Chapter 20

Rainbow Hair Returns

These days, my day follows a fixed routine.

I wake up at the crack of dawn, struggle with pink dumbbells, wash up, eat, then study. After that, I rest for a bit, eat again, then study again.

Afterward, if I have an outing scheduled, I do that. If not, I rest at home until it is time to stream. Something like that.

The shut-in lifestyle where I stayed fused to my bed and rolled around until late afternoon had vanished with a single word from Grandfather.

Is this the word magic of an Elder Dragon? Too stroooong!

Strictly speaking, I have now become a proper morning person. A vampire, retainer of the night, becoming a morning person. There could hardly be a greater contradiction in this world.

And out of that entire day, the most horrible time is—

This very moment—

Right here—

Desperately wishing—

No, what am I wishing for? Fuck this.

“Miss. Solve this problem again.”

Ms. Choi Songyi smiled wickedly and tapped the workbook.

“Two trains are traveling toward each other. One is going sixty kilometers per hour, the other eighty. If they depart at the same time from two stations two hundred kilometers apart, how many hours later will they meet?”

“Teacher. The question is weird.”

“What is?”

“Hmm...”

Why are these insane train conductors trying to take thousands of passengers with them if they want to commit suicide? Why not just do it alone?

I almost said that.

“Miss. What exactly is strange?”

“Ah, yes. I’ll solve it. I’m solving it. I said I’ll solve it, okay? Please don’t hit meee! Sniff, sniff!”

“...You’re saying something that would cause a serious misunderstanding if someone overheard.”

Sixty plus eighty is one hundred forty. So together they get one hundred forty kilometers closer every hour. Two hundred divided by one hundred forty is—.

...Divided by?

Honestly, I did not really know.

Thinking about it, it was strange. Why did I not know something this simple?

Even if I had spent all fourteen years of this life lazing around like a bum, I had graduated from university in my previous life.

...Wait, what university did I graduate from?

What was my major? It was... strangely, I could not remember very well...

“...What are you doing? You haven’t said anything for a whole minute. You aren’t trying to stall for time, are you?”

“A-Ah. No.”

“Do you have the answer?”

“K-Kgh... 1.4?”

“In my entire life, I’ve never seen anyone do division like that. How are you still like this after I’ve taught you several times?”

“Huh? It’s wrong?”

“It isn’t merely wrong. It is impossible for the answer to be any more wrong.”

Kgh.

Why do I have to do this kind of thingggg! The age of people doing division by hand ended long ago.

Ahh, do you not know? This is called a calculator.

Ms. Choi Songyi must be a resident of some backward other world. How can you tell someone to calculate things manually in the twenty-first century?

“Um, Teacher. Do you ever actually use this in real life? Korail tells you the train schedule anyway.”

“What does this have to do with a train schedule? It sounds like you haven’t understood the problem at all.”

“Nooo—. Fine, even if that’s true, the problem itself makes no sense. How am I supposed to solve this!”

“I’ll say just one thing. Your test is next week. You know that, right?”

“Gueeek...”

Next week is the first end-of-month evaluation since this system began. I have to take a test created by my four private tutors, and the score goes straight onto Grandfather’s desk. And if I fail—

What else, fuck. I go to school.

Every morning I would have to put on a uniform, sit in a classroom packed with people, and listen all day to things I have no interest in!

And after that, I would have to take lessons from the private tutors again, meaning my entire evening would be wiped out.

I already confirmed it with Ms. Sejin too, and if that happens, she has no intention of helping me. In other words, the agreement that allowed me to keep streaming would go straight out the window.

“Ughhh...”

Just thinking about it is horrifying.

At times like this, I am genuinely not joking when I say I want to actually possess the persona I created for streaming!

If I were really a vampire princess hundreds of years old, I would not have to do this shitty studying!”

“Now, again. Two hundred divided by one hundred forty is—.”

“Waaaaah...”

Seeing me struggle, Ms. Choi Songyi smiled brightly this time.

“You can take your time, Miss. There are still six whole days until the evaluation.”

“Shouldn’t that be only six days, not six whole days?”

“Oh my, six days is plenty of time. Hohoho.”

Is that supposed to comfort me, or threaten me?

In other words, she meant she would grind me down and work me until I was capable of taking the test.

And the evaluation six days from now did not only include math. There was Korean, English, and social studies too.

If my average across all four subjects failed to meet the standard, I was finished that very day.

“Ughhh. Why do we even have to do math? It’s no help whatsoever in real life!”

“You still need to do it. It also develops logical thinking skills—.”

“Waaaaah...”

The other subjects were more or less tolerable, but it was always this numbers nonsense that dragged me down.

How could this body, which had graduated from university in a previous life, struggle this badly with mere elementary school math? Even I was frustrated with myself.

I hate trains and I hate fractions. If I am reborn again, I am going into the humanities. Let’s go for a third life!

Still, once day passes and night comes, it is my world again.

Time to put away Shin Yua, who struggles with insane-train-conductor problems, and awaken Lilith, the vampire princess who commands a thousand viewers.

Ms. Choi Songyi’s lesson was the last one this afternoon, so I was finally free.

I was killing time on my phone, planning to laze around in bed until dinner—

“Hehehe, what is this, this is hilarious.”

“Miss.”

“Gah, you startled me.”

“Why are you so surprised? Do you know how many times I knocked?”

“W-When did you come in?”

“Just now. You didn’t answer, so I thought you were asleep.”

Ms. Sejin set down a glass of water and sat beside me.

“I came because I have something to tell you.”

“That if I don’t pass next week’s evaluation, I have to go to school?”

“That’s not it.”

“Hm?”

What else was there besides that?

“Do you remember the person you met at the art museum last time?”

In an instant, hair in every color—pink, blue, and purple—appeared in my mind.

“That rainbow-haired old maid?”

“Pfft, what kind of name is that? Her real name is apparently Hwang Ara. And you shouldn’t call other people things like that.”

“She isn’t here.”

“Don’t you know the saying, ‘Birds hear words spoken by day, and mice hear words spoken by night’?”

“Nope.”

Ms. Sejin chuckled.

“Anyway, speaking badly about people behind their backs isn’t a very good habit.”

“Okay. So what about that unnie?”

Ms. Sejin looked down at her phone.

“She contacted us. More precisely, she contacted us through the museum.”

“Contacted us?”

“Yes. She said what she filmed with you that day got a very good response, and she wants to work with you again.”

From the explanation, apparently that old maid—no, that person named Hwang Ara—was quite influential for an art NewTuber, so she was useful for promoting exhibitions or something.

“And.”

Ms. Sejin paused briefly.

“This has already been reported to the Chairman as well.”

“Huh? What did Grandfather say?”

“The Chairman said you may do it if you want to.”

“R-Really?”

I thought he would absolutely never allow something like this.

Well, that does not mean I want to do it or anything!

You did not ask? I am just saying!

— — —

Shin Ilseong closed the approval folder and removed his glasses.

The chief secretary standing across from him kept his back straight and waited for the elderly chairman to open his mouth.

They had already worked together for decades, but entering this room still made him hold his breath.

The chairman’s two eyes shone so fiercely that his eighty-seven years seemed meaningless, and every word he spoke carried the weight of a man who had spent his life building the massive conglomerate called Shinil.

This eccentric and terrifying old man, who could truly be called an extraordinary figure of modern Korean history—

Was still energetically looking after both company matters and family affairs. Perhaps that was why the people around him found him even more frightening.

“Next.”

“Yes. Next is an affiliated-company personnel matter.”

“Enough. I have no intention of interfering in such trivial matters. That much should be handled by the presidents themselves. It is not something this old man needs to stick his nose into.”

“Yes.”

While the chief secretary gathered the documents, Shin Ilseong’s gaze shifted toward a thin report placed separately on one side of the desk.

“You may leave now.”

“Yes, Chairman.”

The moment the chief secretary closed the door and left, Shin Ilseong picked up the report.

It had come from Shinil Art Museum. It described in detail what had happened at the exhibition hall on the day his granddaughter went on her first outing.

The contents were simple. While some NewTuber was broadcasting an introduction to the exhibition, his granddaughter had interrupted, and the two had spent quite a while bickering and getting along.

And, most surprisingly of all, his granddaughter had approached first and spoken to her.

Strictly speaking, it was an insignificant report. Merely a story about a girl chatting with an adult at an art museum—

That was all.

And yet Shin Ilseong had been unable to put the paper down for days.

“Yua approached first.”

That one line kept catching his eye.

Shin Ilseong still remembered vividly the day he heard that the plane carrying his youngest son and daughter-in-law had fallen into the sea.

The sudden death of his beloved son—

Was a grief and shock beyond even the superhuman who had built an empire of money in a South Korea devastated after the war.

And that shock had not swept away only Shin Ilseong’s heart.

The young granddaughter left behind by his youngest son and daughter-in-law changed completely after realizing that her parents were never coming back.

She closed her heart.

Psychiatrists talked about autism spectrum disorder, delusional disorder, and various other things as they attempted treatment, but none of it had any effect.

After that, Yua would only stare blankly when anyone spoke to her, spending the entire day shut in her room fiddling with her phone.

No matter how many good things Shin Ilseong gave her, her gaze rarely turned toward him.

An old man with so much wealth, yet unable to make even one granddaughter smile properly.

That sorrow was more than the aging man could bear, and at some point, he stopped visiting her personally.

Instead, Shin Ilseong resolved to give his granddaughter everything he could.

She said she hated school, so he did not send her. He made her do nothing she disliked.

Only after ten years passed did he realize that this had not been the path that was truly for his granddaughter.

It had been his own hand that kept a child trapped in a tiny world from ever coming out of it.

“You foolish old man. How did you not realize even that?”

Fortunately for him, not long ago, a report had arrived that was both shocking and joyful.

The reporter was, of course, the capable caretaker assigned to look after his granddaughter.

Han Sejin.

She had worked at Shinil Trading, the root and home base of Shinil Group, where his deceased youngest son had served as a director.

And her husband, whom she had married after an office romance, along with their young daughter—

Had been on the same plane as Shin Ilseong’s youngest son.

It was Shin Ilseong who later entrusted Yua’s care to her while she suffered from severe depression.

And according to her report—

Yua had come back to life.

His granddaughter, who used to lie around every day doing nothing but fiddling with her phone, had started showing enthusiasm for something.

Shin Ilseong saw this as the final chance to open his granddaughter’s cage.

So he used this birthday banquet as an opportunity to drag his granddaughter outside the door no matter what.

And on the very first day she had been pushed outside like that, his granddaughter had walked up to someone of her own accord?

It was something Shin Ilseong would have struggled to believe even if he had seen it with his own eyes.

“Hoho...”

Shin Ilseong put down the report and walked toward the window.

When word came that the NewTuber wanted to see his granddaughter again, Shin Ilseong did not think about it for long.

If it meant his granddaughter could find something to grow attached to, then things like formality and appearances meant nothing.

Let her do it.

The only condition was that the child’s identity not leak outside. It was still too early for the world to know that she was a granddaughter of the Shin family.

It would not be too late to reveal that once Yua’s fragile mind had grown enough for her to take care of herself.

That was the only condition.

Everything else could be as Yua wished.

“Hooo...”

Shin Ilseong slowly steadied his breathing as he looked down at the city outside the window.

That small, pitiful thing had only just begun peeking outside through the crack in the door.

He only hoped that door would open a little wider.

That was all Shin Ilseong wished for.