Chương 34: The Woman Who Came to an Empty House The video shook.

The video shook. It had been filmed from far away. A plaza in front of a cathedral in Rome, police cars parked at an angle, murmuring people, flashing lights at the edge of the screen. The sound of someone swallowing a curse mixed with breathless laughter. And gun barrels were visible. An East Asian man stood in front of them. He was unfolding a piece of paper. Whether because of the wind or because his hands were trembling, the edges of the paper shook slightly. The next moment, the screen blew white.

People screamed, and the hand holding the phone swung wildly. When the focus returned, the place where the man had been standing was empty. The comments were faster. `Teleport? ` `Korean guy? ` `fake lol` `Saved it before the original gets taken down` Mina Han watched the video three times on the plane. The original was already gone. But clipped versions remained on YouTube, and short clips spread even faster. Her official reason for entering Korea was to check documents for a Raon Bio partner company.

On paper, she was assisting an internal audit, and her schedule listed meetings and site visits. Her real purpose was Han Kichan's trail. Whether he was dead. Whether he was alive. Where the documents he had taken from New York had gone. And whether the man who disappeared in Rome really was Han Kichan. Mina did not have a safe answer to any of those questions. So she came herself. Because of the Rohonc copy Kichan had taken, Mina's name had also been placed on an audit-hold list.

After the Rome incident, Raon Bio and the old organization behind it were looking for someone to take responsibility. Someone would be abandoned, and Mina did not want her name written on that list. If Han Kichan was dead, she had to find what remained. If he was alive, that was another problem. He was a man who would cause trouble again. Mina did not take the company car straight from the airport. She changed taxis, took the subway, and walked the last two stops.

Korea's summer air was damper than New York's, and the smell of the alleys clung more closely. Old flyers were half-torn on the low villa walls, and delivery motorcycles gathered like shadows under utility poles. Before entering the alley near Han Kichan's house, Mina stopped at a convenience store. She bought water. In the glass door beside the counter, she watched the alley reflected behind her. The same motorcycle passed twice. One deliveryman stood in place too long.

The CCTV at the corner of the building was not pointed along the normal pedestrian route, but toward one specific entrance. It was not Raon Bio's method. A slower, more persistent, dirtier kind of surveillance. Mina opened the cap of the water bottle. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Of course." She did not go straight to the house.

Kichan's mother looked more worn out than she had in the photograph. Mina hesitated for a moment. Approaching family crossed a line. But she had already passed the point where turning back was easy several times over. Under New York, in Rome, and at the moment a man named Han Kichan had disappeared with the Book of Loagaeth. Mina moved forward.

"Excuse me." The mother stopped. The skin beneath her eyes tightened first, then her lips closed into a thin line. A bundle of green onions stuck out of the plastic in her shopping basket, and the fingers holding the handle slowly gained strength.

"Who are you?" Mina did not use her English name.

"I'm someone who knows Mr. Han Kichan." The mother's hand tightened around the basket handle.

"You know our Kichan?" There was wariness in her voice before hope. Mina folded and unfolded one finger before answering.

"He has been caught up in something dangerous."

"I saw that on the news. I saw it on YouTube too." The mother answered immediately.

"I don't even know whether that's my son or not. He won't answer his phone, and the police won't tell us anything properly." She drew in a short breath.

"His father can't even watch that video properly. One moment he says it isn't him, then the next he says it looks like him." Her lips hardened a little.

"I watched it. Over and over." She stopped, then continued.

"Suyeon called too." Mina's eyebrows moved very slightly.

"Suyeon?"

"The girl he used to date. They broke up a long time ago." The mother gripped the basket handle harder.

"She said she saw the video too. Asked if Kichan had contacted us. Asked if he had come home." This time, the end of her sentence did not tremble.

"My son is alive, isn't he?" Mina could not answer right away. She remembered Kichan's face under New York. The man in the Rome video, unfolding a piece of paper in front of gun barrels. And the empty space he left behind the next moment.

"I came to confirm that."

"Come in." The mother turned first.

Kichan's room was ordinary. A narrow desk, a guitar leaning against the wall, a hoodie hanging over the back of a chair, a charger still plugged into a power strip. The curtains were half closed, and the afternoon light lay on the floor in a square stain. Mina slowly looked around the room, then stopped without speaking. There was a guitar. A thin layer of dust had settled on the desk, and only the spot where the laptop had been was empty.

A few old cables, an empty delivery box, traces of side dishes his mother had hastily cleared away. The blanket on the bed had been straightened, but the emptiness of a room someone had left in a hurry could not be hidden. Mina looked through the room slowly. A small framed photograph stood beside the desk. Kichan, with a guitar on his back, was smiling awkwardly. Beside him stood two people who looked like his parents. His mother was looking at the camera, but Kichan was looking slightly beside the lens.

The man she had seen in New York was already someone with bizarre documents, strange metal senses, and an impossible body. But here were charging cables, guitar picks, and receipts. His mother spoke from the doorway.

"What did Kichan do?" Mina stopped while checking under the desk. There was a small piece of metal. Mina picked it up with a handkerchief.

"It isn't over."

"Is that an answer?"

"I'm sorry." Mina meant it.

"Right now, that is the most accurate answer I can give." Then footsteps stopped outside. A very short silence. Mina did not go to the window. Instead, she looked at the light from the entrance reflected in the mirror on the desk. Someone had stopped in front of the door, then pretended to pass by. The watcher moved. Mina spoke quietly to his mother.

"From now on, no matter who comes, do not tell them I was here." His mother's face hardened.

"How am I supposed to trust you?"

"Don't." Mina answered at once.

"Just remember this. Among the people looking for Kichan, there are people who truly want to find him, and people who want to capture him." His mother could not say anything. Mina stuck a small note under the desk. On the outside, it looked like an ordinary string of numbers. It was not a phone number. It was a temporary access code that connected the Rohonc copy to Raon Bio's internal network. If he returned. If he really could return. She had to leave at least that much.

Mina left the house. The moment the front door closed, she could still sense Kichan's mother standing still inside for a long while. Mina did not look back. If she did, she felt she would have to apologize first. At the end of the alley, there was a black car. It was neither too new nor too old. The license plate was ordinary, and the driver had his head down, pretending to look at his phone. Mina passed by without stopping. The car did not move immediately.

When she came out to the main road and tried to catch a taxi, the black car appeared in the rearview mirror. Mina sat in the back seat and fastened her seat belt.

"Of course it still isn't over." The taxi driver asked something. Mina smiled and shook her head.

"It's nothing."

The black car did not follow the taxi right away. The man in the driver's seat checked his phone screen once, then pressed an earpiece to his ear. The call was not long.

"She came." When the other person asked something, the man looked at Kichan's front door.

"Mina Han. She entered Han Kichan's house and left." A brief silence passed. The man added in a low voice.

"She contacted his mother, and she also went inside his room." The woman on the other end of the earpiece did not answer for a while. Then she spoke very slowly.

"Do not follow her. Mina Han will have noticed."

"Then the house?"

"Keep watching it." After a pause, the voice continued.

"Do not touch the mother." The man lowered his head.

"Understood, Lady Lee Seoyun."