The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 114

There were times when I wished time would stop as I watched my younger sister, Yu-jin, being cute.

But time, always in a hurry, never waited or hesitated.

“You’ve gotten another year older.”

Even Yu-jin, who was playing in the frozen yard, seemed to have grown a lot.

Four-legged animals grow faster than humans.

The little Persimmon, who was born on a cold night and crawled around, was now waddling around the yard. She couldn’t run fast, but she could walk lightly.

“Kka-ha-ha-! Persimmon, try to catch Yu-jin!”

When Yu-jin, wearing a hat with earflaps, toddled around, Persimmon followed closely behind.

Yu-jin kept looking back to match her pace, worried that Persimmon might fall behind.

Watching them, Jin-hyuk was reminded of the Chaeheungbongtu race in the spring. [A traditional Korean race where participants carry a pole with a basket on their back.]

‘I also ran alongside Mi-kyung, worried she might fall.’

That was a very thrilling experience.

The way the tassel on her hat dangled and Persimmon’s ears fluttered looked strangely similar. Even though she was still weak and her four legs trembled, her tail wagged excitedly as if she was having fun.

When Persimmon shivered, Yu-jin quickly ran and hugged her tightly.

Most young children tend to squeeze puppies when they hug them, but Yu-jin carefully lifted Persimmon as if she was worried she might break her.

“Are you cold, our Persimmon?”

When she blew on her, Persimmon spun her tail like a propeller. She also didn’t forget to lick Yu-jin’s chin.

Just like Jang-gun was to Jin-hyuk, Persimmon became a friend to Yu-jin.

Jin-hyuk, who was chasing away the cold with warm citron tea and enjoying the peaceful scenery, stroked Jang-gun.

“Jang-gun, live a long life.”

Woof-!

He didn’t know what she was saying, but it seemed like she understood since she answered.

As everyone knows, dogs don’t live as long as humans.

‘How will I say goodbye to this one later?’

Even if she lives a full life, it’s hard to reach 15 years.

The difference between humans and dogs is undeniable. Jang-gun’s lifespan probably wouldn’t even reach 10 years. The thought of having to part ways someday made his heart heavy.

“Don’t go to dangerous places, don’t eat strange things, and don’t follow suspicious people.”

Woof-!

Jang-gun barked as if answering every time he said something. She was indeed a smart dog.

“Kka-ha-ha-! Persimmon, can you do this too?”

Yu-jin rolled around in the snow.

It seemed like she was reminded of the memories of playing with Bomi in Seoul, but Persimmon didn’t know how to roll yet. She did her part by running after Yu-jin and licking her face.

Jin-hyuk, who was smiling contentedly, turned his gaze back to Jang-gun.

“Live long, long, long while watching Persimmon grow up.”

Jin-hyuk was not a young child who would be amazed by life.

He wasn’t going to be sentimental because of hormones or the influence of puberty.

He just wanted to ask her.

“Life is a destiny when it’s born, but it takes a lot of effort to protect it. Life is something you have to protect under the name of family.”

Hea-heek-.

Looking over at death, which waits on the opposite side of life, is probably something only beings with both reason and emotion can do. It was a lingering feeling he didn’t have in his previous life when he had nothing more to lose, but it was a contemplation he naturally fell into as he watched Jang-gun, whom he had met again, give birth to her puppies.

Grrr- Woof! Woof woof!

Jang-gun, baring her sharp teeth, suddenly barked fiercely.

Jin-hyuk, who had been squatting, was startled and fell on his butt.

What the heck, I’m giving her well wishes for a long life, why is she acting up?

Did she mean to say that she’s an adult now after giving birth and to stop nagging her?

***

“Ah, I want to eat oysters…”

Han Yu-young muttered, looking at the dazzling snowfield through the kitchen window.

“I’ll go to the market and buy some for you.”

“No, it’s slippery out there.”

“I have to go out for a meeting anyway.”

Son Gwang-yeon, who had gone to the town, bought oysters, but Han Yu-young only tasted one and stopped using her chopsticks.

“Is it not good? I checked several times to make sure they were fresh…”

“I think my taste has changed. They’re fishy.”

Isn’t oyster supposed to be eaten for its fishy taste?

Jin-hyuk and Son Gwang-yeon also tasted them, but they tasted the same as usual. It even seemed better because it was winter.

Looking at Yu-jin, who was grabbing a handful and putting them in her mouth, it didn’t seem like the taste was strange. It must be that her stomach was weak because of the baby in her belly.

“Mom, is it because you want to eat the oysters from the sluice gate?”

“Uh-huh.”

Han Yu-young nodded with a gloomy face.

She looked like a child who was hurt because she didn’t receive a toy for Christmas.

What to do, there was no one in the house who could harvest oysters.

The oysters that Mom wanted were not the big ones that came up in a row when you pulled up the rope submerged in the water.

There were many rocks that only appeared at low tide near the drainage sluice gate, and the water was clean because there was no mud. Since it was low tide anyway, it wouldn’t be dangerous if you wore non-slip shoes. The problem was that it was difficult to harvest them if you weren’t an expert. The oysters sparsely attached to the large rocks were small and difficult to shuck.

‘I can’t move the whole rock, can I?’

And there was no oyster shucking tool called a josera in this house. [A josera is a traditional Korean oyster shucking tool.]

It was because of Dad’s nagging, who didn’t want Mom to do dangerous or unpleasant work.

He said that if you see a tool, you want to work. Jin-hyuk, who wanted to go to the water when he saw a fishing rod, could fully understand that.

“I’ll go to Mi-kyung’s house.”

There were many oyster shucking experts in the neighborhood.

It would be enough to call and check, but was it because of the influence of returning to the countryside? Jin-hyuk chose to visit in person when he had something to ask of an adult.

“Jang-gun, stay home.”

He dissuaded Jang-gun, who was trying to follow him while nursing Persimmon, and left the house.

He was touched by her concern for him even though she had her own puppy.

Thump thump-!

“Mi-kyung-!”

After knocking for a while, Choi Mi-kyung, the teenager, peeked her face out.

She had a towel on her head like a poop, so it seemed like she had just come out of the shower.

Choi Mi-kyung, the teenager, looked up for a while to find Jin-hyuk’s face, which had been at her eye level, and smiled shyly.

“Is your mother home?”

“Mom? She went to the sea with Dad because it’s a day when the water is low.”

The phrase “when the water is low” meant low tide.

Choi Mi-kyung, the teenager, would unknowingly mix in dialect like this.

In the winter when the water receded a lot, the country women would go to the sea to harvest oysters or seaweed, and the men would harvest laver to help with the household. Of course, families that were much better off went out to get winter delicacies.

“They should be back soon?”

“Can I buy some oysters?”

“She went because your mom wanted to eat sweet oysters.”

Ah, that’s what happened. Jin-hyuk became solemn for no reason.

It meant that Kim Soon-bok went to the sea on a cold day because of his mother.

The locals called the thumb-sized oysters that came from near the drainage sluice gate “sweet oysters.” It meant that they were less fishy and had a stronger sweet taste than the oysters bought at the market.

Choi Mi-kyung told Jin-hyuk about the conversation her parents had last night.

– “It seems like Jin-hyuk’s mom really wants sweet oysters. She looked like she was about to die? That young one even has a baby, how much would she miss the food her mom makes when she’s away?”

– “Well, since the water is low, you should shuck them for her. It’s not something anyone can do.”

– “Who else is there to take care of besides me? What’s the point of having a lot of money? There are things you can’t buy with money.”

It seemed like she had stopped by the house to check on his mother and heard her complaints.

Jin-hyuk’s head naturally bowed as he listened to Choi Mi-kyung’s story.

They were people he was so grateful for that it brought tears to his eyes.

“I’ll go home and get some money-.”

“No, no!”

Choi Mi-kyung quickly waved her hand.

“They’ll be back soon. Help me with my homework.”

This cute gangster was starting again.

Jin-hyuk did his best to make a lame excuse.

“We go to different schools-.”

Before Jin-hyuk could finish his sentence, one corner of Choi Mi-kyung, the teenager’s, mouth quirked up strangely. It was a smirk in response to his nonsense.

Well, what did it matter that they went to different schools when they were in the same grade?

“Ahem. Let’s see what kind of homework it is.”

It was Jin-hyuk’s defeat, who wasn’t used to making excuses.

He was old enough not to have to do assignments like exploration journals, so there wouldn’t be any strange homework.

***

Somewhere in Busan.

Jung Sang-tae discovered suspicious people.

He had come to find Park Dae-soon’s whereabouts, which he had identified using his connections, but the guys who had arrived first were looking around.

He had no choice but to greet them.

“Kkeueueu-, who are you?”

A huge man, whose neck was pressed against Jung Sang-tae’s knee, was sputtering.

Jung Sang-tae, who had suddenly appeared, pushed his head against the wall and tripped his legs, so he was easily pinned down. His eyes rolled in vain, but the other colleagues were already sprawled out, barely breathing.

Jung Sang-tae said in a low voice, as if breathing.

“I won’t ask twice. What are you doing here?”

“Some guy from Seoul came and told us to work on the guy who lives here when he shows up. I don’t know anything else.”

“Does your life end if you don’t know?”

He never thought he would use the words he learned from Jin-hyuk here.

He unintentionally let out a hollow laugh.

“From Seoul, who?”

Kkeok-.

It seemed like he had been pressing his neck for too long.

The big guy rolled his eyes and fainted.

He didn’t get an answer, but he didn’t care. It was obvious who was behind it, he had just asked to confirm.

Jung Sang-tae sat on the big guy and rummaged through the men’s belongings.

“They’re just local gangsters.”

He thought so based on their attire and physique. It was also a situation he had already learned.

He had encountered such people when he visited the last location.

Jung Sang-tae organized the events in his head.

‘Park Woo-jung ordered Park Dae-soon and then hired people to silence him. Park Dae-soon, feeling the danger, moved every six months. But no one lives at the moved address.’

Jung Sang-tae tapped his temple with his index finger.

Park Dae-soon’s judgment was so excellent that it was hard to see it as that of a rural villager. Whether Park Woo-jung’s order was successful or not, Park Dae-soon would have died. Judging by Dae-jung’s methods, his family would not have been safe either.

The gangsters had limited means, so they must have been planning to threaten Park Dae-soon by capturing his family. It seemed that Jung Sang-tae was unintentionally protecting Park Dae-soon’s family.

Well, there was no one to protect, though.

Knock knock-!

Jung Sang-tae knocked on the door of the shabby single-story house.

As expected, there was no response from inside, and no sign of anyone.

Comparing the bills in the mailbox and the power meter, it was a house that no one had lived in for more than four months.

‘Should I just end the mission?’

Or he had to think about stopping his activities for a while. The longer the activity, the more times he would be tracked, and it would inevitably reach Dae-jung’s ears. That was not desirable.

He had also heard something when he received the mission from Moon Seok-il, so he decided that it would be better to stop here.

– “It might be better not to find him for Jin-hyuk’s sake. I didn’t tell the vice president on purpose.”

He didn’t need to hear the reason. They were friends who had been together for a long time and could understand each other just by looking at their eyes.

Park Dae-soon was a pawn that was irrelevant to the present. Jung Sang-tae was interpreting it as Moon Seok-il’s intention to bury the past.

Anyway, Jin-hyuk didn’t suffer any damage. Jin-hyuk didn’t seem to want any harm either.

‘It would be better to step in when he asks me to find him again.’

He decided that now was the time to be careful because of the annoying guys.

The life of having to run away was a burden that Park Dae-soon had to bear anyway.

Jung Sang-tae made a “heave-ho” sound and got up, supporting himself on his knees.

“Let’s go home.”

It wasn’t bad to go on an outing like this sometimes while getting paid for business trips. Yesterday, he even ate pork and rice soup to commemorate his visit to Busan. He felt a small happiness with a bowl of pork and rice soup filled with chives and seasoning.

However, Jung Sang-tae, who had parents, a wife, and children in Tae-yang County, longed for the faces and voices of his family. It was a longing he had never known during his military service, when he was always busy with training and missions.

Family, they were beings that made his heart feel empty even if he was separated from them for a day or two after seeing them every day.

He put a ten thousand won bill in the gangsters’ wallets and threw it on the big guy’s back.

“Buy some red medicine and apply it. You’ll get scars on your ugly face.”

The big guy’s body, which was still lying face down, twitched.

He beat them up and then gave them medicine.

It was the exclamation of someone who was moved by his consideration.

***

Tut tut tut tut-!

Was there ever a day when the sound of a tiller was so welcome?

Jin-hyuk, who was lying on the living room floor with his childhood friend, solving math problems, jumped up.

Kim Soon-bok entered the house with a body full of cold air, even before the sound of the tiller stopped. She must have gotten off at the entrance of the yard and walked over first.

“Heek-.”

Choi Mi-kyung’s eyes widened endlessly as she looked into the basket.