Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 109

TL: KSD

「This is an experiment on isomer.

27-year-old health teacher Han Ye-won was found unconscious from heatstroke during her duties. At the time of discovery, her body temperature was close to 42.3 degrees, and multiple organ failures were observed.

After treatment, Han Ye-won survived but suffered severe damage to her brain cells, significantly impairing her memory. Currently, her mental age appears to be that of a toddler.

At this point, are the 27-year-old health teacher Han Ye-won and the 27-year-old legally incompetent Han Ye-won the same person?」

EP 7 – Isomer

Gu Yu-na is best suited for mystery genres, but that doesn’t define her literature.

Originally, mysteries are merely a veil that naturally forms the twisted characters of ‘Gu Yu-na style novels’.

Gu Yu-na is a twisted person.

She does not intuitively understand other’s emotions and social commitments. It would be fair to say she lacks social skills, or that her temperament is not gentle.

This is why the characters created by Gu Yu-na are always somewhat distorted, and sometimes even she cannot distinguish this distortion.

However, these mismatches have made Gu Yu-na an excellent candidate for a novelist.

An excellent novelist must have a sharp eye to discover literary value even in the ordinary.

It means she should be good at nitpicking.

To exaggerate a bit, one should be able to find fault even with a rolling pebble.

Why is it rolling? Where did it come from? Where is it going? Who rolled it? Did someone casually nudge a stationary stone towards an unknown destination? Ah! Such is life! Our lives are like a stone….

That’s roughly the idea.

And Gu Yu-na is fundamentally someone with that kind of perspective.

She could be considered a nitpicking machine gun, or a human disassembler.

On top of that, even the social cues that restrain such ‘nitpicking’ are shattered, and just looking at Gu Yu-na’s breathtaking famous quotes can demonstrate this.

What qualifies you to criticize my writing?

I don’t think so, but I won’t outright deny your opinion, Critic-nim. After all, even people with low intelligence can talk about literature.

I appreciate the honor of the award, but even if it’s a literary award with decades of tradition, if you think about it, the criteria are merely the changing tastes of the judges each year, so I’m not sure what makes it different from other literary awards. What? No? Isn’t that so? After all, the selection process for all literary awards is the same, the only difference being the judges who change every year, so I find this formality of claiming the continuity of one literary award for decades to be meaningless… Uh, dad. Quiet down? Why should I?

Gu Yu-na can be curious about the trivial things of everyday life that pass by without a thought.

And the courageous Gu Yu-na who can boldly question the world without hesitation.

She truly can be considered a true literary figure of this era.

What exactly did Min Chae-won see to call Gu Yu-na a psycho and curse at her?

Of course, as a shy girl who is not used to conversing with others, she may sometimes blurt out prickly words, but I have always supported Gu Yu-na’s literature with the same consistent heart.

It’s still the same now.

I’m just trying to bring out the ‘literature of Gu Yu-na’ that she seems to have forgotten, from her heart.

Inside every puppy’s heart lies the latent nature of a wild wolf roaming the grasslands.

The same is true for Gu Yu-na.

In the heart of a girl with hazy, dull eyes, holding a yellow furry stuffed animal, lies the innate nature of a sharp and discerning literary artist.

“Yu-na, what do you think about this?”

Madness… no, literary quality is like gravity.

A slight push is all it takes to resolve it.

I gently tapped Gu Yu-na on the back and gave her that push.

When Yu-na received the draft of ‘Isomer’ from me, she slowly read through the document.

“…What are isomer?”

“Compounds made up of the same elements but are different arrangement of atoms. It’s a scientific term.”

“So, Han Ye-won is an isomer.”

“That’s right.”

“Then, is the protagonist a scientist?”

“Yes.”

“And was he a lover of Han Ye-won?”

“Exactly.”

“Hmm…”

After a moment of contemplation, Gu Yu-na gave me an answer that didn’t disappoint my expectations.

“The suspense is lacking. What if the protagonist kills Han Ye-won after concluding that the Han Ye-won who lost her memory isn’t the same person as before?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Someone else wearing the shell of the person you love. It’s unpleasant, isn’t it?”

At her answer, which was so like her old self, I couldn’t help but laugh unknowingly.

* * *

The variety show <Let’s Become a Novelist!> half claims to be an observational reality show. Observation cameras follow the cast members as they wrestle with writing novels in their daily lives, making their everyday settings the main stage rather than a studio.

However, PD Shim Yeon-ho periodically gathered the cast in the broadcast studio not only to film enough material but also to conduc checks.

After all, the show’s name is <Let’s Become a Novelist!>, and it would be a problem if the cast were lazy and didn’t write.

Moreover, every time they gather, they invite famous novelists to lecture on novel writing techniques, killing two birds with one stone.

Yesterday, there was a particularly memorable scene. They captured a tear-jerking moment at the house of a comedian married to a novelist.

“Ah, this shot is great, PD~nim.”

“Try to handle it well. Who would have thought Lee Yang-i ssi would be so serious? Let’s put it in around episode three and mix it well.”

“Alright, alright, I got it, so please stop bothering me.”

“When have I ever bothered you? I’m cheering you on.”

Editing is going smoothly, which pleased PD Shim Yeon-ho, who even hummed lightly as he walked through the studio.

These days observational reality show are the trend, but the studio always buzzing with vitality. It’s not just because he is in charge, but rather, there’s a certain romance that comes from the fierce competition.

In the studio, everyone is passionate. Those who want to be on camera do their best, and those who want to hold the camera and film also do their best. So you could say it’s a collision of passion and passion.

Look! There goes that passionately running schoolgirl…

Schoolgirl?

This isn’t a school, why would a student be here?

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Min Hyo-min in her school uniform.

PD Shim Yeon-ho didn’t ask why Min Hyo-min was wearing a school uniform but asked something else that seemed more urgent.

“No, Hyo-min ssi, what’s the matter? What’s going on?”

Min Hyo-min was running away, her face pale as if she had encountered a zombie at the station.

In fact, trembling, she pointed somewhere like a survivor just escaping a zombie apocalypse.

“Over there…! That way…!”

A sensible person would have run away immediately, but since PD Shim Yeon-ho was the type to die first in a zombie movie, he boldly went where Min Hyo-min pointed.

And there were two people there.

It was Moon In-seop and Gu Yu-na, writing a novel together.

“Oh…!”

In fact, PD Shim Yeon-ho was also hoping that Moon In-seop would write a novel during the shooting of the variety show.

Hadn’t <Peaceful Uninhabited Island> greatly benefited from such a scenario?

It’s just that he felt awkward because this guy had suddenly summoned the three generals of the Korean literary world and hadn’t been able to say anything.

“Oh my! What are you two writing now?”

PD Shim Yeon-ho approached them, his face beaming with excitement.

And the moment he glanced at the messily scattered papers, he understood why Min Hyo-min was running away.

There was only deep darkness there…

「People always ask me if I believe in God because I’m a scientist. Whether believers or non-believers, they all seem to unconsciously worship science in how they plead for a scientist’s opinion. So, I told the truth to Han Ye-won’s parents, who could have been my in-laws. Han Ye-won wasn’t punished by the heavens; her brain was cooked because she collapsed under the blazing sun. So there’s no use praying by the bedside. But then, they were furiously angry, weren’t they? No matter what they claim, prayers cannot heal humans. Only medicine can do that. And medicine failed to completely heal Han Ye-won. So, now what needs to be done is to prove whether this human, who can’t even distinguish feces from urine and is on the level of an ape, is indeed the woman I loved…」

* * *

Study 1-1. On the medical health of humans.

Study 1-2. On the social existence of humans.

Study 1-3. On the cognitive age of humans.

Study 2-1. On the social definition of love.

Study 2-2. On the psychological origin of love.

Study 2-3. On the biological nature of love.

And then…

I don’t know.

“What else could there be…”

Perched on the massage chair in a bizarre posture, Gu Yu-na frowned as she scribbled notes in her notebook. Her pose resembled more a cat than a human.

Gu Yubin’s cat, ‘Ori,’ approached and tried to push Gu Yu-na off the massage chair. It was an outburst over losing its usual spot.

But in the Gu Hak-jun family’s power hierarchy, Min Chae-won is ranked first, Gu Yu-na second, and Gu Yubin third. ‘Ori’, who is only 4th place, cannot possibly beat the 2nd place.

As Gu Yu-na wiggled her toes and poked ‘Ori’ in the ribs, the poor cat meowed and scampered off to complain to its owner.

After easily winning the skirmish with the cat, Gu Yu-na continued pondering, her lips twitching slightly on the massage chair that wasn’t even turned on.

Gu Yu-na was engrossed.

A psychopathic scientist observing his lover who has regressed to infancy.

The fact that the person I recognized has deteriorated to such an extent is endlessly displeasing.

This is closer to an animal than a human.

Just before killing his lover before seeing an even uglier sight, the question – what if this ape is indeed the lover I know – grabs his ankle.

From there, the experiment on ‘isomers’ begins.

If the subject is indeed the lover, the scientist will let her go, and if the subject is not the lover, the scientist will kill her.

But what, indeed, is the definition of a person, or of love?

The chilling analysis with life at stake only gets longer and longer…

“Hmm…”

But this is just an observation from a first-person perspective, and to a third-person outsider, it appears merely as the trial and error of a man caring for his lover who has become incompetent.

Gu Yu-na liked this part the best. The experiment is strictly conducted in the protagonist’s inner world. Thus, the novel’s conclusion also moves towards internal completeness.

Therefore, it’s philosophy disguised as science.

“Hmm…!”

Gu Yu-na softly coughed in delight, her favorite author having hit the mark with a story that matched her tastes.

Even she was included in the writing, doubling her joy. How far can one deconstruct the elements that make up a human?

Thus, she had been diligently contemplating methods of ‘experimentation’, but…

“Hmm…”

It seems this is as far as it goes. No more usable ideas were coming to mind.

Gu Yu-na jumped off to cool her head and landed on the sofa, pushed aside the listless Gu Hak-jun who was watching TV.

Gu Yu-na , without even thinking of tidying her disheveled hair, watched her father move awkwardly.

After losing the sofa to his daughter, the unfortunate father headed towards a leather recliner worth about 11 million won instead.

Seeing this, Gu Yu-na suddenly looked around.

The house was really spacious.

“Hmm….”

Gu Yu-na was not the type of person who unconditionally enjoyed living in a large house. She knew how to find fault even with that.

Her thoughts continued endlessly.

Many people live in large houses, but not many live in a large house with a yard in the middle of Seoul.

And it wasn’t because Min Chae-won was a successful businesswoman, nor because Gu Hak-jun, despite being a novelist, earned as much as Min Chae-won, but because Min Chae-won’s father had made a fortune in real estate investments.

Yes, wealth becomes an insurmountable scale beyond a certain level, no longer just about personal effort.

Self-made billionaires certainly exist, but they represent less than 1% of cases, a percentage even smaller than the amount of lobster in lobster-flavored chips.

However, humans are collectively influenced by the scale of wealth.

Educational level, standard of living, family environment, etc.

The ‘environment’ provided from childhood influences a person’s nature and determines their life.

A psychopath born in a poor family might grow up to be a serial killer, while a psychopath born in a wealthy family might grow up to be a renowned neuroscientist.

So then, wealth.

Or the ‘inherited things’ are also a scale that constitutes a human, aren’t they?

“Hmm!”

Another line was added to Gu Yu-na’s notebook.

「Study 3-4. On the hereditary status of humans.」

Thus, Gu Yu-na thought of one more method to experiment on human elements.

However, she couldn’t conduct this research as she didn’t have children. Fortunately, an suitable assistant was nearby.

Gu Yu-na asked Gu Hak-jun, who was sitting on the 11 million won leather recliner.

“Dad. If I lose all my memories due to brain damage, will you give all the inheritance to my sister? Or will you divide it equally between us?”

Instead of answering, Gu Hak-jun merely let the coffee he was drinking dribble down.

*****

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