The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 4

After returning to the past, Jinhyuk heard the murmuring of the figures behind the scenes in his dreams every night. Someone behind the scenes had spoken to Jinhyuk. He didn’t know when or where it was. But at this moment, there was a phrase he remembered clearly.

【You’ve worked hard. I’ll send you back. If you do well, you might be able to save three lives from death. I hope you have a happy life…】

That was what he had said.

He wondered if he was sent back as compensation for a life that was just sad and lonely without any special opportunities, but dwelling on the question wouldn’t solve anything. More importantly, there was a more pressing issue now.

‘Three people, death.’

With a rough scrape, Jinhyuk pushed back his chair and jumped up, rushing to the back of the classroom to check the calendar. He compared the dates with his small hands, searching his memories. The earlier the memory, the further it was, but now it was no longer a blurry recollection.

‘It’s today?’

It really was today. The day Jinhyuk’s parents had died in his previous life. That was why, near the end of summer vacation next year, he was led by his mother’s half-sister, his aunt, to transfer to the town school. Without even saying goodbye to his friends at this small rural school.

‘I have to save Mom and Dad first!’

He didn’t know who the other life was yet. But this much was clear.

Two of the three were Jinhyuk’s parents. His parents were going to die today. No, they had died. Today, they must not die. What could a child who knew that do?

Jinhyuk’s brain started working as fast as it had in his previous life.

The fragmented pieces of Jinhyuk’s soul settled perfectly into his nine-year-old body.

That was how much his parents’ existence had influenced Jinhyuk’s life.

***

A mountain of soybeans was piled up in the yard of the house.

Jinhyuk’s parents, Son Gwangyeon and Han Yooyoung, were threshing soybeans in the yard. It was one of the usual farming tasks at the end of October. They used a thresher to shake the dried soybean stalks and a winnowing machine to blow away the soybean pods and dust.

“It’s amazing how someone who only studied in Seoul knows so much about farming,” Jinhyuk’s mother, Han Yooyoung, said with a smile as she stirred the soybeans with her hand. The blue tarp spread on the dirt floor was old, with threads coming loose in places, but Han Yooyoung’s heart was joyful. Why wouldn’t it be? Just a month ago, a broker had offered to buy the entire field at a higher price, saying that soybean prices were twice as high as last year.

Yet, her husband, Son Gwangyeon, had refused the broker’s offer and decided to sell them directly in town. He had found out that he could get three times the price if he sold directly to the wholesalers in town. So, Han Yooyoung couldn’t help but feel good.

“Haha. I don’t know much. I just decide on the crops based on the situation at the time.”

Son Gwangyeon was well-informed about the world and knew how to make money, so his assets, which had been just a bundle of clothes, had grown remarkably in ten years.

Their living conditions had improved, but Son Gwangyeon bought land whenever he had money.

Dunaeri was a village created by reclaiming land from the sea through a large-scale project. Due to the salt content, rice farming had been difficult for over ten years, with no hope of a good harvest, let alone a bumper crop. The only crops that could be planted were peanuts and sweet potatoes. Even those crops were poor, and it was a good thing if they didn’t starve.

So, even people who said that land was everything to a farmer didn’t even look at the dry, barren sandy land. Thanks to that, a saying even arose in the village: ‘You can’t pass through Dunaeri without stepping on Son Gwangyeon’s land.’

“Next year, I should buy a rice transplanter. Combines are expensive, so we’ll rent one for now.”

“Yes, do that.”

He would take care of it well.

Her husband always consulted with his wife, even though he always did things well.

Han Yooyoung’s heart still fluttered when she looked at Son Gwangyeon.

It was the same for Son Gwangyeon.

Son Gwangyeon had fallen in love with Han Yooyoung at first sight when he came to do rural volunteer work during his university days.

It was a rural area with only a local bus that ran twice a day on a winding unpaved road. He visited every weekend to woo her. Han Yooyoung, who didn’t dislike the handsome and polite Seoul man, gave birth to Jinhyuk at the age of twenty.

It was a happy marriage.

Their wedding ceremony was just a simple exchange of bows with a glass of water, and their wedding photos were taken at a photo studio in town while wearing borrowed hanboks [traditional Korean clothing]. But what did it matter?

“When are you going to stop using formal language with me, honey?”

“Haha. I wonder. When are you going to stop calling me ‘oppa’ [an affectionate term used by younger women to address older men] ?”

‘Honey.’ It was a word that no one used in the countryside. In Dunaeri, or perhaps even in the entire town, Han Yooyoung was the only one who was called that.

A man who cherished her, respected her, and called her sweetly. A husband who wouldn’t let her lift a finger to help with farm work as if the world would end. From a woman’s point of view, she couldn’t help but be happy.

“Honey, but don’t you think Jinhyuk has been acting strange since the other day?”

“I know. The rascal has become too mature.”

That’s why they were careful about their romance at night. Son Gwangyeon, who had been groping his wife’s chest, thinking his nine-year-old son was asleep, had to quickly withdraw his hand, startled by Jinhyuk’s cough.

Son Gwangyeon’s pulse quickened as he recalled that regretful memory.

“Um…”

“Ahem!”

Son Gwangyeon carefully took Han Yooyoung’s hand, his words trailing off. The young wife, who knew what he meant, swallowed a cough. Han Yooyoung’s hand, which had been diligently stirring the soybeans, quickly became flustered, like a spider that had missed its prey.

“Honey, Jinhyuk will be home from school soon…”

But the fact that she didn’t pull her hand away obviously meant she didn’t dislike it.

“If we do that quickly before he comes… Haha.”

There were no other houses nearby, and no one ever visited. Son Gwangyeon looked around unnecessarily and grabbed his wife’s wrist, leading her into the house. Like a couple of burglars, Han Yooyoung also looked around as she went to rob her own house.

In rural areas, children’s birthdays are usually in late summer or late autumn. That meant that they made children during the off-season when they were less tired from farming and the nights were long.

However, that didn’t apply to this couple, who were so in love that sparks flew whenever they looked at each other. Above all, they had to sleep at night because of their smart and precocious son, so they had no choice but to do it during the day.

Anyway, that was the situation.

***

The village youth leader and the head of the neighborhood clicked their tongues as they looked at the pile of soybeans in Jinhyuk’s yard.

“My, my, this family will make a fortune again this year.”

“Yeah, they’re so smart, they’re buying up all the land in the neighborhood.”

In the old days, farmers valued crops more than money, so instead of saying they sold crops for money, they said they bought money with crops. But they secretly sneered at Son Gwangyeon.

‘Why buy sandy land and mountains that can’t grow anything?’

‘There’s a reason why they call them Seoul bumpkins, isn’t there?’

After enduring the midday heat, Son Gwangyeon, who had kissed Han Yooyoung’s forehead as she smoothed her hair, quickly opened the paper door and came out. He had heard voices outside.

“Hello, gentlemen.”

Neighborhood head Jo Ilheon and youth leader Park Daesoon flinched at Son Gwangyeon’s Seoul accent. They liked Son Gwangyeon, but his Seoul accent was really hard to get used to.

“Y-yeah, well, um, what was it? Is Jinhyuk’s father going to go clamming with us today?”

“Clamming?”

He had heard of it.

During the spring tides of the full or new moon, the West Sea would reveal its mudflats and rocky shores, and the people by the sea would use torches or flashlights to collect seafood.

Octopus, crabs, gobies, sea bass, and even snails and large whelks called ‘belly button snails.’ If they were lucky, they could even catch some decent-sized conger eels. In rural areas where protein sources were scarce, the results of clamming were a good source of food. If the harvest was good, they could sell it at the market for a decent income.

“I’ve never done it before. Is it okay?”

“Just shine a light and pull them out of the holes. You’re part of our village, so we felt bad going without you.”

They had secretly looked down on him as a bumpkin from Seoul, but he was good at farming and had a good personality, so there was no reason to exclude him. They wanted to hang out with him, but they were busy with farming, so this was their excuse.

Son Gwangyeon, who was broad-minded, couldn’t have missed their feelings.

“Then I should go with you. Haha.”

The neighbors, who were always greeted with Son Gwangyeon’s good-natured smile, left happily, saying they would meet again after dinner. Jo Ilheon added a word as he looked at the pile of soybeans in the yard.

“My, my, those soybeans are really good.”

Looking at the neighborhood men, Janggun wagged his tail silently.

***

As soon as Son Jinhyuk came home, he did his homework and grabbed a sack in the yard. He was going to help his dad put the soybeans in it.

“Jinhyuk, Mom can do it. Jinhyuk, go play with Janggun.”

On any other day, he would have played with Janggun, but today he had to stay by his parents’ side. He needed to know what was going to happen. It was also hard to play with Janggun, who had been growling at Jinhyuk since yesterday.

“It’ll be faster if even one person helps. Mom, you should rest.”

His son had changed too much.

He had grown up under parents who used formal language with each other, so it was understandable that he didn’t speak informally to his parents like other children in the countryside. But the subtle nuance in his tone made it feel like he was talking to an adult.

‘They say kids grow up suddenly. Is that what’s happening now?’

That couldn’t be.

Jinhyuk’s mother, Han Yooyoung, also didn’t know what was going on. When had she ever raised a child? Han Yooyoung was born as the daughter of a wealthy landowner in the countryside and had grown up without doing any hard work. Other children had minor illnesses, which worried their parents, but she was just grateful that her son had grown up healthy and smart without getting seriously sick.

‘It’s today.’

While helping with the work, Jinhyuk kept thinking about what could be dangerous. He couldn’t help but wonder why his parents had suddenly died since there was nothing dangerous in this neighborhood in his previous life.

There was no war, and it was unlikely that a tiger or bear would appear out of nowhere. Even though it was a remote reclaimed land village, it was still a world where people lived, with buses, trucks, tillers, and tractors.

Jinhyuk’s question was resolved after dinner.

“Jinhyuk, Mom and Dad are going clamming, so our baby should go to sleep first.”

“Mom, clamming? Tonight?”

“Yes. We’ll catch a lot and buy Jinhyuk a notebook.”

His mother smiled like an angel and stroked Jinhyuk’s cheek.

Jinhyuk’s heart dropped.

‘That was it!’

Jinhyuk, who had been feeling drowsy after the meal, suddenly woke up.

The West Sea was not deep. Ironically, that was why many people died. They ignored the water that receded far out of sight during the spring tides and ended up in trouble.

That was why there were so many rocks along the coast named ‘Grandma Rock’ or ‘Grandpa Rock.’ It was hard and took a long time to go around the winding coastline. Many elderly people died when they tried to cross the sea during low tide and were caught by the incoming tide. That was how the Grandma and Grandpa Rocks got their sad names.

‘They said that people get swept away by the tide when they go too far while clamming.’

There was no moon during the new moon. The sky was dark, and the mudflats were even darker than the sky. When the tide came in, they had to come back to land, but some people lost their sense of direction and went deeper. It was mostly inexperienced beginners who got into trouble.

‘There are no streetlights or houses by the sea now.’

Because it was a time when it was not developed at all.

Jinhyuk’s heart was pounding.

It was as if a switch had been flipped, illuminating Jinhyuk’s dark memories. Until then, it had been as if they were sealed, as if covered with a black cloth.

‘I’m only remembering now.’

He was ashamed that he had only remembered his parents’ death anniversary today, and he was sorry that he had only now remembered how they had died. It seemed like a cowardly excuse to blame it on brain plasticity, memory volatility, or even a seal.

Yes, in his previous life, his mom and dad had gone clamming and never returned. When he woke up the next morning, the bedding that had been laid out for his parents was still untouched, and Jinhyuk had become a child without parents.

“Mom! I want to go too!”

“Huh? It’ll be scary because it’s dark. And Jinhyuk has to go to school tomorrow.”

“I’m not scared at all. I’ll just wait outside.”

His mother, who was soft-hearted, looked troubled as her mature son suddenly acted like a child.

“Haha, okay. Then our son has to sit quietly and wait, okay? You can’t go anywhere alone?”

Dad was the best.

He was different from other dads from the start, listening to whatever his son said.

‘But what should I do?’

It was too sudden. If he had known in advance, he would have thought of a way.

There was no time.

Ah, that method would be good!

Jinhyuk quickly ran to the storage shed.