Chapter 387. The Pursuit — A Needless Death 1
Early the next morning, Youngwoo returned to the Regent's Office.
He was told that Gi Mincheol was dead.
Youngwoo's thick brows twitched.
"What did you say?"
Go Youngchang answered with a grave expression.
"Gi Mincheol killed himself."
His face might as well have had the word lie written across it.
Youngwoo still did not know what to do with that feeling.
He could clearly perceive the flow of emotion, but he could not take that sensation out and present it as evidence.
So he frowned awkwardly, and even that awkwardness made him suspicious of himself.
"Why did he die?"
Go Youngchang held out a sheet of paper.
It was a short suicide note.
They said Gi Mincheol had left it before dying.
Youngwoo glanced at the paper and gave a dry laugh.
"That man cannot write."
Go Youngchang's face changed at once.
"He can."
"Yesterday I showed him writing and told him to read it. He couldn't. And now he supposedly wrote a suicide note? If you're going to lie—"
Go Youngchang pointed at the handmark at the bottom.
"Look at this. It is his handmark."
"Did you compare it?"
"Of course."
"Who did?"
"One of my subordinates. I do not personally handle every matter."
Youngwoo nodded.
"If I ask you to bring that subordinate here, you'll say he's away. If I press harder, you'll tell me he's dead."
Go Youngchang's face hardened.
"You go too far."
"What has gone too far is that two people are dead."
Youngwoo looked at the note again.
The handwriting was neat.
Too neat for a poor military officer whose brushwork had supposedly come only from handling ledgers all his life.
The thickness of each stroke was remarkably even, and the ends of the lines were too clean.
For something supposedly written by a frightened man moments before death, it was far too orderly.
"Where is Gi Mincheol?"
Go Youngchang hesitated before answering.
"He has already been taken away."
"I want to see the body."
"There is no need to go that far—"
"I will see it."
Go Youngchang looked at him for a moment.
Irritation and fear were mixed in his eyes.
But there was nowhere left to retreat.
"I'll have someone guide you."
Youngwoo spoke quietly.
"And I'm taking this note."
Go Youngchang reflexively reached out, then stopped.
"It is evidence."
"That is why I'm taking it."
Their eyes met.
Once again, Go Youngchang was the first to look away.
Youngwoo folded the paper and slipped it inside his clothes.
"General Go."
"Yes?"
"Do not imagine that every time someone dies, you can tidy the matter away by leaving behind a single sheet of paper. Paper speaks better than people. Sometimes too well. Well enough that a lie becomes easier to see."
Go Youngchang did not answer immediately.
Youngwoo turned and walked away.
Cold morning air lay over the courtyard of the Regent's Office.
Gi Mincheol's body, though supposedly the body of a man who had committed suicide, was no longer there.
They said it had already been sent to the cremation ground.
Youngwoo headed there at once.
By the time he arrived, the fire was already burning.
It stood in the middle of a snow-covered field, where a patch of black earth had been exposed.
The ground there had been roughly dug up amid the white snow, and firewood had been piled high over the frozen soil.
A human body was burning on top of it.
The flames had risen far too early.
Smoke climbed straight into the cold morning air before the wind tore it apart.
The smell of damp wood mixed with burning hair and the sickening odor of fat spread low over the snowfield.
The instant Youngwoo smelled it, he stopped.
Why?
Why cremate him?
He was not a monk.
An officer of Liaoyang had died.
And not just any officer, but a man connected to the heart of a murder investigation.
The body should have been examined.
The neck.
The wrists.
The back of the head.
The clothing.
Every remaining trace should have been checked.
Instead, they had already put him on the fire.
Too fast.
This did not look like the proper handling of the dead.
It looked like someone erasing what remained.
Youngwoo stared at the burning pile of wood.
The flames were already blurring the outline of the body.
Had he arrived only a little later, nothing would have remained but ash.
Who had been in such a hurry?
Who would have found it dangerous for this body to remain intact?
Youngwoo clenched his teeth.
Even in death, Gi Mincheol's mouth had been silenced.
And the person who had silenced him was still alive.