Chapter 199

Eungwang High General Hall, in the art department dedicated to Korean paintings.

Min Geurin was mixing colors with her paint.

‘I want to make the color of jade-ish green to match the yellow-ish props of the art room.’

When Min Geurin’s hands began to mix the paint, the color similar to lotus leaves gave her inspiration.

The scene of a sudden rain pouring over Cheongnangho Lake

The dark skies and leaves topped with rainwater are seen from beyond one’s umbrella.

Her hands didn’t immediately move as she wasn’t sure which part she should draw first among the landscape that she imagined with her eyes closed.

“Painter Min Geurin nim.”

“…”

‘What should I draw the sketch with?’

‘What about Songyeonmuk, which is made of collected soot from branches that fell of the trunks of red pine trees?’

‘I think ink mixed with oil and glue would be good too…’

“Painter Min Geurin nim!”

When someone tapped her shoulder, Min Geurin returned to reality.

“Oh…?”

“A call has arrived for you! Painter Hong Gyungbok-nim asked me to tell you.”

A second-year art-club member, who was a fan of Geurin, relayed the message brightly.

When Geurin removed her AR glasses, the fan was shocked at her appearance.

Unlike before, Min Geurin didn’t have cold sweats nor did she have a fast heartbeat.

She was able to maintain composure.

‘Ah, he should’ve told me that the master was calling…”

When she glanced at the hologram, Geurin found out who was calling her.

She bowed her head in embarrassment.

“Uhm h-hey, thank you.”

“No problem! It’s an honor for me!”

The art-club member quickly ran outside after their exchange.

When the other person left and closed the door, Geurin answered the phone.

“Master. I apologize for picking up late.”

[It’s alright. I’m sorry, I seem to have interrupted your work.]

Hong Gyungbok immediately brought up the subject.

Previously, more than 30 works went missing during the remodeling process of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Painting.

A massive investigation is already underway, and the works are on their way to being recovered. Hong Gyungbok explained the situation in detail.

[…I’ll tell you the list of works we’ve recovered.]

‘Flowe Scales’, a work that she drew while looking at carps splashing around in a pond.

‘Sunset Niht’, depicting the sunset in Hongcheon, where Song Daesok and his family lived.

Geurin was partly happy that her passion and her memories are coming back to her.

However, the name of the painting that Hong Gyungbok and Min Geurin first made together did not come up.

“Master, what about ‘The Return of the Weapon?’

[….]

Waitin for Hong Gyungbok’s answer, Min Geurin counted with her fingers the number of works mentioned so far.

After folding and unfolding her fingers a few times, the calculation was completed.

All the works were recovered except for that one; ‘The Return of the Weapon’

[We are still searching for it. We’ll find it soon, so don’t worry. Let’s just wait for now.]

“Alright…”

[Then, I’ll head there soon. Let’s gather all the kids and have dinner together.]

Min Geurin hung up the phone and deeply sighed.

Although the missing artwork bothered her, she barely managed to endure it.

‘If I received this message before I went to school, I would be in shatters crying buckets of tears.’

When she started school, Min Geurin’s world changed significantly.

Although the first artwork, ‘The Return of the Weapon’, was precious to her, she has more precious things in her life now.

The other art-club members, Kim Yuri, and Song Daesok.

‘I have more places I can go to without these AR glasses.’

She contemplated on joining the youth retreat before but didn’t push through.

Although she’s still afraid of getting malice from strangers…

She gets relatively less scared when she realizes that there are far scarier things than that.

‘I’m more scared of something happening to Daesok, Professor Ham Geunhyung, and the other kids from our class. If I were there… I could’ve done something to help.”

Gerin looked at the AR glasses neatly placed next to the ink stone and vowed to be more courageous.

‘I should try taking off my glasses later at dinner with my master and the other art club members…’

It’s certainly moving far away from her comfort zone, but she felt like today should be the day that the other art club members see her bare face.

* * *

“How did you get here?”

Don’t tell me they bought plane tickets for all possible routes we could’ve taken?

Geum Chansol and Wang Chansol greeted us cheerfully.

“We rented a chartered plane and followed you guys.”

“The head of the newspaper department was so nervous. It was so hard to secure a schedule!”

Now that’s just even more unrealistic.

They chartered a plane? A mere student?

Although it might not be as ridiculous as it sounds because the duo are sons of the daughter of the owner of Icarus. It’s one of the top five luxury brands in the world.

“Yeah, it was difficult to pay up. It’s much more expensive than I thought, you know?”

“Although, it seems like the operating cost of this trip for the whole class was cheaper than I thought. Hwangmyeong Foundation needs to spend more money for us!”

No matter how much money Hwangmyeong Foundation spends on students, they would never, in their right mind, pay for a rented chartered plane for the purpose of tailing teachers.

Listening closely to their story, those two seniors must’ve rented the plane on their own, without asking for help from their family.

They felt a tremendous commitment to follow Professor Jegal.

The first-year member asked the department head and vice president with a frustrated face.

“Why didn’t the Year 2 Class Zero sunbaenims just join the newspaper club then?”

“Those crazy kids were originally going to join during their freshman year.”

They explained the past of the Year 2 Class Zero.

It is said that they have been extraordinarily tasteful ever since their freshman year.

They have this weird idea that ‘all the teachers are our enemies!’ They’ve been a great burden for Jegal.

Looking at them now, I don’t even know how Jegal handles them.

Perhaps having the same thoughts as I have, another member asked again with a surprised look.

“Eh? Professor Jegal?”

“Yeah, it’s no joke.”

“I realize how strong Professor Jegal is now…”

“Not everyone can handle being the homeroom teacher for Class Zero students.”

Senior members of the newspaper club said sadly as they glanced over the Year 2 Class Zero students being distracted as they took photos with Jegal.

The seniors suddenly lowered their voices.

“Oh, for your information, you can’t say ‘month of hell’ in front of those two.”

“That’s right. If you say those words around them, they won’t take it nicely. It would hurt the heart of our Professor Jegal too if that happens.”

It’s called the ‘month of hell’, but it was approximately a few days less than 4 weeks because they started school a bit late.

These seniors really fell for the true personality of Jegal. It’s said that they even made him a sculpture on the first day of April.

“They became less crazy as they followed the footsteps of professor Jegal, but the problem is that they suddenly made a fuss about entering the newspaper department.

“I guess it wasn’t enough for them to have Jegal as their homeroom teacher. Last year, the manager said that he almost lost all his hair from the stress he got from the admission process and he saw the names of those Class Zero students.”

Fortunately, the tragedy facing the newspaper department was prevented by Jegal.

It is said that Jegal scolded the manager, saying that the two kids would be ‘a nuisance to a newspaper department seriously engaging in its duties.’ The case was closed as the many seniors of Class Zero have committed their own crimes and violations, which made the newspaper department not accept them.

“I’m here to make a deal, newspaper chief!”

The GeumChanWangChan duo came tworads us.

“A deal? What do you mean ‘deal’? Go back to Korea!”

“No!”

“We refuse to do that!”

The GeumChanWangChan duo quarreled with the newspaper chief and deputy chief.

After 5 more minutes of their heated argument, Jegal said something.

“…I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Professor Jegal!”

“Professor, it’s not your fault though?”

The chief and the duo said those words almost at the same time.

Jegal said something while looking at the Year 2 Class Zero students.

“I apologize to the children of the newspaper department on behalf of you two who suddenly broke in.”

“Eh?”

“Gosh…”

Everyone went silent at the words of Professor Jegal.

“This schedule for the coverage trip has been planned by the newspaper department for months. It’s also the outpost of the unprecedented Korea-China-Japan Youth Exchange Conference. We can’t just change the schedule for such important coverage, even if you guys ‘coincidentally’ met us here.”

Those who were the subject of Jegal’s words looked awkward.

In addition to the coverage, the newspaper department wanted to enjoy the overseas trip with Jegal too. The words ‘what a coincidence!’ said by the seniors of Class Zero were just nonsense. The two sides quickly changed their posture and worked to get a compromise with each other.

Anyway, the heads of the newspaper department had the upper hand in this compromise because of Professor Jegal suddenly coming in and apologizing earlier.

As a result of the negotiations, the Class Zero seniors will not interfere with the next coverage trip. Another Icarus accommodation ticket was released, and the newspaper department allowed the Class Zero seniors to join the current tour and spend time with Jegal.

“Now, I’m going to relax and go sightseeing.”

“The number of people with us suddenly increased but… now we get to hang out for free, courtesy of Icarus.”

“It’s a good thing that we have some free time. If the coverage had been scheduled today, we’d be late for sure.”

“Professor Jegal, look over here!”

After the mess was over, we decided to enjoy the scheduled Chengdu tour today.

Chengdu, well known as the hometown of pandas, was also known as Samseong Samdo.

Samseong means culture, travel, and competition.

While Samdo symbolizes taste, music, and exhibition.

Walking through the Chengdu city made both our eyes and ears happy with all the things that represent culture and art.

“I heard Chengdu’s tea is good. We should stop by.”

After our group schedule was over, Hwang Jiho suggested that we go for tea.

He didn’t hesitate to buy some tea leaves, and he settled down in the cleanest seat in the area.

Hwang Jiho spoke Chinese skillfully without using the device’s interpretation and translation function.

‘Seems like he’s really okay.’

After a few moments, the lineup of tea leaves and tea pots arrived.

In particular, the taste of the tea from the iron pot was excellent.

It was a spring tea inside the iron pot. The scent and taste of the tea spread softly on the tongue, relieving any sort of fatigue in the body.

Next was the exotic golden yellow tea. We enjoyed it as we looked over the scenery.

Feeling Hwang Jiho’s gaze at me from across the table, I looked towards him and saw his eyes sparkling.

“Jo Euishin, you told me you liked tea.”

“Yeah, why?”

I once said that to Hwang Jiho, who considered my table manners to be suspicious.

“As for my observations, it seems subtle.”

What does that mean? Subtle?

“As far as I can see, it’s not that you don’t like tea. You have a deep knowledge of it, but I don’t think it particularly suits your taste.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’ve never seen you drink tea voluntarily. It’s the same at school too. It’s always on the menu, but you never cared to have one.”

That was an unusual observation from this old guy.

‘So he’s watching everything that I do.’

When I have the chance to choose something to drink, such as when I had a celebratory event with my classmates after the end of my chess competition, I usually choose soda or juice.

I sometimes drink canned coffee and mixed coffee. My choices don’t really indicate that I’m a tea kind of person.

To be honest, juice suits my taste better than tea. And I haven’t had the chance to participate in a tea ceremony until Cheon Sunghon entered the school.

“Oh, and leave your time free at night. There’s someone I’m going to meet and I want you to accompany me. You can wear a mask too.”

When I continued drinking my tea without answering him, Hwang Jiho changed the subject.

“Who is it?”

“He’s a person who has the ‘Yeomje Divine Farmer’ light skill.”

An unexpected person was mentioned.