The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 172

***

Splash-!

It all happened so fast.

Accidents always occur unexpectedly, without any time to prepare.

The moment one of the kids gathered on the narrow gunwale to pull the rope lost their balance and fell into the murky sea, Son Yujin was confronted with a fear she had never felt before.

A tingling sensation ran from the back of her neck to her ears, down her cheeks to her jaw, and up to her forehead.

‘What do I do, what do I do?’

She had learned to swim from her older brother.

She had even mastered the butterfly stroke, but her brother had always told her to only use it for fun in a safe swimming pool.

– “When someone falls into the water, they grab at anything out of their survival instinct. The worse they are at swimming, the more they’ll do it. That’s why it can be dangerous for the person trying to save them. Yujin, you’re not strong enough to save anyone. So, if someone falls into the water, don’t go in. Instead, tie a rope or belt and throw it to them. Got it?”

Kim Hojin’s small boat, which was hardly worthy of being called a boat, didn’t have a rope.

Her kindergarten uniform didn’t have a belt either.

Kim Hojin leaned over and reached out his arm, but he couldn’t reach Lee Dongho, who was flailing in the water. If he leaned any further, Kim Hojin might fall in too, so he couldn’t do that either.

‘Ah, Brother. Brother-.’

Is it instinct to seek out the strongest person when in trouble?

She desperately looked for her brother, who she didn’t know when he would return from Seoul, but her brother didn’t appear out of thin air.

She was so desperate that she felt like she needed to pee.

However, on the verge of tears, Son Yujin calmly recalled what her brother had said.

– “Most importantly, before you act, ask for help from those around you first.”

Who could be there, who could help?

In this remote seaside village.

She frantically looked around and saw a reliable figure looking at her anxiously. As if waiting for Son Yujin’s command.

“Janggun-”

Her voice wouldn’t come out, exhausted from her frantic state.

But Son Yujin knew. Now was the time for her to be strong.

Lee Dongho had fallen into the water, and Kim Hojin was struggling to grab him.

Huh-.

She took a breath, but it felt different than usual.

Her lower abdomen heated up, and an unknown force quickly surged up to her throat.

“Janggunaaaa!”

Kkyaaaaaaaa-.

To her friends, it just sounded like a scream.

The invisible energy wave cut through the water, shook the forest, and then climbed up the hill.

In that brief moment, a faint memory surfaced.

It must have been the day her brother fought the wild boar. When she woke up from her nap and couldn’t find her brother, she had cried while calling for him like this.

Swish- Splash-!

Janggun, who had cut through the water with his short legs, jumped into the sea as if he had been waiting.

Janggun hated water so much, but when Son Yujin called him, he didn’t order his subordinates but went himself.

Grrr-. Krr-.

Following their brave leader, Hongsi, Cheonma, and Gwangma also jumped in.

“Janggun! Hurry!”

She didn’t know how long Lee Dongho had been struggling in the water because she didn’t have a watch. The rescue happened in an even shorter time, but it still felt long.

Her vision narrowed, and she focused only on what she had to do.

“Kim Hojin! Pull the rope!”

At Son Yujin’s firm words, Kim Hojin pulled the rope.

They had to get to the shore together to take further action. Whether to call an adult or carry him to the village.

As her thoughts cleared, her vision seemed to return.

Son Yujin pulled the rope with them and checked on Lee Dongho’s condition.

Lee Dongho lay still, moving to the shore as the dogs led him. Hongsi swam while pushing Lee Dongho’s head up so it wouldn’t go underwater, and Cheonma and Gwangma supported his shoulders to keep his body from tilting. Son Yujin’s heart sank at his pale face, but there was nothing she could do but trust the dogs.

Woof woof!

But why is Janggun riding on top of Lee Dongho…?

He was in a riding position and barking forward, it seemed like he had misunderstood the command.

‘Ah, this is bad. I don’t have much strength without my brother.’

She hadn’t built up her strength because she had been staying with Jeongwon to avoid disturbing her brother, who was training for the national competition. It was also uncertain whether she could save Lee Dongho with that dark power.

Her jaw tingled from her anxiety.

Son Yujin clenched her teeth, trying not to be consumed by fear.

Huh-huh-!

When they reached the shore after pulling the rope with difficulty, Kim Hojin, who had gotten off the boat first, was panting.

“Ugh, I’m gonna die-”

“Hey! Kim Hojin! Don’t be so dramatic!”

They say your mouth is your downfall, why would he say he’s dying at a time like this!

Kim Hojin froze at her shout.

It was a natural reaction from a clueless kid.

Their always smiling and kind leader, Son Yujin, had changed her tone and suddenly become scary. Ah, but why was she glaring at him like she was going to eat him just because he said he was tired?

Son Yujin ignored Kim Hojin, who was slowly avoiding her gaze, and pondered what to do next.

‘What was I supposed to do?’

Ah, she shouldn’t have been distracted when her brother was teaching her.

She was frustrated because her heart was racing from shock and fear, but her head couldn’t keep up.

– “You have to ask for help. You must specify someone. Like, ‘Hey, you, the girl in the yellow shirt, please call 911!’ If you ask an unspecified group, they might hesitate and pass the buck.”

Fortunately, there was no one here with the name ‘unspecified group’.

“Kim Hojin! Call an adult!”

“Wha? Wha?”

“An adult!”

Uhh-uhh-.

Even though he was flustered, Kim Hojin turned towards his house. He had already been scolded by Son Yujin once, so it seemed better to do as he was told.

‘Brother, what did you say to do next?’

The time she spent playing or studying with her brother was mostly enjoyable, but when he nagged her to brush her teeth or wash up, she would run away with quick feet. Well, her brother was much faster, so she always got caught.

Every time he caught her, her brother would tickle her, which was so fun that Son Yujin did it every day without fail.

Even when they were doing safety training, Son Yujin would doze off and get scolded by her brother. Anyway, she regretted not listening properly.

– “Yujin, look closely. Here, this hard part is the center of the rib cage, called the sternum. This is called CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation. You press down with your weight until the ribs are compressed. Press about twice a second…”

She was still flustered, but the CPR her brother had demonstrated flowed through her mind like a video. Son Yujin had also practiced on Azzi Bear until she was sweating and got praised by her brother.

That’s why Azzi Bear’s side ripped again.

Ah, that’s not it. Son Yujin shook her head firmly.

“Lift the chin with your fingers-”

She brought her index and middle fingers together to lift Lee Dongho’s chin.

Her brother called this securing the airway, but Son Yujin just thought that securing an airway wasn’t just something you did at church.

“Now, the mwah-mwah-”

She had to press down hard with her weight.

“Oh my, this is hard. What are you doing, friend…?”

“Stay still!”

Son Yujin shouted once more and focused on what she was doing.

Even though Son Yujin was bigger and heavier than her friends, it seemed better to stand up and bend over to put her weight on him.

Huh- She calmed her trembling heart with a deep breath and focused her strength, recalling the treatment her brother had taught her.

“Twice a second! Thirty times! Hup!”

“Agh! It hurts! Don’t do it!”

This time, Lee Dongho shouted.

The ultrasound that echoed in the quiet countryside shook the ownerless forest by the water.

Huh?

Son Yujin’s big eyes trembled.

Kim Hojin, who had met Cheon Gillyong and returned immediately, couldn’t hide his bewilderment. He clicked his tongue.

“Well, well. Lee Dongho says it hurts, so Son Yujin should stop. You can fall into the water when you live, and kids grow up like that. That, what was it. Why are you doing that like he did something that deserves that…”

Son Yujin blinked her big eyes three times.

“Lee Dongho is alive?”

Our friend, when did I die? Lee Dongho’s face seemed to say.

Lee Dongho, who had been lying straight, only tilted his head and looked at Son Yujin. With a sigh, as if he had never seen such a bewildered friend in his seven years of life.

“No matter how I look at it, it’s too much. You were about to crush him…”

She didn’t hit him with a rock, but her posture was perfect. Kim Hojin trailed off, hiding behind Cheon Gillyong, afraid that Son Yujin would shout again.

“Ah-?”

Son Yujin’s head tilted to the side like Janggun’s as she looked back and forth between Lee Dongho and Kim Hojin.

After blinking her eyes a few times with a blank expression, she remembered the educational content she hadn’t remembered.

– “You have to keep checking the condition of the drowning person.”

She was so flustered that her vision was dark and narrow, so she couldn’t check. Or maybe it was because her tears were blocking her vision.

– “You only do it to people who don’t have a pulse or aren’t breathing. Even if they seem unconscious, you have to check. Tap their shoulder and say, ‘Hello? Wake up. Are you okay?'”

Her brother had definitely shaken Azzi Bear gently and said those words.

But when she actually experienced it, she was so out of it, how could she check on someone else’s condition? Son Yujin was still just blinking, her body remaining still except for her eyelids.

– “‘I’m Son Yujin, I’ve had first aid training! Can I help you?’ You have to ask for consent clearly. If there’s no response, then you do it. Got it?”

Even the procedure of asking for consent to check consciousness, how can I remember all that at the age of seven? Ah, now that I remember it, I guess I do remember it?

Sigh-.

Finally, Son Yujin, who had broken out of her frozen state, took off her hat and scratched the back of her head. She twitched her nose, embarrassed.

Perhaps emboldened by Son Yujin’s somewhat dejected appearance, Kim Hojin spoke the words he hadn’t finished.

“Well, the kid said he was tired and wanted to lie down…”

She was just about to catch the kid. Kim Hojin avoided Son Yujin’s gaze but still said everything he wanted to say.

***

“Changrim, you rascal, if you spout nonsense again, this old man will test if my exorcism works on a grim reaper.”

Saaa-.

A prominent bamboo tree shook heavily.

“What a load of crap. Whether you lived or died a thousand years ago, you’re just a minor ghost here.”

Heh heh heh-.

The old man’s chuckling, pleased with himself, covered the hill like a carpet.

“What kind of evil spirit is that? If an evil spirit breaks because of a child’s shout, then it’s not an evil spirit. Heh heh heh-.”

Saaa-.

The grim reaper named Changrim was wronged but couldn’t argue further.

He had made a claim with the pride of a grim reaper, but the evil spirit, which was the evidence, had scattered into pieces at Son Yujin’s shout. Since the spirit jade was broken, it meant complete annihilation.

“A child’s voice does attract evil spirits.”

The ghost of a mother who lost her baby, the ghost of a baby thief, come to the sound of laughter.

The tiger ghost and rooster ghost are drawn to the sound of crying.

All sorts of minor ghosts gather.

It was said that the saying that bad luck would befall a house if a baby cried for too long came from that. The mother’s desperation to soothe a crying baby was an emotion that combined affection with ignorance and fear of the supernatural. In the old days, most mothers would have experienced the chilling feeling in the back of their necks when they heard footsteps outside their empty house late at night while trying to soothe a crying baby.

“That all depends on the child and the family. There’s no such thing as a rule.”

Saa-.

Changrim shook the bamboo once to show his agreement.

Grim reapers are basically competitive, and he wanted to argue, but Cheon Gillyong’s words were right. Evil spirits don’t gather around people born with yang energy, they run away.

Not only that.

He also had to be careful because he didn’t know when the old man would change his mind and cut down the bamboo. A junior grim reaper named Cheokmyeong, who had been rude to Cheon Gillyong, had become a mudskipper fishing rod last fall.

It was so amazing that it became a famous tool that could catch fish just by putting it in the water. The tip of the rod would shake when a fish was caught, and the body would bend like a bow. It was also great to handle, and Cheon Gillyong loved it dearly. He had thrown away the mugwort cane he had inherited from his brother and was using the fishing rod like a bamboo cane.

“Bad luck is also luck. No matter how dirty the bad luck is, luck changes every moment. What you have, who you’re with, and the time of the sun and moon are also important. But, above all, your natural talent is the most important.”

What’s more important than luck is intelligence. The ability to calculate and deal with things calmly.

As far as Cheon Gillyong knew, Son Yujin possessed both boldness and calmness that were not appropriate for her age. The whole neighborhood knew that she was smart.

Moreover, she had four intelligent dogs by her side.

“Even if you want to die, you can’t…”

***

Lee Dongho, shaking the salt off his clothes that had quickly dried in the sun and warm breeze, looked like he was about to cry.

“What do I do? My clothes are dirty.”

Lee Dongho, the person involved in the shocking incident, seemed to have shed his babyish ways and no longer used the kindergarten teacher’s tone. Just like Son Yujin, who had abandoned her kindness and shouted.

“It’s Sunday, but Son Yujin told me to wear my uniform. Lee Dongho’s bag is wet too.”

“Kindergarteners wear uniforms. Uh-, and carry bags… That’s what the teacher said…”

Son Yujin mumbled with a blank look.

She said that wearing yellow clothes made it easier to spot them from afar, and even if they got lost, it would be easier for adults to find them. That’s why Son Yujin forced her friends to wear uniforms or yellow clothes when they came to play. For safety.

“But I survived because of my bag. It floated in the water.”

Even while swallowing the salty water, Lee Dongho realized that there was something pulling him up from above.

The kindergarten bag he was carrying on his shoulder acted as a buoyancy aid, holding his armpits and preventing him from sinking. Lee Dongho was able to hold onto the strap and lift his head to breathe. While he was holding on, Hongsi supported him from underwater.

“We have a washing machine and a spin dryer at my house. You can take a bath at home too. Let’s go.”

The kids, who had been shocked by the earth-shattering incident, quickly regained their composure.

They bickered and giggled as they moved to Kim Hojin’s house.

“Kim Hojin, see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah-, go on-”

After waving goodbye in front of Kim Hojin’s house, Lee Dongho giggled as if he had never been scared as they headed towards Son Yujin’s house.

“Hehehe-. I survived thanks to Son Yujin.”

Lee Dongho vowed to wear his kindergarten uniform and bag wherever he went in the future.

“My toys are fine too. I’ll show them off to my brothers-”

“Hey, wait!”

Son Yujin, who was walking along the bus route under the protection of four dogs, stopped Lee Dongho.

“Why?”

“Uh…?”

Son Yujin slowly narrowed her eyes and stretched her head forward like a turtle.

It was because she had spotted a giant walking confidently towards her, facing the sun head-on.

Finally, she was sure who was coming to meet her, and her eyes widened.

“Brother…”

She moved her lips once.

A lingering feeling deeper than longing was evident.

“Brother! It’s our brother! It’s our brotherrrrrr-! Brotherrrrr-!”

Behind Son Yujin, who was running like the wind with a smile, tears she hadn’t shed yet flew.

“Waaaaa-! Brotherrrrr-.”

The giant, who had knelt on the ground, opened his arms wide with a bright smile.

In the midst of the commotion of a common brother and sister reunion, even Janggun didn’t overtake Son Yujin at that moment.