Chapter 36
Early morning.
The atmosphere in the sales office felt very different from usual.
I sat at my desk with the same calm expression I always wore.
The office felt strangely subdued.
Ignoring the atmosphere, I checked my email.
Ma Juncheol, the owner of the largest food-supply mart in Honam, had spent the entire night sending people throughout Gwangju's dumping market.
He had gathered scanned copies of off-the-books transaction statements and simple receipts.
There was far more evidence than I had expected.
The names of the wholesalers were written on the receipts.
Their selling prices too.
And one more thing.
“Holy shit. It really was true.”
The moment I saw the name and address of one wholesaler, I frowned.
“This is the place I checked yesterday.”
The previous day...
At WG Food's logistics warehouse...
I had discovered the warehouse used by Lee Sejun and Manager Jang Woojin to falsify return slips and divert products.
The address matched perfectly.
In other words...
The movement of the goods listed on the fake return slips matched the dumping records.
More than ninety percent of the puzzle proving Lee Sejun's crimes was now complete.
Even so...
I shook my head while staring at the evidence.
Lee Sejun alone could never have maintained these extremely low shipment prices.
Nor could he have continuously received special exceptions.
In the distribution industry...
To approve special prices close to half of WG Food's standard shipment price through headquarters' internal system...
And to approve personal product retrievals that bypassed the logistics team's monitoring...
Someone with final approval authority inside the sales department was absolutely necessary.
“He either looked the other way... or actively participated.”
And at the top of it all...
There was another person who treated me like a thorn in his side.
The man currently laughing right in front of me.
Manager Jang Woojin.
Without him...
No matter how much Lee Sejun tried on his own...
None of this could have succeeded.
The moment I saw Manager Jang laughing after arriving at work...
I picked up a file and stood.
Then I walked toward him.
The moment he noticed me, the smile disappeared from his face.
“Manager Jang.”
He looked up with an unpleasant expression.
“Yeah, Assistant Manager Choi. What is it?”
“I need your approval.”
“For what?”
His tone was blunt.
There was no curiosity in his voice.
Only irritation.
“This is the supply-price adjustment sheet for Honam accounts related to our fourth-quarter new product lineup.”
“Please review it and approve it.”
I handed him the document.
He practically snatched it away as though he already disliked it.
I was about to bow and leave.
But Manager Jang stopped me.
“So, Assistant Manager Choi.”
“I hear the CEO practically can't stop saying your name because of the instant rice lately.”
“Your shoulders must be pretty high these days.”
“...Excuse me?”
“Must be exhausting.”
“You're only an assistant manager, but you're already acting like a team leader.”
My fist tightened without me realizing it.
But I could not openly show that emotion toward a superior.
He was rude to me.
That did not mean I had to answer with the same kind of behavior.
If anything...
Responding from a higher level would make him more uncomfortable.
“No, Manager Jang.”
“I was only able to achieve this much because you kept the department steady from behind.”
“Thank you.”
Manager Jang laughed without realizing the meaning behind my words.
“You sure know how to talk.”
Grumbling, he opened the approval file.
At that moment...
Something caught my eye.
A familiar light-blue slip was sticking out from between the files on his desk.
It was the expense-processing approval form for the fake return incident I had seen in the logistics office yesterday.
Tap.
I deliberately dropped the pen I was holding.
“Ah. My pen.”
While Manager Jang focused on my approval documents...
I bent down as though I were picking up the pen.
At the same time...
I quickly scanned the details on the slip.
An abnormally low supply price.
A fake return.
And beside them...
Manager Jang Woojin's handwritten signature.
There was also a note written by him.
[Special Note: Emergency application of HQ marketing support funds.]
I frowned the moment I saw it.
Emergency application of HQ marketing support funds...
Marketing support funds.
Company money that was supposed to be used to promote new products.
He had dragged that money into this scheme...
Using it to lower the prices for Lee Sejun's ghost marts.
And to cover losses created by fake returns.
This was far beyond carelessness or simply looking the other way.
Manager Jang Woojin was clearly one of the central accomplices in this massive breach of trust and embezzlement scheme.
Inside, disgust and anger surged through me.
But outwardly...
I pretended I knew nothing.
Pretended I had seen nothing.
I simply smiled.
“Manager Jang.”
“Yeah. What?”
“Because of the current WG Instant Rice allocations, I'm reviewing the entire Honam distribution list.”
Manager Jang kept his eyes on my approval documents and merely nodded.
“So?”
“The new marts in Damyang and Gwangju that Assistant Manager Lee recently secured have fairly large volumes.”
“I was wondering if we should allocate a large amount of WG Instant Rice to those accounts too.”
Manager Jang's eyes immediately shook.
“Assistant Manager... Lee?”
“Yes.”
“Assistant Manager Lee Sejun.”
“His accounts generate quite a lot of sales.”
“If we send instant rice to them too, the numbers could be huge.”
At that moment...
Manager Jang's hand stopped just before signing the document.
The hand gripping his pen trembled faintly.
His gaze moved toward his desk.
Perhaps he noticed the light-blue slip sticking out.
He immediately shoved it into a drawer as if crushing it.
“No.”
“Those places won't work!”
“What?”
“You don't understand those accounts.”
“They're tiny neighborhood marts. They can't handle huge container-level volumes of instant rice.”
His voice rose.
The nearby employees all turned to look at us.
