“Yes, sis!”


  The children answered promptly and looked at Mussang. Mussang grinned and nodded. Only then do the children display an expression of relief.

  “Let’s go. I will cook you some ramen. You shall eat first, then bathe.”


  “Yes, big sis!”


  Jinsun headed for the inner quarters with the children like a mother duck herding her ducklings.

  “They need psychiatric help before physical healing.’


  Mussang’s face grew dark with gloom. The children’s personalities turned passive and resigned after being tamed by prostitution and abuse. They even doubted Jinsun’s friendliness. Their minds had been shattered and shaken. Their only fallback was him, whom they consider a powerful being. The fragile minds could break at any moment.

  Korea didn’t have proper laws or public civic-mindedness concerning child abuse and child prostitution. People selfishly thought, “It is okay if it is not my child.” Money handled everything. The welfare center couldn’t have been the only place where rawhide whipping ran rampant.

  “I didn’t expect a real angel with an angelic face, an angelic body, and an angelic heart, to exist for real.”


  Gim Geukdo said out loud for everyone to hear. Jinsun looked back and smiled.

  “You know how to navigate the in-house politics. Help Mussang.”


  “Aye. I will serve him well.”


  Gim Geukdo bowed down swiftly like a robot.

  ‘F***. I never said anything as awesome.’


  Neopchi smacked his forehead. Jinsun was the absolute master in Eungsimje. To survive in a hierarchy, one needed excellent communication skills. The compliment was one of the greatest among them. No one hated to be complimented. When it flowed downward, it was a compliment. When it flowed upward, it was flattery. He had never seen flattery kill anyone. “Mussang, you are the hero of justice of the 20th century.”


  Neopchi pondered and attempted to flatter.

  “How can I be the only one? Read some books instead of watching anime!”


  Mussang made clucking sounds with his tongue. Neopchi grimaced. He had forgotten that some people were immune to flattery. Mussang had transcended all that formality.

  “Sir, you look content and happy.”


  “Happiness is simple. Eat well. Hang out with people with whom you can connect. Humans are bound to rely upon each other. You must have sufficiently experienced isolation and loneliness in Japan, haven’t you?”


  “Yes. I craved human contact. I needed someone to take my side and listen to what I say unconditionally.”


  Gim Geukdo’s face was steeped in remorse. He joined the syndicate after feeling the limit of doing everything independently. But the emptiness in his soul deepened. The Japanese psyche fundamentally perceived “different” as “wrong.” Moreover, as a Korean, he was always isolated and cast out. “To eat and hang out well” was an impossibility.

  “It is so. Happiness is simple. To have a home in which to rest your tired body. To have family who welcomes you. To have some fermented bean paste stew boiling up on the table. That is happiness. When you pushed out too much ointment from the tube, to have someone to share it. When you have Chinese food delivered, have someone separate the chopsticks for you. To have a son with whom you can go to a public bathhouse. To have a daughter who will pull out your silver hair. To have a wife who will nag you to stop drinking. When you say, “It’s raining outside the window,” to have someone who will respond, “Summer is over.” That is happiness. Do you see the thing in common in the examples I gave you?”


  “There is somebody else.”


  Gim Geukdo answered swiftly.

  “Yes. Happiness is not achieved in isolation. If you become happy after winning a lottery, how long will it last? How long will the happiness last when you make love with someone you love? Happiness may be found all around you. If you want to be happy, make the ones around you happy. Numerous moments of life at which we feel happiness are spread all about you.”


  “Ah!”


  Gim Geukdo and Neopchi exclaimed instantly. Anyone could utter the exact words, but when Mussang said it, each word rang their hearts. Gim Geukdo nodded unconsciously. The expression “Numerous moments of life at which we feel happiness are scattered all around you” touched him deeply.

  “Neopchi is your boss, Geukdo. You shall call him Big Brother. Jinsun is not a kind angel but a fearsome one.”


  Mussang didn’t wait for their response and turned to his study.

  “Thank you, sir!”


  Neopchi and Gim Geukdo shouted out loudly behind Mussang’s back. Neopchi voice was louder. He was glad to have a subordinate, but his charisma and eloquence had been immense. He was grateful to Mussang for making things clear.

  “Are you Korean diaspora in Japan?”


  Neopchi’s tone changed instantly.

  “Yes. Mussang spared me. I am serving him with all my heart, but he is quite enigmatic. What kind of person is he?”


  “I don’t know. He is strong to the strong and weak to the weak. He is fearsome but kind, cold-hearted but warm, special but ordinary. Sometimes he looks as enlightened as a monk, and at other times he is as murderous as an asura. For his enemies, he is a force of nature. For his friends, he is the Buddha. You held onto a leg of the Buddha, and he pulled you out of hell.”


  “I am truly blessed. When he asked if I am Korean or Japanese, if I had answered Japanese, I would have been fed to the feed grinder too.”


  Gim Geukdo shuddered.

  “Feed grinder?”


  “When we harvested the organs from the victims, we drained their blood and fed their bodies to the feed grinder and threw them away in the river. Then, ordered by Mussang, I tossed the head of the special unit and the Japanese supervisor to the feed grinder.”


  ‘He is quite a thug!’


  Neopchi felt sick. Even the lousy loan shark-like the Pungguk syndicate couldn’t be their match. His new subordinate was one of the villains. He didn’t know how to handle him.

  “I should have gone with Mussang like yesterday.”


  Neopchi calmed his beating heart and pretended to be calm.

  “What happened to the Pungguk Capital building yesterday?”


  “I demolished it with Mussang.”


  “You have my respect.”


  Gim Geukdo bowed down 90 degrees. “Respect is not warranted in this case. We would decimate you yesterday but couldn’t because the Capital building collapsed. What happened to the people in the facility?”


  “Everyone locked up in the basement was released. Mussang brought the orphans here. The 20 Korean members of the special unit and one Japanese member were teleported away. There is some foul-mouthed middle-aged woman left in the basement. I handled her, thinking she will trouble Mussang otherwise.”


  “Did you kill her?”


  Neopchi frowned. Mussang never hurt ordinary folks.

  “I didn’t kill her but injected some Itai in her prefrontal cortex.”


  “What is Itai?”


  “It is a chemical used by the Hamon clan to which I belonged. It is a chemical extracted from a caterpillar of a butterfly. When injected into the brain, it prevents the secretion of dopamine. In the short term, it leads to memory confusion and bipolar symptoms. In the long-term, it leads to advanced dementia.”


  “Whoa.”


  Neopchi shuddered. His grandmother in his hometown had dementia. She didn’t recognize herself or others. She didn’t know when to go to the bathroom. She was losing her humanity. The very word “dementia” made him feel a cold knot deep in his heart.

  “Mussang is not to be bothered with miscellaneous affairs. His subordinates like us shall take care of them.”


  Gim Geukdo said as if to say that a chicken has two legs.

  “This one is rather intimidating!’


  Everything his new subordinate said was shudder-inducing. If he ever wronged Mussang, he would inject Itai in his head.

  “You did well. Let’s work hand in hand.”


  Neopchi patted Gim Geukdo’s shoulder. Maintaining charisma was everything to a thug’s life.

  “Of course. Nice to meet you.”


  Gim Geukdo maintained a low stance. Mun Indo’s boss didn’t look strong, but he started serving Mussang first. For that fact alone, he deserved some respect.

  “Is the kid in Mussang’s arms an orphan too?”


  “Yeongsuk is an organ donor supposed to be sent to Japan. Instead, the special unit had abducted a child suiting the conditions. Her parents had been handing out flyers.” Gim Geukdo took out a flyer from his pocket and handed it to Neopchi.

  “She looks cute in the photo too!”


  Under the text, “Child Missing,” a cute young girl was wearing an overall skirt.

  “Due to the hectic circumstances, I had no chance to tell Mussang yet.”


  “Something’s odd. On a flyer looking for a missing child, there would be contact details of the parents and the local police station in-charge….”


  Neopchi wondered. There was one single phone number on the flyer. He had never seen anything like this. One of the main gigs of the Samsik syndicate was to look for a missing person. Parents with a lost child had their hearts turn to coal in anguish. On the flyers, they often added multiple phone numbers, including the police station and several relatives, if they could not answer the phone themselves.

  “Mussang is busy with other things. So I will take care of this.”


  Neopchi folded the flyer and put it in his trouser pockets.

  “I see.”


  “Let’s go. You look like you need to bathe and rest too.”


  Gim Geukdo indeed looked filthy, as if to be mistaken as homeless. Neopchi and Gim Geukdo headed for the outhouse.

  With 12 new family members, the 16-person table provided insufficient space the following day. So Yeonsun had to drag out the nickel silver table from the storage room.

  Eungsimje’s tables were always brimming over with feasts. Jinsun followed Mussang’s policy: Eat well. Bowls of white rice, beef seaweed stew, spicy stir-fried beef and tofu, roasted fish, pork ribs sizzling in a pot. Overwhelmed by the abruptly changed environment, the children looked around self-consciously and couldn’t dig in properly. On the other hand, Yeongsuk, having spent a night with Mina in her room, changed overnight. Mussang’s eyes gazing at Yeongsuk were filled with endless kindness.

  “Where is Mr. Gim? I don’t see Yeongji either.”


  “He went to the forge early morning where he had his truck worked on earlier. He thinks of modifying a used truck to a food truck and selling toast and pancakes filled with cinnamon sugar. Yeongji followed him.”


  “Why did Yeonghui didn’t join them?”


  “I was humiliated.”


  Yeonghui answered gently in a barely audible voice. Mussang smiled. She didn’t behave as a big sister should.

  “What your father does is never embarrassing. He is making a living. But, if you don’t overcome shame, shame will continue to rule your life.”


  “I understand. My bad.”


  Yeonghui bowed her head further. She felt that Mussang was inconsiderate of her feelings, but the sisters would have told her off if she talked back.

  “You must be all hungry. You don’t need to pray. Let’s eat.”


  “Thank you.”


  The children said in unison and dug in. It was a matter of course, considering they had been locked up in the basement for a whole day yesterday.

  A skinny girl sobbed.

  “Why are you crying?”


  Malsun looked at the crying girl.

  “It is so nice here.”


  “What is nice?”


  “No one beats us or says bad words at us. I love this warm rice so much. You will not sell us elsewhere, will you?”


  “What?”


  The five sisters’ eyes widened. Sell them?

  “Sir, we will be good.”


  “Let us live here!”


  The children all began to cry. The ambiance chilled at once. Gim Geukdo, grimacing, gauged Mussang’s mood. Mussang kept eating spoonfuls of rice without saying a word. The rice grains felt like sand in his mouth.

  “Mussang, what have they been through?”


  Jinsun’s face darkened. Mussang closed the book he was reading.

  “Is it bad?”


  He had expected it. The children’s bodies weren’t mature, yet they had to endure all kinds of abuse. It’s no wonder they are in a bad state.

  “I couldn’t stand the sight. They are all malnourished, and they have whipping scars and cigarette burns. Some girls have their private parts ruptured, and their nipples have fallen off. What have they gone through?”


  “It’s what you suspect. They were abducted by child prostitution ring and went through all kinds of abuse for two months to two

  years.”


  “What did you do to the offenders?”


  Jinsun’s eyes took on a murderous sheen.

  “I ground the two bosses in a feed grinder. Their lackeys will be sent over to Novatopia for lifelong labor.”


  “I am saddened to say you did well when what you did is, in fact, murder. What can we do for their treatment?”


  “If we send them to the hospital, there will be quite some noise, right?”


  “The nurses will call the police right away.” “Their psychological trauma is worse. There is no trustworthy expert in Korea. So I shall send them to France.”


  “Will they be able to have normal lives in Korea after treatment?”


  “I am thinking of sending them to Novatopia.”


  “That appears prudent.”


  Jinsun nodded. Her clinical opinion was that the children couldn’t receive proper treatment in Korea. Even if they recover, it will be challenging to overcome their trauma and mix in society.

  Mussang held up the receiver. He had to ask for Bonipas and Dr. Giz’s favor. Mussang’s favorite jet, Falcon, landed at the Seongnam Airport three days later. A bus belonging to the French Embassy entered the main apron. Mussang had left Korea after he couldn’t adapt to society. The ten children thus left.

  The press didn’t mention the extraordinary incident in Nowon District at all. Instead, they chattered on laboriously about the alleged spy operation in Daemyeong District. An article in a local newspaper stated that the Pungguk Capital building collapsed due to poor construction quality. Mussang was dumbstruck. He preferred silence also, but he also discerned the deep-rooted connection between the Japanese syndicate and Korean politicians and bureaucrats. The dark history raged on.

  “They shall all be killed!”


  Mussang’s rage meter flared up in explosive intensity.