(The following case file is abridged and had been recovered from Hwanung Industries’ database duplicate in Sangwon Oh’s encrypted laptop.)

HWANUNG INDUSTRIES

CASE # 001264 (“MAGNOLIA AFFAIR”)

CODE:  WHITE

ACTIVE YEARS:  1982—today

PRIMARY CLIENT/S: 

Lu neé Chang Zhen Long (†)

Lu Han

Lu Jian

Chang Xiao Long (†)

Chang Mei Long

Chang Shin Dong (†)

Chang Tzay Pyng

CASE SPR-INTDT:  AGNT 0001

CLIENT-SPECIFIC DIRECTIVE/S: special protection for Lu Han custody of #0094

CASE SUMMARY: 

(03/15/1982)

Primary client Chang Zhen Long approached # 0001 at 03/15/1982; rendezvous is clean. Request for firm’s services is granted by # 0001, under code RED operating priority. Case charges $ 0 for consultancy fee; $ 0 for operating fees; a separate bank account was opened by client to finance the labor fees and supplies. Initial balance of the account is $ 12 million dollars, to last until the end of operation.

Client refused to disclose the identity of her “attackers” due to personal reasons. Client had been arranged to marry a major member of the particular family against her presently. Client’s father Chang Shin Dong had apparently dealt with a member of the attackers’ family in order to start his business, and this deal is “his way of paying them back.” However, Chang Shin Dong had nothing against client’s refusal. Two days after the letter of refusal was sent, an anonymous package was sent to the client. Only the client knows about the package.

An unmarked Polaroid photograph was enclosed in a manila envelope. The image of the matchmaker, who had determined if the match was suitable astrologically regarding Chinese tradition, shot point-blank by a Smith & Wesson .9mm, was on the photograph. A single magnolia flower, (magnolia grandiflora), was inserted in the entry wound. Client identifies the killers to be the same family she had refused to marry into because “their last name means ‘magnolia.’”

The rest of the file will refer to the adversary party as “MAGNOLIAS” for convenience.

Private ballistics and forensics examinations found no fingerprints, no signs of struggle, and no traces at all on the body. The client consulted # 0001 three days after the package was sent. Code RED directives will be carried out.

(04/12/1982)

Junior high classmate and once-close friend Ouyang Xourong allegedly committs suicide; death resulting from asphyxiation and internal hemorrhage due hanging herself from the staircase railing of her two-storey house. Ouyang Xuorong grips a magnolia tree branch in her right hand, with two blossoms, in rigor mortis.

Private forensics found a bruise on her head (right side, pre-frontal) whose force would knock her out. There had not been much discoloration to show that she awoke from the blow and had time to hang herself.

(05/12/1982)

An attack on client’s business school Management professor Wu Lang was intercepted, due to a sniper spotting on a nearby high-rise condominium building by Hwanung agents on post for primary client. Backup agent disabled the Magnolia Sniper, but upon cornering, the agent shot herself point-blank in the right temple.

(06/12/1982)

Senior executive Michael Zimmer at the Chang Group’s London branch is on the evening news, dead on his office carpet with an apparent heart attack. He has a spray of three magnolias in his hand. In the dregs of his coffee was a white substance, but information is not disclosed with media and authorities.

(07/12/1982)

Client’s sister Chang Mei Long’s Microbiology classmate Fong Yet Lan was found dead in her usual seat in the lecture hall, with a slit throat and four magnolia blossoms in . There were no witnesses.

(03/12/1998)

Client’s sister Chang Xiao Long was found dead at the bank of Yangtze River, clutching a branch of a flowering magnolia tree with 84. On 03/14/2001, #0144 and #0025 are found near the shore, shot in the head with a Colt .45 pistol, with magnolias in the head wound. Medical examiner stated that the cause of death was drowning. Rumors about an accidental drowning are widespread. Chang Xiao Long was a varsity swimmer.

Client affirms upgrade to Code WHITE. Additional preventive measures are placed according to ff. directives:

(07/12/1999)

A bomb directed towards Lu Jian was intercepted. An improvised explosive device was found inside a mail parcel, a cellphone connected to varying high-damage explosives to be triggered by a phone call. Estimated damage distance was about 35 kilometers. In the parcel was 95 magnolia flowers.

(01/12/2000)

Chang Shin Dong, client’s father, was murdered inside the temple of the Chang ancestors along with four agents assigned to trail him. Precisely 102 entry wounds are found among the five corpses, with a single magnolia flower inserted in each of the bullet wounds. Client refused offer of contact to perpetrators and suggested relocation of close associates.

(The case was closed 1 year after the last entry.)

 Sam Oh, neé Sangwon Oh, sat in his office at home in Los Angeles, California, his slim fingers intertwined with each other like the long legs of a spider. He is similarly long in a chair, his lean limbs sticking out, the glasses on his face glinting in his laptop’s light, much like cold, artificial sunshine on unblinking, almost insect-like eyes. He stared at his son’s picture on the screen, beside the file of what may be his riskiest, most delicate operation—the Magnolia Affair.

After three days of bitter caffeine, useless information, and demands from other, more insignificant cases, Sam was tired. His boyish face, which usually had a youthful quality that reduced his apparent age from mid-40’s to mid-20’s, was drawn out with somber, sharp lines;  he had never looked so much like Sehun, his Flatline Seth. He was worried about the operation as a whole because there were so many damn unknowns—it was like walking in a dark room with a big stick trying to out which ones are the bad guys, and trying to hit them without injuring anybody else.

Now, Hwanung Industries had been exceptionally skilled in feeling out the goats between the lambs for the past twenty years since Sam established the firm, but this one was a particularly delicate case because there weren’t supposed to be too many hands sticking out to get somebody. There was only a small circle of insiders that know about the whole of the Magnolia Affair, and Sam could easily count them with one hand.

What is to like about this whole goddamn operation? One, he doesn’t even know who exactly he’s up againt, who he’s trying to protect the Lu’s from. None of them do. Perhaps the secret died when the original client, Chang Zhen Long, or Pearl Chang—ah, she was unmarried back then, was she? mused Sam—did. Second, the people they were up against, the people he and Pearl had dubbed the Magnolias, are capable of ruthless, untraceable killing. They were fearless, leaving little signs and explicit corpse puppets to get across some sick message, but they were never caught.

Third and lastly, this case was not a professional case for Sam anymore. It was a grudge match. Here was a group of people—at least, he inferred they were a group—that could beat Sam in what he does best—there isn’t exactly a term for it, although he likened it to a good blend of espionage and underground combat. He called it “covert defense.” Some people call it James Bond-ing.

Sam hated losing. No matter how non-confrontational he looks, with his cheery, youthful face and a seemingly laidback attitude, he hated losing. Pearl’s death, along with others on the way, too, was a personal insult to his abilities. He held a deep, emotional and psychological hatred against these people. No, not even people. Those bastards. He thought that with Pearl’s murder ten years back, he would just have to swallow his first bitter, crushing defeat—but then, would it be to luck or misfortune?

The Magnolia bastards are back.

They may have won the battle, but they sure as hell haven’t won the war. Not yet. Not just yet. I’m going to go down swinging, just watch me, you ing creeps, he seethed. Just you better goddamn watch me. He didn’t notice that the skin just above his knuckles were cut with small, red moonlets from his fingernails until the sting brought him out of his fury.       

It started out simply as a kind of customized bodyguard service to Pearl Chang, who was, at the time, the fiancée of Lu Jian and future mother of Lu Han. Sam could still remember that day, so eerily clear it sometimes haunts him, although he can’t remember the exact date without having to look it up at Hwanung records. It were the little details that were strikingly vivid.

Pearl had insisted they talk in a booth at one of those trendy chain cafés that were always bustling with people, regardless if you get coffee at 3 PM or 3 AM. She was an extremely intelligent woman, and although she was the eldest daughter of one of the richest restaurateurs and chinoserie owners in China, she proved, time and again, that she was competent enough to inherit the family company, regardless of gender. She reasoned that it was safest to meet at 12 noon, in the middle of this gaggle of human creatures, because she couldn’t get attacked while there is a crowd for a witness, and nobody of the unwanted elements could overhear their conversation due to the chatter of the people.

This meant three things to Sam, who was, back then, still Sangwon—Pearl knew she was in danger, somewhere she could get physically attacked; she knew that whoever she’s up against can spy on her; and she has thought about her predicament for some time.

Sangwon remembered he had a café au lait. He also remembered that Pearl came in the café wearing a powder-blue blouse, a knee-length skirt, and a demure blazer. She looked like a schoolgirl, one that’s about to tell on a schoolyard bully but was deathly scared that he might find out that she was ratting on him. Her Mary Janes glimmered anxiously in the bright, Shanghai sunshine, just like her own wide eyes. She looked remarkably like little Luhan, and had he been born to the same parents as her, Luhan might’ve been her brother. Or even twin.

‘Sangwon,’ she had said. ‘I need your help.’

Pearl wasn’t typically like that—she was the type to inquire about how your great-grandmother back in Busan’s doing, if she could get you anything. Jook Dei—or Jade, Anglicized names were hip in Asia in the 80’s—Sangwon’s fiancée at the time and Pearl’s best friend since probably their past lives, was more the type to say what’s on her mind without bothering to put some padding on the blow.

Sangwon had gotten the idea that Pearl knew more than she let on, but still, he had kept up with his ruse of a common lawyer, one of those run-of-the-mill office boys whose parts that only get exercise for most of their lives were their asses and their fingers. ‘Why, anybody accuse you of tax evasion or something?’

‘Let’s not play games, Spider.’

Sam remembered this the clearest. She spoke softly, but her eyes were firm, yet desperate, like an innocent man on his way to the gallows, with letters to his loved ones in his hand. Insistent. Condemned. Ready to throw whatever he could at you just to make you listen to what may be his last words. It was unsettling to see that kind of expression on her, Pearl Chang, darling of Shanghai papers, sympathetic to the poor, your perfect little angel, crowned with a halo as she attended posh dinner parties thrown by her Baba for the needy.

And now, she was consulting Sangwon Oh, your go-to guy when you needed an invisible barrier against stalkers, psychopathic ex-spouses, hired killers, paparazzi… ah, “unwanted elements,” as Pearl had dubbed it. Covert defense specialist, along with a couple hundred others, 100% effective in protecting anything and everything you hold dear:  reputation, property, ego, money. Hwanung wasn’t the kind of firm that operated with a moral code.

‘Ah, I didn’t figure you guys would be sued by the IRA anytime soon, anyway,’ said Sam, then Sangwon. ‘Did you consider going to the police? I’m sort of a… last resort, you know.’

Pearl gazed at him levelly. Her voice was even, soft, and looking back, Sam thought that she talked