Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
41. Outside the border (3)
Eungwang School’s central zone, General Club Hall, one of the Art Club’s studios exclusively used for Korean paintings.
Min Geurin was making paint by combining natural pigments.
‘The Art Club supplies come with the highest quality of warm gold[1], so I wanted to make lotus petals’ color with it.’
After under Min Geurin’s hand a color of lotus petals started to appear from the beautiful pigment, inspiration began to well up in her head.
The scene of Clear Blue Lake (Cheong-rang-ho) on the day after a downpour.
The dark sky and raindrops on the leaves she saw beyond the umbrella.
She had no idea which one of the scenes she saw under her closed eyelids to draw first, and her hand didn’t move.
“Painter Min Geurin-nim.”
“….”
What should Min Geurin draw?
How about the pine ink stick made by collecting the soot from burned twigs[2], which broke off from the red tree truck of red pine[3]?
The black ink, made by mixing the oil ink and glue, should be fine, but…
“Painter Min Geurin-nim!”
When someone tapped her on the shoulder, Min Geurin returned from her fantasies to the reality.
“Uh…?”
“The call came! I was asked to inform You that painter Hong Gyeongbok wants to speak with You!” [4]
The 2nd year Art Club member, who was Min Geurin’s fan, spoke brightly.
Because she took off her AR glasses, she was startled the moment when she saw a person, and not a cotton doll.
But she was facing only one person and a voice she knew well.
Unlike in the past, she didn’t break into cold sweat and her heart didn’t race wildly.
Min Geurin right now could think normally.
‘Ah, master-nim said He would call, right…?’
As she turned her gaze away from the Art Club’s member and to the side, she saw a hologram informing about an upcoming call.
Min Geurin nodded repeatedly in embarrassment.
“Th-thank you.”
“No need! I’m honored to speak with You!”
As if feeling good about exchanging a word with Min Geurin, jumped happily and left.
After the Art Club’s member closed the door and left, Min Geurin accepted the call.
“Master-nim, my apologies for picking up late.”
[No. I interrupted your work, huh? I’m sorry.]
Hong Gyeongbok cut straight to the point.
Before, about 30 works of the master and disciple duo were secretly replaced during the remodeling of the National Modern Korean Art Museum.
After the large-scale investigation, the retrieval of works was in progress, and Hong Gyeongbok informed her in detail about its developments.
[… I’ll tell you about the works that were retrieved this time.]
The ‘Flowery Scales’, the painting of the koi fish she saw jumping out of the pond.
The ‘Around Dusk’ depicting the red sky she saw in Hongcheon, where she went together with Song Daeseok’s family.
Besides that, she was happy about the news that the crystals of Min Geurin’s passions and memories returned.
However, even though she anxiously waited, the name of Hong Gyeongbok and Min Geurin’s first work didn’t come out.
“Master-nim, what about ‘Death of Imoogi’?”
[….]
While waiting for Hong Gyeongbok’s answer, Min Geurin counted the number of retrieved works on her fingers.
As she closed and unfolded her fingers a few times, her calculations ended.
All works of the master and disciple duo, but the ‘Death of Imoogi’ returned.
[We’re still searching for it. We will find it soon, so don’t worry and wait.]
“Yes…”
[Then I’ll be going to the club soon. Let’s gathered the club children and have dinner together.]
Min Geurin ended the call and let out the breath she was holding.
The unknown whereabouts of her first work were still on her mind, but Min Geurin somehow hung in there.
‘If I knew it before I started to attend school, I would probably keep crying.’
When she started to attend school, Min Geurin’s world changed drastically.
The ‘Death of Imoogi’ was precious, but precious things besides this were added.
The Art Club’s members who greeted her, Kim Yuri, who was still hospitalized, Song Daeseok, who was extremely busy after being discharged…
In Min Geurin’s mind there were not only paintings now.
‘The places I can go to now without glasses increased.’
After crossing the boundary on the day of Youth Training Camp, the people Min Geurin could talk to without AR glasses, and places she could go to, increased.
She still feared the ill will of strangers.
But as she realized that there are things that she feared more than that, they became relatively less frightening.
‘I’m afraid that something will happen to Daeseok, teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim or our class children. But I don’t know what I would do if I was there.’
Min Geurin looked at the AR glasses neatly placed at the side of the inkstone, while promising herself to pluck a bit more courage.
‘When eating dinner with master-nim and Art Club guys…. I should try to take off the glasses.’
It would be difficult to take off the hood, but she felt it would be okay to see the Art Club’s members real faces today, instead of the cotton dolls she saw through the AR glasses.
***
“How the hell did You get here?”
No way, they didn’t buy tickets for the flight for every route, right?
When the 2nd year class 0’s senior bastards surrounded Jegal Jaegeol so he wasn’t visible, Geun Chansol and Wang Chansol, who stood at the very back, held up their chins and spoke:
“We rented a chartered plane and followed you.”
“The Newspaper Club’s president made such a big deal, so it was difficult to confirm the schedule!”
More ridiculous words than buy all plane tickets came out.
You’re saying that students rented a chartered plane?
But if we considered the wealth of Geun Chansol, who was the daughter of the owner of Icarus, and Wang Chansol, who was the son of entrepreneurs, who had one of the world’s top 5 premium brands ‘Neuru’ under them, it wouldn’t be difficult.
“Yeah, it was hard to gather the funds. Because it was more expensive than we thought. We kept conquering otherworlds to make that money.”
“It seems it took more of the class funds than we thought~. Sir, the Hwang Myeong Foundation needs to give more money!”
No matter how much money the Hwang Myeong Foundation gives the students, they would never cover the expanses of renting a chartered plane to follow the teacher.
From listening to the conversation, I guessed that those two senior bastards didn’t even borrow their houses’ power when renting the plane.
I felt their deep devotion to go on a trip with Jegal Jaegeol with just their own power.
While seeing desperate faces of the club president and vice club president, the 1st year club member asked:
“Why don’t the 2nd year class 0’s seniors-nim join the Newspaper Club?”
“Those crazy guys tried it during the 1st year.”
The 2nd year senior explained the class 0’s senior bastards’ past.
From the moment they were admitted to school as the 1st year class 0, they showed their extraordinary screwiness.
In addition, with the idea, worthy of the extreme problem children, ‘Every teacher is an enemy’, they dogpiled even Jegal Jaegeol.
Looking at their appearance now, I wouldn’t for the world guess they were dogpiling him like that.
As if having the same thoughts as me, the 1st year member asked with a surprised expression.
“Yes? The seniors were like that towards teach Jegal-nim?”
“Amazing, right?”
“You can actually feel how powerful of a Person teach Jegal-nim is.”
“Being class 0’s homeroom teacher isn’t just for anyone.”
The Newspaper Club’s seniors spoke quietly, while looking at the class 0’s senior bastards, who were losing their minds to get a commemorative photo with Jegal Jaegeol.
They didn’t have the title of the worst rascals among the brilliant legends of Eungwang School’s class 0 without reason, huh?
Suddenly, the seniors lowered their voices.
“Ah, for your information, don’t mention the ‘Month of Hell’ in front of those guys.”
“Yeah. Don’t say that in front of them, because if someone talks about, those guys are going to cry for real. Even if they’re like this, if those guys cry, our teach Jegal-nim will also suffer, because they are students, you know?”
They called it ‘Month of Hell’, but it seemed that the 2nd year class 0’s bastards fell before four weeks passed since the start of the semester.
Because the class 0’s senior bastards, who were brought down by Jegal Jageol’s truthful nature, even made Jegal Jaegeol moai on the 1st April’s Fools Day.
“As they followed teach Jegal-nim like this, they were less crazy, but the problem was that they made a dog-mess suddenly saying they would join the Newspaper Club.”
“I guess they aren’t just satisfied with Him being their homeroom teacher. The last year club president senior almost lost her hair because of stress, when she saw them hand in the applications.”
Luckily, Jegal Jaegal stopped the tragedy of the Newspaper Club going down.
After Jegal Jaegeol scolded them ‘You’re causing troubles for the children who approach the Newspaper Club activities seriously’, the class 0’s senior bastards, who had many past sins, crawled back on their own, and the incident came to an end.
“Let’s make a deal, Newspaper Club’s president!”
GeunChan&WangChan came to us, as representatives of the 2nd year class 0, who took pictures to their heart’s content.
“Ah, I have a deal for a deal! You go back to Korea for a bit!”
“I hate it!”
“We refuse!”
After that, GeunChan&WangChan and the Newspaper Club’s president and vice president squabbled back and forth.
When the war of words didn’t end even after 5 minutes passed, Jegal Jaegeol said a word.
“… I’m sorry.”
“Teach Jegal-nim didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Where did teach Jegal-nim do anything wrong?”
At those words, the club president and Geun Chansol spoke almost simultaneously.
Jegal Jaegeol spoke, while looking towards the 2nd year class 0.
“I’m apologizing to Newspaper Club’s children on your behalf for the sudden intrusion.”
“Yes?”
“Hauk….”
At Jegal Jaegeol’s words, everyone shut their mouths.
“The Newspaper Club planned the schedule for this coverage trip since a few months ago. And this is the forefront of the Korea-China-Japan Youth Exchange, which has never been held before. No matter if you say we ran into each other by coincidence, the schedule of the important coverage trip can’t be changed.”
The guys, stabbed with Jegal Jaegeol’s words, made pathetic faces.
Because the Newspaper Club members, besides gathering news, had a hidden agenda of enjoying an abroad trip with Jegal Jaegeol, and the 2nd year class 0’s senior bastards’ words ‘We ran into each other by coincidence’ were just openly a dog sound.
The two groups, whose conscience was pricked, promptly changed their attitudes and entered negotiations.
Anyhow, as the 2nd year class 0 suddenly struck and barged in, and Jegal Jaegeol even apologized for them, the Newspaper Club had the upper hand in the negotiations.
The end result of them, the 2nd year class 0 made a written vow that they ‘Will not disturb the next news-gathering trip’, and that they will provide Icarus lodgings tickets again, and the Newspaper Club allowed the 2nd year class 0 to join the news-gathering trip, and they decided to show understanding, so they could spend time with Jegal Jaegeol.
“Now, let’s put our minds to rest and go sightseeing.”
“Suddenly the number of people increased, but, well… we had a lot of fun playing in the Icarus for nothing.”
“Let’s use our spare time well. If we seize our news coverage schedule today, we can take it a bit slower.”
“Teach Jegal-nim! Let’s go there!”
After the 2nd year class 0’s mess ended, we decided to enjoy Chengdu sightseeing like planned for today.
Chengdu, famous as the pandas’ hometown, was also known under the name Samseong Samdo.
Samseong meant culture, business and competition.
Samdo symbolized the food, music and art.
Worthy of representing all culture and art, my eyes and ears were enjoying themselves with just walking the Chengdu City main street.
“Chengdu’s tea houses aren’t bad. Let’s stop by.”
When the group schedule was finished, and we had free time, Hwang Jiho made a suggestion.
As if he found a few tea houses while we were moving around, he moved without hesitation, bought tea leaves and grabbed the seat at the cleanest place.
Hwang Jiho didn’t use the device’s interpreter function in the process, and was fluently communicating in Chinese, so it seemed that he indeed didn’t live all those years in vain.
‘It’s really good, you know?’
Worthy of something fancying Hwang Jiho’s eye, the tea house’s tea leaves series was amazing.
In particular, Tieguanyin[5]’s flavor was outstanding.
It was spring Tieguanyin produced in the Anxi County, but as the delicate smell and texture spread on my tongue, I felt the travel’s fatigue relieve itself automatically.
When I was fully enjoying the golden yellow color of boiled tea and foreign scenery.
As I felt the gaze and looked across the table, I faced Hwang Jiho looking at me with his eyes sparkling.
“Jo Uisin, you said that you like tea, right?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
I said something like that to Hwang Jiho, who was suspicious of my table manners before.
“In terms of my observation results, it’s ambiguous, eh?”
What was that sound again? What ambiguous?
“It’s not that you dislike tea. And you have deep knowledge about tea. However, you don’t seem to particularly like it.”
“What is that sound?”
“I never saw you voluntarily drink tea. It was like this at school, and even during the flight, you didn’t choose anything like tea.”
The geezer’s observation skills weren’t ordinary.
‘You were watching this entire time?’
If I had a chance to choose what to drink during the drink events with the class children like the chess tournament after-party and celebration after the final exams, I usually chose carbonated drinks or juices.
I sometimes drank coffee or coffee mixes, but it was difficult to see it as a selection of someone who likes tea.
Though Hwang Jiho wasn’t there, I was like this at the baseball stadium, in the air taxis, and in the Eternal Lake team building.
Frankly speaking, I preferred juice rather than tea, and before Cheon Seong-heon enrolled, I didn’t have a chance to learn tea ceremony.
“Ah, make some time tonight. There is a punk I’m going to meet, but you should accompany me. And it would be good to wear a mask.”
As I didn’t face him and drunk tea, Hwang Jiho changed the topic as he got it.
“Who?”
“A person who uses the Gwangrim of ‘Flame Emperor Shennong’.”
A big shot I couldn’t imagine was mentioned.
*~*~*
[1] warm gold — 등황 (deung-hwang) is a color described by the dictionary as a ‘yellow color a bit redder than orange’.
[2] pine ink stick made by collecting the soot from burned twigs — here is a video, so you can see the process: https://youtu.be/VLZIVr1qVHw
[3] red pine — Korean Red Pine, Pinus densiflora
[4] “The call came! I was asked to inform You that painter Hong Gyeongbok wants to speak with You!” — this senior is speaking to her using a formal tone.
[5] Tieguanyin — it is a tea named after Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva (associated with compassion and mercy) and iron.
Translator’s note: So are we going to skip how Jo Uisin knows Chinese? Yeah. Okay.
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Thank you patron, Nobody, please accept this Purnus serrulata’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
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