Bab 83: Chapter 41.2
Jung So-rim said she had learned music from a young age.
The first thing she had held in her hands was a violin.
She also had quite a bit of talent.
However, she had a talent that was good enough for a mere child, but she did not have more outstanding skills than others.
She went to quite a few contests and competitions, but her biggest achievement was a participation prize.
She was diverted to playing the gayageum by her parents, who thought it shouldn't go on like that.
Since she only had a few competitors that way, she thought it would be a little easier for her to succeed.
It hadn't been a bad decision.
But it wasn't a good decision either.
Korean traditional music was a declining cultural industry.
Few people went down that route, but even fewer were interested in it either.
In a word, it was a league of its own.
Even if she won a prize at a Korean traditional music contest or festival, no one would recognise her.
There was no one to celebrate her achievement with.
If she had continued playing the violin, she might have been able to make a living from music.
The violin was an essential instrument in the classical world, and there were many job opportunities for it as well.
But that was not the case for the Gayageum.
The gayageum had no place in the performance world.
Nor was it possible to open up an academy or to give private lessons for the instrument.
There were not enough students who wanted to learn it.
With the lack of students, even university professors were frantic to save the remaining students that entered their courses.
Among this all, there was no place for Jeong So-rim, who had mediocre skills anyway.
While this was all happening, she started doing some personal streaming.
It was the most brilliant decision of her life.
Because it was a way to make money with the gayageum, and a lot of it too.
Her initial income was small, but as she saw her income increase day by day, Jeong So-rim held some hope.
However, the limits became very clear early on.
There were quite a few people who joined her room because the gayageum was an interesting sight, but very few people visited her stream for an extended period of time.
So her income increased, but it was not to a satisfactory enough level.
Besides, what made her even more uneasy was that her income was unstable.
Some months she would receive 100,000 coins.
But in other months she may only have received 30,000 coins.
Even when the commission was taken away, her monthly income amounted to less than 2 million won.
She also needed a big shot in her room to make money from personal streaming.
However, her stream did not have the typical structure that a big hand would find appealing enough to stick around for.
The Gayageum has its uniqueness, but it was not enough to attract a lot of viewers.
Besides, she was cold by nature, and she didn't even do events such as special draws.
In many ways, it was a difficult environment for a big shot to get himself invested in her.
And in that time, Baeksu King joined.
He shot ten thousand as soon as he entered.
He was a real big shot who gifted more than 50,000 coins in one day.
From Jung So-rim's point of view, he was someone she had to hold on to.
And then he offered her a very good contract.
It was a contract to give him 15% cash back in exchange for 1 million coins per month, which equated to 100 million coins per month.
After all the calculations, it was a very profitable deal for Jung So-rim, even after taking all the taxes and cashback into account.
She accepted the deal and thought she would only ever walk on the flowery route henceforth.
-By the way, doesn't Sorim-nim do things like a real-life roulette wheel?
Baek Soo-king, the big shot who wanted to win a meal date.
One might have thought she would have wondered what a meal date was, but Jung So-rim had seen and heard a few things while working as a streamer.
It was to have a meal with a hot-blooded second-generation and exchange contacts.
As she has a boyfriend who she was even thinking of marrying soon, she couldn't do anything about his request.
So she said no.
she had said no.
The problem came after that.
It was clear that Baek Soo-king was losing interest in her stream.
At that time, Jeong So-rim felt like shouting at herself - "Don't say no."
She had already earned 20 million won this month...
No, it would have been 45 million won before taxes.
Based on those calculations, she had even come up with a detailed plan for her future.
25 million won would be invested in a short-term savings product in preparation for paying her taxes.
Then 2 million won would be used to pay for her living expenses, various utility bills, and monthly rent.
And the remaining 18 million won would be saved in a bank account solely made to buy a house.
Combined with her savings so far, she would have been able to raise 250 million won in 10 months.
Then she could take out a loan, buy a house, and marry her boyfriend.
Although purchasing the house was seen as a duty of the man, Jung So-rim did not hold such stereotypes in her heart.
It wasn't a bad thing if she was a competent person.
Her boyfriend was a traditional Korean musician like her.
As explained earlier, Korean traditional musicians did not earn much money.
So they never got married, even though they were old enough and their parents had been pressuring them to get married quickly.
In this situation, how glad she must have been that the second-generation Baek Su-king had come to visit her room.
And how desperate she must have been to see Baeksuking losing interest.
Jung So-rim sent him a KakaoTalk message so as not to lose the little hope she had.
– It's hard because I have circumstances. I'm really sorry. Do you want anything other than the real-life roulette?
The KakaoTalk was sent after much thought and deliberation on her part.
She couldn't go on a meal date with him, but she could promise to do everything else.
She waited for a reply, but no reply came as he was busy.
'Have you completely lost interest?'
They say that once a man turned his back on something, it was truly over.
'What if the contract is broken like this?'
While that thought kept lingering in her head, she noticed that the read mark had appeared.
Jung So-rim waited for a reply.
However, the night came and the sun rose, and yet Baek Soo-king's answer did not come.
It was just read and aired.
Jeong So-rim was in despair.
She did not know the feeling of having 45 million won a month squeezed out of her hands until she had finally experienced it.
"Ha...."
Jeong So-rim, who stayed up all night with her eyes open, sighed at herself.
'Looks like it's really over.'
Since she had not signed a contract with a piece of paper, it was possible that the contract could be easily broken like that.
She could not help the situation.
It was unfair and unfortunate, but she had to shake it off.
While thinking so, a notification chime went off on her smartphone.
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