Precautions of a Snakepit - Chapter 21
Even the most skilled pickpockets, scammers, and magicians are equal in the face of technology. The general public can see nothing at 0.25x, but what’s the point where a skilled technician can play a video at 0.00625x? Of course, the CCTVs here don’t support that speed.
Generally speaking, live video frames on CCTVs are 30 frames per second (FPS) and recorded video is half that at 15 FPS. If it is a good CCTV, it will have 60 FPS live and 30 FPS recorded. A better camera will have 120 FPS live and 60 FPS recorded. These are the practical minimums for commercially available CCTV. Beyond that, most run into problems with network bandwidth, capacity, and latency.
If the CCTVs in this ward are top-of-the-line, Won’s actions will be recorded at 60 FPS, which means that one second is broken down into 60 frames. If Won’s hands move faster, theoretically the crime will not be captured on video. However, is that within human capabilities?
The reality is that even the lowest quality CCTVs are hard to fool. Even 15 FPS is 15 shots in one second. Can a human being move more than 15 seconds in a second? The answer is no.
There have been rumors of top-notch technicians beating CCTVs with their hands, but Won’s skills were not to that level. It is a realm reserved for a very select few; magicians who have spent their lives honing their skills as con artists.
Won had given up stealing the lighter. If she felt it was absolutely necessary, she would sneak into the nurses’ station at night when the snake was slithering around.
The nurse lit her cigarette in front of the smoking area and left. With a cigarette in her mouth, Won opened the door to the smoking room, trying not to cough.
Inside the room, which was about three or four square meters, there were a variety of people ranging from adults to middle-aged patients. There were seven people total, including Won, and the women to men ratio was 3:4. Of the two other women, one appeared to be in her 30s or 40s and the other in her 50s or 60s.
The four men were a mix of a kid in his late teens or early 20s, two in their 40s and 50s, and one in their 50s or 60s.
“Hello.”
“Wow, I don’t recognize you from around here. How long ago were you hospitalized? Were you always a smoker?”
Won greeted them, and the middle-aged woman was the first to warmly greet her. The stench of cigarette smoke in her throat made her feel like she was about to cry, but Won responded as if she didn’t care.
“Oh, I try not to smoke as much as I can, but I’m feeling a pull today.”
“I see. You know, I think quitting smoking and sobriety are the hardest things in the world.”
“That’s why Mrs. Gill can’t leave the hospital. She’s an alcoholic, and if she can’t smoke, she won’t know what to do with her hands.”
The other woman spoke with a hoarse voice. The middle-aged woman, called Mrs. Gill, stared at her with familiarity.
“If I could quit this so I could get out of here, I‘d quit a hundred times already. They won’t let me out anyway though, so I’ll keep doing this.”
“Well, don’t say that when we’re inhaling smoke together.”
“I’m not an addict like Mrs. Gill and Mr. Tae. You two are a total pain in the ass.”
“Hehe.”
The man who called himself Mr. Tae laughed in delight. They seemed to get along quite well despite their bickering.
‘Smoking pals.’
When people see each other in the smoking room often enough, it’s natural for them to get along. Listening to the conversation, it seemed that Mrs. Gill and Mr. Tae, in particular, were the two who frequented the room the most. It was likely they knew why Black Cat was called ‘Snake.’
“Miss, what are you smoking?”
A middle-aged man who had been puffing away suddenly asked. Won was taken aback, but she didn’t express it.
“I’m not sure. It isn’t what I usually smoke.”
“Oh, so your caregiver didn’t know better and just put something in for you, huh? Next time, just tell the nurse what to get you.”
Won was luckily able to improvise and get away with it.
‘I wasn’t careful.’
Won should have checked the product name. It was an elementary level mistake, especially when details matter. Her mistake almost undid all the work she put into practicing how to light a cigarette without looking like a non-smoker.
“I don’t know, but it looks kind of tasteless. I wouldn’t want to smoke something that doesn’t taste good.”
Another man, who looked to be in his 40s or 50s, commented.
Won vowed to improve her acting skills. It wasn’t the flavor that was bad, but the soreness in her throat.
Won wondered how she could bring up Black Cat’s story without it being awkward. If she asked outright, they might get suspicious.
‘Should I wait until I’ve been in and out of the smoking room a few times to build rapport?’
That’s the right way to do it, but her body was refusing to go back to the smoking room. She wanted to end it once in for all if it was possible.
“Your complexion looks bad. Is the cigarette that bad?”
A young woman asked. At that moment, a thought popped into Won’s head.
“Oh, no, it’s not that. I haven’t slept for a while and I’m getting tired. I had a strange dream…”
“Strange dreams?”
Mrs. Gill looked curious at Won’s story.
“I was chased by a big snake. I’ve heard rumors that there are snakes roaming the ward.”
“Oh.”
“It creeped me out even more because I don’t like snakes.”
Won didn’t have a particular love/hate relationship with snakes. She deliberately exaggerated it though and Mrs. Gill’s eyes sparkled.
“Well, there are a lot of stories about poisonous snakes in this hospital.”
“Really?”
“There’s some who went out when the snake was heard and got eaten right away. Then there is someone who claims to have seen the back of the snake. There’s also this guy, I can’t remember his name, but it’s about Grandpa Gugu, who says he went crazy because of the snake too…”
“If it’s Grandpa Gugu, is he the one who suddenly made those noises yesterday? It was said because of the snake?”
“I heard that somewhere, he was a doctor or something, too. When he was well, he must have been a smart guy, but he went crazy over snakes. When he was first hospitalized, he was just drawing snakes all over the place, but he got better with treatment.”
This wasn’t the story she heard from Ju-hee. She was told that Dr. Madison gave Old Man Gugu medicine that made him go crazy, whereas Mrs. Gill was claiming that Old Man Gugu had always been abnormal and treatment made him better.
‘Two opposite rumors about the same person.’
What could be true?
Won suppressed her curiosity as she lifted her head. The reason she was smoking cigarettes was because she needed to gather information for her mission, not to dig into the personal lives of people who have nothing to do with the operation.
Discussing the snake myth was a success. Now, how does she connect to Black Cat from here?
“Come to think of it, I know someone with a snake tattoo on his arm.”
“Oh, Mr. Rock? That man is a shoulder1 i checked this like 5000 times i’m pretty sure they actually mean shoulder here too fyi no matter how I think about it…”
Won tried to steer the conversation to Top Dog, but Mr. Tae interrupted.
“Shoulder? What do you mean by that?”
“That’s what they call thugs.”
The middle-aged man answered the young woman’s question.
“Miss, you know what? There is another snake.”
Mr. Tae said with a wry smile. Won knew in her gut that he was going to bring up Black Cat.
“There’s another one?”
“Yeah, there’s a nice-looking young man named Gyeom and he is the one who…”
“Why are you talking about useless things?”
Mrs. Gill interrupted Mr. Tae.
After flicking her cigarette into the corner of the ashtray, Won rubbed the filter part of the cigarette against her lips, feeling her mouth dry. She was almost done, but couldn’t let this opportunity be taken away like this.
“If you don’t tell me, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep today. I didn’t sleep well yesterday, so please help me have a goodnight’s sleep. Please?”
Pretending to be as pitiful as possible, Won gently grabbed the sleeve of Mrs. Gill’s dress. Mrs. Gill’s face morphed into a strange expression.
“You’re acting like my daughter.”
Looking back and forth between the sleeve and Won, Mrs. Gill looked vulnerable.
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you why Mr. Tae called the young man a snake… There are two of them.”
“Two of what?”
“He said there were two of them2 IT’S HIS PENIS HAHAHA , like snakes.”
Won’s expression showed she was confused. If that was true, it made sense that he was called a ‘Snake.’ A snake’s genitals are called hemipenis, and they are bifurcated, giving the appearance of two penises.
‘If that’s really why they refer to him as that, then I don’t think I need to be so vigilant… but is it real?’
Mrs. Gill looked at Won with a face of disbelief, shook her head from side to side.
“Filter that information out,” she whispered, “He’s old, his eyes are droopy, and he might be seeing things and saying things wrong. In fact, I don’t believe him either because I can’t even hear him right.”
“Hey, Mrs. Gill. If I’m old enough to be blind, aren’t you old enough to be blind?”
“I have better eyes than you, asshole.”
“Well, whatever you say, but I’m not mistaken. Medically speaking, it’s a real thing. It’s called diphallus, and the odds of being born with it are what, one in five million or one in 50 million?”
While they were in the middle of their argument, the door to the smoking room opened.
“Huh? Unnie, you were here?”
The newcomer was Ju-hee. At the same time, the young boy who hadn’t said a word until now spoke up for the first time.
“Fuck.”
i literally was cackling when i read that line abt black cat i had no idea what to make of it for a minute too
anyway: Kofi
Translator
