Chapter 07
“You’re absolutely sure those kids didn’t hit our daughter? She didn’t just fall over? You’re certain?”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“Don’t underestimate children. Kids bully each other and pull all kinds of stunts!”
“I-Is that so? They said it just happened all of a sudden… Come to think of it, their faces did look like they were hiding something!”
“I knew it! Right? They were bullying her! Princess! Tell Daddy the truth! I don’t care if they’re little kids—I won’t let them off!”
“Seo, Seo-in-law… Is that really something to be proud of?”
“But those kids had such great attitudes, and they were really handsome. Usually it’s the ugly kids who bully people. I hardly ever see good-looking kids doing that. Why would handsome boys bully someone?”
“Suk-young… Did you even think before saying that?”
“Brother-in-law! If anyone’s going to scold my woman, it’ll be me. Don’t you dare lecture her!”
“Honey~!”
Ignoring the childish lovebirds and my utterly exhausted youngest uncle, I sank deeper into thought.
‘Seriously… what is going on?’
Wasn’t talking about the future supposed to be entirely my own choice?
There hadn’t been any warning messages in the status window, and every time I’d whispered to Dad that Aunt was going to stab him in the back someday, nothing had happened.
So I’d assumed everything was fine…
‘Then where exactly is the line? What’s allowed, and what’s forbidden?’
What if I told Mom that after the IMF crisis a certain stock would skyrocket and she should buy it now? Would that be forbidden too?
What about buying U.S. dollars ahead of time?
Do I have to just let the famous dot-com bubble of 2000 pass by as well?
Then how am I supposed to make 100 billion won?!
Am I really supposed to end up back as thirty-year-old Seo Singa lying brain-dead after a traffic accident?
“No!!!”
“Whoa! Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
“Just look at the two of you. Of course your daughter would scream.”
“Mom! Dad! Uncle! Don’t worry! I’ll live a long, long time! I’ll definitely make it to a hundred!”
“Sweetie, you only had a nosebleed. Nobody thought you were going to die young!”
“…I’m heading home. Man… why am I so tired?”
“Take care, Brother. It’s gotten cold outside, so I’m not walking you to the parking lot.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to.”
What I needed was information.
What I had was only my body.
Well… life is life.
I’d just have to charge straight ahead.
In the winter when I was six years old, as Christmas approached…
…I began conducting experiments on my own body.
Sob…
♧
“What? She’s perfectly healthy? That can’t be right. Doctor, please check again. Are you sure you examined her properly? She gets nosebleeds all the time!”
“It’s winter, and the air is extremely dry these days. That’s fairly common for young children.”
“But even if it’s five times a day on the low end and more than ten on the high end?”
“Hmm… The frequency is certainly unusual, but as you can see from the test results…” The doctor adjusted his glasses. “In fact, Singa is healthier than most children her age. Her hemoglobin levels are normal, and her platelet count is excellent. It has absolutely nothing to do with leukemia.”
Mom, who had been tearing up every time she watched The Last Leaf lately, looked completely unconvinced.
She made a huge fuss, looking ready to faint at any moment, but the doctor’s firm conclusion never changed.
In the end, she grabbed my hand and stormed out of the examination room.
“What a bunch of quacks! My tiny little girl is bleeding this much and they say she’s fine? How can the world be so heartless to a mother and daughter!”
…
I felt…
very guilty.
‘Sorry, Mom.’
It’s not like I could confess that this wasn’t an illness but the penalty for revealing heaven’s secrets.
She hadn’t even made it ten steps before collapsing onto one of the hospital chairs.
As tears streamed down her face, I gently patted the back of her hand.
“Mom… did you buy the dollars?”
“Sniff… Your mother’s crying and that’s what you ask?”
“Sorry, Mom. But it’s important. You exchanged all 30 million won, right?”
“No. 40 million.“
My eyes widened.
She wiped at her tears with her sleeve and grumbled,
“Your mom isn’t stupid, you know? Something felt off. At the bank they said it had already gone from ₩820 per dollar last month to ₩850. It made me suspicious, so I even exchanged the emergency savings I’d been hiding from your father. The bank kept asking questions… I was so nervous. Did I do well?”
“Yeah! You did great!”
Our Lady Bang Suk-young really did have good instincts.
The house back in her hometown had been inherited from my late grandmother and was in Mom’s name.
Which meant she’d effectively converted the entire proceeds from selling that house into U.S. dollars.
Now that took courage.
Then again… thanks to having a time-traveling daughter, Mom hadn’t suffered nearly as much as she had in the original timeline.
Originally, she’d been an incredibly capable homemaker.
A bit absent-minded?
Sure.
Far too willing to believe everything her daughter said?
Also true.
But she was never stupid.
‘Anyway… perfect.’
This worked out well.
I didn’t remember the exact numbers, but I knew the exchange rate had roughly doubled during the IMF crisis.
‘So that’ll make around 80 million won.’
Okay.
Perfect!
That would give us enough capital to start buying up Korean stocks after they crashed.
Why Korean stocks instead of American ones?
Because while everyone knew companies like Samsung and Hyundai, it’d be incredibly suspicious for a six-year-old to keep insisting her mother buy shares in some American company she’d never even heard of, like Apple.
I’d look like some kind of monster.
My parents knew better than anyone that I wasn’t some child genius.
So until I was old enough to wear a school uniform, I intended to keep my investments focused on Korea.
“But, sweetheart… did Grandma really tell you to buy dollars in your dream?”
“Yep! Isn’t it amazing? Other people’s ancestors tell them lottery numbers, but my grandma is incredible! She’s the best!”
“Well…”
“Mom, you don’t believe me again? I guessed Great-Aunt’s cancer, and I even knew Aunt Jeong-sook’s baby’s name would be Eun-chu. Grandma told me all of that! You’re treating me like a liar again! Mean Mom!”
“No, sweetheart. When have I ever called you a liar? Never. Mommy’s sorry.”
The liar was half-hearted.
The one apologizing was half-hearted too.
Absentmindedly comforting me, Mom stared blankly up at the sky from the hospital chair.
“…Maybe I should see a shaman instead of a doctor.”
…
In any case…
My self-experiment had been a success.
After repeated testing, I’d confirmed that statements concerning an individual’s personal fate or finances were allowed.
Someone getting seriously ill.
The dollar rising.
Which stocks to buy.
Those kinds of predictions only resulted in mild symptoms—a nosebleed or a little dizziness.
But once the scope became larger…
things got ugly.
When I tried to say that the IMF crisis would hit in 1997, blood poured from my nose like rain, and all the strength drained from my body before I could finish speaking.
Apparently, if my words could affect a large number of people or alter history itself, I received a warning.
Still, I wondered how far I could push it, so I decided to test something on an even bigger scale.
Things like the September 11 attacks or the Indian Ocean tsunami.
The result?
I blacked out before I could even move my tongue to speak.
When I woke up, I was inside an ambulance with Mom and Dad sobbing beside me.
Apparently I’d vomited enough blood to fill a basin.
The hospital found nothing physically wrong with me.
But I could tell.
It felt as though my lifespan itself had been shaved away, just a tiny little bit.
Well… that’s fine.
‘One experiment was enough.’
Anyway, with that, my guidelines were complete.
Now that I’d established a clear line between what was possible and what wasn’t, things became much easier.
‘Still… why is it okay to warn about Great-Aunt’s cancer, but not Rampa’s accident? What’s the standard here?’
Maybe famous people were different…
By mid-December, Australia was in the middle of its summer vacation.
The kart racing league was also in its off-season, so I’d heard that Im Rampa would remain in Korea until January.
Thanks to that, he frequently visited the home of his only Korean friend, Jung Hyeon-gyo.
Since we were neighbors, I’d ended up running into him several more times as well.
As we gradually became familiar with each other, I couldn’t help feeling guilty about simply letting him die so young.
I was only human.
It wasn’t easy to accept.
But what could I do?
I couldn’t gamble with my own lifespan…
‘If anyone’s to blame, it’s the fact that Im Rampa was born with such an overwhelming destiny—’
“Huh? Isn’t that Rampa over there?”
