Chapter 84
Chapter 84
And that really was just the beginning.
So-hee was not as easy a mark as you might think.
I was not the one who had to face her. So-hee was my friend, my maid, and thoroughly on my side either way. The people who actually had to deal with her were the ones who ended up bleeding.
Case in point: the homeroom teacher who walked in after the preliminary bell.
"......."
She took her place at the lectern, scanned the room, and froze the moment her eyes met So-hee's.
Only natural. The transfer student she was supposed to introduce was already seated right next to me.
That was odd, now that I thought about it. Why was So-hee in the same class as me?
Maybe Hwayeong Academy Foundation did not actually deal that directly with Yujin Group. They received substantial donations, and I had heard a few buildings were funded that way. Even so, an affiliated company would not catch wind of internal school affairs instantly. At best, news would travel through several layers of intermediaries, which was to be expected.
So was it really a coincidence that So-hee and I landed in the same class? Probably not. The first year had six girls' classes, so the odds were one in six. Not a low probability, but So-hee had followed me in as if she had known all along we would be together. She did not even check, did not even ask.
Knowing So-hee, she would normally have chirped something like, "Lucky us, same class!"
......Which left only one possibility.
Yang Hye-in, who had handled So-hee's transfer, must have pulled strings.
Yeah, that had to be it.
As I said, even a closely related company can be slow on news when it is not a direct affiliate. Especially when a weekend gets in the way, and when the information is not some big public scandal but a discreet matter moved quietly at the upper levels—the response grows much more cautious and sluggish.
On top of that, some of the household staff at the mansion had started reading my mood. They were beginning to grasp, whether consciously or not, that I could put an end to their comfortable jobs. They were not trembling at the sight of me, I had never actually fired anyone, but at least they had stopped entertaining the idea of boldly reporting to the Chairwoman.
Because if they did report and I found out, the whole mess would fly straight toward the Chairwoman in one move.
In that sense, So-hee was a ticking time bomb inside the closed society of the mansion. Her very existence rendered the purpose of the other staff meaningless.
And while information was being delayed, if someone claimed that my personal maid, who belonged directly to Yujin Group, was trying to install her "successor" at the school,
and if during that process she greased the right hands with plausible evidence or a bribe, then things could naturally unfold that way.
Yang Hye-in always saw me off outside the school and had never set foot on the grounds. That might actually have worked in her favor. It meant no one inside the school really knew her circumstances.
......Well, this was all just conjecture.
Whether it was someone's scheme or genuinely a coincidence, what the homeroom teacher saw in front of her right now was this:
A desk where it had no business being, and of all places, right next to mine.
"......."
The teacher was clearly agonizing over how to handle it.
Should she have the desk removed? Was this successor maid that Yang Hye-in had planted actually on my side or not? Judging by Yu Ha-neul's uncomfortable expression beside me, it did not look that way, but my own face was completely composed.
If she was on my side, the teacher should ignore it; if she was not, the teacher should take my side.
Teachers really have it rough.
"Ahem."
She seemed to have made up her mind. The teacher cleared her throat and spoke.
"Uh—right. As you all already know, we have a transfer student to introduce."
I heard a few kids swallow hard.
Yes.
The teacher had just made a completely wrong move.
Now I had a rough idea how So-hee had ended up in my class. Whether it was money or simply getting used to the long-standing pressures, the teacher apparently believed So-hee was someone "planted by Yujin Group." Maybe her gyaru look had played a part. She looked like she could physically shut me down if I acted out.
Well, she probably could. But I knew all too well that So-hee would never do that.
"All right, transfer student—Shin So-hee. Please stand up."
The kids' faces had already gone ice-cold, but the teacher still did not seem to notice.
"Go ahead and give a short self-introduction."
"Yes."
At the teacher's instruction, Shin So-hee rose with a smile.
Then she turned slightly toward the students.
"My name is Shin So-hee, personal maid to Miss Ye Sa-ra. I hope to build good relationships with all of you going forward. Please take good care of me."
And with that, she dropped a bomb into the middle of the classroom.
The bomb detonated without a sound. Fragments flew everywhere, and the dust showered down over the students' heads. The grime clung to them, more or less. And it probably would not come off easily.
"......."
The teacher's mouth fell open.
Up until now, she had been treating me like a complete nonentity, but in her fluster, she had just officially acknowledged my existence. Publicly, at that. By "introducing" a person connected to me to the class.
This was a much bigger problem than Su-a being friendly with me. My relationship with Su-a was purely personal. Naturally, the same went for Su-a and her former friends. If it became a nuisance, you simply cut ties. After that, the relationship could not be considered ongoing.
But the role of a homeroom teacher was different.
A teacher is not a student's friend. She manages and instructs the students.
Even if the students were incredibly rude, nasty little brats who would not listen worth a damn, a teacher still held a minimum degree of authority.
That was exactly why I had targeted the teachers first when I started causing chaos.
Once I forced a teacher to stop ignoring me and actually respond to me properly, my presence would effectively be formally acknowledged. That would make it much harder for the students to keep ignoring me.
"And please take good care of my young lady, too! I would appreciate it if you would not ignore me when I speak from now on, especially since the homeroom teacher herself has introduced me like this."
So-hee drove the nail in even further with those words.
"......."
The teacher looked completely cornered, but she seemed to think she was not totally ruined yet.
"Uh, I don't have anything special to say today."
She was trying to pretend what had just happened had not happened, and to ignore So-hee along with it. That was probably the best way out, honestly.
"Teacher."
But So-hee, it seemed, was not finished.
She was wearing the same beaming smile she wore when she tagged along beside me. Thoroughly entertained by the situation.
Which made sense. If I were her, I would be having a fantastic time too.
"You took the money."
This was the first I had heard of it. Until now, I had only assumed money had changed hands; I had never had actual proof.
Maybe she had heard it from Yang Hye-in.
"If you took the money, you should provide treatment that matches what you received."
So-hee was still using polite speech, but her attitude was the complete opposite of courteous. Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
"......Uh—well......."
Sweat began to bead on the teacher's forehead. So-hee's claim really did seem to be true.
Ah, so that was how it worked.
The method to make students ignore Ye Sa-ra and the method to make teachers ignore me could be completely different.
In the letter Ye Sa-ra left, she said the Chairwoman had used some method to ruin any kid who got close to Ye Sa-ra. I did not know if that was actually true, but it was a fact that a boy who had once been friendly with Ye Sa-ra had vanished.
That method was probably fear. The students at this school were not short on money, so simply throwing cash around would not work. You could do it if you really tried, but the cost would be enormous. It was more effective to make them think they might lose every bit of money they had. I still could not imagine what that method actually was.
On the other hand, when it came to buttering up teachers, nothing beat money. Since these were teachers who had been famous academy instructors, a small sum would not do it, but it was still easier than persuading people from blatantly chaebol families.
And anyway, the more rotten the teacher, the more they would turn their heads even for relatively small amounts of money or gifts.
This place was a stagnant pool fed by the continuous inflow of exactly such rotten people.
"We poured in over a billion won and asked you to take good care of her. If this is how you act, that is fairly disappointing."
So-hee's voice had now become an outright threat, and I was genuinely shocked.
"A billion won? Where did a billion won come from?"
It absolutely was not Yujin Group money. They were not the type to invest for a reason like this. The opposite might make sense, if it were Lee Yu-ra.
"Ah, a salary advance from me, plus the money my senior Yang Hye-in had saved up."
"Salary advance......? Saved-up money......?"
Just hearing that made my head spin.
"Wait, so you are telling me you shoved the money you would earn working for an entire year straight into that teacher's mouth?"
When I inadvertently blurted it out loudly, the teacher flinched.
"No, that is not—I mean, who even gave you the advance!?"
"Senior Yang Hye-in did, for now."
"Then she is flat broke!"
At my words, So-hee gave me a slightly puzzled look.
"But she still had a few hundred million left......? You think that is flat broke? And it is a salary advance—an advance. I was planning to pay it back once I got paid."
"No, that is not the issue here......."
Was Yang Hye-in really that kind of person?
She went that far just to get a successor into the same class as me......?
......No. What if it was not just that.
My mouth fell open.
Yang Hye-in, that person, was genuinely on my side after all?
"Well, anyway."
So-hee cleared her throat with an "ahem" and kept going.
"If you really do not like it, then just give all the money back. Although I do plan to slap a full debt on you for whatever you have already spent."
"......."
Faced with a student who was threatening her with total brazenness, the teacher's mouth just hung open and would not close.
This was a genuine crisis of a lifetime for her.
Even in a rotten school, when money changed hands as a bribe, you at least made a decent effort to hide it. Getting caught did nobody any good. With all these rich students attending, there were definitely families that detested each other, and if information leaked, it could spark a genuinely bloody fight.
But here......
She was openly, brazenly declaring she had paid a bribe. And it was the very person who had paid the bribe saying so.
Or was she not the one? Whatever.
......The teacher's gaping mouth never did manage to close until the bell rang.