Pretending not to know, he asked Jihun, “Go ahead.”

“Yu Zuung.”

Hyunwoo saw eye to eye with him.

In fact, Zuung was like a double-edged sword. She could instill vigor in the office, on the one hand, but she could sow the seed of enmity and disharmony, on the other, but Hyunwoo boldly decided to give her a chance. If she created any trouble, he could deal with that in due course.

And he, too, missed her a bit. When she was beside him, he felt good in spite of himself.

Of course, he had no indecent desires for her. He already set his heart on Suji Min.

For various reasons, he felt he needed Zuung’s excellent skill in creating animation characters,

“Can I ask her about it?”

Then, he called her in Vietnam. The male staff and Jihun, in particular, looked at Hyunwoo with great expectation.

Zuung picked up the phone immediately.

Hyunwoo told her his point right away, and Zuung replied as if she had been waiting for the chance.

“Sure, I would love to work in Korea if you give me a chance.”

When Hyunwoo relayed her positive reply, the male staff gave a shout of joy, but the female staff showed a sullen expression, curling their lips.

“How soon can you come here?”

“Let me come as soon as this semester is over. I think I can come as early as July.”

Though Hyunwoo wanted her to come as soon as possible, he felt a bit regrettable about her reply, but studying for her was as important as working.

In fact, she could create characters while staying in Vietnam, too. And there was some work Hyunwoo wanted to entrust to Zuung with respect to the business of Ani & Funny’s Vietnamese branch.

“Can you expand the size of the branch over there while you’re still in Vietnam? I’m planning to increase your workload over there in the future. You will need many more staff members.”

“Got it. Let me increase by 30 then.”

If 30 people joined the existing staff of the branch, it would be fully packed, but Hyunwoo was not satisfied with that.

He already set up a long-term plan in Vietnam, which was to replace VPictures.

In order to achieve his goal, Hyunwoo wanted a much larger talented staff.

“That’s way below what I want. Increase by about 100.”

“Wow! That will cost a lot of money, and the current office space can’t house that many people.”

She was concerned about the office budget, but money was not a big burden to Hyunwoo.

Hyunwoo gave the branch staff 2 million dong on average per month, and 4 million dong to the team managers including Zuung.

The starting salary of college graduates in Vietnam was 4 million dong on average, so the compensation of the Vietnamese branch staff was decent.

But 2 million dong was only 100,000 won when converted into Korean won. Even if Hyunwoo hired 100, the total salary would be around 10 million won, which Hyunwoo could pay without any problem. And the office expenses were not that high.

“Don’t worry about that, Zuung. I’ll take care of that. Let me expand the office space as soon as possible. I’m thinking of two more offices that are larger than the current one. Isn’t that enough?”

“Yea, but it looks like you’re hiring too many people.”

“I told you before that I’m going to give you an enormous workload. You might need more staff in the future. So, try to hire as many competent people as possible.”

“Got it.”

“By the way, let me send you some new stories. Draw some characters befitting the stories. If you come over here, you’ll be specializing in that field. And that’s the main reason I am going to bring you over here.”

“Sure, I’ll try.”

Hyunwoo asked her to pay special attention to the matter of hiring before he hung up the phone.

When he told the staff she would come early July, the male staff expressed disappointment.

With a gentle smile, he stimulated their enthusiasm a bit by asking, “What is the best seat for Zuung when she reports to work here? I wish she sat beside someone who is really working hard. Kyungsu, can you monitor who is the best staffer here?”

“Hahaha. Sure, will do.”

***

“Please move that carefully.”

“Put that here.”

The people of the house next to Hyunwoo’s was busy with moving stuff here and there.

It was none other than Suji’s house. Finally, the construction was completed, and they were moving stuff over the weekend.

It was built as a two-story house with a large yard. Suji’s mother, Mrs. Kong, was already thrilled when she thought about cultivating a kitchen garden for cabbages and sesame leaves.

There was a separate container house in front of the house, which would be used as Suji’s father Taeho Min’s personal research room. Though it could be located inside the house, Taeho insisted on setting it up outside.

Obviously, he must have envied the container houses of Hyunwoo’s father and Kuroda.

Hyunwoo chipped in carrying the stuff.

He first moved the furniture and other household stuff and then Taeho’s research material.

His father Duyoung Jang approached and took a look at them slightly. He seemed to be interested in Taeho’s research area. Interestingly enough, there was impressive lettering on his diaries like this.

<Failure Diary>

There were not just one or two such diaries, but several boxes of diaries with the same lettering.

With a curious expression, Hyunwoo asked, “What is this Failure Diary, sir?”

“Oh, that one? Literally, they are my notes that recorded my failures.”

Taeho answered without any hesitation.

“Wow, there are so many of them here.”

“I’ve done this research for over 10 years. As I had no tangible success, obviously I had such a large collection of my failures.”

“Can I open this?”

Hyunwoo asked casually but instantly regretted it. No matter how many times he failed, the failure diaries were as precious to him as his life.

At his asking, Taeho seemed to hesitate.

Hyunwoo quickly switched the topic, “Sorry, I was thoughtless to say that. I am not interested in your research, so don’t worry.”

With an awkward smile, Taeho replied, “Thanks for understanding me. In fact, they’re nothing special, but it would be difficult to understand if you didn’t specialize in this field.”

Hyunwoo moved the boxes to his research room quickly and never paid any attention.

But his father seemed interested a lot. He often cast a glance at Taeho’s container house.

While Hyunwoo was busy moving, he heard a familiar voice from the door.

“Am I a bit late? I wanted to help you with moving.”

Hyunwoo turned his head to that man, who was none other than Suyoung Oh, former principal of Hyunwoo’s high school and the security man of the main gate of Aurum company. He retired last week.

Suyoung gladly exchanged greetings with Hyunwoo’s family. As the moving was almost done, Suyoung didn’t need to help them with anything.

“Did you find another job?” asked Hyunwoo.

“How can I find one at my age? I think I have to go to a senior center to play go.”

“You’re still too young to retire, sir.”

“Glad to hear that. You want to hire me? Hahaha”

Though he said it jokingly, Hyunwoo took it seriously.

Actually, Hyunwoo thought of the alternative school Dreaming School.

With a smile, Suyoung nodded.

“In fact, I was thinking of it. Let me visit there sooner or later.”

After they were done moving all the stuff, they gathered at the new house and talked over tea. It was a bit disorderly because they hadn’t unpacked, but nobody cared.

In the meantime, Duyoung often looked at Taeho as if he had something to say.

Finally, he opened his mouth as their conversation stopped for a moment, “By the way, what kind of experiment are you involved in? I know it’s related to solar energy, but the experimental method is…?”

“I don’t have any particular method. I’m doing lots of experiments related to chemistry, Dr. Jang’s specialty.”

Taeho spoke about everything as if he had nothing to hide.

As their conservation was too technical, Hyunwoo could not intervene if he wanted to.

“I see. In fact, my research is somewhat similar to yours. Namely, developing new material related to alternative energy. I am also dealing with a non-chemistry area like you. For example, I’m doing some research on microbiology. Sometimes microbes produce chemical substances that I never expected,” said Duyoung.

“Well as far as the research on microbiology I’ve done a lot, too. I even did research on the microbes related to spiders to check if they produced substances that could be transformed into materials to create transparent electrodes.”

“Wow, you and I have lots of research in common. Hahaha”

Both of them laughed cheerfully as if they were bosom friends, but other people couldn’t participate in the dialogue because it was too technical.

In particular, Mrs. Kong made a frown as if she was sick and tired of her husband’s talk about research.

Finally, she pinched his thigh and said, “Stop talking about your research. Other people here are feeling awkward because of you.”

Taeho and Duyoung offered apologies with awkward expressions.

“I’m so sorry. We just focused on ourselves.”

“Why don’t we talk about the research later when we have time? Let’s talk about something else. Hahaha.”