Chapter 604
* * *
Influ 1 had become arrogant again. Instead of the Violent Crimes Unit, she was taken into a dim interrogation room, where she was even given juice while answering questions.
"So then that Zhongnan guy called me over."
"...Haa."
"And then he kind of looked me uuuup with that look guys give right before asking for your number. But I guess he was too nervous to say anything? He just handed me a casino VIP card. Told me to come often and stuff."
Influ 1 even made up things Chen Wei had never said.
"But I really cooperated with the investigation, so you'll clear me afterward, right? Say I wasn't involved?"
"Yeah. Got it. Just keep talking."
"Anyway, he was seriously handsome. If he started an Intube couple channel, it'd hit a hundred thousand views on day one from the thumbnail alone. I thought someone staying in the boss room would be super scary, like some obvious gangster... y'know, short hair, black T-shirt..."
"Like him."
"Yeah, like him.... No, no, no, no, no! I never think things like that normally!"
Having fallen straight into Detective Yoon's leading questions—which naturally included taking jabs at Detective Kwak—Influ 1 shook her head furiously.
"Anyway, he looked like this!"
"Like this?"
Detective Kwak and Detective Yoon stared solemnly at the sheet of paper where Influ 1 had drawn the composite sketch.
The moment the camera panned to it—
The theater erupted in laughter.
"Go get the investigation team."
Influ 1 was absolutely terrible at drawing.
* * *
"You little brat, don't go saying you'll win it back and then start gambling on another site again. Got it?"
"Yeeees...."
"Go straight home. If you stop by some Hold'em pub or whatever on the way, you're in trouble."
"Yeeees...."
Detective Kwak sent Influ 1 home.
As soon as she stepped out of the police station, she let out a deep sigh.
Step.
Step.
Step.
As Influ 1 walked through the quiet streets at night, her expression changed.
The moment she got home, she started packing a suitcase.
Her trembling hands shoved things inside at random.
—I once hit a 240% return on crypto, and that made 180 million won. Then I threw in another 10 million from my student loan, so that was 190 million. I dumped all of it into casino deposits and got point money worth... 193.21 million won.
Unlike when Detective Yoon had asked if she knew how to calculate hwatu scores, Influ 1 was now better with numbers than almost anyone.
Then the music started.
"..."
Everyone who knew who had composed this film's soundtrack had the exact same question pop into their heads.
Beep—
Lori-lori-ri—
"...?"
Boom clap, boom clap, boom clap-clap boom clap.
A lively tune that sounded like something you'd hear at a highway rest stop began playing.
It was so similar to Chen Wei's entrance theme that it almost felt like a cheap knockoff.
Except it was infinitely, incomparably dumber.
Boom clap, boom clap, boom chari-jak-clap.
Influ 1 beamed.
Combined with the music playing behind her, she looked indescribably idiotic.
Everyone watching the screen was left dumbfounded.
All the complicated emotions built up until moments ago were completely washed away.
Someone this stupid was impossible to truly hate.
She had dragged her friends into gambling and buried herself in debt—
Yet everyone in the audience found themselves thinking the exact same thing.
What the hell are we supposed to do with her...?
Ziiip.
She cheerfully zipped up her suitcase.
Without even sitting down, she grabbed a pen and scribbled something onto a piece of paper.
Then she left the house.
A little later—
"Detective! Please find my child!"
"...Pardon?"
"She flew to Macau to get her money back!!!"
Boom cha-ja-jak cha! (Chiki chiki)
[I'm going to get my money back ♥ Keep it an absolute secret!!! I'll spoil you rotten, Mom!!!]
Keeping perfect time with the beat, Influ 1 walked onto the airplane.
She gazed happily out the window, bobbing her head.
"Hehehe. I'll fly First Class on the way back."
Influ 1's gambling-addicted expression.
Her bizarre immersion.
Her performance that made it seem as if her brain had melted and her life had completely fallen apart.
Every bit of it was absorbed into Noah Williams's music.
True B-grade only exists when it's perfected into S-grade.
Because of Han Yeoreum's incredible acting earlier, this situation became even more absurd.
The audience laughed while completely empathizing with Detective Yoon's frustration.
The third installment had been unusually heavy and extravagant.
The suffocating, chaotic atmosphere from the opening had been completely overturned.
The true essence of .
Its key...
Was in Han Yeoreum's hands.
Because she played the character who knew better than anyone how to make an entertainment film truly entertaining.
"AAAAAAAHHHH!"
It didn't take long before the two detectives boarded a flight to Macau.
Beep—
Lori-lori-ri—
"..."
"..."
Even after the plane lifted into the sky, Influ 1's background music never stopped.
Boom clap, boom clap, boom clap-clap boom clap....
* * *
With Airplane Mode turned on, Influ 1 browsed the internet.
—Police raid illegal gambling operation....
"Exactly. When everything's this chaotic, that's when you sneak in and swipe the cash. Once the cops storm the place, who's gonna be thinking about the money?"
Influ 1 actually had a plan.
Casinos sometimes used cash in emergencies.
She remembered customers casually throwing bundles of cash onto the tables because exchanging chips took too long.
Her plan was to steal the cash piled on the gaming tables while everyone was distracted by the raid....
"Even if I get caught, they promised they'd let me off... Haa... Okay. Gooood! No reason to lose confidence!"
Setting foot in Macau once again, Influ 1 rested inside her hotel room.
Her heart pounded.
"Once I get the money, I'll pay off my debt first... then my friends and I'll celebrate getting a second chance by buying friendship rings... Haa. I really should've gone shopping whenever I actually had money."
Maybe it was because they had just heard Noah Williams's theme for Influ 1.
Even without the music playing, the audience felt as if that low-IQ soundtrack was accompanying every word.
Not a single sentence sounded sane.
"Well... it's not like I'm gonna tell that boss the Korean police are coming after him. So it'll be fiiine!"
Influ 1 sprang energetically off the bed.
"Guess I'll check the escape route in advance!"
After returning to the casino, she confidently flashed her VIP card and entered the junket room.
No matter how high the stakes on the first floor were, they couldn't compare to this place.
If she was going to steal something, she had to steal enough to recover all the money she'd lost.
"Would you like to exchange your chips?"
"I-I need the restroom first!"
Heart pounding, Influ 1 walked all the way to the back of the junket room.
She locked herself inside the restroom and began checking possible escape routes, pushing at the ventilation grate and trying to open the window.
"Aw, crap... nothing opens."
Knock knock.
Someone knocked on the door.
"Ma'am? Is there anything I can help you with?"
The junket room wasn't crowded.
Since Influ 1 had been inside the restroom for quite a while without coming out, a staff member had grown suspicious and knocked.
"No, no, no, no, no! I just needed some tiiiime!!!"
Flustered, Influ 1 hurried out.
The employee smiled politely and spoke again.
"Come on. Stop being suspicious. Me VIP. Feel so offended."
Showing her card, Influ 1 aggressively snapped at the employee.
It was an unbelievably awful acting performance.
Even without seeing it, everyone knew cold sweat must have been pouring down her back.
"Is there a problem?"
A guard approached her.
Just then—
Far in the distance—
The elevator she'd only ridden before when heading to the boss room opened.
Chen Wei stepped out.
"Ah, no, no, no, no! I'm just... not feeling it today. I-I should get going."
The instant she saw him, Influ 1 spun around and tried to flee.
"Wait."
Too late.
Chen Wei had already called out to her.
Influ 1 glanced sideways, trying to assess the situation.
"KYAAAAAAAH!"
Then she bolted.
The guards immediately chased after her.
Her attempted escape ended almost instantly as they caught her and dragged her before Chen Wei.
"...?"
At his expression—which plainly demanded an explanation for whatever she had just done—Influ 1 avoided his eyes.
The casino boss the Korean police were desperately hunting.
An enormous criminal.
If she said the wrong thing here, the entire investigation could collapse.
"Right... I've done a lot of justice in my life..."
Influ 1 muttered quietly.
She resolved that no matter what happened, she would keep her mouth shut.
She was determined not to let the boss notice even the slightest hint of what was going on.
But the sudden spike in intelligence she'd shown during the interrogation had disappeared again.
It had practically been a one-time skill.
"I love you."
= I love you.
"I am... you first meeting, falling in love."
= I fell in love the first moment I saw you.
"Korea going... back to casino. Only you."
= The only reason I came back here after returning to Korea... was you.
The subtitles produced a miraculous translation.
Influ 1 had decided to use the honey trap again.
"Pretty..."
She even brushed her hair back with a determined expression.
If she suddenly confessed her love, surely he wouldn't suspect the Korean police investigation at all.
"Faster than I expected."
"...What's he saying?"
"This is more fun this way."
But Chen Wei already knew.
On the desk inside his boss room, beside the black panther statue, lay photographs of Detective Kwak and Detective Yoon, along with personal information and immigration records.
Turning his back on Influ 1, Chen Wei walked away.
Still restrained by the guards, Influ 1 was dragged off somewhere.
"Hey, why?! You don't like aggressive women? You were the one who gave me your card first! Aaagh! Let go of me! Just look at my face one more time! You'll change your mind! It's hard to find someone this cute!"
She had essentially gotten herself kidnapped overseas.
* * *
"I think it'd be best if you stayed out of sight for a while."
Chen Wei listened to his subordinate's advice with one ear and let it leave through the other.
As he strolled leisurely through the vast casino, a faint emotion showed on his face.
"Leave this behind?"
It was anticipation.
A magnificent hotel.
A paradise that looked as though Venice itself had been recreated.
"Or abandon all of this?"
This wasn't his only casino.
He had expanded by swallowing several others in the surrounding area.
Chen Wei looked down at the people riding the gondolas with a contented smile.
"Things are progressing faster than expected, aren't they?"
Chen Wei offered no reply.
His eyes remained fixed only on the clock tower standing beside the distant gondola dock.
He was waiting for them.
Detective Kwak and Detective Yoon had already become pieces on the gambling board.
Who would be the winner?
Closing his eyes, Chen Wei savored the pleasant tension that came before the game began.
* * *
"Yep. We made it, right?"
"Your phone's location is showing you're there."
"Haa...."
Influ 1's phone location pointed to the casino inside this hotel.
It was also the place she'd mentioned during questioning.
There was no doubt this was the headquarters.
With every step the two detectives took across the dazzling golden marble floor, upbeat music accompanied them.
Crystal chandeliers.
Massive golden statues.
Luxury stores lining the entrance.
And completely out of place among them—
Detective Kwak.
"Quit gawking like a country bumpkin. Stay focused."
"I'm not a country bumpkin."
Detective Yoon had become so irritated by gamblers that he looked ready to arrest every last one of them just to regain his peace of mind.
"Holy crap... I thought places like this only existed in movies."
"Those gambling bastards... riding gondolas..."
At this point, everyone here looked like a gambler through Detective Yoon's eyes.
Having completely developed gambling-phobia, he headed straight for the casino.
"..."
Behind them—
Chen Wei quietly followed at an unhurried pace.
To an outside observer, it almost looked as though he was the one stalking the detectives.
Chen Wei was the one making the rules.
As though he himself had become the starting point of this game of tag.
The hotel was crowded and noisy.
Keeping his distance, Chen Wei's covert surveillance went unnoticed.
"You take the first floor."
"The face from the composite sketch...."
Detective Kwak headed for the first floor.
Detective Yoon took the second.
They split up to search for Chen Wei.
"..."
Chen Wei watched them.
The way someone might quietly observe a toy.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
The two spoke over the phone while remaining apart.
Then—
"Sir?"
"Phone calls are prohibited inside the casino."
Guards blocked each of them.
From here onward, the familiar flavor of the previous installments returned.
The satisfying scenes of the heroes mowing through their opponents delivered exactly the catharsis audiences had been waiting for.
The camera movement.
The choreography.
The action itself.
Everything had leveled up from the earlier films.
"...Huh?"
"What is it?"
"Over there. Two o'clock."
Standing on the second floor, Detective Yoon spotted Chen Wei watching them from across the way, beyond Detective Kwak.
As if asking what had taken them so long, Chen Wei casually raised a hand and waved.
He truly looked like a man enjoying the gamble called being hunted.
"GET HIM!!!"
Detective Yoon exploded with rage at Chen Wei—
the root of everything,
the living curse behind "win it back after losing,"
the man responsible for it all.