The Reborn Genius of an Arts High School - Chapter 131

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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 131
Suddenly pulling down an artwork on display and removing it?
“What? I…?”
Ye Ji looked at Hyun Min with a bewildered expression.
Noticing her gaze, Hyun Min quickly rose from his seat.
“Wait, I need to make a call. I’ll be right back.”
Since Hyun Min’s relative owned the gallery, he must be going to verify things.
Of course, it wasn’t as though she had no idea why.
If she alone felt something was wrong with the artwork….
And if there really was a problem….
Ye Ji, thinking the same thing, pulled out her Mobile Phone.
There was someone she could ask about this too.
She found her contacts and called Han Gyu.
After the signal rang for quite some time, Han Gyu finally answered.
-Oh, Ye Ji. Sorry. I’ll call you back later….
As he rushed to hang up, Ye Ji stated her business briefly.
“Is there something wrong with Na Mi-rae’s Artwork?”
Yes or no.
She thought it was the kind of question that could be answered one way or the other.
But Han Gyu didn’t answer directly. Instead, he turned the question back on her.
-……How did you know?
“Well….”
-You don’t need to worry about it for now. We’ll handle it, and I’ll tell you everything later.
In the end, Han Gyu seemed busy and hung up quickly.
Se Hee and Da Hye, who had been pressed against Ye Ji’s head eavesdropping on the call, exchanged glances filled with questions.
He hadn’t given a direct answer, but hearing his response was as good as one.
It seemed Han Gyu already knew that Na Mi-rae’s Artwork had been removed.
***
“I’m telling you it’s not true! Don’t you believe me? When did you even see it? How can you believe that girl and not me!”
Na Mi-rae was shrieking as if having a fit, unable to accept what was happening before her eyes.
Her work being taken down because of a single phone call?
She couldn’t believe it.
What would become of all the effort she’d poured in so far?
Mistaking the time and money she’d squandered committing fraud for effort was a characteristic trait of her kind.
“Hey! Say something!”
“Enough, Na Mi-rae.”
When Na Mi-rae barked at Da Som, Han Gyu, stepping back in after a brief call, stopped her.
Na Mi-rae’s face was full of grievance and rage.
It was such a convincing display that anyone looking at her would mistake it for genuine injustice.
But everyone here was someone who’d worked long in the art world with genuine skill and discernment.
Having known her for years, they’d all felt a sense of incongruity in her work.
But that was merely a sense of incongruity.
It was also an element that, as Ye Ji had thought, could have been a misunderstanding.
And because that sense of incongruity repeated in each piece, they’d initially dismissed it as merely a bad habit.
But now that a witness and victim had come forward, the story was different.
They weren’t simply believing Da Som’s testimony.
Da Som was merely the spark that ignited suspicions that had been building all along.
“I must be senile to have believed in you. Tsk.”
Hae Yun clicked her tongue at Na Mi-rae’s behavior.
Inwardly, Hae Yun carried a small sense of guilt.
It all felt as though it had happened precisely because he hadn’t paid much attention to the people around him.
His carelessness in seeing her produce similar works consistently over time, finding it odd yet letting it slide.
Perhaps even if Mu-young had noticed something amiss, he likely would have ignored that sense of incongruity.
Because Mu-young had been Hae Yun’s long-time pupil.
Even as Mu-young resented Hae Yun, he recognized his skill and discernment.
That’s why he didn’t know how Na Mi-rae had managed to maintain such a long, extended lie.
“Get out. I don’t even want to see your face anymore. Now scram!”
Her work descended quietly, shrouded in doubt and disgrace.
The empty space left by her work would soon be reconstructed and filled as if it had never existed in the first place.
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait, wait! This isn’t right! You used me for so long, and you won’t even give me a chance? That’s your fault!”
Na Mi-rae had no intention of leaving.
She shook off Han Gyu’s hand pulling her away, making a final desperate struggle.
She was destroying every last reason for forgiveness and every final chance to give her.
There was no one in this room who would be swayed by her absurd claim that it was everyone else’s fault.
“…….”
So Min, who had been waiting outside the room unable to go back in, encountered Na Mi-rae being half-dragged out.
She was witnessing with her own eyes and ears just how pathetic the endpoint of obsession with a goal could be.
Though this was a world that valued only results, this was not the way.
Having witnessed a worst-case scenario worthy of being a cautionary tale, So Min fell silent for a moment in thought.
***
After Na Mi-rae had gone.
What remained were Hae Yun, Mu-young, and Da Som.
Hae Yun, watching Da Som still crying, grimaced and downed the remaining tea like liquor.
“I wasn’t speaking idly. I’ve already noted down your father’s hospital information and contact details. Now you go see him.”
At Hae Yun’s words, Da Som’s sobs only grew louder.
Before Mu-young could say anything, Hae Yun added, turning to him.
“If it bothers you, you hire her. Whether you pay her salary or loan her money.”
Use it as you see fit.
At Hae Yun’s words, Mu-young closed his mouth again.
Da Som, even as she wept, opened her mouth with resolve.
“Still… still, I’ll repay you. Whether it takes ten years, twenty years. Even if it takes a hundred years, I’ll repay every bit!”
“Much good that’ll do when this old man’s in the ground.”
At Hae Yun’s words, Da Som flustered, waving her hands.
So flustered explaining that wasn’t what she meant that her tears even stopped. At that, Mu-young also clicked his tongue.
Somehow her manner resembled Hae Yun’s.
“That’s enough. Just focus on your work. Go talk with that fellow Han Gyu outside.”
There was no need to sit here listening to more explanations.
Da Som, still bewildered and grateful, her lingering emotions not yet settled, finally managed to stop her tears and stood.
Once she too left her seat, Mu-young began to wrap things up as well.
“Then….”
If you’d leave for a moment.
At Mu-young’s unspoken hint, Hae Yun, pretending not to notice, sat with deliberate obliviousness, picking up his empty teacup and setting it down again.
Then he finally opened his mouth again.
“I remembered something.”
At those words, Mu-young frowned, questioning what this was about.
“The day right before you suddenly cut off contact. That last day.”
At Hae Yun’s words, Mu-young’s expression instantly hardened.
That day, Mu-young had prepared work for his first overseas exhibition and shown it to Hae Yun.
Just as Hae Yun later hoped for Ye Ji, he had once harbored some hope for Mu-young too.
Perhaps a world-renowned artist who would introduce Korean art to the next generation might be born under his hand.
But that day, Hae Yun was disappointed.
Elements of Western painting clumsily imitated.
A subject and exhibition direction that didn’t suit his artistic style at all.
Hasty and crude.
Even the exhibition itself was strange from the start.
It wasn’t a formal invitation from the gallery—the artist himself had poured money into it, merely renting the space.
To hang that kind of work in that kind of exhibition?
His disappointment was so great that Hae Yun had no choice but to speak barbed words.
That if he was going to bring garbage like that, he should put his brush down….
“Thinking about it now, I suppose I was a bit harsh….”
A bit? Mu-young’s expression twisted even further.
The Hae Yun of today was at least somewhat softened by age.
Back then, he was cruder, more unrestrained in front of others.
But his words were one thing; his true intention was never, truly never to have him break his brush.
“I was telling you not to chase recognition through pointless efforts, but to walk your own path. It’s been years since I knew you—how could you take it so literally and hold it in your heart?”
With that kind of approach, you wouldn’t accomplish anything.
He had spoken more forcefully because he was pained by Mu-young’s compulsion to gnaw at himself, bound by the approval of others.
But he hadn’t known it would backfire so drastically.
The Hae Yun of that time didn’t know.
Besides, he wasn’t the sort of person the title “master” truly suited.
The Na Mi-rae matter alone proved that.
“…….”
At Hae Yun’s words, Mu-young gave no answer.
The Hae Yun of today was different from that time.
Now he could finally see clearly what he had feared and worried about.
Watching the strides Ye Ji made, he understood new things.
Moving forward without fear, simply pushing ahead with whatever came to hand.
He could now see how valuable that attitude truly was.
Doing your best when opportunity came.
Diving fearlessly into the current toward a greater path, rather than toward safety.
The opportunities that came from that—how great they were.
“In a sense, you were better than me back then.”
Even if Mu-young’s attempt back then had been clumsy, it wasn’t meaningless work.
Hadn’t the result been that he became known overseas before Hae Yun and gained opportunities first?
In contrast, he had remained passive all this while, missing countless chances to make himself known.
Even the opportunity he’d barely grasped came from a chance born of happenstance through Ye Ji.
Though it stung his pride a bit inside, even so, Hae Yun had decided to seize that opportunity.
Just because he was famous in Korea didn’t mean he had to be famous from the start overseas.
Just as he’d started from the bottom at home.
Overseas, he could start again from the bottom, learning anew.
Mu-young had simply been willing to bear that cost.
“You had courage, and I didn’t. And I came to realize that far too late.”
At those words from Hae Yun, Mu-young turned his head away.
Was an old master’s apology at this late hour really meaningless?
Hae Yun thought bitterly to himself.
Even a belated apology might be nothing more than an old man’s selfishness.
The apology had been offered, and it would be Mu-young’s choice whether to accept it or not.
“Back then, I was foolish. I’m sorry.”
Perhaps it was an apology to ease his own guilt.
To hope it would be accepted was also selfish.
Hae Yun slowly rose and paused as he left Mu-young’s space.
A massive Artwork by Mu-young hung on the wall, coming into his view.
The depth held in the monochrome of layered ink upon ink.
The powerful Brushwork that conveyed the life tangled into Korea’s vast mountain ranges raw and vivid.
Hae Yun gazed at it for several seconds before fully leaving that space.
“…….”
Silence flowed through a space without even a clock.
Mu-young, head bowed for a moment, exhaled a long breath.
The old misunderstanding and resentment melted away, but one breath wasn’t enough to expel it all.
The middle-aged man struggled for a moment to calm the welling emotion in his chest.
***
A certain residence in Cheongdam-dong.
The Artwork that had vanished from Blank was quietly being brought inside.
Shin Hye-ran, the director of Blank, watched the incoming Artwork with keen eyes.
“Leave it there. Good work.”
Having spoken to the staff member, she stared intently at the work set in a corner of the floor.
In any case, there was no way flaws visible only to experts’ eyes would appear to her collector’s eye.
Though perhaps because she’d heard the story beforehand.
“Something about it feels off.”
-Beep-beep
She checked her Mobile Phone as it rang at just that moment.
Since it was a call from her busy nephew, she answered immediately.
“Yes, Shin Myung-hee. What is it?”
Her nephew was Shin Myung-hee, who now ran SS Group following her late brother’s death.

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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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