Translator: Elisia
Editor/Proofreader: Wojo
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“You… right now… what did you say…?”
A man with a bald head was sitting in front of me, sweating profusely.
A well-paid teacher at a wealthy school.
However, his character was completely opposite to the amount of money he received.
No, it would be more accurate to refer to him as part of the group of ‘teachers’.
Because it would be much faster to count the teachers who didn’t take bribes in this school.
Actually, are there any teachers who didn’t take bribes?
If there is a teacher in this school who doesn’t take bribes, that teacher would truly deserve to be called a ‘teacher’.
And, they wouldn’t have turned a blind eye to all the other teachers accepting bribes, nor would they have ignored a student being openly bullied.
That’s why I didn’t hesitate to say these things to any teacher I caught.
“Please sign here.”
What I held out was a written agreement.
I tried writing it myself at first, but it seemed like Yang Hye-in thought it was lacking.
So, after taking a bit more time and receiving advice from professionals, the document ended up containing much more than I had originally planned.
Ha-neul was worried about what would happen if the contents of the agreement leaked out, but in fact, that was exactly what I hoped for.
I wanted to show that I too was someone to be feared, not just my mother.
Besides, by getting these signatures, the contents were bound to leak eventually.
And to be honest, most of that extensive content probably wouldn’t even be legally enforceable.
In South Korea, if you write an agreement, it has to not violate ‘public order and morals’ to be valid.
It’s probably similar to how a physical forfeiture agreement isn’t legally valid.
Of course, I didn’t include any barbaric clauses like that.
In fact, the content could even be considered quite reasonable.
To summarize that long document as simply as possible,
‘From now on, don’t take any more bribes. We will stop giving them. We won’t pursue legal responsibility for what happened.’
Of course, it doesn’t end there.
I honestly didn’t care how much money these teachers had accepted.
They weren’t people I needed to concern myself with.
But if I left it there, that person would clearly feel frustrated.
There were no immediate means to punish them, but that person desperately wanted these teachers to be punished.
That’s why the agreement also included this clause:
‘We request a refund for the unearned benefits we received from the bribes, excluding the privileges we gained.’
Yes.
The massive bribes that my mother or I had given until now were truly excessive.
I didn’t know exactly how excessive it was, but I’ve heard that tens of billions of won is an amount some people may not earn in a lifetime.
From a normal perspective, that money is definitely a huge amount.
Yet, these teachers took that kind of money just for putting me and So-hee in the same class.
Well, they probably didn’t pocket all of it themselves, but even so, the amount was definitely excessive, don’t you think?
That’s why I included a request to attach receipts in the agreement.
This was the reason why the document wouldn’t be legally enforceable.
“Uh, so, Sara…”
The teacher, sweating bullets, opened his mouth as if trying to calm me down.
Yes, he would know.
He probably knew that this document wouldn’t be legally binding.
And, of course, he knew that even he wouldn’t be protected by the law when in front of me.
…This man is decent.
He wasn’t someone who lived quietly and passively like I did.
He wasn’t a saint, and when others cursed at him, he cursed back.
But he wouldn’t cross the line.
Even if he threatened someone, he wouldn’t actually follow through with the threat.
However, I am different.
I have no interest in these people.
What happens to them is none of my business.
Just like they didn’t care what happened to me.
“…You do realize that what you’re saying right now is ridiculous, don’t you?”
After rolling his eyes around nervously, the teacher finally said that.
“Of course.”
I smiled brightly and said.
“It’s just as ridiculous as a teacher receiving bribes in the hundreds, thousands, or even billions.”
“…That’s—”
“And, for receiving such huge sums of money, all you did was conspire with the students to bully one first-year. It’s not a very believable story, is it?”
I closed my mouth for a moment and stared intently at the sweating teacher.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at me, his eyes darting nervously.
He looked quite pitiful.
Well, whether he was pitiful or not wasn’t really my concern.
“But, you see, I have the money to make that unbelievable story believable.”
It seemed like the Eugene Group didn’t own any broadcasting stations or newspapers.
But there were companies that Eugene Group funded with their advertising.
…Well, it’s not like I could actually control the Eugene Group.
But I could use the money I had.
After all, it was ridiculously abundant and I didn’t have much use for it.
If things went south, I could take this agreement and pay a bunch of money to broadcasting stations and media outlets to get it on the front page.
If they couldn’t run it as a news article, I’d make it an advertisement.
I didn’t care either way.
I had more than enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life.
But what about the teacher standing in front of me?
And what about the teachers watching us from afar with uneasy eyes?
This particular teacher could probably still live comfortably in his old age unless every bribe he’d ever taken was stripped away.
But what about the younger teachers who hadn’t been here long?
Caught up in the atmosphere, feeling like they had no choice but to go along…
There could be many reasons.
Some of them might even have a decent excuse.
But if we made exceptions, there’d be no end to it, right?
“Sara, even if I don’t sign this document, nothing’s going to happen.”
Now regaining some composure, the teacher spoke in a soothing voice.
“The… the money you claim to have given, it’s money that wasn’t supposed to be given in the first place. It’s money that’s exchanged without leaving evidence. So, it’s only natural that I don’t sign this, right?”
That’s true.
If he had any common sense, he wouldn’t sign an agreement that was so one-sidedly disadvantageous to him.
Sure, he might have felt dizzy after seeing the initial contents, but if he thought about it calmly, it was a document he could simply refuse to sign.
All he had to do was deny it.
…That’s what he must have thought.
“What gives you the confidence to say that?”
Of course, I had already thought about this before drafting the agreement.
“Confidence? What do you mean?”
“….”
Without answering, I just stared at the teacher.
Yes.
The small girl standing before him, holding out the agreement and asking for his signature.
‘Ye Sara’ was ‘the richest teenager in the world.’
A teenager who could pay her maid 500 million won a year, who had bought an entire building that used to be a department store and turned it into her home, and who could casually give her friends tens of millions of won as pocket money.
The possibilities of what ‘money’ could do were endless.
There were possibilities I hadn’t even considered, but the person inside me already knew them.
Well, that person wouldn’t have spent money like I do.
“Teacher.”
I called out to him, staring intently.
Though he was much taller and broader than me, he was sweating coldly while looking at me.
“There’s a saying, ‘Read between the lines’.”
Of course, I didn’t explicitly say how I would use the money.
If taking and giving bribes was a weakness, declaring I’d do something like that would also be a weakness.
“I’ll say it again.”
So that he could understand exactly, I repeated it once more.
“What gives you the confidence to say you won’t sign this?”
“….”
Yes.
The money I had could do ‘anything.’
Even if you added ‘to anyone’ in front of that, it wouldn’t sound strange.
“….”
The teacher’s mouth hung open.
And the teachers watching us from afar had their mouths wide open too.
Well, of course, I didn’t come here with just this one agreement.
Yes, I just realized.
If someone receives money, they should do the work that matches the amount.
If they can’t handle it, they should return the money.
Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
The teacher’s face gradually turned pale as he finally understood my words.
Yes, I may look like this, but I am my mother’s daughter.
People who’ve heard rumors about what my mother did with money will surely know that I could do at least that much too.
If they’re really curious, they don’t have to sign… but that’s up to them.