The Reborn Genius of an Arts High School - Chapter 106

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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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Episode 106.
After discussing the situation with her friends.
Ye Ji didn’t meet Hae Yun until around midday.
Hae Yun, no less shaken than Ye Ji by everything that had happened, looked noticeably more drawn than she had been a day ago.
Seeing this, Ye Ji felt an unexpected guilt wash over her.
“You troublemaker. You’ve gotten yourself tangled up in quite the incident this time, haven’t you?”
She realized only in hindsight that the business with Julien and Goyo was something Hae Yun hadn’t known about until now.
By the time she finished explaining, the story had grown quite long.
As a result, Ye Ji had to sit through a fair amount of scolding from Hae Yun—part concerned, part exasperated.
“At least you have security now, so nothing like that will—”
“If something like that was going to happen, you should have had those kinds of people following you from the start!”
I mean, what kind of painter hires bodyguards for a solo exhibition?
It was just that Julien happened to be spectacularly unhinged.
Though Ye Ji thought the worry was perhaps a bit excessive, she decided to accept it graciously all the same.
“Everything will work out fine. You don’t need to worry anymore.”
It wasn’t until evening that her parents returned, finally finished with their conversations with the police.
Having guardians who took charge of things like this—how reassuring it was.
As she realized this anew,
“So, nothing unusual happened while we were away?”
Her parents proceeded to tell her everything.
“Actually, they were even more considerate than we expected.”
It turned out that thanks to Marc’s thoughtfulness, her parents had been accompanied by both an excellent interpreter and a lawyer.
As a result, they’d completed their statement without any regret or sense of injustice, providing more than enough evidence to ensure Julien would face proper consequences for his actions.
And in the bargain, they’d also brought up past accusations against Catherine.
‘…I shouldn’t dwell too deeply on that.’
That was all in the past now.
She simply wanted Julien to receive exactly what his crimes deserved—nothing more, nothing less.
“What on earth has been happening?”
“It’s a good thing we were all together. What would have happened if you’d been alone?”
With her parents’ concern added to everything else, Ye Ji found that no trace of anxiety remained in her.
The more she received their worry, the more certain it became.
Even if yesterday hadn’t happened, she would have been safe.
“Come to think of it, I’ve never been alone since I came to Paris.”
So many people had come to see her.
Even apart from them, her parents had always moved alongside her.
Not a single day in Paris had she spent alone, which meant Julien would never have been able to harm her recklessly.
***
Marc requested a meeting.
It was exactly one day after the incident.
“First, I must apologize for what’s happened.”
At Marc’s unexpected apology, Ye Ji waved her hand in protest.
“No, this isn’t your fault—”
“I can’t say I bear no responsibility. There were several occasions before this when I pushed Julien too far.”
Marc had sold off all of Julien’s recent works, damaging his reputation in the process.
Perhaps the resentment that festered from that eventually turned toward Ye Ji.
With this realization, Marc bowed his head and offered his apology to Ye Ji.
Seeing the genuine remorse on his face, Ye Ji’s own feelings grew complicated.
“After watching that man for so long, I failed to see what a worthless creature he truly was…”
In every sense, Marc had put himself through emotional turmoil for the entire previous day.
She had learned from her parents the reason why his expression looked so haggard.
‘A long time ago, he really did push a woman named Catherine…’
‘At any rate, this time he was caught. It seems he wasn’t a first-time offender.’
Perhaps they thought it wasn’t the sort of thing to tell a young daughter.
Her parents had conveyed the situation with minimal detail, omitting certain words.
‘When he was arrested, he was already heavily drunk. Like a man who’d lost his mind, he kept muttering about someone named Catherine…’
Ye Ji wasn’t particularly religious, but she believed in a sort of karma.
A karmic debt. What he had accumulated through his words and actions would come due in its time.
Perhaps even his current loss of reason was itself part of that karmic debt.
‘When Marc learned about this, he was greatly shocked. Then he immediately hired multiple lawyers.’
He had no intention of letting this matter pass.
He was preparing an additional charge against Julien—murder in the case of Catherine—and making a formal accusation.
Medical records from the time and accident reports.
He was gathering evidence to prove that Catherine could never have lost her balance and fallen onto the road on her own.
Once his confessional cries and the evidence were combined, it would surely be proof enough.
‘Thanks to that, Julien won’t face a half-hearted trial.’
Since Ye Ji’s case was merely an attempted crime, there was a possibility of a suspended sentence, but if the charge against Catherine were added, the situation would be entirely different.
Depending on the circumstances, Julien would lose his freedom for a very long time—long enough that he’d likely spend his remaining years, at the very least until old age, confined to a prison cell or psychiatric institution.
“In any case, I apologize again for putting you through such an ordeal.”
Marc spoke these words with an expression still heavy with guilt.
“In that spirit of apology, I’m thinking of waiving all fees for this exhibition.”
“…Pardon? No, that’s too much…”
“I invited you to this far-off place and allowed such a thing to happen to you. If I don’t do this, I won’t have peace of mind.”
At Marc’s insistence that she not refuse, Ye Ji fell silent for a moment.
She had no desire to extract any compensation from Marc for what had occurred.
He too was, in a sense, a victim.
Surely he carried not only regret toward her, but also toward Catherine.
If only he’d paid a bit more attention back then, he might have prevented what was happening now.
There was nothing he could offer Catherine as an apology now.
The elderly man’s countenance, which had seemed robust, now appeared worn by various emotions.
It was a sorrowful thing, but Ye Ji found herself thinking something else.
Once he’d secured proper punishment for Julien, perhaps then he could finally let go of all his lingering attachments to the name Catherine.
Ye Ji remembered something Chloe had said when first introducing her to this competition.
‘There was a painter named Catherine once. A promising artist shouldn’t have met such an end, should she?’
He had gone so far as to organize and conduct an entire competition to ensure such a tragedy never happened again.
Perhaps he had been harboring attachment to her in one corner of his heart for a very long time.
Though he had claimed it aligned well with Montrebleu’s ideals.
‘The reason he keeps Catherine’s works hanging there without removing them…’
It might well have been his own lingering attachment.
After a moment’s thought, Ye Ji made a proposal.
“In that case, would it be alright if I asked for something else instead?”
“…Something else?”
His expression suggested he wouldn’t accept anything trivial.
But since Ye Ji wasn’t planning to ask for something small either, she continued with some deliberation.
“Could you give me the painting by Catherine that’s hanging in the gallery? The Cliffs of Etretat?”
A rather lengthy silence followed Ye Ji’s question.
***
Two days after the incident unfolded.
Ye Ji finally fell ill.
In truth, it was remarkable that she’d managed to stay well this long without so much as a minor ailment.
A packed schedule coupled with all manner of incidents.
Perhaps now that the things weighing on her mind had been resolved, her body’s tension had finally released.
A severe cold and body aches kept her confined to her hotel room for several days without moving.
During that time, the guests who had come from across the sea returned to their own countries, and the media began running consistent reports.
“In the end, only Julien was buried, and we slipped through quietly.”
There had been two possible approaches under consideration.
The first was to exploit the incident by also naming Ye Ji as a victim, thereby capitalizing on her involvement.
The second was to keep Ye Ji’s name clear and send only Julien, the perpetrator, into ruin.
The second approach had been chosen.
“Since the identity of the victim in this attempted-crime case won’t be made public, everyone will remain unaware.”
At Hyun Min’s words as he scrolled through internet articles, Ye Ji simply nodded lightly.
Once her fever had finally broken, exhaustion crashed over her in waves.
At the sight of Ye Ji doing nothing but blinking drowsily, Hyun Min let out a soft laugh.
“No interest anymore?”
Even though he was the one who decided to harm you?
In response to Hyun Min’s comment, Ye Ji deliberately shrugged her shoulders more emphatically.
“He only made up his mind—in the end, he couldn’t do anything. And he never will.”
What mattered to Ye Ji was no longer in the past.
She could become famous on the strength of her own name and her paintings alone.
There was no need to become famous by blemishing her own name with that of someone like Julien.
Even if it might take a bit longer.
“Anyway, I don’t need any of that…”
I just need you to get some sleep…
With a weary wave, Ye Ji issued her dismissal, and Hyun Min nodded in understanding as he rose to his feet.
He’d come to tell her, worried she might care.
It turned out to be an unnecessary visit.
And so, exactly three days.
Ye Ji recovered in precisely that time and got back on her feet.
***
Ye Ji’s exhibition ended smoothly, with great success.
At least, that’s what the media reported.
As a result, during that period, there were two major issues in Parisian artistic circles.
One was the emergence of a new talent named Ye Ji.
‘Monster Newcomer’ Ye Ji’s First Solo Exhibition
— Palette Urban
A magical canvas that captivated viewers. An aesthetic of paradox drawn by a genius painter
— Figano
Before a massive canvas, people stood transfixed as if by prior agreement… Answer of the Waves imparts a mysterious sense of connection
— Le Monde
Every media outlet ran feature articles on Ye Ji, each with its own headline.
When it came to discussing her work, Ye Ji participated actively in interviews.
Her paintings didn’t require much explanation.
Intuitive beauty and emotion.
Since her work had such clear strengths, most interviews went smoothly.
They asked the usual questions—how she came to paint her works, her thoughts on moving from the competition to this much-talked-about solo exhibition.
“Since it’s my first solo exhibition, I suppose what matters most is the feeling that this is just the beginning. I realized I need to work even harder.”
It might have been a commonplace answer to a commonplace question, but Ye Ji meant every word.
And the conservative art world tended to appreciate such sincerity all the more.
Commonplace, after all, was just another word for what was fundamental.
A passionate and well-mannered genius drew no resistance and was warmly welcomed into the industry, impressing her name upon audiences with quiet confidence.
It was a far different feeling from Goyo, who had become famous for commercial appeal.
While Goyo had received many offers from corporations, Ye Ji found herself collecting business cards from all sorts of prestigious galleries.
And the second major issue concerned Julien.
Julien was criticized not just in art circles but by various media outlets that took notice of him.
A trial doesn’t wrap up overnight, but Julien was expected to receive punishment befitting his crimes.
At minimum, she would never have reason to face him again.
The police investigation had been completely concluded by around the time the exhibition ended, and there was no longer any reason to remain in Paris.
With her parents’ business matters to attend to and no remaining attachments of her own, she left Paris without delay.
Back to her hometown, Korea—a place that now held her home.
She’d decided to take some time to rest without any major plans for a while.
Instead of a brush, Ye Ji kept a pencil in hand and used Sketches to preserve the complex images that occupied her mind whenever boredom struck.
…
And so, as the vacation drew to its close,
Ye Ji and Hyun Min met at the Studio for the first time in quite a while.
…
Hyun Min found himself uncomfortable under Ye Ji’s unusually quiet, fixed gaze.
“What? Why. What. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Finally Hyun Min burst out,
“I just keep wondering about something.”
“About what?”
At Ye Ji’s follow-up, he pressed his lips shut once more.
“How did you manage to keep all that media stuff away?”

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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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