The Baby Seizes Fortune - Chapter 17

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 17

She soon smiled brightly and said to Junho.

“We would like to hire Miss Gu Chaea as a promotional model for our preschool.”

At this, Junho’s eyes wavered.

“Promotional…?”

“Yes, it won’t be broadcast on TV commercials, but we’d like Miss Gu Chaea to become the face of Edinburgh for banners hung outside the preschool, enrollment information sessions, and such.”

Misuk continued speaking.

“We could use child models, but by featuring a student who actually attends our preschool, especially emphasizing the special giftedness that an excellent student like Miss Gu Chaea possesses, we could appeal more to parents. It would show how genuine our preschool is.”

So essentially, she was asking her to serve as a kind of promotional supporter.

“Of course, filming would only be about 2-3 times per year, so it won’t interfere with Chaea’s studies. And though it’s a bit awkward to say this, but Chaea is… so pretty like a doll.”

Misuk’s eyes seemed to sparkle for a moment.

“If such a pretty and smart child becomes our student, I have the selfish desire to show her off here and there. There are quite a few competing preschools in our neighborhood.”

Various thoughts filled Misuk’s mind.

The child named Gu Chaea before her was clearly destined for greatness that anyone could see.

With this level of intelligence, if properly supported, getting into Seoul National University’s medical school would be a sure thing, and if she paved her path well, she could achieve even greater accomplishments.

Moreover, she possessed exceptional looks that would greatly interest the public.

For the same achievements, the beautiful and handsome ones receive more spotlight – this was the uncomfortable truth of a looks-obsessed society.

This child, who had a high possibility of becoming famous and successful in any field in the future, would have ‘Edinburgh Kindergarten graduate’ added to her academic background.

Since Yeong-il had already agreed to cut the tuition in half anyway, this would be good for showing off too.

Junho, who had been staring blankly at Misuk, opened his mouth.

“First, thank you for thinking so highly of Chaea, ma’am.”

Misuk smiled as if it were only natural.

“But… I think Chaea’s opinion is most important.”

“Ah…”

For ordinary young children, especially deciding preschools for children around five years old, it was entirely the parents’ responsibility.

Child models and child actors too were mostly made to do it by their parents rather than the child’s own will.

In homes with a strong Confucian atmosphere in the late 1990s, it was even more natural for children to follow when parents told them to do something.

But Junho spoke as if his own thoughts weren’t important.

“So, rather than asking me, it would be better to ask Chaea directly.”

Misuk looked at Junho in surprise for a long while, then moved her lips.

“Mr. Junho… you really are a special father.”

Then she slowly shifted her gaze to Chaea.

“A special father and a special daughter.”

‘That’s right! My daddy respects me like this!’

Chaea’s eyes shone proudly as if saying just that.

“Miss Chaea? Will you come to our Edinburgh Kindergarten? I promise the best treatment on my name.”

Misuk made the offer to the child with a serious face, like an agency president casting a promising newcomer.

* * *

After Misuk left, Junho watched my reaction carefully.

“Chaea, are you really okay with this?”

Though Junho respected me, he still looked a bit surprised since I had given an unexpected answer.

“Yes, I’m really okay with it.”

Because I had rejected Misuk’s proposal.

“…I’m sorry. I don’t want to go to Edinburgh.”

Usually it was common to only give admission acceptance or rejection notices, but it was Misuk’s will that made her endure the trouble of coming all the way here with enthusiasm to enroll me.

At my answer, she drooped her eyebrows and asked if it was because she had heard about that child named Min-woo threatening me last time.

Along with saying that child had been expelled.

“No. It’s not that kind of problem. Just…”

“But… though Chaea might not know since you’re still young, the regional and school connections that form Korea’s upper class start from quite an early age. Our preschool has many children from famous and great families, and this could be an opportunity for Chaea…”

“Min-woo’s parents sent him there for that purpose too, didn’t they.”

Misuk’s eyes, which had been trying to somehow recruit me to the preschool, shook greatly upon hearing my response.

“The lawyer representative of a top-tier law firm.”

“Ah…”

Become friends with children from prominent families and build connections, so you too can become a predator of the world like me.

Though expelled from Edinburgh, he would enter another preschool and pay lots of money to play the class game again.

“I don’t need those kinds of connections. Chaea can become the most wonderful person all by herself!”

At the confident voice of a child who was certain of her own success, Misuk’s eyes widened greatly in surprise.

Even if smart, was a child still a child, or was she so confident because she had some kind of plan? Curiosity appeared on Misuk’s face as if thinking such thoughts.

“It’s just…”

I smiled brightly as I voiced what I was thinking.

* * *

On a snowy afternoon, a driver opened the door of a luxury sedan.

As Misuk, wearing sunglasses, sat down familiarly, the car soon departed.

Watching the complex and narrow alley that didn’t match the luxury foreign car fade away, Misuk’s lips trembled slightly.

‘That child…’

Misuk recalled Chaea’s particularly bright black eyes.

‘What on earth…’

It was because of words she never could have imagined would flow from a five-year-old’s mouth.

“If it’s a preschool other than Edinburgh, that would be fine. For example… Somang Preschool.”

How shocked she had been by this.

Her heart was still pounding.

Somang Preschool was another preschool where Misuk served as director, which she had inherited from her grandmother with dreams of running a preschool.

Located in a run-down neighborhood quite close to Chaea’s area, that place had been unpopular despite young Misuk’s best efforts. Preschool management became increasingly difficult, and eventually she took out loans to open a new premium preschool in Daechi-dong.

That had drawn explosive response and Misuk achieved great success, while Somang Preschool was gradually being forgotten by her.

More than ten years had passed while she kept thinking she should find someone to take it over.

During that time, the number of students at the neglected Somang Preschool continued to decrease.

How on earth did Chaea know about that? When she looked at Junho, he too wore an expression of not knowing.

“My mother is also a graduate of Somang Preschool. I saw on Edinburgh Kindergarten’s bulletin board that Somang Preschool was a affiliated preschool. You run that place too, right?”

Misuk opened her eyes wide in disbelief that a young child had found out even that fact, and Junho also showed signs of surprise.

When this child’s mother was young, it would have been when Misuk’s grandmother was running the preschool.

“Mom said she learned a lot there. I also want to try attending the preschool where my mom went!”

At that moment, how greatly her heart had pounded…

Misuk opened her water bottle and gulped down water.

“Haa…”

“The preschool our late mother attended!”

For an instant, Misuk’s eyes shook greatly.

Misuk too, as a mother raising a middle school child, could understand the child’s tender feelings.

No matter how gifted or genius she might be, she was still a young child who would dearly miss and long for her mother…

After thinking for a while, Misuk still made one more offer.

“But Somang Preschool has, how should I put it, an environment that’s not as good as Edinburgh…”

“The director can take good care of it from now on! Both Edinburgh and Somang Preschool are the director’s preschools.”

The moment the child said those words, her heart stirred.

The passion when she first inherited the preschool, her beliefs, the complex and realistic difficult concerns – everything flashed through Misuk’s mind.

Somang Preschool was her beginning, but it was also a remnant of the past she wanted to avoid. Now she just wanted to get rid of it because it was bothersome.

Reflected in Chaea’s clear and bright eyes, she had aged and dulled much from life’s storms compared to back then, but the child seemed to bring spring rain to the hardened rock.

“Chaea wants to go to Somang Preschool.”

“Ha, why Somang Preschool of all places.”

Though Misuk muttered as if resentful, she knew that her not rejecting the child’s words was because she too had lingering attachment to Somang Preschool.

“Whew…”

The child who had found it as if by fate – she would probably continue to be on her mind.

Although she didn’t choose Edinburgh, more than choosing Edinburgh…

‘My heart is drawn to it.’

Misuk let out a deep sigh and soon picked up her large cell phone, pressing the buttons firmly.

“Yes, Vice Principal. It’s been a while.”

* * *

On the day I went to Edinburgh Kindergarten, while watching the children play, I glanced at the bulletin board and something caught my eye.

It was a list of Edinburgh Kindergarten’s affiliated educational institutions.

Major private schools in Seoul City and renowned academies in Daechi-dong were listed, and incongruously in small letters was the name Somang Preschool…

I concluded that Somang Preschool was likely another kindergarten established by Principal Jo Mi-sook.

‘That’s the hint for progressing the Sub Quest.’

Somang Preschool.

In the drama 【Love You Even If I Die】, Somang Preschool was where Mother Saebyeol and Father… I hate even calling him that… Mincheol first met.

Though they appeared as child actors, anyway, the two who met at Somang Preschool buried a time capsule in the forest behind the kindergarten to open in the year 2000.

“By the time we open this, we’ll know much more about the world.”

Since the drama ended anticlimactically, the scene of opening the time capsule never appeared, but if I could find it.

[Sub Quest: Find the broken fragments of the past]

[Reward: 1 Gray Key]

I had an intuition that the time capsule was the way to clear the Sub Quest.

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