I Will Raise This Family to Greatness - Chapter 88

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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Chapter 88
– Closed on January 1st and 2nd, 2001 for family vacation.
Won Uncle’s Bossam, Representative Ji-sung Jeon
My father was an honest man.
You could tell just by looking at his handwriting, and even though he didn’t need to write down personal reasons, he detailed them specifically and even left his name.
Perhaps trust was the most important virtue for someone in the food business.
Father posted the paper with his personal circumstances and quickly climbed into the car.
Behind us, I could see Kim Mi-young’s car as well. And beside Kim Mi-young sat a familiar man.
It was Director Kwak, the one who had debuted me in commercials.
Apparently, after one failed marriage, Director Kwak had recently begun dating Kim Mi-young.
I could catch all these details from conversations between Mother and Father.
Adults often forget that while they think children are absorbed in television, children’s ears are always tuned to their parents’ conversations.
And that children are skilled at acting.
The combination of Director Kwak and Kim Mi-young was quite economically advantageous.
If I had been the vice chairman of Samjeon Electronics, it would have been cause for applause.
A meeting between SKJ Entertainment and an excellent director—there was much potential for professional development ahead. The downside, naturally, was the friction between them.
I felt I should observe them carefully during this trip.
Mother examined the destination on a map.
Navigation systems weren’t yet commercialized, so everyone relied on maps and road signs to find their way.
“Sung-guk’s father, our destination is Hansung Condo in Sokcho, right?”
“Yes.”
Sokcho…
It was truly a modest vacation destination.
Min-guk held my hand tightly and wouldn’t let go.
“Hyung, do you like me or Ji-hee more?”
“That’s the same question as asking whether you like Mom or Dad more, Jeon Min-guk.”
I answered cynically.
“Is that so… Hyung, let’s go to the Sokcho beach and build a sandcastle.”
“It’s the middle of winter, so you’ll freeze to death doing that.”
“Really? Then what should I play with you, Hyung?”
“Min-guk, instead of thinking about playing, why don’t you think about studying, or contemplate deeply about what you need to do to survive?”
“What does ‘contemplate deeply’ mean?”
“Sigh, let’s stop talking.”
I closed my eyes.
“Hyung, I’m sleeping.”
“No, Hyung. Ah, Hyung. Read me a book.”
Min-guk pulled out a book he didn’t usually read and thrust it in front of my eyes to capture my attention.
This was…
I looked at Min-guk with surprised eyes.
“Hyung, read it to me.”
“Min-guk, you’ll really read it to me?”
“Yeah. I saw it on your bookshelf.”
The book Min-guk brought was an economics textbook.
“Min-guk, is this really the book you want to read?”
“Yeah! Hyung.”
Min-guk nodded enthusiastically.
“Really?”
“Yeah! Hyung.”
Min-guk nodded vigorously despite my repeated questioning.
He really meant it.
I quickly opened to the first page of the economics textbook.
[It’s been so long since I’ve seen one—my heart is racing.]
Beyond schoolwork, encountering an economics book after such a long time had me already thrumming with excitement.
I wanted to skip past high school material entirely and indulge myself in the business studies I truly loved.
Min-guk gripped my hand tightly, his eyes sparkling with anticipation.
“Hyung, hurry.”
“Okay.”
With an IQ exceeding 160, if I raised Min-guk properly, he could become not just an entertainer but a talented successor capable of participating in management alongside me.
[What am I thinking? Creating a rival….]
I shook my head and focused entirely on the book.
And I began reading slowly.
[This is genuinely captivating. Thrilling. More than any novel.]
As I became absorbed in the book, Mother, sitting in the passenger seat, turned to look at me.
“Sung-guk, you can stop reading now.”
What do you mean?
“Min-guk’s fallen asleep.”
Fallen asleep?
I quickly glanced at Min-guk in the seat beside me.
Min-guk was sound asleep, his mouth hanging open.
“Min-guk falls asleep within ten seconds at home whenever you read that book to him. That’s probably why he brought it. Sung-guk, reading in the car will ruin your eyes and make you carsick. Give it to Mother and look out the window instead.”
Mother took the economics textbook from my hands.
I stared blankly out the window.
I felt pathetic for getting excited, even briefly, about making Min-guk my rival.
I gazed down at the sleeping Min-guk.
[Right, of course. People don’t change.]
Meanwhile, Father’s car pulled into the parking lot.
* * *
Ulsan Rock was visible through the window of our lodging.
It had been such a long time since I’d seen Ulsan Rock.
In this lifetime, it was my first time.
I stood with my hands clasped behind my back, gazing at the magnificent Ulsan Rock after so long.
“Oppa!”
[Ah, now that Min-guk’s passed out, Ji-hee’s latched onto me.]
Ji-hee was patting my backside repeatedly from behind.
“O. Ppa! O. Ppa!”
With “oppa” being the only word she knew, she clung to me persistently.
Well, with nothing else to do, I might as well design Ji-hee’s life plan.
I quickly took Ji-hee’s hand.
“Ji-hee, can you hear oppa?”
“Yes!”
“Ji-hee, oppa’s going to run some simple tests now. Let’s do our best, okay?”
“Yes!”
Ji-hee answered well despite understanding nothing.
Right, at this age, she could only say that much anyway.
I examined Ji-hee’s face carefully first.
With our family’s superior genes, it was structurally impossible for an unattractive face to emerge.
Yet, it did.
“Who on earth do you take after?”
“O. Ppa!”
[Sigh… Well, she’s not exactly ugly, but compared to our family’s genes, she’s lacking.]
Ji-hee smiled readily enough, but it fell far short of the adorable charm Min-guk and I had in our childhood.
[Can she act well?]
I requested a performance from Ji-hee.
“Ji-hee, smile for me.”
She grinned.
Her smile was fine, but it lacked the radiant, innocent brightness of an advertisement model.
When she smiled, even her eyes grew smaller, which was cute but not beautiful.
As a last resort, I made one final request of Ji-hee.
“Ji-hee, roll!”
She tumbled.
That was the end of it.
Ji-hee’s plump belly blocked her progress, and she sprawled flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.
[This won’t do. Baby modeling is disqualified.]
I moved on to the next test.
I pulled out my laptop from my bag.
Then I retrieved various materials and showed them to Ji-hee.
Of course, approaching her second birthday and barely three years old by Korean age, she couldn’t possibly recognize letters.
But how quickly she absorbed information was what mattered.
Children’s brains are sponges.
Once they’re soaked, they absorb everything.
However, without a continuous water supply, it withers and shrivels.
I opened a text file and wrote in large letters.
– I am Jeon Ji-hee.
Then I read it aloud.
Ji-hee reacted slightly.
“Ji-hee, want to read it?”
“Nya-neung jeo Ji-hee.”
[Wow, she’s reading?]
If she remembered my words and then read them, her learning ability was truly exceptional.
At that moment, Ji-hee pointed to a single character in the text file.
It was the character ‘Ji’.
“Ji-hee, do you know this character?”
“Ji!”
“What?”
“Ji!”
Ji-hee clearly pronounced ‘Ji’.
I quickly pointed to the character ‘Hee’ with my finger.
“Ji-hee, what about this one?”
“Hee!”
Thump.
I collapsed to the ground.
A genius had been born into our family.
* * *
“Mother, Ji-hee can read her own name.”
“Ji-hee can?”
“Yes.”
“Ji-hee is only three years old, Sung-guk. It’s too early for her to read.”
Then Mother suddenly paused and looked at me again.
“That’s right, Sung-guk already knew Hangul pretty well back then.”
[Not just “pretty well.” Mother, I’ve told you a thousand times. I had already mastered five languages by then. I excluded Chinese out of conscience.]
Mother stopped preparing the food she was about to make and wiped her hands on her apron.
“Sung-guk, let’s go. Now that I’ve educated you, I realize early education is truly important. With Min-guk, I was too careless, and even though he’s smart, he has no interest in studying.”
[Mother, effort is also a talent. Min-guk simply doesn’t have it.]
Ji-hee was playing with the laptop keyboard I had opened, pressing keys here and there.
Mother quickly sat Ji-hee up properly.
“Ji-hee, can you read your name?”
“Yes!”
Ji-hee raised her hand eagerly.
Looking closely, I could glimpse my childhood self in Ji-hee. Of course, she couldn’t match my appearance, but there was a hint of brilliance.
Mother pointed to the text file I had written on the laptop and asked Ji-hee.
“Ji-hee, where is the character ‘ji’ here?”
Ji-hee pointed to it without hesitation.
“Then, what about ‘hee’?”
She pointed to that character without hesitation as well.
“Sung-guk, don’t you have another file?”
“I’ll write a new one, Mother.”
I wrote Mother’s name, Father’s name, Min-guk’s name, and my own name into a new text file.
Mother asked carefully.
“Ji-hee, where is your brother Sung-guk’s name?”
“Right here!”
Ji-hee pointed it out in one go.
This was no mere coincidence.
Ji-hee clearly understood Korean letters to some degree. Despite no one having taught her.
With Mother’s continued testing, Ji-hee got almost everything correct.
Mother and I exchanged excited glances.
“Sung-guk, Ji-hee must be smart because she takes after you.”
[Well, that’s only natural, Mother.]
Mother quickly embraced Ji-hee.
“Ji-hee, once we go to Seoul, let’s have you tested.”
I stroked my chin thoughtfully.
[If Ji-hee is a genius like me….]
I contemplated several possibilities for Ji-hee’s future.
Since she appeared to have a sharp mind, it seemed I should continue pushing her toward academics.
I couldn’t definitively say that her language acquisition ability guaranteed excellent learning ability in the future, but she was undoubtedly a special child.
Click.
The sound of the door opening came, and Father entered carrying fresh sashimi.
“So-young, Director Kwak and I brought back sashimi. Let’s have dinner with this. I also bought fried food that the kids will love.”
“Honey, our Ji-hee seems like a genius.”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“Sung-guk taught Ji-hee her name in Korean letters, and she recognized her own name right away. Sung-guk wrote the family names in his notebook, and she identified all of them perfectly.”
Father laughed as if bewildered.
“So-young, Ji-hee is only three years old. It’s just luck, luck.”
“It’s not luck. She really got them all right. We never even taught her Korean letters.”
“So-young, Sung-guk is the same way. He picked up Korean letters on his own while going to film sets and reading scripts. He even taught himself English and French on his own. That’s the level you need to be a genius. Ji-hee isn’t a genius.”
Oh no, I’ve set the standard for genius far too high.
Even though I received only the finest elite education in South Korea in my previous life, and despite being born into a poor household and crawling on the floor without any formal education in this life, the knowledge from my past life was impossible to forget.
But Ji-hee was different.
Then suddenly, goosebumps rose on my skin.
I approached Ji-hee, who was grinning at me.
Since Ji-hee adored her older brother, she spread her arms wide asking to be held as soon as I approached.
I held Ji-hee without resistance.
She had grown considerably heavier.
Cradling Ji-hee, I walked toward the quietest room I could find.
[Jeon Ji-hee, I think we need to have a conversation.]
I felt my shoulder growing damp.
Jeon Ji-hee was definitely drooling on my shoulder.
By now, Mother and Father’s voices had faded into the distance.
Outside, Mother was still insisting that Ji-hee might be a genius, while Father countered that unless she was as much of a genius as Sung-guk, she wasn’t a genius at all.
I gently laid Ji-hee on the bed and met her eyes.
Then I asked, as menacingly as I could manage.
As if lies were something she could never tell in the first place.
“Jeon Ji-hee, you… were reborn, weren’t you?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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