Chapter 32
Hansarang Mart appeared as the destination on my navigation screen.
It was on a quiet roadside outside Gwangju, on the way toward Damyang.
The bright lights of the city gradually disappeared behind me.
Silence surrounded the car.
Sweat seemed to gather on my palms as I gripped the steering wheel.
Would this road really lead me to the truth about Lee Sejun?
Or was I wasting my time because of a bad assumption?
I could not be certain.
But something inside my chest burned hot.
My instincts were telling me...
This was the right road.
After driving for a while...
I finally arrived.
Hansarang Mart.
[You have arrived at your destination.]
[Navigation guidance will now end.]
The navigation system spoke.
But I tilted my head.
“What?”
“This is it?”
The place was so empty that calling it a mart felt ridiculous.
It was hard to believe a business receiving massive shipments could possibly operate here.
There was only one large prefabricated warehouse with no proper store sign.
The surrounding area was an empty lot overgrown with weeds.
“What the hell is this...?”
The only thing proving this was the Hansarang Mart from the documents...
Was a cheap little sign nailed to a pillar with rusty nails.
[Hansarang Mart]
For a place supposedly receiving enormous quantities of merchandise...
There were no store lights.
No illuminated sign.
Not even customer parking.
This was not a mart meant for consumers.
It was just a place to store goods.
A place designed only to receive huge shipments.
It looked exactly like a shell company disguised as a mart.
I parked across the road beside an abandoned gas station.
The gas station itself looked as though it had been closed for years.
There were no signs of recent maintenance.
I turned off the engine.
Then switched off every light in the car.
Darkness immediately swallowed the area.
I lowered my phone brightness as much as possible.
Then aimed the camera at the building across the road.
Even though the road was narrow, there was still a limit to what I could see from inside the car.
So I zoomed in.
Then zoomed in again.
Small words appeared through the camera.
Nothing important.
Just the name Hansarang Mart and several small numbers.
Then...
Screeech.
Two five-ton trucks arrived one after another.
“It's already 7:30.”
They had arrived exactly on time.
Both trucks had the large WG Food logo printed on them.
They parked side by side in front of the warehouse-like Hansarang Mart.
Because the area was so silent, the sound of their brakes echoed loudly.
The moment the trucks stopped...
The dark building lit up.
Rrrrrumble.
The warehouse door slowly began rising.
“So they really are just receiving and storing the product?”
I focused on the scene through my phone camera.
Two men drove forklifts out from inside.
They roughly checked the documents handed over by the WG Food truck drivers.
Then they immediately began unloading boxes of WG Galbi Sauce.
The quantity was enormous.
The boxes were neatly stacked on pallets.
There were so many that it was impossible to count them quickly.
The WG drivers were only there to deliver.
They clearly wanted to finish this late-night shipment and go home as fast as possible.
So the unloading happened quickly.
In less than twenty minutes...
Everything was moved inside.
The drivers received signatures on the final documents.
Then they immediately left.
At first glance...
There was nothing particularly different from any other delivery location.
Except one thing.
The drivers seemed very familiar with the process here.
But of course they were.
They had probably made huge deliveries to this place many times.
The moment both WG Food trucks disappeared from view...
The real scene began.
Vroooom.
Behind the mart...
A massive eleven-ton box truck that had been waiting with its lights off started moving.
Its heavy engine growled as it pulled into the exact space where WG Food's trucks had been parked.
“What is that truck?”
I tilted my head and examined it.
There was no company logo anywhere.
“What company sends something that large to a place like this...?”
Then something appeared in my camera while I searched for a logo.
The license plate.
“What the hell?”
It was completely covered in mud and filth.
Not a single number could be seen.
Almost as if someone had deliberately hidden it.
The warehouse door opened again.
And what I saw inside made my eyes widen.
The same two men who had spent the last twenty minutes unloading the WG Food sauce...
Were now moving those same boxes again.
They had not been arranging them inside.
They had simply been waiting for the next truck.
“Let's move it quickly!”
The driver of the eleven-ton truck shouted.
“Yes! Open it up!”
The two men immediately began loading the sauces onto the unidentified vehicle.
The difference from WG Food's official delivery was obvious.
An enormous amount of merchandise was changing hands.
Goods worth a huge amount of money.
Yet no one checked a delivery slip.
No one signed anything.
There was no inspection of the goods.
No checking expiration dates.
Only smooth, mechanical movements that looked practiced and repeated.
WG Food's legitimate products...
Products shipped through our official distribution network...
Were not going to a supermarket shelf.
They were disappearing into a dark, unofficial distribution route.
Of course, someone could argue that Hansarang Mart had legally purchased those products from WG Food.
And after buying them, perhaps it was their business what they did with them.
But that was not true.
WG Food manufactured and sold those products to Hansarang Mart under a supply contract.
And distribution agreements between food manufacturers and retail marts contained restrictions.
Even if some actions were not directly illegal under criminal law...
They could still violate the business contract.
The products were supplied for a designated retail purpose.
If the mart transferred them in bulk to another wholesaler or online reseller...
WG Food could terminate the contract or sue for breach of contract.
But there was something even more important.
Disruption of the distribution order.
If a mart took goods purchased at a special low price and dumped them into another distribution channel...
The pricing structure of existing WG Food distributors and wholesalers would collapse.
