IMTS 03

Chapter 3

The reason was simple.

Patients coming to the endoscopy room visited the restroom frequently. Very frequently.

Some used the toilet dozens of times each, and no matter how much she cleaned and cleaned again, the restroom never seemed clean.

Scrubbing the toilet day after day brought tears to her eyes.

[Announcement: The janitor in charge of the 5th floor endoscopy room is requested to promptly tidy the men’s restroom. Once again—]

Cheong-ah grabbed her hair in frustration at the loud announcement echoing through the hallway.

This meant someone had done something awful in the restroom again.

“I just cleaned the toilet ten minutes ago!”

‘Undercover investigation my foot. I’ve been scrubbing toilets all day!’

Grabbing her mop, she solemnly headed toward the restroom.

The reason Cheong-ah had been assigned to the 5th floor wasn’t special.

Probably because other janitors didn’t want to deal with it.

Ah, maybe the previous person had spent all day cleaning the toilets, suffocated from the stench, and ran away.

The truth was probably just that.

As she rounded the corner toward the restroom, the end of her vigorously swung mop sank with a soft “plop” into something soft.

And then,

“Ugh?!”

With that sound, something seemed to collapse from beyond the wall in slow motion.

A white coat fluttered and fell, covering the floor—or rather, Cheong-ah herself.

“Huh?”

The person falling toward her appeared to be a male medical staff member.

Even though his small face was half-hidden behind a medical mask, it was clear he was making a rather troubled expression.

Instinctively, Cheong-ah twisted her body to avoid him. The man, having no support, collapsed onto the floor with a thud.

“Wah?! Are you okay?”

Cheong-ah grabbed the man, who was crouched over, shaking him.

He clutched his lower abdomen—or slightly lower—with trembling hands as if in pain.

Grimacing, he muttered,

“Wha… what… are you?”

His hand grabbed Cheong-ah’s sleeve. Frowning deeply, he groped around.

“Y-You… damn… Cheonghwa…?”

Cheong-ah’s expression froze. The man’s fingers, which had hesitated, began to lose strength.

Cheonghwa?

Cheong-ah frowned as she examined the unconscious man.

Though muffled by his mask, he had clearly said “Cheonghwa.”

Who was this person, and how did he know the Cheonghwa faction?

Cheong-ah quickly reached for his chest to flip over his name tag.

Department of Gastroenterology, Professor Min Yoo-shin

‘Professor?’

Cheong-ah looked around.

There was no one around the professor’s research office, which restricted public access.

Fixing her gaze on the corner, she groped the man’s back pocket and retrieved his wallet.

She confirmed his name, Min Yoo-shin, from both his ID and credit cards.

It took less than a minute to verify everything with just one hand.

Of course, her other hand was checking his pulse. She couldn’t afford to let anyone get hurt due to her mistake.

Pulse—slow, but thankfully normal.

She flipped his eyelids to check his pupils, but it was difficult with him already unconscious.

Finally, the most critical check—his groin. Thankfully, there seemed to be no bleeding.

With her eyes tightly shut, Cheong-ah’s hand moved to the man’s injured area.

“Hmm…? Ah? Oh!”

Her fingers trembled as they touched the waistband of his pants.

The size of the injury wasn’t good. The blow from the mop to his lower area had clearly done some serious damage.

Her hand, tracing the area, recoiled in shock. It was swelling a little every time she touched it.

‘This… if it swells this much, it could be serious!’

Her anxious gaze darted relentlessly between his face and his injured area. The thought that leaving him like this could lead to serious trouble flashed through her mind.

‘Emergency, emergency!’

Cheong-ah hastily slid her hands under his armpits and bent her knees slightly to start dragging his body.

“Ugh! What the…!”

He was tall, but could he really be this heavy?

Cheong-ah, with superior strength and stamina compared to most women, struggled.

Even from just feeling the firmness of his latissimus dorsi and pectoral muscles under her hands, she could tell he was quite muscular, despite appearing thin.

Of course, that made him heavy.

Her lower back trembled as she exerted force to pull him.

‘What do I do! This is bad…!’

Tears streaming, Cheong-ah dragged his body with all her might toward the endoscopy room, where medical staff gathered.

Sweat poured down with every step.

“Help me!”

Cheong-ah finally reached the endoscopy room and called for help. A passing nurse, startled to see them, exclaimed,

“Oh my! Professor!”

Squeals echoed through the hallway.

The nurse ran inside and shouted something, and medical staff quickly gathered.

Cheong-ah panted, tears on her face, still dragging Yoo-shin’s unconscious, limp body.

“He collapsed in the hallway!”

“Prepare the cart! Call the CPR team!”

“He… he was hit in the groin by a mop as he fell!”

“Oh my!”

Though the sequence was a bit off, all the important information had been conveyed.

A mobile stretcher was prepared, and the medical staff skillfully lifted Min Yoo-shin onto it.

“Be careful moving him! One, two, three!”

Even unconscious, Yoo-shin grimaced in pain, curling his body.

‘S-Sorry,’ Cheong-ah silently apologized, then quickly ran back toward the professor’s office she had been cleaning.

Once again, an announcement sounded through the hospital, requesting the restroom be cleaned.

‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’

Grabbing her scattered mop, Cheong-ah ran toward the restroom, making a phone call at the same time.

[Wang. Good morning, senior!]

It was Yeon-hee, a sergeant from the Central Cheong information analysis division.

“Yeon-hee, I need your help!”

[What is it? Something interesting?]

Yeon-hee’s voice on the other end seemed to sparkle with excitement.

“Name: Min Yoo-shin. Age: 33. Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Boksan University Hospital. Tail him. It’s urgent.”

Cheong-ah recited the information she had just confirmed from his ID.

The sound of typing on the other end stopped, and soon Yeon-hee’s laughter rang out.

[What? Where did you find such a good-looking guy?]

Good-looking?

Cheong-ah paused mid-scrub, rebutting awkwardly,

“Not that. He’s suspicious.”

[Why? There’s nothing suspicious. He’s a respectable professional, living in a great house. Just seems like a silver spoon.]

Despite Yeon-hee’s explanation, Cheong-ah’s face darkened with suspicion. She stopped scrubbing and lowered her voice.

“I’m currently undercover in the hospital. The moment he saw me, he asked if I was Cheonghwa faction.”

There was a bustling sound as Yeon-hee seemed to adjust her posture.

[Really? That Cheonghwa that made our drug task force chase its own tail? He suddenly asked you that out of nowhere?]

“I… kind of… hurt him. At that moment, he urgently asked if I was Cheonghwa. I’m undercover as Park Bok-seon, so he probably didn’t say my real name.”

[That’s even more suspicious.]

“Right? Anyway, one thing’s certain. I just had a gut feeling.”

A brief silence passed.

Yeon-hee never considered Cheong-ah’s instincts mere hunches.

Graduating top of her class from the police academy, memorizing historical case records, with field experience added—Cheong-ah was like a human supercomputer of information.

And her conclusions often surpassed system predictions.

The problem was Cheong-ah herself could rarely explain how she reached them.

She always described it as “I’ve got a bad feeling” or “I smell a crime.”

Most people would just think, Detective Kim Cheong-ah has good instincts.

But Yeon-hee knew better.

‘This isn’t instinct—it’s high-performance forensic calculation inside her brain that even AI can’t match, you fools!’

Without hesitation, Yeon-hee started acting on Cheong-ah’s lead.

[Okay. I’ll tail him a bit more. What’s confirmed for now is he’s probably exempt from military service… something like that.]

“Military exemption?”

[He’s 33 and a professor. There’s no way otherwise.]

“Ah, that makes sense. He looks fine, so why would he be exempt? Got it. Thanks a lot!”

Cheong-ah smiled as she looked at the now sparkling clean toilet.