"Vice-Chairman. If it goes on like this, isn't there a chance Vice-Chairman Mun-jong Lee slips out of it?"

"Have you forgotten what I said? Vice-Chairman Mun-jong Lee is going to slip out of it."

Jeong-cheol Choi hadn't asked because he had forgotten what Seong-ho Kim said.

What he meant was that, having come this far, a little more pressure might sweep Mun-jong Lee away in one stroke.

But Seong-ho Kim had never thought Mun-jong Lee would be finished in one stroke.

"While Ilhyeon's shade is over him, nothing anybody does sweeps a man out in one stroke. If anything, it's remarkable that the crime has been made public like this at all."

Seong-ho Kim finished speaking and tapped the desk with a finger.

Tap, tap.

Then, with a smile at the corner of his mouth, he said,

"Getting this far is impressive enough on its own. So don't get greedy. Once Mun-jong Lee is out from under Ilhyeon's shade, more chances will come to us."

"You're saying it's enough to have wounded him?"

"That's right."

Seong-ho Kim lifted the hand that had been tapping the desk, pointed it at Jeong-cheol Choi and said,

"First you wound him, and then you drive the knife in as deep as the wound goes."

There was no knife in Seong-ho Kim's hand, and even so Jeong-cheol Choi felt a chill go through his chest.

Because the fixed will in Seong-ho Kim seemed to reach him even with no shape to it.

I must never, ever make an enemy of the Vice-Chairman.

Jeong-cheol Choi knew perfectly well that it would never happen, and even so he thought that it must not — not on the one chance in ten thousand, not on the one chance in ten million.

"Don't put yourself forward too much."

Jeong-cheol Choi had the look of a man making a vow, and Seong-ho Kim laughed at it and said,

"What I mean is there's no need to block what Chief Hwang is doing."

"Yes. I understand."

"But…"

Jeong-cheol Choi had answered that he understood, and Seong-ho Kim thought of something and…