Mr. No || NCT || Completed

Epilogue - Echo

"I haven't heard back from you for a while." The man on the other end of the call sounded bored. "Do you still have nothing to report back to me?"

The office was surprisingly well-decorated and tidy considering that it belonged to a triad member who owned an underground strip club and gambling den. The music of the club was barely audible although occasionally the booming bass made the paintings on the wall rattle against their frames.

Doctor An barely glanced at the phone while shuffling through the papers that were scattered across the desk. "I do, actually." The call was coming through the speaker so that she could use both hands to skim through the papers and, finally, she found what she had been searching for. "I have been laying low because I needed to keep an eye on the kid for the past months to make sure that he's the one you've been looking for."

She picked up a copy of Park Jisung's ID card. "It was difficult to find anything concrete because he has befriended people from the Zhong family and the Huang family and is under their protection but once my contact got his hands on the boy's wallet and sent me a copy of his ID, it was smooth sailing from there."

"How can you be certain that he's the correct guy?" the man on the other end of the call wasn't convinced.

Doctor An rolled her eyes.

"I'll send the information to you so you can read through it, if you wish, but I'm certain that it's him. The age matches and he appears to not have any living blood relatives – at least in Korea. When he was a kid, poachers kidnapped him and forced him to be their tracker for years but there was no one to report him missing. His ID was faked by the Huang family last year when he escaped the poachers." She looked at Park Jisung's ID picture. She knew that in real life he was just as timid and withdrawn as he appeared to be in the photo. He had stopped going to therapy after only a couple of months, making doctor An's work a lot harder than it needed to be. "You can doublecheck my intel but, let me tell you, you'll be only wasting your time if you do so. I'm certain that it's him."

The man on the call was quiet for a moment, considering her words. Finally, he clicked his tongue. "I believe you but send me the details anyway, and I'll look them over."

"Of course, sir. I'll send them to you." Doctor An placed the copy of the ID on top of the stack of papers. "I'm guessing that there's something else you need now that I've finally confirmed that he's the one we've been looking for. What do you want me to do next? Should I send someone to keep an eye on the boy or arrange meeting between him and you?"

"Where are you at the moment? Bangkok?"

"Taipei. I have connections with the Bamboo Union and came here when everything went down in Seoul." Doctor An sighed. "I don't think that I can go back to Korea for a while but I can work from here since the triad is keen on exchanging favors. So, what do you want me to do?"

"Get rid of the boy."

Doctor An leaned back, pursing her lips. She had been following the news about how the Yun family had gone down because of Mr. Yun's connections to multiple murders and other misdeeds that had resurfaced when Cha Kunwoo revealed the information he had been gathering silently for the past twelve years. Doctor An had been lucky to get out of Korea before everything came crashing down.

"Are you certain about that?" she asked. "With all due respect, sir, murdering a young boy in Seoul will get us in trouble if someone figures out that foul play was involved. Especially considering his pack and what they've been dealing with for the past year, it won't be an easy task. They are wary of everything."

"Then do it properly", the man replied immediately. "Don't half-ass it like the Yuns did. Get someone who can get rid of him discreetly without any connection to either of us."

Even after lingering around Park Jisung for almost a year, doctor An remained uncertain about the size of his pack as a whole, since none of the members she had met as a therapist had been willing to share much. What she did know, however, was that Park Jisung shared an apartment with multiple doublers who were ready to go to the end of the world for their own. Added to the unknown size of the pack and their loyalty towards one another, the fortune of the Zhong family, the influence of the Huang family and the annoying abilities of Song Chaewon made them almost untouchable. It would be a suicide mission to go after any of them without a proper plan.

After all, within one year, they had taken down a well-established group of poachers, dealt with Yun Jianfeng's power-hungry plans and found the cure to the injections.

"I must warn you that it's going to be very expensive", she told the client. "But I'll get to work if that's what you want."

"I don't care as long as the job gets done." The man didn't even bother asking for doctor An's evaluations about the possible costs. "I've heard good things about Echo. Get them on the case."

Dr. An was surprised that he had even heard about Echo. "I have some international syndicate connections so I would rather get in touch with them first. Based on my knowledge, arranging a meeting with Echo can be difficult and they are picky about the cases they take so it might be waste of time and effort."

The man wasn't bothered by her predictions. "Don't be naïve, doctor An. Everyone has a price." His tone made it clear that there was no room for second opinions. "Find a way to get in touch with Echo and order the assassination of Park Jisung."

The end of Mr. No

***
Author's note: I mean, isn't doctor An everyone's favorite character? As mentioned earlier, this epilogue serves as a sneak peek to the next installation of the series – Echo. Echo will be a bit different from Mr. No (hopefully). It might be a bit darker at some points but I'll try not to overdo it.

After publishing this epilogue, I'm going to set up the third book and you can read the first (short) chapter from there already today and stay tuned for the future episodes if the book seems like something you might be interested in. Hopefully you will like it! However, I'm going to be taking a bit of time off to finalize the outline and make some important decisions before jumping back into it.

As I said in my note for the last chapter, I really do appreciate all of you so much for reading Mr. No and giving me strength to keep going even when I'm going through hardships in my real life. There have been many dark days when your presence has given me a reason to smile. It has warmed my heart how readily you have loved Chaewon and the gang, guessed some of the plot twists, speculated the future and shared this journey with me and all of the characters. I definitely do not deserve all the kind words and thoughts you've been showering me with but, obviously, it boosts my ego so who am I to complain hehe. I love you all, my dear friends. Please stay safe, healthy and well! See you soon (in book three) :)