I Will Not Live as a Genius

34. Hanon Thirty-Nine

The principal’s office with a heavy atmosphere.

After a while, Young-mi entered the principal’s office, and the administrative teacher who had brought Young-mi said to the principal.

“Student Yeonji Lim did not attend school today.”

“OK got it. Close the door when you leave.”

“yes.”

As the door to the principal’s office closed, the principal opened his mouth to us.

“Did you say Chae Jung-ho and Kim Young-mi?”

“yes… .”

“Did you have anything special yesterday at the Math Olympiad?”

The moment when I and Yeongmi looked at each other and shook their heads… .

I heard the vice principal’s screams.

“These guys! The principal is saying, is it okay if I just shake my head?”

Me and Youngmi said at the same time.

“Nothing happened.”

Our homeroom teacher said in response.

“Jeong-ho, weren’t you close to Lim Yeon-ji? What happened to Yeonji during the exam?”

“ah… !”

The eyes of the teachers in the principal’s office were focused on me.

“okay… What happened?”

I said to the principal’s question.

“yes… About five minutes after the test started, the supervisors took Yeonji to another place.”

The headmaster nodded, and the homeroom teacher said to me.

“Where did you take them?”

“that… I don’t know either.”

“Aside from that, was there anything else?”

“yes.”

There was silence in the principal’s office for a while, and after the silence, the principal came out and spoke to Youngmi.

“Yeah, I got it. Now, let’s go back to the classroom.”

When I came out of the principal’s office, Youngmi opened her mouth.

“I think this is very serious… .”

“Lim Yeon-ji, I think she cheated during the exam yesterday.”

Youngmi covered her mouth and said.

“Oh… ! really?”

I nodded quietly.

A small piece of paper that Rouge had.

It was a piece of paper on which the mathematical formulas of prior learning were clearly written.

To be honest… .

I don’t know why Rouge put the piece of paper in her coat pocket.

It could be that he was actually cheating, or he simply forgot that the paper was in his inner pocket.

I gave Lim Yeon-ji a big dose, and I had a refreshing feeling that everything was going as planned, but I couldn’t help but feel the bitter feeling that lingered in my heart.

Saying that there must be a principle… .

That’s what it meant

School ended with the 4th class, and I headed home with Youngmi and Incheol.

Entrance to the apartment complex.

I ran to the newsstand in front of the bus stop.

You don’t know how curious I was at school all morning.

In the second science class, a physical education teacher came in and conducted self-study, and I heard that the parents were gathering in front of the principal’s office on a weekly basis.

I slept today at the newsstand and bought a Korean newspaper and returned it to Yeongmi and Incheol.

Incheol said.

“What newspaper all of a sudden?”

“I have something to check… .”

I opened the newspaper, checked the back page, and started turning the pages one by one from the back to the front.

If my memory is correct, the reporter Han Century belongs to the Ministry of Culture.

In other words, the articles he wrote are cultural.

For paper newspapers… Politics, social and economic articles are mainly located at the front of the newspaper, and the back of the newspaper is composed of international pages, cultural pages, and sports pages.

I looked closely at the culture page of the newspaper, but there were no articles related to Lim Yeon-ji.

At the very least, there were no articles about the Math Olympiad.

Incheol said, pointing his head toward the newspaper.

“It’s Saturday, so let’s see something famous this weekend.”

In-cheol took the cover of the newspaper with the TV schedule, and I unfolded the newspaper one by one and checked the articles.

In-cheol’s voice was heard next to him.

“Hey, there’s really nothing to watch on TV today. Come on, let’s see what happened yesterday.”

In-cheol’s voice continued along with the sound of turning the paper.

“Ahem! let’s see What did the WTO do in the National Assembly? Young-mi, what is written here in Chinese?”

“Does it sound like it has ratified WTO accession?”

“Oh yeah? then… What else is the WTO?”

“Well… I don’t know about that either.”

“Hmm… WTO, not like that, WWF will join you. Let’s see our Honky Tonki hyung more often.”

I searched through all three pages of the newspaper, but couldn’t find an article with the name of a reporter of the century.

I recalled the scene I saw when I entered the principal’s office.

There was obviously a Korean newspaper spread out on the table.

Maybe the Korean newspaper… Could it be that it was accidentally placed on the table because it was a newspaper that the principal always reads?

However, the atmosphere in the principal’s office was clearly not serious.

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Not only that.

The principal had asked me directly.

What happened to Lim Yeon-ji?

At that moment, Incheol’s voice was heard again.

“Young-mi, how do you read this? what do you really need? What, what, what, what, what, what?

“Is it really necessary to take the main exam for each university? The entrance exam system that gave birth to monsters.”

“Earl—-, Youngmi Kim! How do you not know Chinese characters?”

“I studied Thousand Characters when I was young.”

“I studied the Thousand Characters, but I remember… There’s only one way to go to heaven Hmm, I can still read this. M, West, Middle, School, School, Uh! Is this our school? Young-mi, this is a bush person, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Who is Mo Lim, a first year student at Namseo Middle School?”

In-cheol’s words made my mind jump.

I checked the newspaper Incheol was holding.

There was an article the size of a door right next to the two-page newspaper editorial.

＜Is the main exam for each university really necessary? The entrance exam system that gave birth to monsters>

The reporter’s name was Han Century of the Ministry of Culture.

The article started with a story that Moyang Lim (14), a first year student at Namseo Middle School, was caught cheating at the Math Olympiad competition, and the article continued with an interview with our homeroom teacher.

‘The math teacher at Namseo Middle School said there was a serious problem with Lim’s personality. He mentioned that Ms. Lim showed a vicious appearance of cleverly crafting things and blaming her competitor’s friend.’

Then In-cheol said to me.

“Mom Im! This is Lim Yeon-ji, right?”

Anyone who listened to the headmaster’s warning at the patriotic inquiry two days ago would know who the Namseo Middle School Mo-yang Lim mentioned in the article was.

Lim Yeon-ji, class 12 class leader, who got a perfect score in this final exam.

When I nodded, Incheol said.

“There was a riot in our class earlier… It is for this!”

“really? What happened?”

In response to my question, Incheol pointed to a newspaper article and said.

“First, read this article. Because of the Chinese characters, I can’t read properly.”

At Incheol’s words, I started reading the newspaper article aloud.

“It wasn’t just this. According to an investigation conducted by this newspaper reporter, Lim deliberately threw boiling water and a lit alcohol burner at a student in a competing group at a national science contest held at K University in Daejeon last month. As a result, the victim suffered severe second-degree burns from his back to his thighs and was taken to the emergency room on the spot.

Incheol said in an excited voice.

“hey… Lim Yeonji, this… He was a complete demon psycho.”

Incheol let out a long sigh and continued.

“What about me? I’ve had an argument with him before, and it’s scary. How am I going to school now? OMG—-. I wish I was in a different class with him in the second year.”

The content of the article led to criticism of Korea’s entrance examination system, including the main examination for each university.

Since the main exam by university incites another competition among top-ranked students, the article ended with the conclusion that under the entrance exam system that emphasizes such infinite competition, such monster-like children will inevitably emerge.

We entered the apartment complex, and In-cheol turned and walked toward 105 East.

“Jeong-ho, will you come to my house after lunch?”

“Yeah, I’ll eat and go right away!”

In-cheol disappeared to the entrance of Building 105, and Yeong-mi and I walked down the street together.

As we walked down the street, we didn’t say anything.

The addition of an alcohol burner to the science contest case, and the inflated degree of my burn… It’s a bit absurd, but understandable.

But I couldn’t believe the fact that my homeroom teacher had said such negative things about Yeonji.

To be honest, then… The reason I told reporter Han Century about Namseo Middle School’s teacher was to divert his attention to other places when he asked my name.

The story told by team leader Kim Jung-soo lingered in my ears.

The world never goes as expected.

I wasn’t expecting an article like this.

It was my thought that if an accident at a science contest was even a small mention in the newspaper, it would not be easily covered up in school.

If my mother went to school in this situation, I expected that she would be able to strongly insist on disciplinary action against Lim Yeon-ji without having to have a lawyer.

* * *

4 hours ago.

Southwest Middle School Principal’s Office.

As Jeong-ho and Yeong-mi left the principal’s office, Lim Tae-ho opened his mouth to Kim Ki-ha with a frown on his face.

“What the hell did you do to tell a reporter like this? It’s not that I don’t know that all of this will stain the name of the school!”

“in fact… That’s not it.”

“It’s not, what do you mean?”

“I asked you to tell me the strengths and weaknesses of Lim Yeon-ji, one by one… He is a very bright student, and in this final exam, he said that he finished first in the entire school with a perfect score.”

Principal Tae-ho Lim raised his voice while pointing his finger at the newspaper on the table.

“I really said that, but this article came out?!”

“that is… The reporter keeps asking me to tell you one shortcoming… . Please tell me one thing that you would like Yeonji to fix in the future. So, to say that is… .”

Principal Tae-ho Lim let out a long sigh, then turned his head and said to the science teacher.

“And Mr. Kim had an accident like this at the competition, and what if he doesn’t report it to school?”

The science teacher said with a firm expression.

“I told the assistant principal.”

Principal Tae-ho Lim turned his head to the vice-principal, and the vice-principal opened his mouth with an embarrassed expression.

“It didn’t look that serious, so I tried to keep quiet… I had no idea this was such a serious accident.”

“Huh, this is true!”

That was then.

A commotion was heard from outside the principal’s office, and the door to the principal’s office opened immediately.

He was a school administrator.

“I am sorry. That’s why the parents want to see the principal right away.”

The voices of the parents were heard outside the door of the principal’s office.

“Are you going to keep these criminals going to school?”

“My child is in 1st grade, class 12, please change to another class!”

Principal Tae-ho Lim got up from his seat with a long sigh and headed out of the principal’s office.

Dozens of parents gathered outside the principal’s office, and one of them said in an angry voice.

“I’m nervous about this, so I should be able to send my child to school!”

Principal Taeho Im lowered his head and said.

“sorry. We are also looking into it now. First of all, I have to talk to the student himself, but the student is absent today, so we need some time until Monday.”

“Does it make sense that the school did not know about such an incident!”

“The newspaper reporter knew everything and wrote the article! What more do you need to know? Get him out of school right now!”

Principal Taeho Im said.

“Yes Yes. Well sir. The school was also in a state of disrespect because of that student, so I decided to convene a disciplinary committee immediately.”

“If a disciplinary committee is held, will that child named Yeonji Lim be expelled from school right away?”

At the end of the hallway, about 20 meters from the principal’s office.

There stood a woman in dark sunglasses and a black suit.

The moment the name Lim Yeon-ji came out, her lips narrowed.

She tucked the thick envelope she was holding in her hand into her handbag and walked towards the stairs.