The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 52

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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 52. Kneel! (4)

Click. Sssshhh.

“Ahhhh….”
“Mm. A morning-after cigarette tastes so sweet.”
“Man. How much did we run around this weekend?”
“Don’t even talk about it. I thought I was dying.”
“Heh. But the results were good, right?”
“Yeah. We killed it. Kiki.”

The three athletic prodigies of Cheonghwa High School.
Today, too, they’d gathered in the Physical Education Preparation Room to smoke.

They’d had quite a weekend.
Despite being minors, they’d leveraged money, power, and connections to breach one of Gangnam’s clubs.

Senior students from Cheonghwa High had paved the way.

Club Pentagon was beyond the reach of even the jurisdiction’s police.

As long as the money flowed, one could enjoy luxury inside like a king.

Book a private room, order a Champagne Set worth several million won, and the rest unfolded on its own.
Everything operated by a well-worn playbook.

The police officers in charge of the jurisdiction maintained intimate relations with the club’s owner.

When crackdown periods came, they’d call ahead to make accommodations.

Behind the scenes, elite youth savored the taste of capitalism and pleasure from an early age.

“You guys going to Canada again?”
“Ugh. What’s the point hanging around that stiff, boring maple-leaf country with no fun?”
“Haha. Waterfalls or whatever.”
“The coach is such an idiot. Again I’m worried about tearing a lung and tears blur my eyes.”
“We’re heading to Pennsylvania this time.”
“Watch your bones. You collide with those guys, you’ll get hurt bad.”
“Heh heh. Don’t worry. I’m prime talent, so I start on the bench.”
“Kiki. Right, where else do you find talent like us? Soon as we enroll, they lay out fresh sod on the practice field.”
“I’ll lay down my own bench.”

The three were preparing for university entrance through rugby and hockey.
They harbored no worries whatsoever about their future or competitive pressures.

As athletic recruits aiming for Yeonguk University, their path was wide open.

No matter how talented, without money you’re finished.

After enrollment, they’d need to keep bleeding money through overseas training and the like.

There was no need to strain themselves winning gold medals in hockey or rugby.

It was simply another admission pathway for wealthy, unintelligent youth.

Creak.

Then the door to the Physical Education Preparation Room opened.
The three turned their gaze toward the entrance.

No ordinary student would dare enter the exclusive athletic recruits’ prep room at this hour.

Most of the third-year athletic recruits were out competing right now.

Yet someone had brazenly entered the prep room during a time meant for privacy.

“What!”
“…….”

The faces of the three visibly hardened as they fixed their gaze on the entryway.

Click. Sssshhh.

A figure entered the prep room, lighting a cigarette that hung from his lips.

“Is that… Jeong-ho?”

All three tensed without needing to discuss it.

Unlike themselves—upper-class youth of middling standing—Lee Jeong-ho was a diamond-spoon heir of the Oyang Group.

Students from families in the top 100 corporations and supreme houses openly smoked in their club rooms.

Rumor had it that drinking was also possible in the Business Research Club—their clubroom.

Lee Jeong-ho spent most of his time stationed in the Business Research Club Room.

He seldom appeared in this shabby(?) Physical Education Preparation Room.
Yet….

“Rats… not that kind.”

He drew deeply on his cigarette and exhaled while regarding the three with contempt.

Lee Jeong-ho, cigarette dangling from his lips, looked nothing like an ordinary student.

“…….”

The three would normally have flared up at an ordinary student, but this was Lee Jeong-ho.

As if by agreement, all three averted their eyes from his gaze.

“I want to ask you something.”
“……??”

The formidable Lee Jeong-ho posed a question with uncharacteristic courtesy.

“Ha Tae-ung from 2nd Year Class 3. What’s that bastard doing?”
“Ha Tae-ung?”
“Do you mean the outcast Ha Tae-ung?”
“What? An, an outcast??”

At the three’s response, Lee Jeong-ho’s face twisted savagely.

“How dare… an outcast like that… gnashing…”

He recalled Ha Tae-ung vividly, the one who’d disrespected him at the golf course over the weekend.

Once Lee Jeong-ho confirmed his true identity, his teeth ground.

“That bastard… I’ll kill him!”

* * *

‘Why did the principal suddenly call for me?’

Lee Jang-yong was deeply flustered in that instant.

Among the scores of teachers, the core subjects—Korean, English, math—wielded influence, unlike the elective teachers.

Among those, classical Chinese was a prime example.

Discrimination ran deep within Cheonghwa High, and the elective teachers had no room to stretch.

Yet in such a school climate, Kim Chang-yong—the classical Chinese teacher—had roared like a lion before the very face of the math instructor.

Moreover, he’d invoked the principal, whom he had no prior friendship with.

“Why would the principal come out! The Dean of Academic Affairs told me to expose that outcast’s cheating!”

An agitated Lee Jang-yong sprayed spittle.
His pride was on the line.

No one at Cheonghwa High supported an outcast student.

‘The principal? When he learns of this situation, he’ll be grateful to me, won’t he? Heh heh heh.’

The current principal wanted to serve out his term quietly and retire.

He would absolutely not want to be drawn into anything involving the PTA president.

“Do you have evidence? Evidence that our Tae-ung committed cheating!”
“Well. Certainly I do.”
“What is it?”
“In Cheonghwa’s history, there has never been a student ranked fifth in the class who suddenly scored a perfect mark. That’s the evidence!”
“What did you say?”

It sounded like a stretch, but it wasn’t without basis.
Lee Jang-yong’s assertion rested on solid ground.

Since Cheonghwa’s founding, there had been no perfect scorers among the student body except outcasts.

Even confirmed geniuses weren’t permitted perfect marks—Cheonghwa’s pride.

Yet this outcast had received a perfect score.

Of course, his grade would plummet when practical exams and various performance evaluations were factored in.

Still, the written exam’s perfect score had to be corrected.

“Come on out! You fraud bastard!”

Lee Jang-yong pointed at Ha Tae-ung again.

Every student’s eyes in the classroom were fixed on Ha Tae-ung.

Not long ago, a PE teacher had treated Ha Tae-ung this same way, then vanished from school within a day.

The scene was a perfect hundred-percent replay of that situation.

“Sir. Isn’t that going a bit too far?”

Then a cold, precise female student’s voice cut quietly and low through the classroom.

Lee Jang-yong turned to the source of the voice.

“……!!”

His eyes widened in shock.

‘Why Lee Hyo-ju?’

An incomprehensible situation was unfolding.
Lee Hyo-ju of the Oyang Group’s royal family.
An honor student with zero interest in others’ affairs had involved herself in an outcast’s matter.

Lee Jang-yong’s spine went cold.

If the perfect scorer had been Lee Hyo-ju, Lee Jang-yong wouldn’t have dared carry on like this.

Of course, the PTA president couldn’t have found fault either.

No matter how notorious a math teacher Lee Jang-yong was among Cheonghwa’s students, he had limits against the family of a conglomerate.

“Did Tae-ung commit cheating…. Do you have specific evidence?”

Her question was brief but cut to the heart of it.
Lee Jang-yong bit his lip hard.

The board was already laid.

If he backed down now, the math teacher’s authority would crumble to dust.

“Of course! Would I be doing this without evidence?”

Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, Lee Jang-yong’s eyes gleamed with cunning intent.
He didn’t yet realize.

A harbinger of death was closing the distance, step by step.

“So what’s that evidence? I’m curious too~”

From the back, Ha Tae-ung displayed an even more relaxed demeanor.

‘That cocky bastard!’

His behavior was far different from that of other outcasts.

An outcast’s station, even innocent, usually forced one to lower oneself like a criminal.

Ha Tae-ung’s demeanor was different.

A mocking gaze and arrogant tone.

It further grated on Lee Jang-yong’s nerves and stoked his rage.

He wanted nothing more than to rush over, slap him across the face, knock him down, and stomp on him.

An outcast, one who shouldn’t even exist, was standing tall and challenging authority—a breach of teacher’s prerogative.

“Get out here! You bastard!!”

With so many watching students, he couldn’t resort to direct violence.

Even an important core-subject teacher would be buried in the education world immediately if word spread of physical assault.

“Sir!!”

Kim Chang-yong, who’d been watching, stopped him with a loud voice.

“…….”

The classroom atmosphere turned murderous.

Students witnessing such a situation for the first time could only be alarmed.

“What’s going on?”
“What happened?”

As the noise spread even to the adjacent classrooms, students poured in.

Cheonghwa High School was normally quiet and orderly.

Yet unfamiliar clamor had persisted since Monday morning.

The students got equally excited, like ordinary high school kids.

“The outcast and Suggang are at it.”
“Suggang? Why?”

Lee Jang-yong, nicknamed the Math Thug among students.

The hallway was now packed with students who’d come to watch.

“What are you all doing!”

Student Council executives who happened to be walking the corridor appeared.

They were filling vacancies left by third-year executives—the real power brokers among second-year students.

“Right now… Suggang, I mean, Teacher Lee Jang-yong is interrogating someone for cheating.”

A second-year girl carefully relayed the situation to the inquiry of Han Yu-bin, the Ice Witch.

Discipline Committee Chair Han Yu-bin’s position was markedly different from other students.

Granddaughter of a former Prosecutor General and daughter of a High Court Vice President—she came from a legal elite family.

The traditions of an established house had soaked into her bones, making her composed.

“A cheater? Who?”
“The outcast Ha Tae-ung.”
“Ha Tae-ung?”

The image that came to Han Yu-bin’s mind was the arrogant outcast Ha Tae-ung.

A student who’d challenged her authority in the cafeteria.

He’d been so audacious she’d had no way to handle him.

His aura was so unusual that she’d actually faltered at his demeanor, which she’d never encountered before.

She’d tried hard to forget the unpleasant memory at the time.

Yet another incident involving him had erupted.

“What kind of cheating?”

Han Yu-bin asked again, concealing her curiosity.

“Ha Tae-ung got a perfect score in every subject.”
“What…? A, a perfect score??”

Han Yu-bin was genuinely shocked.
Cheonghwa’s written exams ranked number one in difficulty among South Korean high schools.

Even the notoriously hard college entrance exam problems seemed easy by Cheonghwa’s standard—a perfect score there?

Han Yu-bin herself had missed several questions on this written exam.

Particularly in math, she’d lost points on subjective problem-solving.

The problems were genuinely unsolvable at the high school level.

Yet Ha Tae-ung had scored perfectly?

“What nonsense! How could an outcast possibly—!”

Yang Ji-hoon, the Student Council executive from the same class as Han Yu-bin, burst out.

Sparks flew in his eyes.

Yang Ji-hoon had barely scraped a 90-point average on this exam.

Such a score put him at mid-level in the class.

‘All outcasts are garbage!!’

Consumed by excessive superiority, Yang Ji-hoon was infuriated to his core.

That lunatic outcast Ha Tae-ung who’d insulted him in the cafeteria.

Today he was finally getting caught by Suggang.

“Move aside!”

At a single word from Han Yu-bin, the hallway packed with students parted like the Red Sea.

She passed through them and entered the back door of 2nd Year Class 3 Classroom.
Then she looked back and forth between Lee Jang-yong and Ha Tae-ung.

“Then prove it. But the teacher participates too.”

Ha Tae-ung directed a composed suggestion toward Lee Jang-yong.

“W, what did you say??”

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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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