Chapter 6: Genius

“Let me be honest. Why don’t you become a scholar? If you want, I can be your mentor. Economics isn’t my major, but I can introduce you to other people.”

This is quite shocking.

“…Now? Besides, you’re not even a professor.”

“I can quit my job at the Blue House. And a professor… I think they’d hire me? I think I’ve made quite a few academic achievements.”

…Am I that appealing? He’s saying things that would shock anyone else like it’s nothing.

“You can take the high school equivalency exam and get early admission to college, right? Once you’re around 12 years old, no one around you will say anything.”

“Hmm. I want to enjoy school life a little. Actually, I don’t have any friends…”

“Do you think you’ll have any in the future?”

This guy is subtly hitting my weak points.

“I don’t think so… But, connections are important, aren’t they? There aren’t many people in the world who don’t care about other people’s ages like you.”

“Do you know the name Isaac Newton?”

Senior Secretary Kim Haeik said this slowly.

“Yes.”

“Right, even a person who has only finished middle school has heard of Newton. But, do you know who the kings of England were during Newton’s time? Unless you’re interested in English history, you probably wouldn’t know their names—”

“Two Charles, James, Mary, William, Anne, and George. Newton lived between the Stuart and Hanover dynasties.”

“…You know it well. Right.”

Kim Haeik, who was amazed for a moment, shook his head as if he was embarrassed and proposed again.

“No. That’s not important. Anyway, um, the important thing is that power isn’t that great as you think. It’s quite ephemeral. I want to recommend you the path of a scholar rather than something that will be forgotten in a few hundred years. Maybe… you might engrave your immortal name in the ivory tower of knowledge.”

Hmm.

I understand what he means. I also agree with him to some extent.

But… I don’t age. Kim Haeik’s words are based on a normal, aging, and dying power holder. Of course, I can’t tell him that.

Besides, the analogy he made just now was refuted, which lowered the persuasiveness of his words. I want to be a king of the absolute monarchy, not Newton?

Napoleon and Genghis Khan also gained immortal glory. Power and fame are not directly proportional, but absolute power makes it easier to gain fame.

“I don’t like that. Right now, even university professors are getting arrested if they say something wrong, so you’re telling me to go to academia? I can live well, doing whatever I want in Korea if I manage the inheritance my grandfather will leave me.”

-Sigh.

Senior Secretary Kim Haeik sighed for a moment at my words.

“Okay. I understand. I can’t interfere in your life any further.”

“You’re accepting it surprisingly easily?”

“Then, what else can I do other than that? I’m just sorry as a scholar. It’s a shame that this genius is right in front of me and I’m just thinking that the business world will take you.”

Yeah.

He shrugged his shoulders as he said that. Senior Secretary Kim Haeik, who seemed to want to say something more, checked the time and clicked his tongue.

It had already been three hours since we started talking.

“Oh my, have I been keeping you for too long? Your grandfather must be worried. I should get going now.”

-Click.

The door opened, and Senior Secretary Kim Haeik smiled slightly and looked back at me.

“For the next lesson… Let’s do it every other Saturday, unless there’s something else.”

It was a clear sign of affirmation. I smiled back and bowed politely.

“Yes. Thank you for today, sir.”

My first meeting with Senior Secretary Kim Haeik was successfully concluded.

My grandfather seemed to have some questions about what I had been doing for such a long time, but I had no obligation to answer, so I just smiled.

As I expected, he liked it a lot.

‘If Hayeon was a boy-’

I even heard those words.

Perhaps it was because of the big event of a bombing attempt targeting the president, but Yu Jincheol’s funeral was quickly forgotten.

My father had always been an outsider in Daeha Group, and he had rarely visited Yu Seongpil’s house since his wife’s death.

Instead, my presence became more prominent. There were only his grandchildren in Yu Seongpil’s house, and I was naturally the best among them.

Two weeks after Yu Jincheol’s death, on October 21, 1983.

I sipped from a glass of water while reading the morning newspaper.

[The 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures is held… Will the standard for the meter change? Re-defining 1 meter based on the speed of light.]

‘Hmm. It would be nice if I could drink coffee.’

Morning newspaper and coffee. Isn’t that a picture-perfect scene?

I like this time of day. The scenery of the morning sunlight shining through the window frame, the cold wind, and the feeling of a warm blanket contrasting with it.

Yes. It would be nice to have a piano too. It would certainly be nice to enjoy the melody of the keyboard while feeling the touch of the rustling paper of the newspaper.

“Hey! What are you doing!”

At that moment, an uninvited guest who broke my peace appeared.

A face full of annoyance. She was a young girl, but she looked like she would be quite pretty when she grew up.

‘Yu Seona…’

One of Yu Seongpil’s granddaughters. She is the only daughter of Yu Jinseok, the eldest son, and it is said that she grew up spoiled since she was the youngest daughter of the family before I was born.

There’s a four-year difference between us, so she must be ten years old now.

In fact, before Yu Jincheol died, I lived like I didn’t even exist, so her life for the past ten years must have been a smooth life with nothing to envy.

“Tsk. Are you ignoring me? I asked what you were doing!”

I calmly pointed my index finger to the newspaper.

“I’m reading the newspaper. Do you want to see it?”

For reference, the newspaper at this time had a mix of Chinese characters. Which means it is difficult for a 10-year-old to read.

“…”

As I expected, she tried her best to read the newspaper for a while, and then chose a forced silence. And then, she pointed at me and shouted.

“You, you’re pretending to read when you don’t know either, right?”

It was a pattern I’ve become familiar with these days. I occasionally got confused because I was surrounded by adults, but this is how kids were supposed to be.

I don’t know what I did wrong.

“……Think whatever you want. Why do you keep sticking to me?”

I was a little annoyed, so I gently pushed her. Yu Seona mumbled something with her mouth before muttering in a small voice.

“…Grandpa only likes you.”

…Was that why? Anyway, that’s kids for you.

“Then, you should do things that your grandfather likes. I’m working hard too.”

I answered with indifferent eyes. Yu Seona looked at me with wide eyes. This appearance seemed to come as a fresh shock to her.

“It wasn’t because you found it fun?”

Fun… yeah. It’s not completely without fun, but I know many things that are more fun. Games, the internet, and stuff like that.

The reason why I am putting in this effort is just because it is necessary. I know that I must endure for a while in order to fulfill my desires.

I swallowed that complicated story and shrugged my shoulders. The soft black hair that came down gently brushed my shoulders.

“Didn’t you say I was pretending to read when I didn’t know?”

“Th, that’s…”

It seemed that the concept of patience was lacking in Yu Seona’s mind. Well, what kind of hardship would she have in her life?

“My father didn’t like me very much. But he liked movies, so I thought I could get his attention if I knew a lot, so I forced myself to study and learn about various things.”

Yeah, she isn’t saying anything further, so she is pretty good. Yu Seongpil must have taught her well. But why was my dad like that?

While I was lamenting inwardly, she just managed to utter one word while mumbling.

“I’m your older sister. Call me sister.”

“No.”

As if I would do that.

Yu Jinseok, the eldest son of Daeha Group Chairman Yu Seongpil, had to listen to his daughter’s whining after breakfast.

“Dad! I, I’m going to study too. Buy me books. L, a Chinese character book too…”

“……Study? Why are you studying? Well, it’s good for your dad, but…”

Unlike the old days, these days women are going to college, right? Yu Jinseok, who prided himself on being open-minded, unlike the older folks, was also positive about his daughter’s education.

The problem was that his daughter had refused to until now.

‘Seona suddenly wants to study…’

“Is it because of Hayeon?”

Seona flinched and nodded. Children around this age think they can trick their parents, but Seona was a rare child who was quite honest. Yu Jinseok liked that.

Maybe he just likes his daughter. She’s the precious youngest daughter he got when he was almost thirty, so why would he dislike her?

‘Yeah, Seona had no reason to lie in her life.’

She is not severely scolded even if she makes big mistakes, so Yu Seona naturally became an honest person.

It was just that she often expressed it as rudeness.

“That. Hayeon is… a bit special, right? You don’t have to try to follow her. It’s good for children to be like children.”

Yu Jinseok frowned slightly as he thought about his niece for a moment.

The niece born to his younger brother, who had gotten a famous actress pregnant when he was young.

He had seen her a few times, but until now, he hadn’t paid much attention to Yu Hayeon. She was a little kid, and more than that, he thought it was much more important to stop Jincheol from going astray.

However.

I don’t know what kind of education she received, but Yu Hayeon, whom he met after a long time, had become very mature for her age.

-‘Don’t you know? They said that even the intelligence service people and the Foreign Minister didn’t want to go.’

He was so flustered at Jincheol’s funeral. At first, he thought it was just what a child would say, but when he thought about it later, it was clearly strange.

Just look at Seona, and normally, children’s common sense is woefully lacking. They don’t even know what a government ministry is, nor what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does.

No, how many people in Korea really understand the government anyway? Not the nature of government.

Even though it’s been decades since the liberation, there are still many people who call the president ‘the lord of the nation.’ At best, only the college-educated youth or the intellectual class know…. If you think about it that way, Hayeon’s knowledge was not something a child would have.

Yu Jinseok thought that far and shook his head.

‘No, that’s going too far.’

Hayeon said she liked newspapers, so she must have just recited the knowledge she had gained from them. Children are usually very assertive in the areas they know, so it must be that.

“But, Grandpa only likes Yu Hayeon…. I want to become an adult quickly too.”

Seona mumbled that and complained. Yu Jinseok smiled bitterly as he looked at his daughter.

‘Father is the same. He favors my daughter too much since he found a granddaughter who is similar to him at the end of his life.’

For the past few days, Hayeon has occasionally chimed in on the topics that his father has been talking about at the dining table.

Normally, he would have been scolded as soon as he said something nonsense, but because she said things that were subtly reasonable and, most importantly, because his father favored Hayeon, the Yu Seongpil’s affection was focused only on one person.

Anyway, even though the timing of the terrorist attack was coincidental, honestly, wasn’t it a coincidence? My father seemed to think that Yu Hayeon had some sort of divine power or genius. He even introduced her to that notorious Secretary of Economic Affairs.

Yeah.

“It’s okay. Eventually, Grandpa will know, as time passes by. There’s no such thing as a prodigy in this world.”

He knows since he was called a prodigy once. How agonizing that position is.

The title of a prodigy is a result of abusive education and a desperate environment. It has nothing to do with individual genius.

It’s obvious that Jincheol ruined the kid. He drinks so much and is always out of the house, so it’s obvious.

“…Really? Hayeon said that if you study hard, you can get the adults’ attention.”

Yu Jinseok stroked his daughter’s head and smiled bitterly.

Of course. How can a six-year-old have such thoughts already, that makes no sense. She must be working hard to get the adults’ attention.

‘…A sheep.’

With that thought, he pushed away the rumors that were swirling in his head.

Rumors that Yu Hayeon is already reading thick books that college students read, and that she had a conversation with Senior Secretary Kim Haeik for three hours.

That’s absurd.

Where would Yu Hayeon have learned the English used in textbooks? And besides, it was even more ridiculous that she had a long conversation with Kim Haeik. How busy would that person be to spend three hours with a child?

She is reading books written in English, studying English and economics on her own, digesting it, and then talking with Senior Secretary Kim Haeik… Does that even make any sense?

At just six years old.

If, by chance, if, by the slightest chance… If that was possible, then that would mean she is a genius.

A genius who appears in the world once every hundred years to ridiculously play around with the world and leave.