Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Single Mom Yoon Chaewon
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After that, for the next few days, our team's bizarre daily routine flowed along quite ordinarily.
At 9 a.m., Chaewon—no makeup, having just dropped Haneuli off at daycare—flipped on my first Post-Nut Clarity session of the day.
Starting the day with the warm home-cooked meal she made had become pretty routine by now.
And at 2:30 p.m.
Yura would come home from school with a tired face, tag-team with Chaewon, and keep my second Post-Nut Clarity going strong. That became our perfect routine.
In the meantime, my 'salary account' kept steadily duplicating money.
10% a day, 12%, sometimes a sluggish 7%, but there were days we hit a massive 15% jackpot.
And the 'real estate net' I'd set up for thirteen days from now had filled up about 40% with the Bitcoin and Ethereum we were targeting.
Everything was going smoothly.
And today, wrapping up the day's scalping with a solid 13% gain.
Yura, who had just arrived for her afternoon shift, ran into Chaewon at the entrance. Chaewon was grabbing her outer clothes to head home.
Right before stepping out, Chaewon suddenly remembered something and turned to me.
By now, she was calling me 'Cheolsu' like a friend, not 'boss.'
"Cheolsu, how much profit have I racked up?"
I kept staring at the monitor, closing my eyes for a moment.
In my head, her initial investment of 4,778,560 won started compounding with the daily returns from the past few days.
10%, 12%, 7%, 15%, and today's 13%.
"Hmm..."
I finished the calculation and opened my eyes.
"You mean your scalping account? Started with 4.77 million won. Up to today, it's around 8.195 million total."
At my words, Chaewon's face lit up like a kid's.
"Whoa! Really? Jackpot!"
She beamed like a child, then immediately got to her needs.
"Then pull out a million for me first! Buy some clothes for Haneuli and pay the rent."
I flashed a very satisfied smile at her words.
Because instead of getting hyped over the money and thinking something stupid like 'reinvest it all,' she prioritized solving real-life problems.
"Oh, smart thinking?"
I praised her and taught her investing's most basic principle.
"No matter how many billions show up on the screen, until you actually withdraw it and hold it in your hands, it's just digital scraps. Like Yura just cashed out her share—making a habit of realizing profits and securing them safely is crucial."
I immediately transferred a million won to her account.
Confirming the transfer notification, Chaewon smiled gratefully at me. She reached for the door, then turned back once more.
"Oh, and."
She brought up something very important that we'd all forgotten about.
"Tomorrow's the weekend, right?"
She continued.
"...The daycare's closed on weekends. What do we do?"
"...Huh?"
That instant, my mind went blank.
Weekend. Daycare. Haneuli.
I'd never once considered those obvious facts.
The market runs 24/7 even on weekends, but daycare sure as hell doesn't. That brutally obvious reality.
My 'superintelligence' could analyze complex macroeconomics and billions of data points, but in front of the massive variable called 'weekend childcare,' it was just a tin can.
I was wearing a perfectly stupid expression that transcended superintelligence.
Even Yura, who had zero interest in our conversation and was just lying on the bed scrolling her phone, stopped her finger at the word 'weekend.'
She slowly lifted her head and alternated looks between my dumbstruck face and Chaewon's troubled one.
She'd just realized our team's operations had a fatal flaw.
A heavy silence fell over the three of us.
The weekend: prime time for massive volatility in the 24/7 crypto market, full of potential opportunities.
But for our team, it was time weighed down by the irreplaceable variable 'Haneuli.'
The moment I realized my superintelligence was useless, our team's real brain kicked into gear.
Yura, who had been lounging on the bed with her phone, set it aside and slowly sat up.
With a cold, pragmatic voice, she kicked off the emergency meeting.
"Alright, let's sum it up."
She alternated glances between troubled Chaewon and dumbstruck me, clarifying the agenda.
"The problem is the weekend. Haneuli can't go to daycare, so Chaewon can't come here in the mornings. Right?"
Chaewon nodded heavily. Yura pressed on.
"That means Saturday and Sunday mornings—our 'work'—are impossible. Two days of huge scalping profits and whatever massive opportunities might come, poof, gone."
Her words finally snapped me out of it.
This wasn't just 'weekend off' territory. It was a serious operational crisis hitting our revenue directly.
Our three gazes clashed in midair.
One agenda: 'What to do with Haneuli over the weekend?' Our team's first major crisis meeting began.
I proposed the simplest, clearest first solution to this thorny problem.
"Then Yura, you handle mornings like a beast?"
At my words, the room temperature seemed to drop another 3 degrees.
Chaewon shot me a look like 'Is this idiot finally losing it?' Yura gripped her phone like she wanted to smash it.
She glared at me with murderous eyes, emphasizing each word.
"Rejected."
Then she exploded with pent-up rage.
"Fuck, is my pussy public property? Pound me from morning till night? What am I, an onahole?"
I had no comeback to Yura's savage tone. She was 100% right.
Our emergency meeting hit a wall right out the gate.
Right then, the main stakeholder Chaewon timidly raised her hand like a student in class.
"Um... hire a babysitter?"
It was the most logical, reasonable solution.
But the second I heard it, I couldn't help but get serious and object.
"...We don't have the cash. Just when our seed money's growing and we're finally making bank, pull more out? No profits then."
I pointed out the practical issue first, then voiced the real reason deep in my heart.
My voice turned cold and sharp without me realizing.
"Plus, you don't hand kids off to strangers. Who knows what they'd do? What if they beat her senseless?"
My fiercer-than-expected opposition made Chaewon and Yura's eyes go wide.
Chaewon stared at me for a bit. Then, very cautiously, she hit the core of my trauma.
"...You got beat at the orphanage...?"
Instead of answering her question, I shut my mouth. After a long silence, I finally muttered one word.
"...Yeah."
That short affirmation made the room's air sink heavy again.
Like justifying my trauma, I nailed down my stance firmly.
"Daycare has other teachers and kids—minimum safety nets. Babysitter? I'd die before trusting one."
At my resolute attitude, Yura stared blankly and said,
"Anyone'd think Chaewon's daughter was yours."
"Anyway, opposed."
"Then what?!"
Yura yelled in frustration.
Finally, I pulled out the perfect solution I'd just pieced together in my head.
Before laying it out, I asked Yura very seriously.
"Han Yura. You get violent just seeing a kid?"
"...What the hell do you think I am?"
Yura looked at me like I was insane.
"More importantly, why bring that up outta nowhere? Don't tell me..."
An ominous premonition crossed Yura's face.
I nodded, confirming her hunch.
"Yeah. While Chaewon handles 'work' mornings, you watch Haneuli. Clean and simple, right?"
Hearing it from the sidelines, Chaewon's face brightened.
"Yeah, definitely...! Better than dumping her on a stranger... Yura's trustworthy!"
But the person in question, Yura, thought otherwise.
She alternated glares between me and Chaewon, yelling like she'd heard the dumbest shit on earth.
"What the fuck are you crazy bastards saying...? No! Hell no!"
I pressed her on her fierce opposition.
"Then what? Can't bring Haneuli here."
This place still reeked of semen, pussy juice, and cigs. Child abuse, straight up.
One slip, and we'd all be in cuffs, headlines screaming '23-Year-Old Trio's Depraved Acts!' or some shit.
At my logical counter, Yura seemed to get it, flinching before suggesting an alternative.
She turned to Chaewon.
"Uh... didn't your mom watch her last time? Call your mom for the weekend."
It seemed the most realistic option.
But Chaewon's response crushed our last hope.
"Yeah, that'd be great, but Mom's at the hospital... too much."
"Sick?"
Yura asked worriedly, and Chaewon said flatly, one word.
"Cancer."
That word froze the room solid.
Orphanage kid scraping tuition from sex work, single mom raising her daughter on sex work,
And... that single mom's mom has cancer.
I let out a hollow laugh without thinking.
'Why is our trio's baggage such a clusterfuck, one and all?'
We were back to square one.
Every solution hit a dead end.
Orphanage survivor, girl head-of-household, unwed mother—
Soap opera protagonist tropes, and our trio split them nice and even.
I let out a long, very long sigh.
"Sigh... what now..."
With my brain stalled, I blurted out the first thought that popped up.
"Like Chaewon said last time... scout one more girl to run things stably?"
The instant I said it, I knew I'd fucked up.
Yura and Chaewon, serious a second ago, now stared at me like the idiot I was.
Yura spoke first.
"Pervert bastard."
Chaewon followed, pitying me.
"That's just you wanting a foursome, right?"
Under their perfect pincer attack, I yelled in genuine outrage.
"What? This is bullshit, you psychos! You brought it up first! Fine when you say it, pervert when I do?"
At my protest, the two nodded in sync like they'd rehearsed.
"Yeah." "Yep."
'What bullshit, you psychos.........'
I had nothing left to say.
In this weird team, my role was firmly 'pervert.'
My dumb proposal got obliterated by their tag-team.
The emergency meeting looped back to square one, sinking into prolonged silence.
As everyone floundered for a fix, Yura—the staunchest opponent—fell deep into thought.
In her head, two horrific options duked it out.
'Two days of creampies morning and night from that bastard, jacking up pregnancy odds.'
'Babysit some stranger's kid nonstop for two days.'
Worst and lesser evil.
She scowled, agonizing over it.
Then, the decisive variable ended her dilemma.
'Ah... fuck, this weekend's my fertile window.'
Realizing that tipped the scales.
Yura sighed deeply in resignation and finally spoke.
"Haa... fine. This weekend, I'll watch Haneuli."
She'd choked down the lesser evil.
Chaewon's face lit up at Yura's answer, but Yura slapped down a firm condition.
"But,"
She stared me down.
"From now on, weekends, creampies only in Chaewon. Deal?"
It was a razor-sharp trade: sacrifice her weekends to 'childcare,' dump the 'pregnancy' risk on her teammate.
Chaewon, safely on her safe day, had zero reason to object.
She grinned lightly and stuck out her hand to Yura.
"Deal."
Their hands clasped in midair.
Thus, our team's first crisis—the 'weekend problem'—was officially resolved by the women's perfect agreement.