CH 337

“He's inside the tunnel?!” Hwang Jeong-Hu asked incredulously.

“Yes, sir.” Jo Gyu-Min gravely nodded.

“Are you sure about this?”

“More or less, sir.”

Hwang Jeong-Hu staggered in dizziness. Jo Gyu-Min hurriedly assisted the Chairman and helped him settle down on a chair.

Hwang Jeong-Hu held his head with both of his hands. “W-what is the meaning of this?!”

The conference room's atmosphere rapidly fell into an icy territory when Chairman Hwang began roaring at the top of his lungs. Even Bang Jin-Hun had to flinch for a moment there.

“Why was Jin-Ho even in that place?! Tell me!”

Jo Gyu-Min's expression stiffened. “Forgive me for these insolent words, but sir... That is not important right now.”

“Say what!”

“The important thing right now is how we can safely rescue Mister Jin-Ho from there, sir.”

“Eugh...!” Hwang Jeong-Hu's face reddened to an extreme degree. However, he didn't lose his cool again after realizing that Jo Gyu-Min had a point. He rapidly sucked in several deep breaths to barely calm himself down, then his glare as sharp as a treasured blade locked on Jo Gyu-Min. “Yes, you're right. We need to focus on saving Jin-Ho's life. Now isn't the time to figure out who to blame for this.”

Jo Gyu-Min nodded slowly.

'As expected, he's fast'.

Hwang Jeong-Hu was enraged to the point of briefly losing his rational mind, but he was still a titan of the industry who had experienced all sorts of ups and downs. As befitting his status, Hwang Jeong-Hu's ability to recover was impressively fast.

“So? What is our plan?”

“Sir, we still don't have any concrete plan of action yet,” said Jo Gyu-Min.

“What?! Then, what are you doing, wasting time like this!”

“My apologies, sir. But…” Jo Gyu-Min responded without stuttering or faltering once. “Inside the first conference chamber, experts in the fields of civil engineering, explosives, and search and rescue are discussing rescue strategies as we speak, sir. As we're not experts in those areas, it's pointless for us to discuss the ways forward by ourselves. Once they establish the most optimal rescue plan, we'll commence with operation as quickly as possible and do the most thorough job we can, Chairman.”

Hwang Jeong-Hu glared murderously at Jo Gyu-Min before chewing his next words out. “I'm granting you all necessary authority, Gyu-Min.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“If you deem it necessary, use my name. Use Jaegyeong's name if you have to. No matter what methods you resort to, I'll take responsibility. Even if this incident leads to everything I've built up crumbling down…” Hwang Jeong-Hu grimaced deeply in determination. “I’m willing to risk it all! So, do whatever it takes!”

“B-but, Chairman!” Director Baek Yeong-Gi freaked out. “That is going too far, sir!”

“I don't want to hear it!” Hwang Jeong-Hu's roar loudly rumbled within the conference room. “I was about to lose everything on my sickbed, anyway! What's so important about them that I'm not even allowed to use them to save someone's life?! It's not like I'm gonna take them all to my grave, now is it!”

Baek Yeong-Gi was overwhelmed by Hwang Jeong-Hu's force and couldn't say anything else. He knew that once Hwang Jeong-Hu entered this mode, no one could stop him or talk him out of his decisions.

“Utilize every available avenue! If needed, I'll also personally make a move, so use me as a chess piece, too! Do you understand what I'm saying here, Gyu-Min?”

“Yes, Chairman.” Jo Gyu-Min nodded, accepting Hwang Jeong-Hu's commands as par for the course. “Sir. Once the situation has been organized to some degree, I'll make another report right away.”

“Got it.” Hwang Jeong-Hu immediately yanked out a cigarette and mouthed it as soon as the conference was finished. Baek Yeong-Gi hurriedly took out his lighter and lit Hwang Jeong-Hu's cigarette.

“...Dammit!”

Hwang Jeong-Hu usually never swore, but curses flew out of his mouth all on their own right now. As he sucked on his cigarette, his usual relaxed demeanor was nowhere to be found.

“Damn. I'm experiencing some crazy things lately.”

Hwang Jeong-Hu shifted his glare outside the windows. His eyes were faintly trembling.

***

“Okay, so?” Hwang Jeong-Hu asked, his expression crumpling.

Baek Yeong-Gi gulped nervously without even realizing it. He never saw Hwang Jeong-Hu make such a scary expression before, even back when Jaegyeong was threatened with bankruptcy after the payment for a construction project in Vietnam never materialized.

Despite thinking that he had seen various angry faces of Hwang Jeong-Hu over the years, Baek Yeong-Gi learned something new from that face. And that was the Chairman of Jaegyeong had been controlling his anger to some degree all these years.

In other words, the kind of fury Baek Yeong-Gi had not witnessed in his three decades of serving Hwang Jeong-Hu was being directed in Jo Gyu-Min's way right now.

“According to the experts...” Jo Gyu-Min pointed to the blueprint of the collapsed tunnel he found somewhere and explained in a calm voice. “This is the rough location where Mister Bang Jin-Hun has pointed out, sir. Meaning, Mister Jin-Ho is stuck somewhere around here. But the experts estimate we need at least ten days in order to reach this area.”

“Ten days...?!” Hwang Jeong-Hu tightly clenched his fists. His quaking fists hovered in the air, ready to slam down on the table, but Hwang Jeong-Hu somehow managed to bring them down without any incidents. “Ten days! Ten days, while people are trapped down there?! This tunnel doesn't look all that big, so why do we need ten bloody days?! Are these so-called experts a bunch of hacks?”

Obviously, Hwang Jeong-Hu had overseen many tunnel construction projects before. And that was why he found the notion of needing ten days to get to the central point of such a short tunnel completely nonsensical.

“Sir, boring a hole in normal circumstances does not take long. However, the experts say this is about boring a hole in a tunnel that has already collapsed once before. This operation is not feasible unless all the surrounding soil has been removed completely first. Furthermore, excavating all the soil and then rescuing the trapped person inside is realistically... also impossible.” Jo Gyu-Min continued to explain in a subdued voice. “We can't even resort to the usual route of constructing a tunnel, which is to rely on explosives, sir. The experts say that even if there is enough space under all the rubble, it must be fragile and unstable. They say that even the impact from a weak detonation could cause that space to collapse, sir.”

Hwang Jeong-Hu's hands trembled even more. Cruel reality was crashing into him like incessant tidal waves. Despite knowing someone was trapped down there, they simply did not have a way to rescue them. Haphazardly starting any rescue operation could trigger the second cave-in, which would pretty much seal the fate of the trapped people. Several tons of earth would flood into a barely-maintained space under the rubble, and then...!

Never mind Kang Jin-Ho, not even Kang Jin-Ho's ancestors and patron saints would survive that situation!

“...Is ten days the best estimation they can come up with?” Hwang Jeong-Hu quietly growled.

Making quick judgment calls always had been his forte. If there were no other avenues left to explore, one had to stick to what was available. Doing everything possible to minimize the time was what Hwang Jeong-Hu should focus on now.

“Sir, according to the experts, it is.”

“No, it's too damn long! You want someone probably injured to last ten days in there? Without a drop of water?” Hwang Jeong-Hu urgently pointed at the map. “Is there a way to supply water using a fire truck's water hose? For instance, if we spray water on top, some should trickle down to where Jin-Ho is. Just by having water, the odds of him surviving for ten days will drastically improve, no?”

“Sir, the experts also considered it, but... They say that the inflow of water to an unstable plot of earth could cause the ground to sink even further.”

“What?! So, what you are telling me is that we can't do this but can't do that, either?!”

“...Currently, yes, sir.”

“Bull sh*t!” Hwang Jeong-Hu roared like a tiger. “Are you saying we must pray that the trapped person will hold on for ten days while we cautiously dig our way in?! The opinions of South Korea's best engineers are no better than what a three-year-old kid can come up with?! Is that what you're telling me!”

Jo Gyu-Min couldn't say anything else and just stood there.

“Those bunch of useless morons!” Hwang Jeong-Hu suddenly grabbed the ashtray and threw it hard. It wasn't aimed at anyone, but everyone clearly heard the sharp sound of the glass ashtray hitting the solid wall and shattering into million pieces.

“Find a way! Not this idiotic crap, but ways to keep the people in the ground alive while we try to rescue them! If you lot can't think of one, either invite experts from other places or call the best scholars in other countries! I don't care how, just come up with new solutions in three hours and bring them to me! If you can't, consider yourselves finished! Do you hear me?! You bunch of useless morons!”

No one dared to speak up in front of Hwang Jeong-Hu when he was spitting flames of unbridled rage.

Apart from Baek Yeong-Gi, that was. “C-Chairman! Getting agitated like this is bad for your health, sir!”

“Who cares about that!”

“Chairman!”

Hwang Jeong-Hu glared straight at Baek Yeong-Gi before falling into his chair hard enough for the back cushions to let out loud deflating noises.

“God dammit...!”

Hwang Jeong-Hu's subdued cursing slowly wafted around the conference room blanketed in choking silence.

***

Bang Jin-Hun groaned softly. “Gotta say, Chairman Hwang is no bloody joke, isn't he?”

“Yes, I agree.” Jo Gyu-Min slowly nodded.

“I didn't think he'd be that pissed, you know? Even if his own child is trapped down there, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't react that way.”

“Chairman Hwang thinks of Mister Jin-Ho as more important than his child, after all.”

Bang Jin-Hun stopped talking there and stared at Jo Gyu-Min.

'Yup, this dude is just as strange as Chairman Hwang...'

If Hwang Jeong-Hu resembled a bomb about to go off, Jo Gyu-Min had become as cold as a sheet of ice. So cold and sharp were Jo Gyu-Min and his icy expression that carelessly touching him might get one's fingers sliced off! His usually-cheeky demeanor was nowhere to be found right now.

Bang Jin-Hun shook his head, then asked another question. “Is there really no other way?”

“We're still looking into it, Mister Bang.”

Search "pawread dot com" for the original.

“...Uhm, how about, like... Digging from underneath to get to where they are?”

Jo Gyu-Min shook his head. “This isn't a cartoon, Mister Bang. Such an idea is unrealistic. The state of the ground around that area is absolutely the worst, and it won't be able to support the weight.”

“Even so...”

“Strengthening the ground to the point where it can support its own weight while we dig will take too long.”

Bang Jin-Hun groaned loudly again. The more they thought about the rescue plan, the more hopeless this problem seemed to him. When looked at in the simplest terms, the solution only required them to dig a hole and go inside to rescue the trapped people.

However, that space where the survivors were had been coincidentally created during the cave-in. Even a minor disturbance could trigger the second cave-in, and the last time Bang Jin-Hun checked, the soil still had the tendency to fill up empty spaces below them.

'Which means they'll get buried alive. Literally.'

Kang Jin-Ho probably wouldn't die if he got stabbed or shot at. But even someone as powerful as him would be powerless to do anything about such a situation.

Jo Gyu-Min turned to look at Bang Jin-Hun. “Let me ask you instead. Can't you mobilize martial artists from the Assembly to rescue Mister Jin-Ho?”

“Well…” Bang Jin-Hun's head faltered. “It won't be easy. Realistically speaking, we're just a group of slightly-stronger people, you see. Sure, we might be able to dig the ground quickly without disturbing the surroundings too much, but how much time will we save by doing that? Not only that but... Deploying martial artists there is a bit…”

Jo Gyu-Min's eyes grew even colder at Bang Jin-Hun's lukewarm response.

Bang Jin-Hun sheepishly coughed, then asked a question. “Then, what about the government side?”

“They still don't know someone is trapped down there. Investigating the surface doesn't tell you anything about what's under, after all. For now, we've restricted entrance to the incident site with the pretext of our team performing a thorough investigation.”

“Is that even possible?” Bang Jin-Hun blinked his eyes.

“When I told the government officials our side will foot the reconstruction bill, they oh-so gleefully accepted our offer. A bunch of stinking hyenas.” Jo Gyu-Min gritted his teeth. Whether it was them or some people in his own group, they all seemed utterly useless to him.

“What about Mister Jin-Ho's family? Did you tell them?”

“No, I haven't informed them yet.” Jo Gyu-Min shook his head.

“Mm? But... Shouldn't we tell them?”

“I agree, but I still can't think of how to break the news to them. What should I say to them? Folks, your son is currently trapped inside a collapsed tunnel, but it seems he's still alive. The media is keeping it hush-hush for now, but we'll do our best to extract him from there, so don't you worry about a thing! Do you think that's gonna work?” Jo Gyu-Min muttered in a cynical-sounding voice. Bang Jin-Hun wordlessly frowned at that but didn't say anything. Jo Gyu-Min sighed and shook his head again. “If his parents learn about their son slowly withering away down there, they will wither away just as well. And even quicker, too. Telling them Mister Jin-Ho is still missing might be a better option.”

“Well, I guess. I'll leave that to your discretion, then…” Bang Jin-Hun shrugged his shoulders. He believed informing Kang Jin-Ho's parents, regardless of the situation, was the correct thing to do but also didn't want to create bad blood between him and Jo Gyu-Min over this matter.

“In that case, how about...” Bang Jin-Hun was about to say something before abruptly stopping himself, then pulled out his mobile phone. “...What the hell does this son of b*tch want?”

Bang Jin-Hun's expression crumpled hideously after confirming Kim Seok-Il's name appearing on his phone's screen. He tapped the green answer icon and pressed the device against his ear.

“What do you want, motherf*cker?”