very well."
"They make dumplings too. I heard the story while playing golf with some people from that company."
"Why are you playing golf with people from a food company, Hyung?"
"You know me. My network spreads everywhere. I need to know people from every industry so I'll have somewhere to go when I retire."
Harok looked at him suspiciously.
"You're not covering for them and collecting bribes on the side, are you?"
No Seokgil's expression immediately hardened.
"Hey, watch what you're saying. Do I look like that kind of person?"
Why wouldn't you?
There had once been rumors that No Seokgil bought an entire building while working in the Crime Prevention Division at Cheongnyangni Police Station.
People said he extorted so much money from pimps that their complaints were endless.
And yet he was skilled enough to dodge internal police audits every time and continued rising through the ranks.
"It must've been a high-ranking executive."
"High-ranking? Well, yes. You could call them high-ranking."
What does that mean? Are they high-ranking or not?
"Can you give me that executive's contact information?"
As though he'd been waiting for the question, No Seokgil immediately opened his phone and read out the number.
"Director Hong Yunjung. 010-2388-XXXX."
He didn't even pretend to hesitate.
He gave Harok the number immediately, almost as though that had been his goal from the beginning.
So this is why he called me.
There was no doubt No Seokgil had been asked for a favor by this Director Hong Yunjung.
She must have wanted him to find her a journalist connected to the dumpling scandal.
"Good thing I came quickly. If I hadn't shown up, were you planning to give this to another reporter?"
No Seokgil didn't answer.
He just smiled.
"Interpret it however you want."
The garbage dumpling case wasn't over yet.
There's actually a mastermind behind the dumpling scandal?
Had the Baek Harok of his previous life been manipulated by whoever was behind all this?
The thought wounded his pride.
Because of that person's scheme, Harok's life had been destined to roll through a field of shit.
This time, he had no intention of being played so easily.
For now, he had already reversed the atmosphere faster than expected and driven the police into a corner.
Let's dig into this properly while I still have room to breathe.
First, he decided to meet Hong Yunjung.
If she'd leaked information to a well-connected police officer like No Seokgil, then clearly she wanted to meet a journalist.
If she was calling him in, Harok was naturally going to hear what she had to say.
Beep, beep, beep.
Without hesitation, he dialed Hong Yunjung's number.
"Who is this?"
Not Hello, but immediately, Who is this?
Harok thought it was an unusual way to answer a phone call.
And although No Seokgil had called her a director, her voice sounded like that of a woman in her twenties or early thirties.
"Hello. I'm Reporter Baek Harok from Daehan Daily."
"Yes, hello. What can I do for you?"
"I was talking with Chief No Seokgil from Bangbae Police Station, and..."
"Ah, I see. This isn't really something we should discuss over the phone. I have some free time around eleven tomorrow morning. Can you come to the company?"
"Yes. I'll come to Samho Foods."
The following morning, Harok headed to Samho Foods early.
Following the directions from the information desk, he went upstairs to Director Hong Yunjung's office.
"Hello. I'm Hong Yunjung."
Harok was startled by how young she looked.
Her voice had sounded young over the phone, but he'd assumed it was just her voice.
In person, she looked no older than her mid-thirties.
"Surprised that such a young woman is a company executive? Well, my mother is the chairwoman, so just accept it."
Samho Foods Chairwoman Cheon Yulhwa.
She was a female entrepreneur of Chinese-Korean descent.
After losing her husband in her early thirties, she had raised one son and three daughters alone while growing the company into one of the country's major food businesses.
Her second son was a doctor, and her youngest daughter was a musician who had studied vocal performance.
The two daughters working at the company were third daughter Hong Yunjung and eldest daughter Hong Yeojung.
"I'm sorry. I didn't research enough before coming..."
Harok had only searched the company's president's name before visiting, so naturally he didn't know much.
"...Chief No told me that you said there was someone who planned the dumpling scandal."
"Yes. That's exactly what I said."
Hong Yunjung spoke with complete confidence.
"Do you know who it is?"
"Before that, have you met the person who first tipped off the case? I heard he was a police officer."
The original source behind the garbage dumpling investigation was Sergeant Park Junhyeong from the National Police Agency's Foreign Affairs Division.
Harok's article had focused entirely on problems in the investigation process, not on the original tipster.
So he had never contacted Park Junhyeong.
"No. I didn't have any particular reason to meet him for the article I wrote."
"If this really is a large-scale conspiracy like the garbage dumpling scandal, shouldn't the first thing you investigate be the original source?"
A large-scale conspiracy?
Was she saying the dumpling scandal itself had been deliberately engineered?
"Are you saying there's some conspiracy hidden behind the dumpling scandal?"
"Didn't you write that yourself? From beginning to end, this garbage dumpling investigation was a sloppy, excessive investigation built on forcing the evidence to fit the conclusion."
"That's true."
Rustle.
Hong Yunjung spread several pages of analytical material covered in graphs across the table.
"Look at this."
"What is it?"
"Data on the size and growth of the domestic processed dumpling market. As you can see, the market has been growing by more than thirty percent every year for the past several years."
Harok's eyes widened as he looked at the graphs.
The processed dumpling market was this big?
As of 201X, its annual sales had already passed five hundred billion won.
"But because of this year's dumpling scandal, sales will probably fall to less than half of last year's."
That was believable.
Most dumpling companies were already facing the threat of bankruptcy.
"Did Samho Foods suffer losses too?"
"We've always maintained strict hygiene standards. And we don't use the leftover ends of pickled radishes that caused this controversy."
"Then I suppose your losses weren't too severe."
Hong Yunjung shook her head.
"That's exactly the problem with this scandal. It wasn't only the companies accused of hygiene violations that were attacked. Every dumpling manufacturer was treated as guilty by association."
"That's true. From a consumer's perspective, they wouldn't know which companies were actually involved..."
Hong Yunjung took a cigarette from a wooden cigarette case on the table and placed it between her lips.
"Would you like one too?"
"No, I'll smoke mine."
Click. Fwoosh.
She lit hers with a turbo lighter and exhaled a long stream of smoke into the air.
"The market data and all of that is useful. Thank you. But answer my real question first."
"The identity of the mastermind?"
"Yes."
"I don't know who it is either. But whoever benefited the most from this dumpling scandal, or stands to benefit from it in the future, is the most likely person to have caused it."
Is she kidding me?
She had confidently claimed there was a mastermind, and now she was saying she didn't know who it was?
And who exactly had benefited?
Dumpling companies were collapsing one after another, and the entire market had shrunk.
"This year, the market will contract sharply because of the scandal. But by next year, it'll quickly recover to roughly last year's level."
"You think so?"
"Yes. The important question is who takes the market share when the dumpling market recovers."
"Based on company size, wouldn't Samho Foods be the most likely?"
"That could be true... if the processed dumpling market remains a market dominated by mid-sized and small businesses like it has been until now."
Huh?
Was she saying it wouldn't?
Right.
Lee Jinbaek had said TS Foodnet was entering the dumpling market too.
"Are major conglomerates entering this market?"
"Yes. Several large corporations have already announced plans to enter the dumpling business."
"Do you think one of those conglomerates could be behind the scandal?"
"It's possible."
A conglomerate like TS, with annual sales in the hundreds of trillions of won, would engineer a conspiracy like this just to capture a five-hundred-billion-won market?
That interpretation felt far too convenient.
