21st century Goguryeo

October 10th, 2019 20:00 (China Standard Time 19:00)

China, Chong-qing. Lodgings.

Ji Dong-chul and Park Gi-oong waited three days before they called the massage service again. They didn’t want to draw any attention from the pimps by calling too soon.

“These a**holes seem to think that they’re great businessmen,” Ji Dong-chul swore as he hung up the phone.

“Why?”

“There is an additional fee if you call the same girl multiple times.”

“What? They charge more when they should give a discount for being a regular? Their sales tactics are low,” Park Gi-oong grumbled.

“You’re right. Anyway, good luck in there,” his partner chuckled.

“Do I really have to?”

Ji Dong-chul had set up the service so the ethnic Korean woman would give Agent Park the special massage in the next room over. That way, Ji Dong-chul could speak privately with Kyung-hee, the North Korean woman.

“I thought you’d like it.”

“What? When we return to Korea, my girlfriend will kill me!”

“Then just get a massage in the next room.”

Time passed as they joked around, and a knock came from the door.

“Come in,” Park Gi-oong said in a relaxed voice. This wasn’t his first time. He lightly embraced the ethnic Korean woman and whispered in her ear, “Today I want something special… So I booked the room next door.”

“Oh! Really? Do you know how much the special costs?”

“How much?”

“It’s 900 yuan for the standard massage and an additional 2000 yuan for the special, so the total is 2900 yuan.”

“Isn’t that pricey. Let’s go to the other room.” Park Gi-oong left for the room next door with the ethnic Korean woman.

“Have a seat,” Manager Ji said gently.

“Yes, thank you.” Kyung-hee sat on the edge of Ji Dong-chul’s bed, her eyes darting around uneasily.

“Relax. We aren’t bad people. We are here to take Ms. Kim Soon-hee safely back to Korea.”

“Why are you trying to take Sister Soon-hee back to Korea?”

Ji Dong-chul thought about how to answer for a moment before coming up with a decent excuse.

“She has an older cousin who already succeeded in defecting. We are here at his request.”

“Soon-hee told me about her cousin. Are you guys Korean police?”

“No, we are employees of a private investigation firm. Think of us as guys who take care of difficult jobs that others cannot.”

“All right. I understand.”

Ji Dong-chul spoke with Kyung-hee for over an hour and learned more about what had happened to Kim Soon-hee.

Nine months ago, after Kim Soon-hee talked to her cousin, she took a car headed to Thailand. Partway there, however, a Chinese man threatened to alert the authorities. Her money was stolen, and she was sold off to human traffickers in Chong-qing. In the months that followed, she went through such great mental and physical suffering that she became bedridden and unable to work. Now, she was in danger of being sold off to the countryside in the mountains at any time.

After the two women left, Ji Dong-chul and Park Gi-oong sat down to develop a plan. They soon had headaches from trying to figure out how to rescue Kim Soon-hee.

“If we were in Korea, it would be a different story, but how will we rescue her from a Chinese gang’s hideout? Should we ask for backup?”

Ji Dong-chul was rubbing his temples with his head down. He shook his head when Park Gi-oong mentioned requesting backup.

“There’s no time. What if she gets sold off while we wait for the other agents to show up?”

“Then it seems that we have no choice.” Park Gi-oong had been wracking his brain for ideas, but he could only think of one option. “Sir, can we use a frontal assault to break her out? I’ll take on five guys.”

“Then I have to deal with the rest of them? Kyung-hee said there are always at least 20 men standing by there!”

“Then I will take seven, and you take the other 13. You can do that since you’re my superior, right?”

“Screw you.”

Ji Dong-chul wasn’t coming up with any bright ideas either, though. If they had been in Korea, then they would have possessed far more resources for solving the problem, but this was China. They were working unofficially as intel agents, so there were no easy solutions to their problem. After another minute of thought, Ji Dong-chul resigned himself to a simple frontal assault, as Park Gi-oong had suggested.

“All right Agent Park, let’s rescue her as you said. When we have safely left the city, we’ll call for back up.”

“Okay!”

When it was decided, Ji Dong-chul took out the flier with the massage parlor’s address and opened a map. While he spent some time memorizing escape routes from their lodging, he couldn’t get the woman named Kyung-hee off his mind.

“Agent Park.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That lady named Kyung-hee.”

“What about her?”

“That woman is also a defector from North Korea. Shouldn’t we take her with us?”

“Wouldn’t it be more difficult to free two women instead of one? But if you decide to do so sir, I will follow your orders no matter what.”

* * *

October 11th, 2019 21:00 (China Standard Time 20:00)

Ji Dong-chul called the massage parlor on the day of their operation, and the receptionist again explained that there was an additional fee for requesting the same girl. Since the ladies were out on another call, the receptionist said that she would send two other girls. Ji Dong-chul told her that he could wait, however, and made a reservation for 11:00pm.

Time passed, and when the clock hit eleven, the two women arrived. Park Gi-oong once again took the ethnic Korean woman to the room next door.

“Ms. Kyung-hee, we will start the operation today.”

“Today?”

“Yes. Would you like to go to Korea as well, Ms. Kyung-hee? We can help you if you want us to.”

“I want to. Can you really do that for me?”

“We need you to trust us and follow our instructions.”

“Yes, thank you. I will never forget this.”

Ji Dong-chul opened the map and began explaining their plan.

“Listen to me carefully.”

“Okay.”

“When you return to your office, it will be 2:00 am. We will go to a place 50m away from your office. When you arrive, tell Ms. Kim Soon-hee that her cousin has sent people from Korea to pick her up. Pack your bags lightly. If you get assigned another call, just say you are sick and stay in.”

“I understand.”

“My friend in the room next door will enter your office at around 2:30. If you hear loud noises from outside, then take the bags you prepared and leave. We have a vehicle standing by here,” Manager Ji pointed at a particular spot on the map. “You will meet us here, and here only. Do you understand?’

Ji Dong-chul met her eyes as he finished his explanations. Kyung-hee seemed to have understood, and she nodded.

* * *

October 12th, 2019 02:10 (China Standard Time 01:00)

China, Chong-qing. Massage parlor office.

Ji Dong-chul looked at his watch. It was 02:10, fifteen minutes after Ms. Kyung-hee had entered the lodgings area. When he decided that she’d had enough time to deliver the message to Kim Soon-hee and pack their bags, he signed towards Park Gi-oong, who was watching intently.

“Operation is a go.”

“Trust me sir.”

Park Gi-oong placed both his hands in his pockets and stumbled towards the building as if he was drunk. When he arrived at the building, he kicked the door as if to break it down.

Slam!

The loud noise echoed through the building, and many men who looked like gangsters ran to the door.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Who am I? I’m a person.” Agent Park burped.

“This b*stard… If you’re going to be drunk, why don’t you go home instead of making a scene? Do you want to be taught a lesson?”

“It’s none of your business whether I stay quiet or make a scene! You b*stards…”

The short man in front of the group threw a punch at Park Gi-oong. The agent leaned to the side a bit and pretended to be hit.

“Oh God, these guys are hitting people?”

The punch didn’t hurt very much since he moved with the attack, but Park Gi-oong fell to his side. When he started to stand back up, a larger man tried to kick his face.

Park Gi-oong knew he might be killed if he was hit directly, so he turned his body to the side to avoid the attack. He grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it at a nearby window.

Smash!

“Why you!”

When the window broke, the Chinese gangsters all lunged at Park Gi-oong. A Hollywood-style five-on-one fight was about to begin. Then Agent Park turned and began running away in the opposite direction.

“Get that b*stard!”

Park Gi-oong ran along the large street and made a sharp right turn into a small alleyway. When the Chinese gangsters were about to follow him into the alley, something flew out of the shadow of the dark wall and hit one of the gangsters in the face. The man collapsed, and the others stopped in their tracks. A moment later, Ji Dong-chul and Park Gi-oong blocked both ends of the alley, and the four remaining gangsters stood there in awkward surprise.

“Agent Park, you only drew out five of them. What were you doing?”

“They wouldn’t follow me! What did you expect me to do?”

“Fine. We take care of two each, then continue to the second stage of the plan.”

“I’ll start.”

Park Gi-oong used his left foot to kick the short gangster who had punched him. The short man was actually rather skilled. He lowered himself to avoid the attack, but then caught Park Gi-oong’s roundhouse coming the other way. He fell to the ground, spewing teeth like corn kernels from his mouth. Agent Park immediately jumped and slammed a knee into the man standing awkwardly to his left. In an instant, both men were down.

“I’m finished.” Park Gi-oong shrugged his shoulders at Ji Dong-chul, who hadn’t yet thrown his first punch.

“Good for you.”

Ji Dong-chul gave the closest gangster to him the old one-two, slamming fists into his face and neck. As the first man dropped, he grabbed the second man by the arm and threw him onto the concrete ground.

Smack!

The second man hit the ground head first and passed out.

“All right, nice.”

Manager Ji shrugged nonchalantly and signaled that they should move ahead.

* * *

October 12th, 2019 02:25 (China Standard Time 01:25)

China, Chong-qing. Massage parlor office.

When the six men on the upper floor of the massage parlor heard their door being kicked in, they quickly ran downstairs.

“Where did the guys from the first floor go?” shouted a bald man who seemed to be the boss. When they reached the ground floor, they found no one there.

“They’re taking a nap,” Agent Park said smoothly, lifting his hand to scratch the back of his head. The five men threw themselves at Park Gi-oong and Ji Dong-chul. Park Gi-oong hit the first one square in the jaw with a kick, then blocked another man’s punch with his right arm and grabbed the man’s neck to throw him to the ground.

Ji Dong-chul danced backward around a stream of punches, then lashed forward to strike a man’s stomach, chest, and jaw. He ducked down to dodge a kick coming from his left, then dropped into a low spin kick to trip the others. He slammed a knee into the final man’s stomach.

“Oof!”

The impact of Ji Dong-chul’s knee sent the man rolling across the floor, hands folded over his stomach in pain. When the bald boss saw that four of his men had already fallen, he signaled the man standing behind him. It was the short-haired man they had seen before. He nodded to his bald boss and ran back up the stairs.

“There’s no time. Let’s finish them off,” said Ji Dong-chul.

When Park Gi-oong stepped forward, the bald man pulled out something from his waist. It was a sashimi knife that was 40cm in length. Park Gi-oong cracked his neck a couple of times and grinned.

“Do Chinese gangsters use sashimi knives like the Japanese these days? Fine. Come at me.”

Park Gi-oong dodged the horizontal swings of the knife, waiting for an opening. It came an instant later, and he kicked the man’s knifehand. Then he kicked with the opposite foot, catching the bald man in the side of the head. He was about to kick the man again when 10 men with hatchets and knives ran down the stairs.

“This is going to be tough, don’t you think?” Ji Dong-chul said through gritted teeth as the men surrounded them. “Agent Park! Look out.”

“I am worried more about you, Manager…”

Before they could finish speaking, the 10 gangsters with sharpened hatchets and knives all ran towards them at once.