“Alright, before we jump into the pool, let’s start with some warm-up exercises!”
The teacher said. The teacher wasn’t wearing a swimsuit but was dressed in casual clothes. I kind of wanted to see the teacher in a swimsuit. They always dress so conservatively, so it made me curious. Anyway, I stopped having those weird thoughts and started doing the warm-up.
“One, two, one, two!”
The children were following the teacher’s signals and doing the warm-up in perfect sync. For third graders in elementary school, it made sense to do warm-ups before getting into the water. If they were first graders, they probably would’ve just jumped right in without listening to the teacher. Younger kids are just more instinctive like that.
Once the warm-up was done, the teacher gave some instructions.
“Alright! We’re not here just to play, so you have to listen to me, okay? If you listen well, I’ll give you some free time to play later!”
If we were at a pool outside of school, we could’ve just played right away. But this was school. The reason we were at the pool was to learn survival swimming. It was a bit disappointing because I just wanted to jump in and play. But if the teacher said no, then we had to follow.
“Okay, look over here~”
The teacher brought out a life jacket from somewhere. The teacher scanned the children sitting and watching. It seemed like they were looking for someone to demonstrate how to wear the life jacket. My eyes met the teacher’s, and they called my name.
“Hana! Come here for a second, will you?”
I figured they wanted to show everyone how to put on the life jacket. Since there are often cases of young kids drowning during water play, this was probably a precautionary practice.
“Okay…”
I shuffled over to the teacher. The teacher used me as a teaching aid to show the other kids how to wear the life jacket.
“Alright! Once you put on the life jacket…”
I wobbled around following the teacher’s gestures. I really wanted to jump into the water right away, but I guess I was being too naive. The school wouldn’t have set up the pool just for fun. It was probably for educational purposes, so the kids could learn about water safety.
Teacher Kim Yeon-woo seemed young, but her way of thinking was so old-fashioned. The kids were already yawning and looking bored during the life jacket lecture. The teacher must’ve sensed it too because they clapped to liven up the mood.
“Hey, kids! Focus! Just a little more, and then I’ll give you time to play in the water!”
As soon as those words were spoken, the kids’ eyes lit up. It was clear how badly they wanted to play in the water. Of course, I wanted to play too, so I stopped wobbling and stood up straight. I even twisted my body a bit to make sure the life jacket was clearly visible.
Finally, the teacher’s life jacket demonstration ended. The kids immediately shot laser-like stares at the teacher, clearly eager to get into the pool. The teacher seemed to read their minds and, with a faint smile, said to them.
“Alright! You all worked hard during the lesson. You can swim for an hour now!”
As soon as the words were out, the kids rushed into the pool like fish to water. Watching them, I also got ready to jump in. Jiyu and Yumi were already in the pool. The pool was huge—not too deep, but wide enough for 20 kids to play comfortably.
“Hana, come in!”
Jiyu and Yumi called me from the edge of the pool. Seeing their gestures, I immediately ran and jumped into the pool. I didn’t need to warm up again since we’d already done that earlier.
Splash!
As I jumped in, a wave of water splashed up. Jiyu and Yumi screamed when they saw me.
“Hana!”
“Hehe!”
I floated around, enjoying the cool pool water. My swimming skills were 20 years ahead of these kids. In terms of swimming ability, they couldn’t keep up with me. I started swimming, cutting through the water.
—
To grow Tangle, we searched for remote areas in Gyeonggi Province, but finding a completely uninhabited place in Gyeonggi was nearly impossible. Sure, there might be mountains or rocks with no people, but those places couldn’t grow Tangle.
Still, Starlight Food managed to secure farmland in the least populated area possible, at least within the Tangle cultivation zone. There were no villages within the Tangle-growing area.
However, on the outskirts of Tangle’s cultivation area…
They couldn’t stop the village from being right outside the border. They couldn’t just bulldoze a perfectly fine village either. And there was no reason to, since the village wasn’t included in the area where Tangle was being farmed. So they just left it be.
But they couldn’t stop the villagers’ old-fashioned way of thinking.
Kim Chun-bae, the village head living just outside the Tangle border, gathered the villagers.
“No matter what, we don’t need to show consideration to those who don’t follow our village rules, right?”
This village had its own set of rules. For the villagers, the village rules were above the law. It’s no wonder rural folks have a reputation for being territorial. Even decent people often couldn’t handle the villagers’ territoriality and ended up leaving.
“That’s right! They just took our mountain without permission! They’re completely unreasonable!”
It was a mountain the village had used for generations, but it was on land purchased by Starlight Food. Naturally, the villagers didn’t own it. But that didn’t matter to them. Starlight Food had stopped them from using the mountain.
Another middle-aged man spoke up.
“They didn’t even pay the village fund!”
There was a village development fund that anyone moving into the village had to pay. But the despicable Starlight Food didn’t pay. Village head Kim Chun-bae had asked for the fund multiple times, but Starlight Food ignored him.
The villagers racked their brains to find a solution. But the chances of small-town folks winning against a big corporation were slim. Even if they sued, it wouldn’t go anywhere. They had broken village rules, but that didn’t mean it would lead to a lawsuit.
Normally, the villagers would gang up to pressure someone into paying the village fund or drive them out, but Starlight Food was on a whole different level. If the villagers were ants, Starlight Food was an elephant.
No matter how hard the villagers bit, Starlight Food would just laugh it off.
Then, one villager suggested a different approach.
“I looked into Tangle… they say it’s really expensive.”
“How expensive can a fruit be?”
But the evidence that followed left them speechless. A single Tangle fruit cost millions of won. Hearing this, village head Kim Chun-bae realized what they had to do.
“We need to show Starlight Food, who didn’t pay the village fund, what’s what.”
Kim Chun-bae and four other middle-aged villagers secretly entered the Tangle farm run by Starlight Food. Today was the harvest day, which happened once every two weeks.
However, since the outer areas hadn’t been planted with Tangle yet, Kim Chun-bae and his group went deep into the farm. It felt like they walked for almost an hour. To avoid being spotted by guards, they didn’t use flashlights and followed the faint light from the farm.
In the distance, they saw Tangle. Since it was the first day of harvest, the fruits were still hanging in clusters.
They carefully moved through the dark farm without moonlight. After picking about ten Tangle fruits, they saw a flashlight beam in the distance. Probably a guard.
“Alright, alright! Let’s head back!”
Kim Chun-bae gathered the villagers and they fled. After all, it was impossible to monitor the entire vast farm. Unless they built a huge fence, how could they possibly watch over such a large area?
Village head Kim Chun-bae and the villagers returned to the village hall. They then placed the secretly picked Tangle fruits on the floor. There were roughly over ten of them.
“Is there a place to sell these separately?”
“Ugh, don’t even ask. There are dozens of places clamoring to buy these.”
There were plenty of shady channels to buy Tangle. There were retail shops that sold Tangle at a slightly higher price to people who couldn’t buy it at supermarkets.
Because Tangle had expanded to the U.S., its distribution in Korea wasn’t exactly smooth.
