The Money Tree
“The money tree. Eat this before you keep going.” Mother carefully peeled an apple and set it on the empty space beside the computer. Kim Mal-sook looked worried as she watched Yoo Jae-won, who had spent the entire Sunday glued to the screen except for the brief trip to church. In the past he had sat there all day playing games; now he was working, so the nature of her concern had changed. What made her feel even guiltier was that her reason for interrupting him wasn’t only his fatigue.
“Jae-won, are you close with Soo-kyung?”
“Huh? Soo-kyung?” He had just shoved a large piece of apple into his mouth, so the words came out muffled, but the conversation was still clear.
“Yes, Soo-kyung.”
“We’re pretty close. We’re in the same class, and she’s the class president. Why?”
If he limited the question to after summer break, Yoo Jae-won could confidently say he had spoken with Soo-kyung more than any other boy in their class.
“Really? Well, her family asked about buying a computer yesterday.”
At his mother’s words, Jae-won remembered the contest. Soo-kyung had brought him the newspaper article about him winning the minister’s prize. Back then she had asked him to teach her how to use a computer, and he had told her to have her mother buy one first.
“Oh, really? That explains it.”
Once her son explained, Kim Mal-sook understood the situation. Soo-kyung’s mother had contacted her about purchasing a computer, but the condition was that Jae-won would become Soo-kyung’s computer tutor. To Kim Mal-sook it had sounded like they were simply trying to ride her son’s success, yet she hadn’t been able to turn them down because selling even one computer would be a huge boost to her sales record. The commission for computers was ten percent for the housewife sales agents—100,000 won on a one-million-won unit. That was far higher than the usual five percent on other electronics.
“I already promised to teach her, so don’t worry. Go ahead and sell it.”
“Won’t you be too busy? You said you had to finish something quickly and send it to America.”
“It’s a light program. I can finish it in six days even if I take it easy.”
His schedule for the American version of Keyboard Warrior was tight but manageable: finish the programming by Monday, input the examples on Tuesday, handle graphics Wednesday and Thursday, add sound on Friday, and test on Saturday. For someone with Jae-won’s god-tier programming skills, it was more than generous.
“Oh, and when you recommend a model, suggest one with strong multimedia features. Office computers are literally just for office work—they’re not great for home use.”
“Understood. If that’s what you think, I’ll pass it on to Soo-kyung’s mother.”
Having received his confirmation, his mother patted his shoulder and told him to take it easy before leaving the room. After cheering her on, Yoo Jae-won returned his focus to the computer. Then an old black mark from his previous life suddenly surfaced in his memory.
Come to think of it, in his past life Soo-kyung’s family had also inquired about buying a computer through his mother, with the same condition that Jae-won teach her. Back then he hadn’t even entered the contest, yet Soo-kyung’s parents had assumed he would know computers well because he had used one early. He had agreed, but when they actually bought the machine he had been too busy playing games to ever visit. His mother had been put in an awkward position after making an empty promise, and his relationship with Soo-kyung’s family had soured even further.
Looking back now, he couldn’t understand how he had been so absorbed in those clumsy old games. At any rate, he was determined to erase one more shameful memory by properly removing the “computer illiterate” label from Soo-kyung.
October 29th, Saturday.
Time flew like a bullet. A lot had happened in a single week. The biggest event was the October mock exam. Until the report cards came out, the homeroom teacher had been slightly worried about Yoo Jae-won. Deokjin Elementary’s tradition was to create a study atmosphere starting in the second semester of fifth grade. The method was to squeeze the students based on mock-exam scores; if anyone scored lower than the previous month, they received a beating equal to the number of wrong answers.
Yoo Jae-won was an unusual presence in that environment. The school had fully committed to supporting his business, and some teachers had even become shareholders. They had agreed to overlook a slight drop in his grades, though they would issue a warning if the decline became too severe. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, however, Jae-won had scored 100 in every subject. Since he was the only one in the class to achieve that, there was no need to suspect cheating. The homeroom teacher and even the principal were delighted. At the same time, the students in Class 5—or rather, the entire fifth grade—let out a collective groan.
When an outstanding success story appeared among their peers, this was the result. The fifth-grade homeroom teachers had added a new line to their repertoire: “Yoo Jae-won works at a company like an adult and still gets perfect scores on every test—what are you doing?” followed by loving corporal punishment.
His parents were naturally pleased. They had even framed his mock-exam report card. It was his first perfect score, after all. Once he started bringing home consistently excellent grades, the fuss would eventually die down.
On a more personal note, the biggest event was receiving the finished Keyboard Warrior 1.0 diskettes from the SKC distributor. Three thousand diskettes were too much for Jae-won to carry alone, so he had found someone with a car. Once again, the president of the rice-bran-oil factory had helped, providing a truck and an experienced driver. The SKC distributor’s section chief had also fulfilled the request perfectly. He had randomly selected thirty diskettes from the stack, run Check Disk on them, and found not a single one that failed to copy or had bad sectors. Jae-won paid the promised bonus for a job well done.
The received diskettes were moved to an advertising shop in town. The remaining work was assembling the package boxes and manuals printed at the shop and inserting the diskettes to create the finished product. Transporting the stacks of printed materials was cumbersome, so they had agreed with the shop owner to work in a clean storage room at the back of the store.
Finally, just as he had promised his parents, Yoo Jae-won had spent a focused week completing the American version of Keyboard Warrior. The result was quite different from the domestic version. The execution environment alone showed a huge gap. While the Korean version ran in text mode, the American version ran in graphics mode. Set to VGA by default, it boasted colorful 320×200 resolution with 256 colors. It also featured sophisticated background music created with a MIDI module and lively sound effects. The program, built with Borland Turbo C 1.0 instead of BASIC, was clearly on another level. Combined with the optimization code Jae-won had developed while preparing for his regression, it delivered seamless speed. On a 386 computer it could run at a buttery-smooth 60 frames per second, creating the illusion of gliding across ice. Jae-won had named this technique “hardware scrolling.” Even on a lower-spec 286 it guaranteed 30 frames. Only machines with an Intel 8086 CPU—XT computers—would fail to run it.
Any expert hearing this would naturally ask why a typing tutor demanded such powerful hardware. Jae-won’s reason for setting high recommended specs was simple: the biggest emphasis in the American version of Keyboard Warrior was the game itself. The true value of that game feature could be confirmed right here on this last Saturday of October without needing to travel all the way to America.
On October 29th, the final Saturday of the month, when the wind had grown a little chilly despite the sun still hanging in the sky, a small change came to Yoo Jae-won’s otherwise monotonous routine of school and home. Today his destination wasn’t home—it was Soo-kyung’s house. The computer had finally been installed at her place the previous day, Friday, and an excited Soo-kyung had invited him over today.
After morning classes ended on Saturday, Jae-won followed Soo-kyung instead of heading home. Her house was in Saemgol Village, south of Deokjin-ri. It was smaller than Naeo Village, where Jae-won lived, but only a twenty-minute walk from school. While the people of Naeo Village mostly grew rice, Saemgol Village raised a lot of livestock.
“Doesn’t it smell pretty bad?”
There were barns right at the village entrance. A fairly large cattle operation with dozens of beef cattle produced an intense odor. Soo-kyung, walking beside him, asked apologetically. She was usually bold enough to argue with the boys in their class, but there had been one time she burst into tears—when they teased her about the smell of cow dung. That was probably why she was a little sensitive about bad odors.
“It’s fine. It’s a barn, so of course it smells. Huh? This area has a different smell.”
“Yeah, chicken coops from here on.”
Chicken manure was at least a little better than cow dung. They collected it every day and mixed it with rice bran and sesame dregs to make compost, so the ammonia smell was milder. As expected, Soo-kyung’s family raised both cattle and chickens. Jumin’s family also raised cattle, but Soo-kyung’s operation was several times larger. Her family was such a major customer of the rice-bran-oil factory where Jae-won’s father worked that their influence reached throughout Deokjin-ri. For example, eggs were cheaper in Deokjin-ri than in other villages. Soo-kyung’s parents had been outsiders who moved to Deokjin-ri before she was born. When they started the chicken farm, they earned the villagers’ goodwill by supplying eggs cheaply to the local supermarket.
Their wealth wasn’t only evident from the barns. The house built on the hill overlooking the farm looked completely different from the other houses in the neighborhood. Rural homes were usually cement walls with slate roofs. Most used briquette boilers for heating, though many also had ondol floors heated by wood. Soo-kyung’s house on the hill was a two-story red-brick building. In front of it was a proper garden instead of a simple yard. The gate was an automatic door that opened and closed from inside the house, and the windows had aluminum double glazing. With a car and a tractor as well, they were clearly well-off.
“Mom! Jae-won and I are here!”
After reaching the house and ringing the bell, Soo-kyung shouted loudly. There was an intercom on the door, so she could have spoken quietly, but her voice echoed through the house. Jae-won figured she was in a good mood because she wanted to show off the computer.
Soon, with a click, the lock disengaged automatically and the iron gate slid open.
“Come on, follow me!”
Following Soo-kyung inside, Jae-won got a proper look at the garden. There were large trees, rocks, and even a pond—though the water had been drained. Suddenly, a loud bark startled him out of his thoughts. Two large German shepherds in one corner of the garden were wagging their tails furiously and barking. They seemed happy to see Soo-kyung but wary of the unfamiliar Jae-won, so they barked while wagging their tails.
“Quiet!”
The dogs were smart enough to understand their owner. When Soo-kyung spoke, the barking died down. As they passed through the garden and reached the front door, Soo-kyung’s mother was waiting. She looked like what Soo-kyung would become when she grew up—a tall, beautiful woman.
“Hello. I’m Yoo Jae-won.”
Jae-won bowed politely first.
“Come in. Soo-kyung has told me a lot about you. I hear you’ve been doing some impressive things lately.”
“Hehe, I just worked hard at what I could do, and things snowballed.”
“Your parents must be so proud. A son who’s handsome and mature beyond his years—what a relief that must be.”
Even though it was their first meeting, Soo-kyung’s mother greeted him warmly. The minister’s prize, the perfect mock-exam score, and ID Technology had clearly multiplied her fondness for him several times over.
“You must all be hungry. I’ve prepared lunch, so study the computer after you eat.”
Jae-won wanted to touch the computer right away, but apparently the parents had other ideas. The dining room connected to the living room on the first floor featured a luxurious wooden table set with a generous lunch spread. To his surprise, the main dish was samgyetang—each person had their own stone pot containing a whole young chicken. The strong scent of ginseng confirmed it was the real deal. Alongside it were various flavorful side dishes. It was the kind of meal one might serve for a prospective son-in-law…
“Ugh, samgyetang again? I told you Jae-won likes donggeurangttaeng and ham.”
“You little rascal. You’re just using Jae-won as an excuse to eat what you want, aren’t you? I’m still your mother, so eat properly when I serve you.”
From Soo-kyung’s grumbling, it seemed samgyetang was a frequent meal. Made sense—a family that raised chickens in bulk would eat it often. Besides, the chickens were different from the old hens served when a son-in-law visited; these were young chickens the size of an adult’s fist.
Jae-won had been getting ahead of himself, but he wasn’t upset. His regression-era philosophy on relationships was simple: don’t block those who come, don’t chase those who leave. Of course, he didn’t accept everyone who came, and he had his own standards. Not chasing those who left meant that sometimes business had to come before romance. The grudges from his past life were still ongoing. To crush those bastards who had started far ahead of him, he had no choice but to run with everything he had. By that standard, Soo-kyung was positive, so her parents taking good care of him felt nice.
Yet there were only three people and four stone pots of samgyetang.
“I called your father too, so just wait a little.”
As if summoned by the mention, the door opened and a sturdy man in his late thirties appeared—Soo-kyung’s father. Jae-won, who had been seated, stood up and bowed. It was their first meeting, and the man’s taciturn nature was immediately obvious. He acknowledged the greeting with a simple “Yeah” and signaled the start of the meal with “Let’s eat.”
The samgyetang was delicious, but the atmosphere was so tense that Jae-won barely noticed whether it was going into his mouth or his nose. He decided to ignore the mood and focus on eating, working his spoon diligently. Then another strange thought occurred to him. While eating samgyetang, he suddenly craved chicken—sweet-and-sour seasoned fried chicken, to be exact. In an era when even going into town only offered whole roasted chicken instead of proper fried chicken, the craving was even stronger. Programming late into the night with chicken and cold beer would be perfect, but that wasn’t possible now.
Should I try making it?
Soo-kyung’s family ran a large-scale chicken farm, so fresh chicken supply wouldn’t be a problem, and there was a big cooking-oil factory nearby, so frying wouldn’t be an issue either. Realistically, though, he didn’t have time to buy ingredients and make chicken himself. He already had far too many things going on. Teaching Soo-kyung computers was one of them. To finish as quickly as possible, he focused on eating the chicken and rice. Soo-kyung’s parents watched him with warm smiles. Unlike Soo-kyung, who picked at her food, Jae-won devoured his meal like a workhorse, creating a clear contrast.
Perhaps finding his eating style cute, Soo-kyung’s parents each plucked a chicken leg from their own pots and placed them on his plate, extending the meal even further. Only after his stomach was as round as a tadpole did they finally go upstairs, where Jae-won could finally see Soo-kyung’s computer.
“Whoa, this is insane!”
The words burst out the moment he laid eyes on it. It was shocking. Because her family was wealthy, he had assumed they bought a 286 AT with a color monitor like his own. He was wrong. Sitting proudly in front of him was a 386. With this machine, there was no need to go all the way to Seoul to beta-test the American version of Keyboard Warrior he had finished last night.