The morning fog, thick and dirty white, like cotton wool soaked in smog, clung to the spires of Seoul's glass skyscrapers, slowly retreating under the insistent pressure of the sun. But here, in the labyrinth of narrow alleys and low, dilapidated concrete boxes, a special kind of twilight reigned. The air still held the night's chill and the smells of the previous day: fried oil, sour soy soup, and the ever-present dust.
Police tape, bright yellow and unnaturally loud in this dismal landscape, blocked the entrance to an inconspicuous alley. Behind it, figures in uniform bustled about; ambulances and a forensics lab van stood there, their blue lights flashing ghostly reflections in the puddles on the asphalt. But the brightest light came from a powerful television camera mounted on the shoulder of a stocky cameraman. Its lens was aimed at a man in a dark, slightly rumpled coat.
The man stood with his back to the crime scene, deliberately, demonstratively so. He wasn't trying to hide the chaos behind him—on the contrary, he had chosen an angle so that the flickering figures of paramedics carrying something covered in black plastic on a stretcher would constantly be in the shot. His own appearance was as unremarkable as it was memorable: short, thick black hair, lying like a helmet, and eyes. Empty eyes. There wasn't a hint of excitement in them, nor professional sorrow, nor even fatigue. They were like two pieces of obsidian set into the mask of his face. They seemed not to reflect light, but to absorb it.
The reporter, an elegant woman in a bright blue raincoat, with a professionally tragic expression, brought a microphone bearing the channel's logo up to his face.
"...And we continue our live broadcast from the scene of the shocking events in the Yongsan district. An employee of the homicide department has agreed to answer our questions. Tell us," her voice trembled with deliberate, televised sincerity, "what happened here? As far as we know, we're talking about a mass shootout?"
The man in the coat slowly shifted his empty gaze from the microphone to the camera. It seemed he was looking not at the lens, but through it, straight into the eyes of the thousands of viewers having breakfast in front of their screens.
"Shootout is too clean a word; it conjures scenes from Westerns, duels in the streets. What happened here, in that basement," he tilted slightly to the side, allowing the camera to capture the blood-stained door, "was not a duel. It was a slaughter. Surgical, targeted, and extremely efficient."
The reporter froze, her practiced expression shifting to mild shock.
"You mean... it was a targeted liquidation?"
"I mean that one person entered a den where, according to our data, at least six armed criminals were located. And emerged from it victorious. We found bodies with gunshot wounds of varying severity, traces of hand-to-hand combat. One of them was killed with a point-blank shot, a classic coup de grâce. Others were immobilized with extreme cruelty. Some are broken, some are strangled. This is not a shootout. This is a message."
"A message? To whom?" the journalist barely managed to squeeze out the question, her eyes widening.
The detective's empty gaze slid over her face, and in its depths, something resembling contempt flickered for an instant.
"To you. To them. To everyone. A message that laws, rules, and the police are an illusion behind which ordinary people hide so as not to see how the world really works. The world is meat, steel, and will. Everything else is decoration."
In the studio, from which the live broadcast was being managed, panic had surely begun. But here, in the alley, a deathly silence had fallen. The cameraman slowly, against his will, zoomed in on the speaker's face. It was impenetrable.
"But... preliminary versions? Are there any suspects?" the reporter tried to steer things back to a professional course, her voice becoming firm again.
"There are always suspects. In this city, they are like cockroaches—you might not see them, but they are everywhere. We will find the one who did this. Perhaps we will even charge him. But it will change nothing. Tomorrow, in another building, in another alley, a new corpse will appear. And another. Because society prefers to watch TV series rather than look the truth in the face. And the truth is that human life is the cheapest commodity on the market in this district."
He ended his tirade as abruptly as he had begun it. Without waiting for further questions, the man turned and stepped behind the police tape, leaving the stunned film crew behind.
…
The office of the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Homicide Department was like that of hundreds of other high-ranking officials around the world: spacious, with expensive but impersonal furniture, a coffee table made of dark wood, and a mandatory Korean flag in the corner.
The chief of department, a man whose face had been carved with a network of fine, hard wrinkles by decades of paperwork wars and political intrigue, sat at his desk, clutching a tablet. The screen was frozen on a recording of that very live broadcast. He wasn't looking at the detective who had entered; he was studying his image.
The detective stood in front of the desk, his hands in the pockets of his coat. His posture was not defiant, but rather... relaxed. He showed neither fear, nor remorse, nor even interest in what was happening.
"Lao Han," the chief began, finally looking up from the tablet. "Do you know how many calls I've received in the last hour? From the mayor's office. From the ministry. From the commissioner himself. My barber called me, Lao Han! He asked if it wasn't time for us to change our rhetoric to something more... in line with the image of a city that attracts tourists."
Lao Han didn't answer. He just looked at the chief with his empty eyes.
"'The world is meat, steel, and will'?" the chief quoted his words with disgust. "Is that the new slogan of our department? You went on live television to read a sociopath's manifesto? To scare the living daylights out of citizens who are already afraid of their own shadows?"
"I stated facts," Lao Han finally spoke. His voice was just as even. "Society has the right to know the conditions in which it exists. Concealing brutality is complicity in it."
"Don't talk nonsense!" the man slammed his palm on the desk, but Lao Han didn't even blink. "Your job is to investigate crimes, not to pontificate on the nature of evil! You've portrayed us, the entire police force, as a bunch of cynics and failures who have given up on everything! Do you think this will help the investigation? Do you think witnesses will now line up to talk to someone who considers their lives 'cheap commodity'?"
"Witnesses who matter won't come anyway. They understand the essence of things better than your television viewers."
The chief of homicide slowly stood up. He walked over to the window, looking out at the city that tried to appear orderly and safe.
"I've tolerated you for many years, Lao Han. Everyone has. Your manner of communication, your disregard for the chain of command, your... philosophical excursions in the reports. They tolerated you because you are damn good at your job. You're a genius, if you will. Your analytical mind, your insight... they've solved dozens, hundreds of cases... But. There are things more important than solved cases. Public trust. Reputation. Political expediency. You crossed a line. You've become a threat not to criminals, but to us ourselves."
Lao Han was silent. He seemed to already know everything.
"As of today, you are suspended from work in the homicide department," the chief said, and a strange relief sounded in his voice. "Your methods, your... ethics... are no longer compatible with work in the city's main investigative unit."
For the first time during the entire conversation, something flickered in Lao Han's empty eyes. Not surprise, not anger. Rather, a cold, indifferent curiosity.
"And where to, then?" he asked.
"The archives? Patrol duty? There were many options," the chief returned to his desk and picked up a prepared transfer order. "But I don't want you anywhere near real cases. Your understanding of 'truth' is too toxic. So, you are being assigned to the department for combating immoral behavior and prostitution. The Vice Squad."
The corner of Lao Han's mouth twitched. It was almost a smile. A smile of icy, merciless sarcasm.
"The Vice Squad," he repeated, as if tasting the phrase. "The irony of fate. You're sending a man who sees the world without embellishment to fight its most naive illusions."
"You won't need your theories about 'meat and steel' there, Lao Han. What's needed there is paperwork, writing up reports on indecent behavior, and surveilling brothels that we will never close due to their high-level patrons. It's a swamp. The perfect place for the likes of you to get stuck in up to your ears. Hand over your badge and weapon. You have until the end of the day to clear out your desk."
Lao Han slowly, without the slightest haste, took the pistol from his holster and placed it on the polished wooden desk. The sound was loud and final. Then he took out the leather wallet with his badge and placed it next to it.
He turned and headed for the door. His hand was already on the doorknob when the chief's voice sounded behind him, carrying a strange, almost paternal regret.
"Lao Han. You are one of the most brilliant minds I have ever met. But your mind is a weapon without a safety catch. It wounds everyone around you. And in the end, it will kill you yourself."
Lao Han stopped, but did not turn around.
"You are mistaken, Chief," he said quietly and clearly. "It will not allow me to die with illusions. And that is the only death that matters."
He left, softly closing the door behind him. The chief was left alone in his office, looking at the pistol and the badge on the desk.