Translator: Dreamscribe
“Seo-ha!”
After class ended, Yu Seo-ha, who had been noisily packing his bag and preparing to go ho, turned around at the sound of soone calling his na. Then he ran over with a bright smile.
“Yes! Teacher!”
‘Why don’t kids that age just walk like normal?’
The overflowing energy was both enviable and overwhelming.
Looking at him like this, he definitely seed like an ordinary elentary school student....
There wasn’t the slightest trace of the dark aura typically seen in children who are abused. He didn’t even show off the way so students who have already completed advanced studies tend to do. During addition and subtraction lessons, he participated enthusiastically like any other child, and he did his dictation assignnts diligently as well.
Of course, this was thanks to Mi-young and Chul-ho repeatedly emphasizing the importance of listening carefully in class, but there was no way Kim Yoon-mi could know that.
“Did you bring another difficult book in your bag today?”
At Yoon-mi’s question, Seo-ha opened his eyes wide and then nodded.
“Yes. I was going to read it during break ti. The kids don’t play soccer these days because it’s too hot....”
Fidgeting with his hands together and glancing toward the door, it was clear he really wanted to go ho.
“Do you have sothing urgent to get to?”
Seo-ha’s face turned red, embarrassed that his intentions had been noticed.
“Ah... no. It’s not that, but Seo-eun is waiting for . Seo-eun is my little sister, and she’s really cute. My mom doesn’t start cleaning or cooking dinner until I co ho.”
Thinking of the baby that had been in her mother’s arms, Yoon-mi almost laughed. She was definitely a cute baby.
‘Ah! What on earth was I even thinking?’
Her tension drained away.
Seo-ha was just a pure and kind countryside elentary school student. Yoon-mi decided to quickly set this admirable child free.
“Then do you want to just try solving these problems? There aren’t many, and if you finish them, you can leave right away!”
“Really?”
Perhaps he had thought it would take a long ti, as Seo-ha asked excitedly.
“Of course! If anything is too hard, you can just leave it.”
He was clearly a smart kid.
Though it’s very rare, there had been a classmate back in Science High School who had self-studied middle and high school math starting in lower elentary school. That guy is now doing a PhD at UCLA.
Seo-ha probably wasn't on that level, but if he could solve even middle school level math perfectly, Yoon-mi began to think about what kind of support would be appropriate.
Before she knew it, Seo-ha had taken out a character pencil with a duck figurine on it from his pencil case and began writing answers.
Question 1, 7th grade curriculum.
Proportion equations and ratio reasoning.
[If 5cm on a map represents 2km in reality, how many kiloters does 8cm represent?]
Scratch, scratch.
「3.2km」
Seo-ha wrote down the answer in an instant.
'ntal arithtic just by looking at it?'
Yoon-mi’s eyes twitched. Then she took a closer look at Seo-ha’s face.
His blinking slowed and his breathing beca shallow. His lips were half-closed, slightly curled inward as he stared at the test paper.
It was clear. Wanting to go ho quickly, Seo-ha had entered a complete concentration mode.
Scratch, scratch.
Question 2 was the Pythagorean Theorem.
[In a right triangle with a base of 8cm and a height of 6cm, and a square with one side of 8cm sharing a side with the triangle, find the distance from one vertex of the square to the midpoint O of the hypotenuse of the triangle.]
After looking at the question and thinking for about two seconds, Seo-ha’s hand began to move.
‘No way! This too?’
Gulp.
Yoon-mi swallowed dryly.
This was a question designed to assess reasoning more than calculation. Even the answer had been set up to co out cleanly. Seo-ha wrote the answer as if he didn’t even need to consider it.
「5cm」
Question 3, quadratic equation.
[Given the real number m, there is the following quadratic equation: x² 2mx (2m - 1) = 0. Find all real numbers m such that the equation has two distinct real roots and the difference between the two roots is 2.]
Seo-ha’s pencil moved without hesitation. Yoon-mi watched him, forgetting to even breathe.
Seo-ha instantly recalled the conditions for the discriminant and transford it into an equation that fit the problem.
There was no stopping. No hesitation either. That ant he was 100% confident in his answer.
「m = 0 or m = 2」
Yoon-mi unconsciously covered her mouth with her hand. She felt like a sound was going to escape.
Plugging the values into the quadratic formula to solve the equation wasn’t difficult. But the ability to understand the structure of the problem and to transform and connect the conditions demonstrated a very special kind of reasoning.
Yoon-mi’s heart pounded violently.
Speed didn’t matter at all. This kind of structural thinking isn’t sothing that can be taught.
Question 4, application of trigonotric ratios.
The calculation was simple, but it was a problem that required a shift in thinking.
Seo-ha didn’t just plug values into the question or rely on formulas.
At age eight, even just grappling with arithtic should be overwhelming, but structural thinking was already second nature to him.
And he wrote down the correct answer as if it were the most natural thing.
Question 5, differentiation.
[Find the real number a such that the difference between the extre values of f(x) = x² 2ax (2a - 1) is 2.]
The calculation was short, and the judgnt even quicker. Yoon-mi felt like she might go mad with curiosity about what on earth was going on inside this child’s head.
Seo-ha glanced over the question once with the pencil in hand, then imdiately began calculating.
An eight-year-old child grasped the entire flow, from the derivative to the position of the extre values to the difference between them, without a single mont of hesitation.
He read the problem and instantly linked the conditions to the function in his mind. In that process, he never went through a single unnecessary step.
This ant that Seo-ha already possessed perfect logic and intuition.
A feeling swept through Yoon-mi’s mind, one that was difficult to put into words.
Would it feel like this if an elentary school student drew a sophisticated architectural blueprint using crayons? The cold logic embedded in the innocent handwriting was chillingly alien.
“I’m done, teacher!”
Had it even been three minutes?
Seo-ha handed in the test paper, his entire body radiating the desire to go ho, which made him seem all the more adorable.
“All right. You got everything correct. You can go ho.”
She was so shocked that her voice ca out flat. She realized it too late, but Seo-ha didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Yes! Thank you!”
Seo-ha gave a deep bow and dashed out in a hurry.
After pulling off sothing unbelievable, he acted like it was nothing and didn’t even look like he was expecting any praise.
Yoon-mi blankly watched as Seo-ha ran out with his short legs.
She fell into thought.
“What on earth am I supposed to do with you?”
Yoon-mi stared down at the paper in her hand for a long ti.
It was sothing she hadn’t thought possible even in her dreams. The gap between reality and common sense was so great that her mind went blank.
She carefully stored the answer sheet in a file to keep it from getting crumpled. As if she were trying not to damage a precious treasure.
Tap tap tap.
Yoon-mi tapped the desk with her index finger.
Still only in the first grade of elentary school.
There was no question that he was at an age in need of adult protection. Even if he showed brilliance now, he might lose interest in math at any mont. Yoon-mi had seen many gifted children fade away like that.
“If he were just an ordinary gifted child....”
Seo-ha was sothing beyond even what could be called a genius.
In that instant, a chill ran through her entire body.
Maybe she was now in a position to influence a person who would go down in history.
Hisss.
She took a deep breath. A sense of reality returned.
The tips of her fingers on the desk trembled slightly.
For a long ti, Yoon-mi went through all the possible options she could take. But none of them seed satisfactory. Why? The reason was obvious. It was because she had never been a genius herself. Therefore, she lacked the foundation to judge what would be the best path.
"I've decided."
She would ask a genius. Or soone who had once been sothing close to it.
The burden was far too heavy to carry alone.
Ring ring ring ring ring.
The ringing continued for a long ti.
-What’s going on? You’re actually the one calling?
Just as the ringtone was about to end, an uncomfortable voice ca through.
“I have sothing to ask.”
There was a long silence. Then, with a resigned sigh, he replied.
-Hold on a second....
***
Beep-
Woo-hyun quickly turned off the recording cara.
Various graphs and formulas were written across the chalkboard. What on earth was his ex-girlfriend, who hadn’t contacted him in years, calling him for?
Hearing that she had sothing to ask, Woo-hyun walked out of the studio with heavy steps and grabbed a can of coffee from the fridge.
Click-
“What is it?”
-There’s a student I’m teaching, and he’s an incredible genius.
Woo-hyun let out a faint laugh.
“Genius, my ass. After all these years, that’s what you call to say?”
He was sick of it. That word.
When he took second place at the International Mathematical Olympiad, in which over 100 countries participate, he’d been showered with that praise. It had been the second-best result ever achieved by a Korean student since the country first participated in 1988.
But it was all aningless. Such titles were reserved only for the truly chosen few, handpicked by the gods.
-I know what you’re thinking, oppa, but this one’s really different. I’m telling you, this kid...
But Yoon-mi’s sentence never finished.
“Enough! If you’ve got nothing else to say, I’m hanging up.”
Was he angry?
A suffocating silence hung over the call. Regret started to creep in.
‘Damn it. Maybe I should’ve been nicer. Why the hell did I provoke her? I knew she’d say sothing that’d piss off.’
As Woo-hyun debated what to do-
-You petty bastard....
“What?”
A vein popped on his temple.
-Hey, you petty jerk!
“You wanna die?”
-How long are you gonna hold a grudge?
The more he heard, the more his anger flared. Everyone has their limits, lines you don’t cross.
“Who’s holding a grudge? Is there even one of our classmates who earns more than I do?”
Last year alone, he paid over 5 billion won in taxes.
He was the top lecturer idolized by every parent and student. The God of Mathematics, Shin Woo-hyun, with the best academic background and credentials, how dare anyone!
But the words that followed cooled his chest in an instant.
-If you’re that proud, then why don’t you co to the reunions?
“...That’s because of you. You think it’s comfortable for to see my ex?”
-That’s hilarious.
“Forget it. I’ll listen, so say it again. What’s up with this kid?”
He heard a relieved sigh on the other end.
“A first-grade elentary student completely understands and solves calculus and geotry vectors.”
As soon as he heard that, Woo-hyun frowned.
“You still in Gangnam? That kid’s parents must be sothing else. What did they do to that kid...”
Every year, there are a few kids like that.
Good DNA combined with inhuman early education could result in such cases. Most of them would soon co to their senses and just end up going to d school.
And if they couldn’t let go of the fantasy, they’d show up on shows like the gifted talent scout program and get their face out there. Ridiculous. Who even acknowledges that?
-No. I’m back in my hotown right now.
“Okcheon?”
Back when they were dating, Woo-hyun had once traveled to her hotown with her.
-Yeah.
“You’re telling there’s a kid solving that kind of stuff in that rural backwater?”
-I couldn’t believe it either. I called in the mom and talked to her. Not only did they never send the kid to a academy, they never even taught him at ho. The kid figured it all out by self-study.
“You sure it’s not a lie?”
-You think I’d be fooled? I double-checked. Oppa, please tell . I don’t know what to do with him. Should I contact the Gifted Education Institute? Or look into early graduation? I even thought about calling so Science High School teachers...
Yoon-mi’s urgent words were cut off by Woo-hyun.
“Don’t. You’ll ruin him. That’ll just give the parents a big head. The kid too, he’ll get cocky thinking he’s sothing.”
-Then what do I do? I swear, I’ve never seen a kid like this in my entire life.
“Maybe in Korea. But there are a few crazy guys like that overseas.”
His face twisted as if rembering sothing unpleasant.
-So I should just leave him alone?
“Of course not. Assuming what you said is true, do you know what a real genius like him needs?”
-Right, right. I wouldn’t know since I’m not a genius.
Even with Yoon-mi’s sarcastic tone, Woo-hyun didn’t flinch.
"Overwhelming achievents."
-What?
The unexpected answer left Yoon-mi speechless.
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