Cleaning

Lin Mo, of course, had known where Shim Jae-hyeok was all along.

But he didn't go straight to Shim Jae-hyeok's villa.

He had a better option.

After all, killing was all about the order of operations.

Lighthouse Memorial Sanatorium.

It was a private medical facility built halfway up a mountainside. From the outside, it looked like a resort hotel. Inside, it was even more luxurious than the top-ranked general hospital in Seoul.

Fewer than ten people in the entire country could get a room here.

Shim Gyeok-ho was one of them.

At ninety-two years old, Shim Gyeok-ho lay in his hospital bed, surrounded by equipment, tubes running in and out of his body.

The ninety-two-year-old former chairman of Cheonle Group lay in bed, machines beeping steadily by his bedside, IV lines feeding into his arm.

But if you looked closely, you'd notice the old man actually looked pretty healthy.

Color in his face. Steady breathing. His eyes occasionally moving beneath his eyelids.

He wasn't waiting to die—he was buying time.

Tens of millions of won in specialty drugs pumped into his body every single day, holding together a frame that should have fallen apart long ago, keeping it running at a functional level.

Money really could buy life.

At least, up to a certain point.

A young female nurse pushed open the door and walked in, efficiently starting to remove the IV lines.

Her technique was practiced. Every time she pulled out a tube, she'd press a cotton ball against the needle site and gently massage it.

Shim Gyeok-ho opened his eyes.

The nurse bowed slightly and reached out to help him out of bed.

Shim Gyeok-ho's left hand landed on the nurse's waist, then slid down, until his whole palm rested on her backside, and he gave it a squeeze.

The nurse's expression didn't change at all.

Not even a twitch of the eyelid.

She simply maintained a polite smile and steadily helped Shim Gyeok-ho to his feet.

This was clearly not the first time.

"Chairman, today's dessert has arrived..."

Before she could finish, Shim Gyeok-ho struck her hard across the body.

The slap was full-force, making the nurse flinch.

"I'm sorry, Boss." The nurse immediately realized her mistake.

Shim Gyeok-ho snorted, said nothing, and pushed himself up from the edge of the bed.

He walked toward the door. His pace was slow, but every step was steady. No cane. No wheelchair. He relied entirely on his own two legs.

For a ninety-two-year-old to walk like that, those drugs weren't wasted.

At this rate, he might have another eight or ten years in him.

Of course, that was assuming no one came looking for trouble.

Unfortunately for him.

That assumption stopped holding today.

Shim Gyeok-ho headed for the door, and the nurse, suppressing the pain, quickly moved ahead of him and opened it.

A man was standing outside.

Shim Gyeok-ho's already wrinkled brow furrowed even deeper at the sight of someone daring to block his path.

In his ninety-two years, and decades at the helm of Cheonle Group, he'd seen all kinds of people.

Anyone who dared stand in front of his door was either someone who didn't know who he was, or someone who had a death wish.

"Get out of my way."

Two words. The voice was hoarse, but full of force.

A ninety-two-year-old man, but he hadn't lost any of his bite when cursing.

But the moment he said those two words, he never got a chance to say a third.

A massive blood-red scythe came down from above, splitting his body in two.

The blade cutting into flesh made a soft sound, but the blood spraying out was anything but quiet.

Shim Gyeok-ho's body toppled to both sides, blood splattering across the white tiles. The whole scene was impossibly surreal.

A body kept alive with tens of millions of won in drugs every day—against that single blade, it might as well have been a radish.

The nurse's scream got stuck in her throat, unable to come out.

Her gaze moved past Shim Gyeok-ho's fallen body to the hallway beyond.

On both sides of the corridor, Shim Gyeok-ho's private bodyguards lay scattered on the floor. Blood was everywhere—on the walls, on the ceiling.

The air reeked of rust and iron.

The nurse collapsed onto the floor, her legs shaking uncontrollably.

She looked up and could only see Lin Mo's masked face. Above the mask, his eyes held no trace of emotion whatsoever.

"Please... don't kill me. I'm just..."

Lin Mo didn't look at her.

He raised a hand and collected the soul from Shim Gyeok-ho's corpse.

Only after that was done did he turn his head to look at the trembling nurse.

"Say one thing to Shim Jae-hyeok."

The nurse nodded frantically.

"Before long, I'll come for his life."

With that, Lin Mo turned and walked into the blood-soaked hallway, disappearing into the darkness at its end.

The nurse sat beside the pool of blood. Only after the sound of his footsteps had completely faded did she calmly get to her feet.

No trace of the panic from moments before remained.

Her back straight, she waited a full ten minutes, then pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

Three hours later.

In the study of a villa, the fire in the fireplace burned brightly. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with original foreign-language books, most of them still shrink-wrapped.

The nurse knelt on the floor. Her clothes were still stained with dried bloodstains—not her own blood. Shim Gyeok-ho's.

Shim Jae-hyeok stood with his back to her in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Outside the window was the night view of Seoul.

“That’s all he said?”

“Yes, Chairman. All of the old chairman’s bodyguards were killed. From the moment I entered the room to the moment he made his move, no more than a few minutes passed.”

Shim Jae-hyeok took a sip of his drink, showing no reaction.

“The old man picked those bodyguards himself—not a single superpowered among them.”

He swirled the ice cubes in his glass, his tone as casual as if he were talking about the weather. “Thought that at ninety-two, who would bother killing an old man already half-buried in the ground? He didn’t believe it could happen. Who’s to blame but himself?”

Shim Jae-hyeok didn’t look like a man who had just lost his father. If anything, the whole man seemed far more relaxed.

Even the death threat didn’t seem to shake that relaxation.

He paused for two seconds before speaking again.

“Since the old man is dead, you don’t need to stay at the care facility anymore.”

The nurse lowered her head. “Yes.”

“Come back. A talent like yours, parked in a place like that watching over some old geezer—it’s a waste.”

Shim Jae-hyeok turned around.

He looked at the nurse kneeling on the floor. This woman was someone he had personally placed beside Shim Gyeok-ho. On the surface, she was there to care for the old man, but in reality, she was his spy.

Shim Jae-hyeok had too many people to guard against.

Especially his own older brother.

Shim Jae-hyeok raised his glass and took another sip. At the thought of that man’s face, even the whiskey soured in his mouth.

“He’ll probably think I was the one who did it.” Shim Jae-hyeok muttered to himself, then smiled. “Fine. We were bound to have a falling-out sooner or later anyway.”

But compared to that brother of his, the slightly more troublesome issue was the man who killed their father. Anyone who could wipe out every bodyguard in the care facility within minutes and still dare to swear he’d come for Shim Jae-hyeok’s own life—that was no ordinary person.

He had to stay alive. If he died, his brother would inherit everything he owned.

And he had no intention of letting his brother have any of it.

Shim Jae-hyeok’s smile vanished.

“Recall every superpowered operative currently deployed on missions.”

“Yes, Chairman!”