WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 90: If You Keep Living Your Best
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Kim Seung-jun knew.
He knew he was still inexperienced.
If KTB had not been so short on talent, especially after its previous PDs had caused one problem after another and left, he would never have been entrusted with a program in the first place.
In fact, getting stabbed in the back over the contract with WIM was the kind of mistake an experienced PD could have avoided.
Still, however inexperienced he might be, he could say with certainty as a PD.
These two would succeed.
The music he had just heard.
The harmony of song and performance, so fantastic that he doubted anyone could even imitate it. The mysterious aura unique to master musicians, which only he could see with his Skill, 『Eye for Entertainment』, and which he had never seen in any other master musician.
Above all, the emotion they had stirred in him.
It gave Kim Seung-jun a certainty that bordered on foresight.
‘These two can do it. No, it has to be them!’
Rimon and Eugene could more than fill Claire’s absence.
Perhaps they could even achieve something beyond merely filling that void.
“If you have a guild or an agency, please let me know. I’ll send over a contract with the best terms possible.”
Of course, that was merely his own instinct.
Claire’s casting had already fallen through, and if he recruited two unknown musicians as replacements?
People would call him insane.
The division director, who already disliked him, would probably try to eat him alive.
But Kim Seung-jun pressed forward.
Once Manager Moon had betrayed him, this program might as well have already been dead.
And that meant KTB was going under too.
If it would end the same way either way, he wanted to trust his instincts and take a gamble.
‘If it doesn’t work out, I can always quit being a PD!’
“Hm...”
Perhaps because he sensed the resolve in Kim Seung-jun’s eyes.
Rimon watched him seriously, then finally spoke after a long silence.
“I’m not interested.”
“...Pardon?”
“I said I’m not interested.”
“W-Why not?!”
Kim Seung-jun’s shock was understandable.
KTB might be a small cable station, but it was still television.
Moreover, it was a program originally meant to feature a top singer like Claire. Even moderately popular entertainers and musicians would have been eager for that opportunity.
Yet Rimon was turning it down so casually?
“If you suspect I’m a scammer, I can go with you to the station and prove my identity.”
“It’s not that I doubt you.”
“Then why are you refusing?!”
“I’m not particularly interested in becoming famous through music or making money from it.”
Kim Seung-jun had made one mistake.
Rimon was not an unknown musician.
He was the Sword Master who had saved the world several times over, and Li Qing-yu’s prospective prince consort while she plotted to swallow the entire Seven Dragons Society whole.
He had no reason to covet a scrap of fame or a little pocket change.
“Well, don’t despair so soon. I said I’m not interested, but that doesn’t mean my friend feels the same way.”
“You mean...?”
Kim Seung-jun’s face brightened at once.
Rimon glanced toward Eugene.
“What about you? From the sound of it, they’re willing to offer pretty good terms.”
“...?”
“What’s with that face? You look like you just heard a black mage’s curse chant.”
Until moments ago, Eugene had been grinning broadly. Now they wore an inscrutable expression instead, leaving Rimon faintly uncomfortable.
Eugene tilted their head.
“Partner, you just said you don’t want to get famous through music or make money from it.”
“That’s right.”
“Then why ask me?”
“...Isn’t that what people normally do?”
“NO!”
Eugene immediately raised one hand.
Then, wagging an index finger from side to side, they declared proudly.
“Asking each other for opinions is for strangers. We’re partners whose souls resonate, so we understand each other without speaking. Same mind, same answer. There’s no need to ask.”
Rimon blinked for a moment after hearing Eugene speak as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Then, through Kim Seung-jun’s anxious expression and Yoo Na-gyeong’s psychic transmission, which he could not tell was laughter or a groan, he confirmed that he had not misheard.
Scratching his cheek, he asked.
“So, in short, you’re not interested either?”
“Of course.”
“Why not think it over a little before deciding? It could be a good opportunity if you ever want to debut as a singer.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t want to.”
Rimon looked at Eugene in confusion for a moment, then asked in disbelief.
“You’re refusing because you don’t want to debut?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“You don’t have to have one. I’m just curious.”
At those words, it was Yoo Na-gyeong rather than Eugene who looked surprised.
[What’s gotten into you, Team Leader? Why are you prying like that?]
Rimon rarely concerned himself with other people’s stories.
It was a habit born from living so long and repeatedly meeting and parting with every kind of person.
He had only learned that Yoo Na-gyeong was an orphan years after they had begun working together.
So the fact that he was curious about the story of Eugene, whom he had met only twice, was enough to leave Yoo Na-gyeong not just surprised, but a little hurt.
Rimon gave her a simple answer.
‘It would be a waste.’
[A waste of what?]
‘Letting that talent lie dormant.’
Rimon clicked his tongue inwardly.
Since learning the violin, he had listened to plenty of music and observed many musicians.
That was why he knew.
Eugene had yet to bloom, but they were a genius with potential comparable to Julia, the world-class violinist.
‘It would be a shame for a flower that could bloom so beautifully to remain only a bud.’
Eugene had simply not bloomed yet.
If they learned properly and trained consistently, they could join the ranks of top singers within a few years.
As Rimon said that such talent would be a waste, Yoo Na-gyeong made a strangely sullen face.
[...You’ve never said anything like that to me, Team Leader.]
‘Hm? Did you have anything you could call talent?’
[I was talented in my own way, you know? I was an unprecedented genius at Hanbit Orphanage!]
‘I’ll acknowledge you had talent if you can call yourself a genius who appears once every hundred years.’
[Does that even make sense?!]
‘Why wouldn’t it? When I was the head of the Sword Tower, a dozen geniuses like that showed up every year.’
[Was the Sword Tower the Hyperbolic Time Chamber or something?! How could it have that many once-in-a-century talents?!]
Eugene’s quiet question brought Rimon back from his bickering with Yoo Na-gyeong.
“Partner, do you really want to know why?”
“Yeah. Usually, art types like becoming famous and making money.”
Most people did, in fact.
Few disliked being recognized and becoming famous, and even fewer disliked money.
Artists simply cared more about fame because fame directly became profit in their field.
“I like making money too. But I don’t like singing for money.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no soul in the song.”
It was an unexpected answer.
But Rimon was not flustered.
He simply wore an odd expression and asked again.
“Are you saying art should be an end in itself, not a means?”
“I don’t understand complicated things like that. I just want to sing what I want, when I want to sing.”
“I see... I understand.”
Rimon gave a quiet laugh as Eugene shook their head as if they did not understand what he was saying, yet answered without the slightest hesitation.
That only left Eugene flustered.
“Don’t you think I’m strange, Partner?”
“Why would you be strange? If that makes you strange, I must be stranger.”
Rimon shrugged.
It was not an empty remark.
When it came to living while doing only what he wanted, Rimon himself was the final authority.
Eugene watched him with an odd look for a while.
Then they finally giggled.
“I guess Partner really is strange.”
“Is that something you should be saying?”
As Eugene giggled and Rimon smiled faintly, Yoo Na-gyeong asked awkwardly.
[...Excuse me, Team Leader? I don’t understand any of this. What does soul have to do with anything? Is Eugene trying to preserve the purity of art or something?]
‘If you don’t understand, let it go. Even if I explained it, that birdbrain of yours wouldn’t understand.’
[That’s speciesist!]
Whether Yoo Na-gyeong protested or not.
Rimon merely smiled and did not bother to explain.
Eugene was not doing this because of some lofty belief in artistic purity. They simply hated being bound.
That was why Rimon stopped pressing.
No matter how remarkable someone’s talent was, if it was not the path they wanted for themselves, nobody had the right to force them down it. That was his belief.
Just then, someone spoke in a cautious voice.
“So, did things go well?”
“Hm? Didn’t you hear what we were just talking about?”
“Well...”
Rimon took one look at Kim Seung-jun’s embarrassed face and roughly understood the situation.
Then he placed a hand on Kim Seung-jun’s shoulder.
“I’ll pay for the meal.”
“Pardon?”
“It’ll be tough, but keep your chin up. If you keep living your best, maybe someday the sun will shine on you.”
“...”
Kim Seung-jun stared sourly at Rimon, who had already decided that he would suffer before offering him heartfelt consolation.
Then he clenched his fist and shouted.
“No matter what you say, I will recruit both of you for my program! I absolutely will!”
“Well, give it a try if you can.”
Like any old man accustomed to watching young people burn with futile passion, Rimon casually brushed aside Kim Seung-jun’s declaration.
But neither Rimon, Eugene, nor even Kim Seung-jun himself knew.
That Kim Seung-jun’s burning passion would eventually be realized in a form none of them could have expected.
* * *
While Kim Seung-jun was burning with futile passion.
There were others, sunk in despair several times deeper, albeit for an entirely different reason.
“So.”
In an opulently decorated office, Wang Gi-neung stood with their back turned to the others, admiring a shattered mural. They stroked their stylish moustache as they asked.
“Is that all there is to your report?”
“...”
“Well, that’s impressive. You can say you have no results with such confidence.”
One of those with dark expressions, the Shanghai Wang Family’s Intelligence Chief, cautiously offered an excuse.
“It is not that we have no results. We have already spread the Heaven-and-Earth Net across every suspicious lead. We only need to wait for those bastards to be caught in it.”
“Fine words indeed... But am I imagining things, or did I hear those very words last week as well?”
“That is...”
“Ah, my apologies. Come to think of it, I forgot I heard them the week before that too.”
With Wang Gi-neung’s words dripping with sarcasm, the Intelligence Chief could only fall silent.
The Shanghai Wang Family had been mobilizing all its resources for over a month now.
Yet they had not only failed to find the culprits, they had not even caught a trace of them. As the person responsible for the family’s intelligence operations, the Intelligence Chief had no excuse.
“Does anyone have an alternative besides that damned Heaven-and-Earth Net?”
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