The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 116

It was the same when catching loaches.

When Jin-hyuk took a shovel and stepped into the rice paddy, the neighbors would also appear, ambling over.

It’s not like I’m saying they were copying Jin-hyuk.

‘Am I a countryside influencer?’

You know how it is.

When someone is doing something, people show up and do similar things.

‘Or not.’

Seeing people crouching and picking greens in the distance, Jin-hyuk lowered his head awkwardly.

The two SSS [South Korean Secret Service] members were out with Dad, and one was probably watching over the house where Mom was, from the ‘mole house.’ Jin-hyuk called it a hobbit bunker, but the agents called it a mole house. Well, it probably meant a mole’s house. They would shadow Mom like a shadow if she came out while keeping watch. Since Moon Seok-il was assigned to Jin-hyuk, the SSS were focusing on the other family members.

One had driven out, saying a new family member was coming. It was a manager sent by Vice Chairman Hong Ki-joon, but it was probably someone Jin-hyuk had requested. Since it was an internal transfer within Se-in, Jin-hyuk didn’t bother trying to get information about the person. He was confident he could use whoever came appropriately.

The other four SSS members had naturally gone to their house in town to rest after work.

‘It would be nice if Uncle Moon-skill could help.’

Moon Seok-il was at the gym, not coming out, saying he was playing badminton with the village elders. Kang Heon-chang had gone on a business trip because Sung-chan’s father had called him to help with some work.

‘I wonder if Uncle Inven’s mother is okay.’

Kim In-rang had taken a leave of absence because his mother was ill.

He thought having more people would be helpful in many ways, but everyone had their own things to do, so he couldn’t force them to come and work.

“Ugh-”

Jin-hyuk stood up, stretched his back, and shook his numb legs.

Choi Mi-kyung’s hoeing was skillful, and her hand that grabbed the shepherd’s purse was as precise as a hunter’s. She lifted the shepherd’s purse with the soil so that the roots wouldn’t be damaged, and then tapped off the dirt. It was a skill that was hard to achieve with just a few tries.

Jin-hyuk’s mouth, agape in admiration, looked remarkably like Son Kwang-yeon and Han Yu-young.

“Mi-kyung is good at picking them.”

“It’s what I do around this time of year. Until March.”

Oh, I see.

Nodding, he examined Choi Mi-kyung’s attire.

She was wearing rubber-band pants, also called ‘work pants,’ a monochrome checkered shirt, a sun cap that didn’t fit the season, and a towel commemorating some random grandfather’s 70th birthday, covering her neck. She was the spitting image of a country woman.

‘Is that why I didn’t recognize her?’

A friend who would have picked greens with her mother, Kim Soon-bok, around this time every year.

She wasn’t a threat to Jin-hyuk’s family, so he hadn’t paid attention to her, and that’s why he hadn’t known all this time.

“They’re tastiest when they’re this small.”

While he was blankly watching his childhood friend hoeing, Choi Mi-kyung chirped.

It seemed she took after her mother too.

“If you do it all day, your knees, shoulders, and ankles ache. So, unless you’re going to sell them at the market, you only pick as much as you’ll eat.”

Even her way of speaking was like her mom’s.

But Jin-hyuk would have to pick until sunset, right?

He had to give some to the cook, not just Mom.

“When they get bigger, they’re good for selling, but the flavor gets weaker. They use the nutrients to grow.”

Ah, I see.

Even dog poop can be used as medicine, and even a thug learns how to fight. If there was something to learn from Choi Mi-kyung, it would be the ecology of wild greens.

“If you leave them longer, they get tough and lose their flavor.”

Her voice was not sharp but clear and pleasant to listen to.

With his friend’s chirping as music, Jin-hyuk resumed hoeing.

“It’s funny when you think about it. When you’re picking, it feels like you’ve picked everything you see, but when the butterflies fly around, they bloom white and say, ‘I’m here!’ It’s like they’re teasing you. You can’t even eat them then.”

It was a story that made you nod in agreement. Not just shepherd’s purse, but also cogon grass. The ones you couldn’t find when you were desperately looking for them would grow tough and show off their white flesh everywhere after May. As if to say, ‘Try and eat me if you dare.’

Jin-hyuk stopped hoeing and stared at his friend.

When had he seen that red lips of hers, constantly moving like a bird’s beak?

‘Ah, I saw her in Seoul.’

The image of the adult Choi Mi-kyung flashed through his mind.

The married Choi Mi-kyung would sometimes meet Jin-hyuk and talk as if she was venting. When they parted, she would apologize for talking too much, but her face looked too relieved to be someone who was apologizing.

‘By the way, is she going to marry that banker again this time?’

She had said that her brother, Choi Tae-yang, and her husband didn’t get along.

Choi Tae-yang thought the world of his younger sister, but her husband didn’t like meeting her family. Her parents, who lived in the countryside, understood that their children were working in Seoul, but Choi Tae-yang, who wanted to see his sister, didn’t understand.

‘Well, it’s her fate.’

Jin-hyuk wasn’t nosy enough to interfere in his friend’s marriage.

Even in his second life, it was the same.

Then, a different thought suddenly occurred to him.

‘She’s also my family, so can’t I nag her a little?’

If she gets mad and says she doesn’t want to hear it, I can stop then.

Perhaps bothered by the fact that the sound of his hoeing had stopped and Jin-hyuk was staring at her, Choi Mi-kyung sent him her signature provocative look and a chin tilt.

“What?”

“Who are you going to marry?”

Oh, you idiot. Asking out of the blue who she was going to marry.

No sooner had Jin-hyuk finished speaking than he bit his lip in dismay. He was so embarrassed that he squeezed his eyes shut.

Choi Mi-kyung let out a deep snort.

“Why? You want me to say it’s you? Don’t even think about it. Are you going to try to get past Soo-jung, that scary girl?”

Choi Mi-kyung was about to bring up the rumor that Son Jin-hyuk was impotent, but she stopped herself.

Her mother had told her that it was a false rumor spread by someone with bad intentions.

Choi Mi-kyung had also jumped up and down, asking which nasty woman had spread such a rumor. She had even defended the source of the rumor, saying it wasn’t intentional and that the words had just come out somehow.

“Mi-kyung, that’s not what I meant…”

“Shouldn’t you be asking about my ideal type?”

“Oh, right. Ideal type.”

Indeed, Choi Mi-kyung was a thug, but she was a smart teenager.

She also had the ability to correct a stray comment.

Choi Mi-kyung stopped hoeing and made a ‘huh’ sound. Her hollow expression resembled that of Grandpa Cheon Gil-ryong.

“Well? I don’t like nerdy guys.”

Shaking her head, Choi Mi-kyung grabbed the shepherd’s purse by the head again.

She said she didn’t like nerdy guys, but she married that pretty-boy banker.

Indeed, people can’t be judged by their words alone, and just because you’ve said something once doesn’t mean you’ll always stick to it.

“You’re a strange one, aren’t you? Asking about things like that.”

“Don’t marry a nerdy guy.”

“Ah, I won’t.”

Choi Mi-kyung grinned and shrugged her shoulders.

In the end, Jin-hyuk had nothing to nag about, so he shut his mouth. He didn’t even know how to nag, and how could a guy who had never been in a relationship coach someone else? It was absurd.

“You should rest a bit. If you stay in this position for too long, you won’t grow taller.”

“Okay, I’ll go home for a bit.”

He didn’t know who was worrying about whose height, but he decided to follow Choi Mi-kyung’s advice.

He was also thinking of taking Yu-jin, who had fallen asleep sprawled out with Hong-si, inside.

Like a country child, Yu-jin would fall asleep anywhere when she was sleepy. She was curled up asleep on the bank of the field, using it as a pillow and hugging Hong-si.

***

Min Yong-rak had fallen into a strange world.

When he got off the bus, a tall man wearing a farming hat appeared, took his suitcase out of the bus’s side luggage compartment, and opened the door of a luxury sedan, telling him to be careful getting in. It was the first time he had ever received such special treatment.

He patted him on the back, welcoming him to the family, and Min Yong-rak thought his intestines were going to come up his throat.

‘But why is this guy dressed like this? Does he carry a shovel in his trunk?’

He had heard that his workplace was in the countryside.

Still, this was a bit much…

‘Why am I picking shepherd’s purse?’

While awkwardly hoeing, Min Yong-rak recalled the time that had passed in a flash.

The accommodation called the ‘mole house’ was fancy.

All the walls except the entrance were covered in soil, which was said to provide excellent insulation. The interior was finished with wood and loess, and the subtle smell of wood and soil seemed to relax his body.

The cook was a man named Jang Jin-nam, who was happy to have someone to live with and welcomed him. He wasn’t a cook, but he had the physique of Hulk Hogan.

‘That thing looks similar to shepherd’s purse, but it’s not shepherd’s purse?’

Min Yong-rak’s pupils were vaguely unfocused as he pondered several questions at once.

The owner of this mansion was out, so he greeted the mistress first. The mistress wasn’t even showing, but she was deliberately sticking out her belly.

Min Yong-rak had seen his older sister take that posture when she was pregnant. It was probably a posture to make the baby comfortable. It would also be easier on her back.

‘They should have given me gloves. My hands are getting so dirty.’

The mistress gave him sikhye [a sweet Korean rice drink], saying she was looking forward to working with him. It was sweet and delicious.

Then, he was dragged out to the field by a student who he would be working with in the future.

‘No. This isn’t a field, it’s a field bank [the raised edge of a rice paddy].’

Shepherd’s purse grew here and there without a fixed place.

It was new knowledge he had gained as soon as he arrived.

She said the ones in the field were easier to pick, but Min Yong-rak insisted on the field bank. The ground in the field was soft, and the mud stuck to his shoes, quickly making his feet heavy. Still, the people were nice, and they didn’t force him to do anything, which was good.

“The ones picked in February are the tastiest.”

Her eyes and hair were pitch black, and she was quite a cute girl.

She kept chattering, and he felt like he was being brainwashed.

Still, her voice, which reminded him of his younger sister who went to a women’s university, was pleasant to listen to.

Min Yong-rak diligently picked shepherd’s purse as the girl had taught him.

The cook, Jang Jin-nam, also joined in with a small pickaxe-like tool, which he said was a tool used for digging clams. But even though the weather had warmed up, it was still winter, and he was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. Were they all monsters in this neighborhood? Oh, Jang Jin-nam had said he was from Seoul too.

‘Am I going to become a monster like that if I live here?’

Even while awkwardly hoeing, Min Yong-rak was watching everyone.

The girl was too cute, Jang Jin-nam’s muscles were disgusting, and Son Jin-hyuk was taciturn.

‘Is that guy the one I’m going to be working with?’

Vice Chairman Hong Ki-joon had clearly instructed him to do so.

To discuss it with the son, not the owner of the house.

When he first saw him, he thought he was one of the bodyguards because of his physique. But that wasn’t the case.

‘He’s the only one who’s not wearing a farming hat.’

My sharp observation skills can’t be fooled!

Even Jang Jin-nam wore a farming hat outside, but the fact that he didn’t meant he was special. Min Yong-rak had also put on a green farming hat as soon as he arrived.

Vice Chairman Hong Ki-joon had told him to gather the data he received by fax and ask for that guy’s opinion. He told him not to ask directly but to ask indirectly, but how was he supposed to do that?

‘Has the Vice Chairman gone crazy since becoming Vice Chairman?’

Wasn’t it the same as saying that the chaebols [large family-owned business conglomerates] were inhuman? Hong Ki-joon was definitely playing some strange game.

“Excuse me, Mi-kyung?”

“Yes? Hohoho-”

Choi Mi-kyung smiled so much that her eyes disappeared at Min Yong-rak’s call.

“Until when do we have to pick shepherd’s purse?”

“Until ‘haru jeomdeurak’.”

Jeomdeurak…

Germ de Rock, perhaps?

It was a word that seemed to be a combination of French and English. It meant bacteria attached to rocks. It meant that they had to work for so long that bacteria would live on the rocks.

But do they teach second foreign languages in middle school these days?

Min Yong-rak just nodded, thinking that was probably the case.

His knees hurt, but he didn’t have anything else to do.

“Yong-rak, you’re part of our family now, so try to adapt to life here. It’ll be more fun than life in Seoul.”

It was Jang Jin-nam, with a tone that didn’t match his size.

Even as he said that, his hands didn’t stop picking shepherd’s purse. It was more like he was harvesting them like a tractor than picking them.

Jang Jin-nam shook the dirt off his gloves and asked.

“How old are you, Yong-rak?”

“I’m twenty-six.”

“You’re young, you’re young. Have you been to the military?”

“I’m exempt.”

“Well, you got it sorted out anyway.” Jang Jin-nam nodded.

Min Yong-rak glanced at Jin-hyuk, who was silent.

His lips were clearly smiling, but he was too quiet.

‘He looked surprised when he first saw me.’

Was he mistaken?

Min Yong-rak hadn’t forgotten the moment when Son Jin-hyuk’s half-closed eyes had widened when he saw him. They had quickly closed again, but he couldn’t have missed that fleeting change.

‘He’s a mysterious person.’

Scratch, scratch.

Min Yong-rak unknowingly shuddered. Jin-hyuk’s appearance, smiling while wielding his hoe like he was at war with the shepherd’s purse, was strangely terrifying.

Then, Son Jin-hyuk, who had crawled closer, said quietly.

“Could you help me with something?”

Min Yong-rak wiped his nose with his dirty hand.

He was already helping by picking shepherd’s purse, so what else did he want him to help with?

Even if it wasn’t hoeing, he had come with the special mission to help Jin-hyuk anyway.

“What do you need help with?”

“How long would it take to do a full investigation of the passenger ship companies in Gunsan?”

It was out of the blue, but it wouldn’t take long.

He could complete the task right away by calling around and getting a fax.

“Please get me a list of the companies. There’s a place I need to find.”

Jin-hyuk’s eyes were serious, so Min Yong-rak nodded silently. He was still working on his first task, picking shepherd’s purse, but he had already received a second task. He had already gained his trust!

That’s what the Vice Chairman meant.

– “He’ll often say things that sound like gibberish. You might find out the reason later, but there will be more times when you never know. But still, try to bear with it.”

He said that if he succeeded in building trust, he would be promoted to assistant manager in the summer.

If he could get a special promotion, he could dig up even wild ginseng.