Chapter 22 – Time Has Passed – Part 5

Chapter 22 – Time Has Passed – Part 5

* * *

The place Woojin arrived at was a pub with a first and second floor, bustling with university students.

The Business Department students took seats on the first floor.

Spirit, hope, and passion, the very energy of the freshmen, could be felt in the air.

There were also intense gazes directed at the opposite gender, and initial awkwardness.

“Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

At the senior’s booming voice, the freshmen, without exception, chugged their drinks.

Woojin did the same, drinking and putting down his glass as he looked around at the people.

Joy, happiness, and anticipation were evident in each of their expressions. If you were to calculate the percentage of people enjoying the gathering, it would be about 80%.

Then the conclusion is clear.

Enjoying a drinking gathering is an ordinary thing.

The game Woojin had looked up in advance, where you dance until your shoulder dislocates, wasn’t played.

It was the moment the moves he had practiced, shrugging his shoulders in front of Bomi, became meaningless.

Just then, Mansu, who was sitting next to Woojin, wiped his mouth and said,

“Ah… it tastes so damn good after not drinking for half a year!”

Woojin asked,

“So you drank when you were underage?”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Like someone who’s never had a drink before?”

“Friend, I didn’t drink back then because I was underage. Today is my first time.”

Mansu immediately accepted Woojin’s words, which were spoken plainly. He thought it made sense for a perfect CSAT scorer.

However, Mansu asked his friends sitting at the same table,

“You must have had one at some point, right?”

A few people nodded their heads,

“I’ve been smoking cigarettes until now, so what?”

At his classmates’ words, Woojin tilted his head slightly.

The female students secretly glanced at Woojin.

Because Woojin’s face was very attractive to the opposite sex.

“Come on, drink. Even if you can’t, drink. The more you drink, the better you get at it.”

At Mansu’s words, one of the female students tilted her head.

“Isn’t it the opposite? My older brother said so.”

“Wouldn’t drinking damage your liver, making you unable to drink more? I think the more you drink, the slower the decomposition rate becomes.”

“I’m a lightweight…”

“I’m a lightweight too…”

“Liver cells regenerate, don’t they? Or not? Does detoxification start from the stomach?”

“They say the pre-med students are gathered on the second floor, should I ask? My friend is a pre-med student.”

Amidst various interesting opinions about alcohol suddenly being exchanged, Mansu looked at Woojin.

“What do you think?”

All of his classmates’ gazes focused on Woojin.

It was Woojin who answered the professor’s questions like a lecture during Introduction to Business Administration.

“It can always increase.”

“I don’t think so…”

Woojin’s mouth did not open further, as if disappointing his friends’ expectations.

Woojin was simply poking a fried shrimp with a fork and taking it to his small plate.

Woojin, who had claimed the fried shrimp first,

“When alcohol enters our body, it’s broken down by ADH, and at this time, it’s converted into the toxic substance acetaldehyde, right? If ALDH decomposes this toxic substance once more and changes it into acetic acid, about 80% of the alcohol can be detoxified. The remaining 20% is handled by MEOS, which eliminates the residual alcohol. In other words, while the number of ADH and ALDH is congenitally determined, the MEOS enzyme increases with the amount of alcohol consumed, so I think the more you drink, the more your tolerance can increase. Both academically and scientifically.”

“Ah…”

“I see……”

“Woojin also seems to suit the Chemistry Department well…….”

“A medical student too…….”

Woojin, who ended their debate, took a bite of the fried shrimp.

He then looked at the shrimp’s flesh and shook his head slightly as if in awe.

And he thought of it like an idiom.

[Crispy Outside, Juicy Inside]

‘What an amazing ratio. So Delicious.’

His classmates, staring blankly at Woojin, thought as if united.

The person who was spouting words that one wouldn’t understand without high concentration, or rather, words that seemed right even if they didn’t quite know what they meant, had such an innocent expression…

‘This is the first time I’ve seen a character like this…’

Just then, Mansu burst out laughing.

“Hey Shin Woojin, what on earth don’t you know? As expected of a Perfect CSAT Scorer, you’re amazing! Hahahaha!”

“Woojin, are your parents perhaps researchers…….”

Just then, a senior holding a bottle of alcohol approached.

“I’ll pour everyone a drink.”

“Thank you! Senior!”

“I won’t ask you to pay, so don’t feel pressured and order as much as you want, drink to your limit. But I won’t tolerate any fighting when you’re drunk.”

“Yes! Understood!”

“Yes!”

After pouring everyone a drink, the senior glanced at Woojin and disappeared to another freshman table.

Woojin, busy savoring his fried shrimp, didn’t notice the gaze.

The drinking party didn’t end quickly.

Everyone tried to get to know each other, and pleasant conversations were exchanged.

“Who’s participating in the stock competition this time?”

A friend, emboldened by alcohol, asked curiously.

He had a slender chin and slightly slanted eyes.

“I don’t know much about that, so I’m not going to do it.”

“Was the prize money 3 million won?”

“I’m too busy focusing on classes, so I don’t think I can do it.”

Oh Jeonghoon, with the slender chin, said as if frustrated.

“The prize money is small, but how about doing it for the experience? If you’re a businessperson, you’ll have to invest someday, right? It’s not that hard. I’m telling you, it’s nothing!”

Kim Mansu asked.

“Jeonghoon, you seem to know a lot about stocks.”

Oh Jeonghoon smiled confidently.

“My dad opened an account for me, so I’ve been doing it since my first year of high school.”

“Then you must be really good at it?”

“Well, not extremely good. But if you get into stocks, you get to know companies, right? I think it’s an experience everyone should have. And the number of people opening stock accounts is rapidly increasing. Like in foreign countries…”

Woojin, who had been quietly listening to him, began to organize his thoughts.

Putting Jeonghoon’s words together, it seems that even ordinary office workers and university students are doing it a lot.

And the number of people opening stock accounts is rapidly increasing…

Responding appropriately to the temptation.

‘It’s an ordinary thing.’

As time passed, the people around him gradually became more intoxicated, and Woojin, who had been drinking a moderate amount of alcohol, asked Jeonghoon.

About the mock stock investment competition.

Woojin had only seen how much the prize money was and when the period was on the bulletin board.

It seemed he didn’t need to find out more and could just ask Jeonghoon, who knew a lot about stocks.

“To participate, I mean, I have to go to a securities company, right?”

If I say this.

Oh Jeonghoon quickly waved his hands.

“No, no, not at all! You can do it remotely. It’s very simple…”

Woojin listened quietly to Jeonghoon, who was excitedly talking, trying to prove his worth.

There was no deception in his expression.

Oh Jeonghoon enthusiastically told Woojin about various stock techniques, the need to check a company’s balance sheet and liquidity ratio, and so on, as if he wanted others to hear it too… but Woojin already knew all of it.

He just hadn’t done it before.

***

As always, several days passed quickly, and Woojin turned on his PC in his room.

He had classes in the afternoon, and today was also the day of the simulated stock investment competition.

Woojin launched the Home Trading System and nodded slightly as he looked at his balance.

‘300,000 won’

It was his own money.

Originally, ‘simulation’ meant imitating something real and doing it exactly as it was, but it seemed to have another meaning that he didn’t know.

And.

Woojin had asked Oh Jeonghoon about the simulated investment competition, but a drunk Oh Jeonghoon had misunderstood Woojin’s words and simply told him how to invest in stocks.

Considering that he was drunk, Woojin asked again, but received the same answer, which led to this not-so-funny incident…

‘Even if I lose, they’ll give me the money back, right?’

It was 30 minutes before the market opened.

The history of the world, the flow of war and money, began to pass through Woojin’s mind.

Not only that, but the corporate ecosystem, the domestic and international news and articles he had searched so intensely recently, and the stock market with its major trends were all brought back to mind.

And people’s desires and expectations, and the desires to tempt and exploit them.

‘What I put in, I get back.’

This was a very ordinary principle.

‘The competition is a month and a half long… To increase the rate of return in the short term, that’s the only way.’