“By the way, what are you working on here? Are you researching green oil again?”

“Well, it’s just too grand to call my work as ‘research.’ How can a poor guy like me research it? I’ve been just browsing through my old files on it. And I take great delight in teaching the students.”

Insan showed interest in his remarks.

“In fact, I’ve no particular job these days. Can I stay here and do the research with you, brother? Though I am not qualified, I would like to teach them too.”

At that moment, Duyoung raised his eyebrows slightly.

In fact, he didn’t trust Insan. Though he was glad to see his old friend, Duyoung couldn’t trust him.

Duyoung had doubt that Insan, like his other colleagues at the time, might have betrayed him.

Duyoung had no other choice but to doubt him because Insan got along well with him when his business was doing well but made no contact with him when he failed in business.

He also heard rumors that Insan was leading an affluent life.

In particular, he was doubtful why Insan suddenly appeared before him. Maybe because of Duyoung’s new research on green oil. There was a possibility that either his students or teachers at Haenim School might have leaked his research on green oil.

With a sorry look Duyoung said, “I don’t want to stop you from teaching the students, but I want to do the research alone. As you know, I suffered too much in the past. I don’t want to go through it again.”

Insan nodded as if he fully understood Duyoung’s position.

“I understand, brother. I just stopped by today to see you. Don’t feel any burden.”

After he met Duyoung that day, Insan didn’t ask him a favor like that any more.

He stayed around an hour and left.

Late in the evening that day the boy headed for the dark alleyway in Bono-dong, where Insan, who he met at Haenim School during the daytime, was waiting.

As soon as he saw the boy, Insan welcomed him and said.

“How about now? Can you trust me?”

The boy nodded but shook his head in no time.

“You can’t still say Duyoung is bad, right?” asked the boy.

“Didn’t you hear me talking with him? What did he say when I asked him to work with him? He flatly rejected it. If he was an honorable man in the past, how can he reject my request? Don’t you think he must hide something from me?”

The boy was still confused.

Insan kept blaming Duyoung to confuse the boy more and more. Finally, the boy nodded.

“Got it, then. What do you want from me? Why did you give me such a huge sum of money?”

“Nothing particular. I just want to take revenge on him for what he did to me in the past. I just want to restore justice in this world by stopping such mean people like Duyoung from making success.”

“So, what do you really want me to do?”

Instead of replying, Insan gave him a bankbook.

The boy opened it. As much as 50 million won was in the bank balance. And the account was opened under his name.

“Just keep an eye on Duyoung’s research. If he does succeed in it, just pocket it and give it to me. The money in the account is yours if you do that for me.”

The boy opened his eyes wide with surprise.

“All of this is yours?”

Insan nodded, “Yes, it’s all yours.”

But the boy was still hesitant. He seemed torn between the money and his conscience.

But Insan’s word cleared his conflicts right away.

“With that money, you can pay off your sick father’s balance at the hospital and make a living for the time being. You have to be the head of your family right now.”

The boy bit his lips.

***

It was around fall when Yu Zuung came back to Korea.

She didn’t give up her entertainment activities, of course. She was now showing interest in movies and TV soap operas, in addition to her activities as a dancer and singer.

Above all, TV producers constantly tried to scout her in their programs. Though she was not good at Korean, they didn’t care.

After she arrived in Korea, she stayed at Hyunwoo’s house in Hwasung, not Seoul. It was the new one Hyunwoo secured for her. So, he could see her anytime.

Thanks to that, he was all smiles and happy.

His mother, Jisook, also looked very happy.

“Do you have any good news?” Hyunwoo asked.

“Isn’t it good that we’re all doing well? As you’re good and your father is good, too, there is nothing more I can ask.”

“Haha, me too,” he said with a bright smile, leaving the house.

He headed for Haenim School. As Yu Zuung was staying in Ansan these days, he went to Haenim School almost daily and stayed there all day long.

As it happened, Duyoung was taking a break outside his room when Hyunwoo arrived.

These days he was trying to stay healthy as if he realized the importance of staying fit in order to continue his research.

Hyunwoo wanted to ask him about something related to Taeho’s failed experiment notes.

He approached his father and asked several questions, to which Duyoung replied easily just like a chemistry doctor.

They chatted for a while and went back into Duyoung’s research room.

Then they noticed a student doing something in one corner of the room. Batteries, wires and little bulbs were his lab equipment.

The student’s name was Mingyu Kang.

Mingyu was a student who received the most attention in Haenim School.

The reason for that was not because of his excellence but because of his eccentric activities.

For example, he was caught staring at the mirror for 30 minutes in the winter, thinking that another creature might move around in the mirror unlike him.

His friends tended to avoid him because of his eccentricity.

Was it the reason? Hyunwoo felt sorry for Mingyu, who was stuck in the research room, doing an experiment while his friends were discussing and working together in the classroom.

Hyunwoo and Duyoung approached him.

“What are you doing there?”

At Hyunwoo’s asking, Mingyu stood up with great joy, as if he had some questions.

“Doctor, this is strange. What’s wrong here?”

“What do you mean?” asked Duyoung.

“Electricity is as fast as light, isn’t it? Isn’t it logical that it should discharge electricity when I connect the battery with a wire without any resistance? But I don’t see that even if I connected it for long. The current is still there!”

As expected, it was a funny question.

If that battery leaked electricity so soon, it could not have worked as a batter at all.

It seemed Mingyu had no basic knowledge of electricity. As a high school student, he should have known better.

But Duyoung didn’t think so. It was Mingyu’s merits that he could look at the usual thing from a different angle. With strong curiosity and the unusual spirit of challenge through experiment, he could discover something great, Duyoung thought.

Duyoung kindly explained to Mingyu about the working principle of batteries.

“Let’s take water as an example. Don’t you think It will take a long time to drain the water from a large tank by making the thickness of the hose slender? The same can be said for batteries.”

Only then did Mingyu exclaim, “Ah!” and nodded his head.

Duyoung stroke his head as if Mingyu was cute, and then headed back to his research room. Hyunwoo pushed his wheelchair.

Left alone, Mingyu did the experiment again. This time he tried with wires of different thicknesses and bulbs with different sizes. He regarded the thickness of a wire as the same as that of a hose.

Mingyu continued the same research for several days, but the outcomes were disappointing.

Tilting his head to one side, he suddenly noticed a bucket. It contained gasoline. Duyoung placed it there several days ago with the special instruction to the students that they should never touch it.

But Mingyu was an attention-deficit student. Once he was absorbed in something, he didn’t hear anything, no matter who said it.

Even when Duyoung explained to the students why he put the gasoline bucket there, and why they should be careful. But Mingyu didn’t remember it at all.

Instead, he was toying with an eccentric idea.

“What happens if I drop this battery into the gasoline? As the gasoline is fuel, can it be recharged?”

He dropped a discharged battery into the bucket. And he left the place, thinking that he would take it out in two days.

But he was very forgetful of things. He completely forgot that he dropped the battery in the gasoline bucket.