Flowers Are Bait

Chapter 161:

Gyu-baek clutched onto the fallen “Spruce Tree Hospital” nameplate and took cover in an adjacent alleyway. In no time, he noticed a convoy of black cars obstructing the path leading to the director’s house.

The child’s usually impassive face now displayed a look of shock as he watched the scene unfold.

“Heek…!” he gasped.

The individuals who disembarked from the cars were equipped with round earpieces, and they wielded baseball bats and golf clubs, slamming them against the front door with reckless abandon.

Gyu-baek hugged himself tightly, his breath caught in his throat. As he squeezed the nameplate, his fingers turned white from the force of his grip.

Sounds of crashing and breaking continued to come from the other side of the alley. It was the same noise that occurred when his uncle and grandfather fought while destroying household items a few times on the full moon.

Gyu-baek covered his ears with his hands and shut his eyes tightly. His heart raced with fear.

“But…that hospital,” he thought to himself

As an honorary insect doctor of the hospital, a place that he cherished more than school by several hundred times, he couldn’t simply stand by and watch.

Despite his trembling fear, Gyu-baek gathered his courage and opened his eyes.

And step by step,

He stooped and cautiously walked towards the front door. In the wide-open trunk, there were miscellaneous items that he couldn’t figure out what they were for. There were transparent plastic bags, ropes, all sorts of extensions, a strange syringe, first aid supplies, and…

“….!”

In an instant, Gyu-baek’s eyes widened. The young boy was so stimulated with the interesting apparatus that he forgot his original purpose and ran towards the trunk.

“Hiya…”

His mouth opened wide and his hands reached out involuntarily.

It was something precious that he had never seen before in his eight years of life. He had only ever seen it in books or on TV.

Gyu-baek’s eyes twinkled with curiosity and admiration. Now, he had become completely immersed in the moment and climbed onto the trunk without hesitation.

The burly men did not notice Gyu-baek hiding in the shadows and closed the trunk of the vehicle.

The hazy dust settled on the nameplate lying on the ground.

* * *

The yard, left unattended for several days, was a mess like no other. The plant that had delighted Lee-yeon with its white flower buds was now uprooted and crushed underfoot with traces of shoes. The flower beds that she had carefully tended whenever she had time were now in disarray as if a typhoon had passed through.

“….”

Lee-yeon sat on the living room sofa, staring blankly at the front yard.

It had already been two weeks since she had failed the fourth round of the exam.

She didn’t know what day it was or what time it was. She would just sit on the sofa like a statue, dozing off when she felt sleepy and staring blankly out the window when she woke up again.

The house was so silent and still, like a cave, that sometimes even her own breathing bothered her.

The test she had worked so hard to prepare for had naturally failed before she even got a chance to try it, and her beloved bonsai that she thought she had taken good care of suddenly died.

According to Choo-ja, someone artificially poisoned and cut down all the sacred tree, and the marks looked like animal claws. It was easy to guess who did it. It was an anger so great that it could brutally kill a tree that had lived for five hundred years, a tree that Lee-yeon had personally performed surgery on.

There was only one person who could have done it.

Suddenly, someone’s face came to mind like a picture and her heart twinged again. It wasn’t easy to distinguish whether it was guilt over the sacred tree or pain over the departed man.

“Are you not going to fix that again?”

As usual, Choo-ja sat across from Lee-yeon, observing her pale complexion. Her eyes still had traces of crying. Lee-yeon just looked at the destroyed flower bed with a vacant expression.

After Kwon Chae-woo left and she returned home with a messed up body and mind, the front yard was completely overturned as if a wild animal had gone through it. The living room was dirty with footprints, and broken flower pots and vases were scattered around the house.

She didn’t see it but men came to her house while she was gone and destroyed everything they could see.

Also, the second floor was wiped clean as if no one had ever lived there. There was no evidence of Kwon chase-woo ever living in her house anymore.

It felt like she had a really terrible dream.

“Hey, Lee-yeon, it’s a beautiful day today.”

“….”

“Shall we go get some ice cream with expensive sunglasses on, since it’s been a while?”

Choo-ja attempted to lift the corners of her mouth and invigorate herself, but Lee-yeon’s countenance was as delicate as sand that would crumble with the slightest touch.

It had already been several weeks, and as Choo-ja continued to gaze at her friend’s vacant expression, her concern grew. This was the first time she had seen Lee-yeon so dull and lifeless since the funeral of her foster parents.

When they finally arrived at Chooja’s house after visiting all sorts of relatives, she looked just as miserable as she did when she left. It was as if a single person had come in and destroyed everything.

“Lee-yeon, you should at least eat some rice and rest here for a while,” Choo-ja said, frowning as she looked at Lee-yeon’s red neck. It was wounds she got from being dragged around by crazy old people.

What was Lee-yeon like back then? She didn’t rebel once and just cried her heart out. The sudden sound of her crying made the people rushing towards her hesitate and step back.

But when an infuriated Chooja pushed the old people aside, the scene once again turned into chaos.

One of the musicians who had escaped the scene called 112, and after the police arrived, the fight that had been rolling on the floor was barely brought under control.

“If you only stay in a dark house, won’t you lack vitamin D?”

Her face, which had collapsed like a child, was still vivid in her mind. But the current Lee-yeon just crumbled like a dry leaf.