Chapter 134
Chapter 134
"What... did you just... say...."
A balding man sat in front of me, sweating profusely.
A teacher at a wealthy school, drawing a wealthy salary.
A teacher whose character ran in perfect opposition to the size of his paycheck.
No, calling them teacher's' in the plural would be more accurate. At this school, tallying up the teachers who didn't take bribes would be far faster than counting the ones who did.
Then again, were there any teachers here who didn't take bribes?
If a teacher in this school truly refused every bribe, that person would genuinely deserve to be called a 'teacher.'
And they wouldn't have stood by while all the other teachers took bribes. They wouldn't have ignored a student being openly ostracized right in front of them, either.
That was why I felt no hesitation in cornering any random teacher and making my demand.
"I asked you to sign here."
What I held out was a written pledge.
I had intended to draft it myself at first, but Yang Hye-in apparently found the contents far too lacking. So after taking a little more time and consulting with professionals, the resulting pledge had swelled far beyond what I'd originally envisioned.
Ha-neul worried that the pledge's contents might leak to others, but honestly, that was precisely what I wanted. I meant to tell the world that I am someone to be feared every bit as much as Mother. Besides, going around collecting signatures like this almost guaranteed it would leak regardless.
And most of that lengthy content, it turned out, wouldn't actually hold up in court anyway.
In the Republic of Korea, for a document like a written pledge to be valid, its contents supposedly "must not undermine the public morals and social customs." Probably the same reason a bodily-disposal consent form would be legally void.
Not that I'd stuffed anything that barbaric into this pledge. No, if you looked at the contents alone, you could even call it wholesome.
To boil that long document down as simply as possible:
'From now on, stop taking bribes. We too will stop giving them. We will not pursue legal liability.'
Of course, it didn't end there.
As for me, I couldn't care less how much money the teachers had pocketed or hadn't. They weren't people worth my attention. But if it ended just like that, one person was certain to feel unbearably frustrated.
It was only the lack of any means to punish them right now that made that person hold back. But in truth, she wanted these teachers punished more than anything.
Which was why the pledge also contained the following:
'We request reimbursement of any remaining sums, excluding the benefits we received in exchange for the bribes we gave.'
Exactly.
The colossal bribes that I, or Mother, had paid up until now had, frankly, been excessive. I don't know exactly how much money that is, but something on the order of a billion won—an amount some people wouldn't earn in a lifetime of work, they say.
So from an ordinary standpoint, that money was plenty substantial.
And yet, the teachers right here had swallowed that much money whole for doing nothing more than putting me and So-hee in the same class.
Well, I'm sure they didn't swallow it alone. But still, doesn't the sum strike you as a bit excessive?
That was why I had inserted a line into the pledge requesting them to attach the receipts.
And that, in turn, was why this pledge wouldn't receive legal protection.
"Uh, so, Sara."
Still drenched in sweat, the teacher spoke as though he was trying to calm me down.
Right. This man would know it too. That this pledge would absolutely never hold up in court.
And, of course, that he himself, sitting before me, was equally beyond any legal protection.
......That person is good.
And, like me, she hadn't spent her whole life being a doormat, either. She had a personality of her own. Enough of a temper to curse someone out if they cursed at her. But she wouldn't cross the line like this. Even if she made a threat, she wasn't the type who would actually plan to carry it out.
But I was different.
I had no interest in these people to begin with. Whatever happened to them was none of my business.
Just like whatever happened to me had been none of theirs.
"......You do realize that what you're saying right now is completely absurd, don't you?"
After rolling his eyes back and forth, that was what he finally settled on saying.
"Of course."
I gave him a small smile and answered.
"A teacher accepting bribes in the hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of millions of won is also completely absurd."
"......That is—"
"And on top of that, the thing you did with that kind of money was nothing more than banding together with students to ostracize a single first-year. I imagine no one who heard the story would find it particularly believable, either."
I paused, silently studying the sweating teacher's face. The way his eyes couldn't fix on my own but darted back and forth was genuinely pitiful to behold.
Well, pitiful or not, that was none of my business.
"However, I happen to have enough money to turn that unbelievable story into a very believable one."
Apparently, Yujin Group didn't have a broadcasting station or newspaper directly under its umbrella. But it did have companies whose advertising it bankrolled.
......Well, not that I could move the Yujin Group itself.
But I could certainly make use of the money I personally held. It was crudely, overwhelmingly vast, and I had no real use for it anyway.
If things went south, I intended to take this pledge straight to the broadcasting stations and media outlets, shower them with money, and demand they put it on the front page. If they couldn't run it as a news article, I'd run it as an ad.
I didn't mind.
I had more than enough money to live on regardless.
But what about the teacher right in front of me?
And what about the teachers watching us from the far end of the faculty office with quivering eyes?
This teacher here had probably raked in enough over his career that he could live out his retirement in comfort, as long as he didn't have every last coin of it clawed back. But what about the younger teachers? The ones who hadn't been at this school that long.
Swept up in the atmosphere. Felt like they couldn't refuse...... There'd be plenty of reasons. Some people might even have excuses they could personally justify.
But if I started going easy on people for that, there'd be no end to it, wouldn't there?
"Sara, even if I don't sign this document, nothing much will happen."
Seeming to have regained a bit of composure, the teacher spoke in a tone meant to placate me.
"That money you're...... claiming you gave us, it's exactly the sort of money you aren't supposed to give. Naturally, it's given and received in a way that leaves no evidence. So, isn't it only natural that I wouldn't sign this?"
He would think that, yes. If he had any sense, of course he wouldn't sign a pledge that was so entirely and one-sidedly stacked against him. Even if the contents had rattled him a little at first glance, looked at coldly, it was a pledge you could simply refuse to sign and be done with. All he had to do was deny everything thoroughly.
......That's what he'd think, anyway.
"What makes you so confident saying that?"
I'd already thought that through before bringing this pledge.
"What do you mean, confident?"
"......."
I offered no reply. I just stared directly at the teacher's face.
That's right.
The small girl who had just thrust a written pledge in front of him and demanded he sign it.
'Ye Sa-ra' was 'the richest teenager in the world.'
A teenager who handed out annual salaries to her maids at five hundred million won apiece, who had bought an entire building, a former department store, outright to use as her private residence, who could casually press tens of millions of won into a friend's hands as expense money.
The potential held by 'money' was limitless.
The person inside me already knew methods I hadn't even thought of.
Though, that person would never have thought of using them 'like I do.'
"Teacher."
Still looking directly at him, I called out to him once. He was taller than me, larger in every dimension, and yet he was breaking out in a cold sweat just looking at me.
"There's a phrase, you know. 'Read between the lines.'"
I hadn't come out and said exactly how I would use that money. If the bribes themselves were a weakness, openly declaring what I intended to do could become a weakness as well.
"Let me say it once more."
So that he could grasp it clearly, if he was capable of it, I stated it one more time.
"What, exactly, makes you so confident that you won't sign this?"
"......."
That's right.
The money I had was the kind of money that could do 'anything.'
Adding the phrase 'to anyone' in front of that probably wouldn't make it sound strange at all.
"......."
This teacher's jaw dropped.
And the jaws of the teachers who had been watching us from a distance dropped open as well.
Of course they did—I hadn't brought just this one pledge.
Yes, and I had only just realized it myself, but:
If a person took money, they ought to do work commensurate with it.
And if they couldn't do work 'commensurate' with it, then wasn't it only proper to refund what they hadn't earned?
As the teacher finally grasped the full meaning of my words, his face slowly began draining of color.
Right. I might not look it, but I am Mother's daughter.
Anyone who had heard, even secondhand, the sorts of things that woman had done with money would know full well that I was equally capable of doing the same.
If they're really that curious, of course, they're free not to sign.