The Reborn Genius of an Arts High School - Chapter 91

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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 91.
Kim Ina, the team leader at Cellian, had been feeling remarkably alive these days.
Whether the weather was fine or cloudy, she found joy in it all.
Every single day brought her pleasure.
She’d grown so generous she could overlook minor mistakes from her subordinates and give them another chance.
“Monday, Monday, I love Monday~”
Was that a song from some children’s American animated show?
Before she knew it, she was humming it as she sat down Monday morning before a stack of reports.
Of course she was thrilled!
The stack of reports brimmed with nothing but positive forecasts and favorable survey results.
Hundreds of millions in additional revenue from this marketing campaign was just the baseline.
There was even viral marketing that couldn’t be measured in money.
What a rush. Nothing beats results!
Knock, knock.
As she savored her Monday, a knock came at her office door.
“Um, Team Leader. Someone’s here to see you.”
“Who?”
“Well, that is…”
Behind the employee’s troubled expression, she saw who it was.
A man dressed flamboyantly and a student wearing a pulled-down hat….
Oh!
“My goodness!”
The artist Young and Ye Ji, who had become the very source of her recent joy.
Ina rose hastily and stepped out of her office.
Young was one of the artists with the highest profile recently.
She knew of him too, though she’d only glimpsed him from a distance at his exhibition.
They weren’t exactly acquainted.
So what possible reason could bring him and Ye Ji together to seek her out so suddenly?
Ina found herself reassessing—from Seongsu to Young.
She was curious about Ye Ji’s network, how she seemed to know all the artists who were making waves.
But setting curiosity aside….
“Um… but what brings you here at this hour?”
Ye Ji should be at school at this time, shouldn’t she?
Realizing something was amiss, Ina looked between the two of them anxiously.
Yet she was sharp enough to quickly gesture to them.
“Shall we talk in my office?”
It would be better for security than a conference room.
A sudden, quiet visit could only mean one thing: security.
She promptly ushered the two inside her office quietly.
“I can get you some coffee….”
“No, thank you. Please don’t trouble yourself.”
Ina cut off her employee’s offer sharply and firmly closed the office door.
Only after lowering the blinds on the glass window did she turn to face Young and Ye Ji, who had taken their seats.
“What on earth is going on?”
Ina asked again, making no effort to hide her alarm.
“I’m sorry to drop in so suddenly.”
“That’s not really the issue….”
Ina waved her hand at Ye Ji’s polite greeting.
She was more interested in what they’d come to discuss.
Ye Ji, perceptive enough, got straight to the point.
“We found out something we thought you should know.”
As Ye Ji took the lead in explaining the situation, Young mainly provided reactions.
Everything that came from her was unexpected.
“Julien Valmont?”
Since she wasn’t deeply embedded in the art world, Ina searched as she listened to Ye Ji’s account.
He didn’t seem like a nobody.
As Ye Ji explained Julien’s impersonation, Ina’s mind raced.
It was certainly unfortunate and regrettable.
But setting those feelings aside, from a business standpoint, it wasn’t Cellian’s concern.
It was just a one-off project anyway.
They’d already pulled in plenty of publicity and buzz, so that was enough.
The company had no obligation to protect an artist’s reputation.
‘It’s unfortunate, but this isn’t something I can do anything about. Headquarters won’t care either.’
But then.
“And apparently Pradel is doing a collaboration with Julien.”
When a competitor became involved, the conversation took a different turn.
***
“After hearing that, I did some digging.”
Hyun Min had spent the entire weekend glued to the internet after hearing what Ye Ji said.
In today’s world, an alarming amount of information is shared online.
With sufficient background knowledge and proficient search skills, there’s barely anything one can’t find.
Ye Ji felt both grateful and apologetic hearing his words.
“Didn’t you say you were busy preparing for Yeonsilzong?”
“Is that the problem right now?”
Hyun Min cut her off curtly and gestured to her.
As she approached, numerous photos appeared on his laptop screen.
“I did a background check on Julien Valmont.”
It sounded like an inappropriate term, but these weren’t illegally obtained materials.
From dozens of photos, he displayed ones from a party venue.
“Look at this.”
It was from the Pradel venue at Paris Fashion Week held not long ago.
It showed Julien appearing at the event.
He was a man with strong self-awareness, not someone who downplayed his own presence.
Flamboyant, eye-catching clothes and gestures.
Julien Valmont, appearing in verification photos with various celebrities, blended in naturally with them.
“Here, the person talking with him is Pradel’s head of marketing.”
At Hyun Min’s words, Ye Ji frowned slightly.
In quite a few photos, the two were conversing together.
Most were taken from a distance, but some were close enough to see their expressions.
At least the atmosphere didn’t look bad.
“The important thing is this.”
Next, Hyun Min showed her a video that a fashion YouTuber had posted as a vlog from the party.
As he skipped through the glamorous scenes of the venue, the moment Julien and the marketing head faced each other appeared.
Behind the voices describing the venue’s scale.
The image of the two of them conversing warmly and shaking hands was captured perfectly.
“But why is this important?”
At Ye Ji’s question, Hyun Min raised a finger.
That was precisely the point.
With a serious expression, Hyun Min cleared away all the glamorous photos and videos on screen and brought up something else.
Goyeo’s SNS account.
A DM from Pradel’s official account had come to her there.
“…A collaboration offer?”
The DM contained the exact same content as what had come in a formal business email.
But Ye Ji had no intention of accepting a collaboration.
Hyun Min naturally knew her answer, so he’d handled it without troubling her, dealing with it himself.
A brief, firm response saying that, regrettably, it was difficult.
But the reply was very strange.
[Yes, absolutely ^^ Then we’ll make sure to say hello properly at an official event.]
They’d been rejected, so why would they greet her?
And how did they even know who Goyeo was?
Hyun Min had assumed the person in charge had either contacted the wrong person or gotten confused about the target, and moved on.
But looking at all these circumstances together, one conclusion emerged.
“The timing lines up perfectly.”
It was still just speculation.
Ye Ji, who had been thinking, asked back.
“You’re certain?”
At Ye Ji’s question, Hyun Min also fell into thought.
If this were his problem, he would have answered with certainty.
But this was Ye Ji’s problem, ultimately.
If he’d gotten it wrong….
“I’ll look into it more.”
Even if he’d said he was certain, Ye Ji would have believed him.
But to his words that he’d verify, Ye Ji nodded.
And a few days later, Hyun Min made a firm assertion.
He even said that the contract between Julien and Pradel wasn’t just about promotion—it was a one-time collaboration product launch.
Having obtained such detailed information.
Ye Ji had no choice but to act.
***
As Ina listened to Ye Ji’s account, she asked precisely:
“So Pradel is collaborating with someone impersonating you, is that it?”
“Yes.”
Ye Ji trusted Hyun Min’s information.
At Ye Ji’s confident answer, Ina fell into thought.
This was information she needed to verify again herself.
The situation did seem a bit odd to begin with.
Julien was already an artist with some name value.
Why would such a person impersonate a small Korean rookie artist?
As if understanding Ina’s silence, Ye Ji nodded.
“Of course, that person is a much more famous and experienced painter than I am.”
But in some ways, that was the problem.
“But they’re not an established master with the kind of commercial appeal that would make companies want to partner with them.”
Ye Ji’s words were right.
Being a successful, talented painter didn’t necessarily mean you were worth collaborating with.
And the fashion industry above all was sensitive and quick to trends.
That they’d accepted a newcomer so readily was because the work was genuinely good and offered freshness.
Newness itself.
That was value beyond anything else.
Something no established name could possess.
You couldn’t neutralize that with just moderate fame alone.
“…So what do you want from me?”
Without refuting Ye Ji’s point, Ina asked directly.
The fact that they’d brought an unfamiliar person like Young along meant it wasn’t just about informing her of these facts.
“If you wanted, you could just tell Pradel that you’re the real Goyeo.”
Was she looking for verification of identity?
It didn’t seem like that was the only reason.
At Ina’s words, Ye Ji nodded.
“Then everything would fall apart and end quietly.”
But Ye Ji’s tone was odd.
Not that she wanted to do that, but rather that she didn’t want to.
“You’re planning to escalate this?”
Ina had thought she was an innocent girl.
She decided to revise her assessment of Ye Ji.
Nothing is more frightening than a genius with good self-awareness.
Ye Ji, despite her young age, understood herself with precision.
Exactly matching her own value.
She knew how to make demands that never overstepped and were always appropriate.
“The artworks I created—you still have them at Cellian, correct?”
At Ye Ji’s question, Ina nodded.
Now that shooting was complete, she’d been about to return the artworks to Ye Ji.
They hadn’t purchased the artworks from her—they’d contracted for the rights to use them.
But instead of asking for them back, Ye Ji made an unexpected proposal.
“What if we displayed them in the major department stores in Paris?”
Cellian’s stores, located in Paris department stores.
She wanted to hang the artworks there?
Ina fell into thought.
If they did that, passersby would naturally compare Julien’s work with Goyeo’s work.
“That’s where I could be helpful, right?”
Young’s cheerful voice interjected into the conversation.
He encompassed not just painting but all fields of art.
“If we do it together with my installation work? It could be a really interesting exhibition.”
Both Young’s words and Ye Ji’s proposal.
They were both, in fact, bold proposals.
Various calculations began turning in Ina’s mind.
Ye Ji’s artworks had originally been created for this season.
They would fit perfectly with stores being renewed for upcoming season sales.
Add Young’s installation art to really elevate the stores?
It wouldn’t be strange if people came just to see the exhibition itself.
It would be no different from turning a store into a high-end salon.
“I won’t ask for any compensation beyond what’s already written in the contract. As long as you do it properly.”
There Ye Ji made a generous deal.
When Ina hesitated in her response, Ye Ji asked.
“Is it difficult?”
Difficult? Of course not!
She’d have even said she’d prefer to do it in Korea if she could.
Whoever this Julien person was, he’d definitely made the wrong target.
Paris was a city where art and fashion converged.
Spending a large sum to design the stores wasn’t that big an issue.
Headquarters would certainly see the mere attraction of people and buzz as a clear advantage.
The hesitation was only about Ye Ji’s proposal itself.
She could accept her proposal on the spot and that would be fine….
‘To make it last longer….’
Wouldn’t the golden goose lay better eggs if you fed it well and kept it close?
Ina, who had been deliberating, spoke.
“I have an additional proposal I’d like to make to you, Director.”

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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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