Passion Novel - Volume 4 - Chapter 98

Jeong Taeui scratched his head and looked around. The others weren’t much different. Some slept relatively well, but some were now in a light doze, and two people were awake with their eyes open. Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue, his mouth feeling unclean from not having brushed his teeth. Then he looked at the window again. Could he break that if he tried hard enough? The wooden board couldn’t possibly be expensive solid wood; it was probably cheap plywood. Then someone strong enough could break it with their bare hands. Jeong Taeui himself could break plywood if the grain was right. But not now. No matter what, he’d have to hit it with all his might to break it, and if they heard that sound, they would rush in from outside immediately. Jeong Taeui stood up and went to the window. He tapped the wooden board blocking the window.

It felt surprisingly solid. He probably couldn’t easily break this with his bare hands. Moreover, among them, Jeong Taeui himself seemed to be the only one capable of physical labor—the others were either old or looked weak at a glance—and he honestly wasn’t confident he could break this with his bare hands. Jeong Taeui tapped, tapped the wooden board with his fingertips. Through the gap above, he saw a bird passing by. Beyond that, the reddish glow of the rising sky was faintly visible. It looked like it was going to be a very nice day.

“It’ll be a bit difficult for us to escape on our own without any tools.”

The man who had been lying below, watching Jeong Taeui lost in thought while tapping the window, spoke slowly. Jeong Taeui mumbled, “I guess so.”

In such a situation, the problems could be divided into several categories. There was the immediate situation of being kidnapped, the problem of having no tools, and the difficulty of not knowing the outside environment. Moreover, if they failed an escape attempt once, it would be even harder to escape afterward. Literally, they would have no choice but to bite their fingers and wait for outside rescue.

“It would be good if Kyle could negotiate well with those people… but that won’t be easy either.”

Jeong Taeui sighed and mumbled. External rescue was either a huge success or a complete failure. If it went well, they could wait patiently without lifting a finger and return safely, but if they were unlucky, they could all die here.

Those people, whether due to their position or environment, didn’t seem to consider the latter at all, but Jeong Taeui, who had grown up in an ordinary, commoner environment, naturally leaned towards the latter thought. Jeong Taeui suddenly remembered something and moved away from the window, entering the bathroom. The ventilation fan he had removed the other day was still lying in a corner of the floor. Jeong Taeui picked up the heavy fan.

“However, the problem with attempting to leave this place out of concern for the latter is…”

Jeong Taeui tapped the fan with his finger, mumbling to himself. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then glanced outside. He could see the faces of the people beyond the door.

He had only ever read in the Bible about stories of ordinary people, unaccustomed to fighting or rough situations, successfully escaping in a group. In fact, that was the biggest problem with the idea of attempting an escape here. If they were soldiers or UNHRDO colleagues, the story would have been much quicker. No, if it were them, they would have already tried to break out of here, urging Jeong Taeui, who would have argued it was too much trouble and better to just sit quietly and wait for rescue. No, they wouldn’t have been caught like this in the first place. He could try to escape alone somehow, but it was difficult with others. That was the difficulty Jeong Taeui felt. If he failed while escaping, he would just die alone, but he couldn’t do that with other people’s lives at stake.

And he couldn’t just leave them and run away alone. (Jeong Taeui could imagine at least ten troublesome scenarios that could arise from such a situation while sitting there.)

“Is it really easiest to just sit and wait for someone to rescue us, after all?”

Muttering the words of the wise, Jeong Taeui left the bathroom. The two people who were awake looked at the fan in Jeong Taeui’s hand with curious eyes. Jeong Taeui seemed not to notice their gaze, his mind engrossed in thought as he moved his hands. In fact, trying to escape might just be a futile effort. No, the possibility of it being a futile effort was very high. For example, if he struggled to escape, hurting himself in the process, only to find that at that very moment the kidnappers’ negotiations had ended and they had agreed to send everyone back quietly, then he would have made a fool of himself. Nevertheless, still…

“I should at least think of an excuse.”

When he met Kyle later, he wanted to be able to say, ‘I tried my best… I’m sorry I couldn’t help.’ He had to at least try to escape. Of course, he could argue that Kyle was the cause of this situation and therefore should be the one to resolve it, but that wasn’t really Jeong Taeui’s way of thinking.

“I can guess what you’re trying to do with that, but if you get caught by them, it’ll be even more dangerous.”

The man who had been watching Jeong Taeui move mumbled worriedly. Jeong Taeui glanced at the man. Seeing his displeased gaze, Jeong Taeui soon felt something and chuckled. The man wasn’t so much worried about Jeong Taeui as he was worried about his own potential danger stemming from Jeong Taeui’s actions. Well, that was only natural. What an unfair situation it would be if his own life were endangered because of someone else.

However, that man was overlooking something. They were important and valuable hostages, but Jeong Taeui was an unimportant, insignificant ‘bonus’ who had been taken simply because he had stayed at that house for a long time. In other words, even if things went terribly wrong and his luck turned truly awful, the kidnappers might easily dispose of Jeong Taeui, but they wouldn’t do anything dangerous to the other men.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Even if I die, I’ll take all the blame and die alone.”

Jeong Taeui said playfully and continued to move his hands. He was trying to detach the fan blades from the hub, but they wouldn’t come off easily. What company made this fan? It was really well-made and sturdy. He should buy stocks in this company later, thinking of it as an investment.

Jeong Taeui thought as he peered at the hub with the company name engraved on it.

Eventually, all four blades came off. His hands were covered in scratches from gripping and twisting the blades, but it was bearable. Jeong Taeui flicked the twisted blades with his fingernails. As expected, they were as sturdy as the trouble they had caused him. Jeong Taeui let out a satisfied sigh, then picked up the four blades, stacked them, and stood up.

As he approached the window, he looked at the gap above the wooden board again. The sky was much brighter. He heard bird sounds occasionally. A new day was beginning.

Jeong Taeui glanced at the door. It would be a disaster if those men came in now. They would probably come in to give them breakfast, but when would that be? No matter what, they wouldn’t bring food this early in the morning, surely.

He decided to take it easy. As the man had said yesterday, if you’re fated to die, you die, and if you’re fated to live, you live.

In such an ambiguous time, it was sometimes better to just move with that thought in mind. Worrying about problems without a clear solution had never led to a proper breakthrough.

“Jaeui-nim, Jaeui-nim, please share some of that luck with me…”

Jeong Taeui mumbled to himself as he forcibly twisted two fan blades, layered together, into the tightly fitted wooden boards. He had prayed several times already, but Jaeui-nim, whose whereabouts were unknown, had never really answered. Still, calling his name and invoking his luck brought comfort to his heart. But it had always been like this before. Things had never worked out properly by just chanting “Jaeui-nim, Jaeui-nim.”

It was quite difficult to insert the fan between the layered boards. Screech, screech, the wooden boards faintly creaked. It took a considerable amount of time just to insert the tip of the fan into the gap and tap it, forcing the fan between the boards. In the meantime, the sleeping people woke up.

Screeech…

The fan went in almost to the middle of the board. A hairline crack appeared between the overlapping wooden boards.

Jeong Taeui rubbed his scratched fingers and clicked his tongue, Ssssp. It wasn’t cut, but it was ragged and hurt at the slightest touch. He bit his finger and sucked on it, sighing. Then he placed the fan hub, which had been separated from the blades and was lying nearby, against the fan he had inserted between the boards. And like moving a lever, he pushed lightly and quickly with his weight.

Tear—. He heard the sound of wood fibers tearing. The narrow, long wooden boards that had been fitted together separated. Each time he lightly swayed his body back and forth and pushed, the wooden board split along the grain, tear, tear. Soon, the board was barely attached at the top and bottom, with the middle having come apart. A long gap had opened between the boards, wide enough for two or three fingers to pass through. It felt like if he pushed a little more, this board would come off. Then the rest would be simple. It was much easier than tearing off the entire tightly joined wooden board.

Jeong Taeui picked up the fan blades that had slipped out from the loosely opened gap between the boards. Even though he had layered two thick blades, they were significantly bent. These would be harder to use. Jeong Taeui discarded the bent fan blades to the side and stacked the remaining two fan blades again, inserting them into the opened gap below. And he repeated the same process. This time, it was much easier than the first. One entire board came off. A person couldn’t get out, but the adjacent boards bent enough to allow him to look outside.

“…”

Jeong Taeui grimaced bitterly.

He had thought so, but indeed, it was a forest. It was the second floor of a lodge built in the forest. All around, birch trees were densely packed, forming a forest. Behind the forest, mountains stretched out thickly, and although he couldn’t see them from the angle the wooden board was bent, the terrain seemed quite rugged.

“What, can you see something? Where…?”

Perhaps something had happened and a glimpse of the outside scenery was visible, as the man who had been sitting a little distance away watching got up and approached. The others also asked quietly, “Where?”

Next to Jeong Taeui, who was scratching his head, having no idea of the geography of the place, the man who had been examining the outside from various angles for a long time subtly frowned and mumbled,

“It’s in the mountains… quite deep.”

Behind the man, who had failed to give the answer people hoped for and was retreating, others came forward one by one and looked outside. But none of them knew where the place was. Indeed, even Jeong Taeui, if he were thrown into the forest behind his own house, would have no idea where it was unless it was a place he frequented daily.

It was then. A presence approached from outside the room.

Jeong Taeui, who had been listening intently for any signs of someone entering from outside, frantically pushed the person standing in front of the window, but the black man who happened to be looking out the window at that moment only looked at Jeong Taeui with a bewildered expression and didn’t move out of the way. Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue and shouted,

“Someone’s coming…!”

But Jeong Taeui’s words weren’t even finished. The black man, finally realizing the approaching footsteps, hadn’t even had time to sit down before the door burst open.

Flinch, the black man paused in his attempt to sit and turned around awkwardly. Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue and held his head.

The man who had entered, holding a bag of black bread in one hand and water in the other, widened his eyes at the sight inside the room. He seemed to have guessed the situation from the cracked board.

“These bastards…!”

The man threw down the items in his hands and shouted towards the outside. Hearing his shout, three or four other colleagues rushed in. Those colleagues looked at the man with puzzled expressions, wondering why he was reacting to the seemingly ordinary room, but when the man pointed to the broken board, their faces finally twisted into a grimace.

“Which one of you… was it you?!”

The man glared fiercely at Jeong Taeui, who was holding a fan blade and shaking it bitterly. Now that he thought about it, it was the man Jeong Taeui had hit with a crutch yesterday. The man seemed to recognize Jeong Taeui too.

“Why are you doing useless things when you should be sitting quietly and waiting! I left you alone, and you’re plotting to escape…!”

The man punched Jeong Taeui directly in the face.

Thwack, he hit him so hard that Jeong Taeui not only took the punch but also, from the recoil, slammed his back against the wooden board behind him and grimaced.

Even though he was used to getting hit, having lived in an environment where he constantly bumped into men, it still hurt like hell. He just couldn’t get used to pain.

‘I’m used to hitting people too,’ Jeong Taeui thought to himself, rubbing his bruised face and glaring sulkily at the man, but then he saw the three sturdy men standing behind him and gave up on that thought. If he tried to punch back clumsily, he would likely get beaten to a pulp. After all, he was an unimportant hostage, just an extra, and they might even try to kill him as an example. He hadn’t entirely ruled out such bad luck, but it was still bad luck. He had thought they were decent enough since they had just kept him confined, but it seemed not. Especially this man was even worse.

Instead of just hitting him a few times and stopping, the man kept punching Jeong Taeui as if he had been slapped somewhere else. A couple more punches to the face, three or four to the stomach, and each time, Jeong Taeui tried to look as pitiful as possible to get hit less, letting out appropriate screams while cursing inwardly.

Really, if it weren’t for those other guys behind him, he would have just bitten him and held on. Or, if this wasn’t a kidnapping and there was no risk of actually dying, he would have just charged in, ready to be hospitalized, no matter if there were ten or a hundred other guys.

Jeong Taeui sighed and endured the beating. He didn’t know if he had become timid or bold from being with that crazy guy. But… it really hurt.

It seemed this man was also quite accustomed to beating people. While his personality differed from Jeong Taeui’s, his demeanor and aura strongly suggested someone who had rotted away in the military. They say you can recognize a cop or a soldier even if they walk past you outside the perimeter, and now he understood why. Moreover, in foreign countries where people volunteer for the military, it was even easier to spot them. Either a soldier or ex-military. He guessed this guy might have left the military and joined some rebel or revolutionary army. But his original background was the slums. His fists were just naturally ingrained with fighting. After escaping Ilay, what kind of rotten luck was this? Jeong Taeui gritted his teeth, cursing with every known expletive.

After his bout of thrashing, the man saw Jeong Taeui sprawled on the floor, unable to move. He gave him one more kick in the stomach before turning around. He then shouted threateningly at the others.

“Don’t do anything stupid, just stay still! You might be called Chairman or Teacher outside, but we don’t care about that here! We can kill all of you right here!”

The man, full of bluster, grumbled and left the room. His colleagues, who had been watching him, followed him out. The last man to close the door and leave clicked his tongue at the sight of Jeong Taeui, who looked like a rag, and said, “Still, we’re not like those truly bad guys. If you just settle things nicely, we’ll let you go alive and well. Besides, the mountains here are rugged, and it’s easy to get lost. Wolves roam around at night, so it’s better to just stay put and not think about anything foolish.”

Jeong Taeui lay there, staring at the man with distant eyes. The man clicked his tongue again and left the room.

As soon as the door closed, Jeong Taeui shakily sat up. He had been severely beaten, but no bones were broken, and he wasn’t seriously injured. It seemed the man truly was accustomed to fighting; he hit him damn hard, yet didn’t cause any major injuries.

However, that was only judging the severity of the threat to his life; visually, he looked utterly miserable.

“Hey, are you alright?”

A man next to him asked with concern. He was frowning and clicking his tongue. Jeong Taeui couldn’t see himself without a mirror, but he probably looked a mess.

Jeong Taeui swallowed the coppery taste of blood, presumably from a torn mouth, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Blood smeared on his hand. His mouth must have been split. But there was no other bleeding. He ran his hand over his face, but there were no other tears. However, it hurt so much the moment he touched it that he expected his entire face to swell up purple in a few hours—no, a few minutes.

“Are you alright?”

When Jeong Taeui didn’t answer, another man asked again. His expression wasn’t good either. Seeing someone in the same predicament get beaten right in front of their eyes, it was impossible to be cheerful. It wasn’t something they could simply dismiss as someone else’s problem.

“No… I’m not alright. Ugh, damn, it hurts like hell…”

Jeong Taeui muttered this and glanced at the window. The wooden planks were still ajar.

The fact that they left it like that suggested they thought he couldn’t escape through there. Or, as the last man said before leaving the room, if he escaped that way, he might die in the forest within a fortnight.

Jeong Taeui sighed deeply and stood up. He walked to the window, gripped the open wooden planks with both hands, and twisted them with all his might. Crack, a rather loud sound echoed. Creak, creak, creak, each time Jeong Taeui powerfully pulled his hands apart, the wooden planks split and groaned.

People’s eyes widened, and they looked between Jeong Taeui and the door, trying to dissuade him, but Jeong Taeui casually shook his head.

“Since I’ve already been beaten, I might as well get a clear view. Besides, the fact that they left it like this means it’s hard to escape this way even if I open this window. It seems they just blocked it to obstruct the view… What’s new now?”

As if resigned after being beaten, Jeong Taeui threw himself against the planks with all his strength. The planks cracked and eventually gave way, breaking into three or four pieces and falling off. The view suddenly brightened.

“Ah. Much better. …Hmm. I see why they put me here.”

It wasn’t just because it was on the second floor. Immediately below was a steeply sloped valley. There were no visible pipes or anything to grab onto and climb down. The only way out from here was to jump blindly. If it were just a second-floor jump, he might risk a broken bone and try it, but with that valley gaping below, he couldn’t even think of jumping. That would mean risking his entire body, not just a bone or two, on luck.

The day had almost broken. The sun had just fully risen. Dawn had retreated, and morning had truly begun. Probably, in a few hours, the hot midday would arrive.

“I wonder if it’s around 7 AM…”

“Probably around seven or eight, right?”

A casual answer came from behind him in response to Jeong Taeui’s muttered soliloquy.

Seven or eight, huh? They probably hadn’t contacted Kyle’s company. Even an idiot would realize it was more advantageous to make a private deal. So, Kyle would have been contacted only after returning home, and he usually had dinner at home, so that would be around seven or eight in the evening.

If the contact was made then, 12 hours had already passed. And probably, after one night, a conclusion would be reached today. There was little chance of being held for long. This wasn’t a child kidnapping, and political crimes of this nature don’t drag on for too long.

First, their demands would be met, and the hostages would be released. In this case, the conclusion itself would likely be reached today, but the time spent as a hostage might be prolonged a bit. They would want to confirm their demands were met before releasing the hostages.

Second, if the two sides’ desires didn’t align and they had to negotiate and adjust. Even this wouldn’t take too long. Both sides knew there was nothing to gain by dragging it out, so they would likely reach a conclusion soon unless something extraordinary happened.

The worst-case scenario was the third: demands failing, and the hostages’ lives being in danger. If they didn’t care about the hostages at all, they would just die. If the demands weren’t met but they put all their effort into finding the hostages… they’d probably still die. They’d kill the hostages as soon as news got out.

Jeong Taeui yearned for a cigarette and instinctively turned his head to ask if anyone had one, but seeing the faces of those sitting in their underwear, he slowly turned back. Their appearance in only underwear was not exactly beautiful, but it was far more so than his own, which was still smudged and dirty despite being shaken and rubbed.

“…”

Instead of cigarette smoke, Jeong Taeui exhaled a sigh.

From his perspective, the first scenario was, of course, the best, but considering Kyle’s way of handling things, the second was probably the most likely. To what extent negotiations would proceed was none of Jeong Taeui’s business. He just wanted to get out of here quickly. If by chance he saw a wild ginseng digger passing through the mountain, he would shout for help and ask to be rescued, but this mountain was so secluded and uninhabited.

Jeong Taeui rested his arms on the windowsill and stared blankly outside. All around were white-barked birch trees. Looking at their quiet beauty seemed to calm his mind.

“Well… something will work out.”

Jeong Taeui sighed silently and muttered with a faint smile. Life doesn’t always flow badly.

Exactly two minutes after thinking that, Jeong Taeui changed his mind.

Suddenly feeling a sense of unease, Jeong Taeui tilted his head. Something was different from before. He felt a strange disquiet.

Jeong Taeui looked back. The people were still in the room. Some were talking, others were lost in thought. Their appearance was no different from before.

Jeong Taeui turned his head again. He looked out the window. Was there anything different in the view outside? But there was no way anything could have changed in the scenery he had been staring at blankly just moments ago. He tilted his head. Something was bothering him. For example, if there was nothing wrong with what he saw…

Thinking that far, he realized the true nature of the unease.

He couldn’t hear any birds.

The birds that had been chirping occasionally from the distant forest just moments ago were silent. Sometimes, bird calls could still be heard from the opposite side of the forest, further away. But on the inside, where the trees were densely packed, the bird sounds had stopped. As if some terrifying beast had appeared.

The side where the bird sounds stopped was not even where a path was. The only dirt road where a car could enter was to the front right, not visible from this location. It seemed those men were watching and monitoring only this path. And the direction where the birds abruptly stopped was a dense forest path.

Bird sounds often cease when a car approaches, but a car couldn’t enter from that direction.

It was almost simultaneous with the thought that something was strange.

Woong… A faint vibrating sound could be heard. At first listen, it sounded like a cell phone vibrating. But there was no way such a thing would be in this room, nor could they hear the vibrations of the men outside. Yet, a vibrating sound was definitely audible, and it was getting closer. The sound, which had seemed vaguely distant, gradually grew louder and approached. It was coming from the direction where the birds had stopped their singing.

Something was approaching with a roar down that narrow forest path, where cars couldn’t even go.

The expression on Jeong Taeui’s face disappeared. From deep within the forest, something was pushing its way through, crushing small trees as it came. As the roar grew closer, the faint sounds of crunch, crackle, of young trees breaking and being torn, were mixed in. When the sound became clear enough to confirm it wasn’t a figment of his imagination, the other people approached the window with bewildered expressions.

“What is this? What’s that sound?”

“Sounds like a motor…”

Someone muttered jokingly that there was no way someone would be mowing the lawn in a forest like this, but no one laughed. The roar was too close.

And then, the next moment.

Everyone in the room was speechless. They could hear the men outside bustling and shouting, having realized the sound, but no one inside said a word. Crushing the low birch trees at the edge of the forest mercilessly, the source of the roar revealed itself.

“That… that’s a Rewaco…”

Someone muttered. It sounded like they were adding, “That model was discontinued ages ago,” but Jeong Taeui couldn’t hear it. What appeared, tearing up the forest path with a deafening roar that threatened to burst eardrums, was a three-wheeled motorcycle.