Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 81

Kwon Chaewoo was wandering deep in a dream.

His vision was densely filled with white mist. He didn’t know how many hours, or days, he had aimlessly wandered in a place where nothing was visible or tangible.

One thing was certain: with every step he took, the sound of scraping and twisting grew louder, cutting his ears like a knife.

“Ugh…”

Kwon Chaewoo covered his ears, tormented by a terrible headache and tinnitus. He wanted to vomit and retrace his steps, but his legs moved on their own, imperiously.

The unbeautiful melody grew increasingly passionate. The sounds of grabbing and scratching echoed through a vibrato that resembled human vocal cords.

It was an unpleasant scream, yet it uncontrollably swelled in volume in his head. Expanding, expanding, until it finally swelled as if to burst.

The suffocating mist before his eyes suddenly cleared completely.

“…!”

The one sweating and scraping was none other than Kwon Chaewoo himself.

Dressed in a well-tailored black tailcoat, with a reddish cello between his legs, he played a performance that pushed himself to the limit. His arms, wrists, and fingers moved with precision, then sometimes violently shook as if a raging storm was brewing.

A pinpoint spotlight shone only on Kwon Chaewoo. In the middle of an abyss, as he violently pressed down and cut the four strings that seemed to bite at him, sweat drops scattered from the tips of his hair.

The breathless audience couldn’t take their eyes off the stage for a moment. They instantly understood why this intense young man was praised as the best player of the Guarneri instrument.

The Guarneri, which Paganini used until his dying day. As the saying goes, while a Stradivarius instrument loves, a Guarneri rapes; and like that, the Eastern boy who appeared from the underground one day embodied a demon trapped in a small body.

He always played with a rich, dark, and deeply pulling intensity. Yet it was never crude or vulgar.

His unique style was divided into extreme reviews, but Kwon Chaewoo, with his innate talent for pressing down and taming the instrument, became Guarneri’s perfect muse.

And at that moment.

—Chaewoo, that woman is dead.

Like a dam breaking, all his memories flooded out.

One day, on the cusp of turning twenty.

How that demonic talent, which had led him to sweep the Geneva and Rostropovich International Competitions at the youngest age, forcing him to debut at thirteen, had vanished in an instant.

How the source of that inspiration, whose value could not be measured, had been retrieved overnight.

It all began with that one phone call from his brother.

“Brother, even if it’s just a rotten corpse—”

—…

“Just let me see her one last time.”

Now, the cello was nothing more than a mere wooden board. He had lived his entire life obsessed with this instrument. The sense he had lost, as if it had been snatched away, plunged him into a terrible slump. So much so that he couldn’t play a single note on the cello.

“Ugh, ahhh!”

A satisfied smile played on Kwon Chaewoo’s lips at the desperate scream. He pressed his knee into the opponent’s back and mercilessly lifted the rope-bound neck.

Sitting astride the opponent’s arching waist, he leisurely tightened the rope. The bloodied hunting dogs wildly rattled their cages, cheering roughly.

“S-stop…! Ughhh!”

“…”

Despite the opponent’s plea, Kwon Chaewoo’s eyes were emotionless. His gaze remained still, only the lips, pulled up to their limit, were chilling. His neck, strained with effort, was blotchy, and the bulging veins extended from the back of his hand to his elbow.

Jang Beomhee, watching from outside the cage, trembled, knowing how terrifying that vicious grip was.

“If you’re going to piss yourself at this much, why did you even come in here?”

“Ugh, ugh…!”

“How can you do this if your life is so precious?”

“Ughhh, haaah…!”

“If your job is to be a gangster bastard who wields knives, at least don’t be called a pet dog.”

Kwon Chaewoo suddenly released his grip and stepped back, and the opponent collapsed to the floor as if unconscious.

The wide, square fighting arena reeked of rusty iron. Kwon Chaewoo’s unrefined gaze swept over the men outside the cage.

“Young master.”

Just then, Jang Beomhee approached and handed him a towel.

It had been six years since Kwon Chaewoo returned to his main residence and accidentally became addicted to violence.

Having disappeared from the stage as soon as he turned twenty, he was now a hunting dog assisting the family business on the front lines of violence. The forced detention center he voluntarily entered was the Kwon family’s private training battalion, where Kwon Chaewoo underwent hellish training and completely assimilated into the shadows of society.

From a genius cellist who once dominated the classical music scene to a heinous debt collector, a vulgar torturer who would always collect debts. The time it took for Kwon Chaewoo to fall into violence was absurdly short.

The cello, an instrument said to most resemble the human vocal range.

“Aahhh!”

He stomped on the lumbar region of the fallen man once more.

The sensation of creating music in a state of ecstasy was long dead, but violence had many similarities to it. The more flesh was cut and screams abounded, the more needles seemed to pierce his dulled nerves.

Then, he could even hold a cello bow, which he had found difficult to even look at. Like a thirsty person seeking a well, he endlessly indulged in sadistic acts.

“What happened?”

Kwon Chaewoo walked out of the cage without lingering, crossing the musty basement. As he climbed the stairs, the gradually appearing light made him frown. Jang Beomhee followed closely behind him, lowering his voice.

“We’ve secured one suspicious person.”

“Who?”

“She was a housekeeper who worked at the main house until a few years ago, but she can’t speak.”

“Was her tongue cut, or was she born that way?”

“It was cut.”

Genius and madness were separated by a single thread. Kwon Chaewoo controlled the hunting dogs solely through his madness for violence. He did not hesitate to do dirty work for his own pleasure, not for the family’s survival, and the hunting dogs, being a group used by past presidents, were complete experts in that field.

When he had formed a small force in the shadows, he began the work he had put off due to lack of power.

“You’re not doing this because it’s hard to leave only the fingers, are you?”

“That…”

As Jang Beomhee hesitated, Kwon Chaewoo, who was walking ahead, stopped and turned around.

“Don’t provoke me, just tell me.”

“…It seems Director Kwon has lied to you, young master.”

Jang Beomhee bowed his head, unable to meet his eyes.

“Yoon Jooha was not an ordinary accident, but…”

There were various ways to refer to that woman.

Yoon Jooha, that woman, the crazy bitch.

And… mother.

Even now, her face would appear like a melody whenever he closed his eyes. Warm sunlight, beautiful hair scattered by the wind, a humble thatched house, a large tree.

A mother who had raised him with love and devotion, and had created an abundance of musical inspiration for him. A gentle woman who had taught him the resonance of trees and the cello.

A benefactor who sang him lullabies every night, and at the same time, had told an irreversible lie. A sinner who had kidnapped three-year-old Kwon Chaewoo in a cello case.

“Speak.”

His face hardened.

“It has been confirmed that she was confined for a long time in the Kwon family’s basement.”

At that moment, Kwon Chaewoo felt a crushing pain as if his ribs were breaking, and finally opened his eyes.

“Haaah…!”

The man gasped for breath and sat up abruptly. His chest heaved wildly, like someone who had just found an air hole after nearly drowning.

Fuck, Kwon Chaewoo cursed in a subtly changed voice. His mind, which had always been hazy, was cruelly clear. His face, squeezed into a grimace, was etched with painful wrinkles.

Then he looked around the house, which felt familiar yet unfamiliar, strangely uncanny.

“…”

A ceiling with an unfamiliar pattern, furniture he didn’t remember, medical equipment checking his vitals. He ripped off the pads attached to his body and immediately got out of bed.

He casually passed by the wild animal rescue center jacket, which looked like wallpaper, then scanned the wallet, phone, and ID card neatly arranged on the dresser.

“…What is all this?”

He scrunched his brows and picked up the ID card. It was definitely his photo on it, but there were only ridiculous numbers.

A fake birth date, a fake birth year. He even snorted at his age, which was four years older than his real one.

This place felt completely unreal, like a well-made set. Kwon Chaewoo rubbed his stiff neck, constantly looking at the house with an unfamiliar gaze.

His hands rummaged through drawers and opened wardrobes roughly. Yet his steps moved naturally, as if he knew exactly where to go. His body moved ahead, but his mind couldn’t keep up. Kwon Chaewoo clicked his tongue in annoyance at the distinct memory gap he felt.

“What kind of drugs did these motherfuckers use?”

Kwon Chaewoo cracked his stiff neck, arms, waist, and legs one after another as he descended the stairs.

However, the scene that unfolded as he went downstairs was even more absurd. Two pairs of slippers, pastel-toned cushions, couple mugs, twin potted plants, a dream catcher—the downstairs was clearly a saccharine interior.

Completely unsuited for him.

“…!”

At that moment, a sour taste surged up as if acid was refluxing. Kwon Chaewoo grabbed the stair railing and abruptly bent his head. Each time he gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, a bulging vein on the center of his forehead twitched.

Fake, fake, fake. Everything was disgustingly fake. His body convulsively screamed it.

It was the first time he had felt such revulsion since the world he knew at thirteen had been turned upside down.

Then, fragments flew like magnets, sticking to Kwon Chaewoo’s mind with a thud, a shock so strong it made his vision flash.

“Ah—”

His Adam’s apple bobbed once, and a meaningful groan escaped him. The man lifted his bloodshot eyes and slowly stared into the air.

Yes…

He had come to Hwaido to catch So Yiyeon.