Chapter 77 – Reaction – Part 5

Chapter 77 – Reaction – Part 5

No sound came from the punching machine.

No lights came on either.

The power had gone out.

The people around him were flustered, and Woojin’s eyes were filled with disappointment.

A small sound escaped Woojin’s lips.

“Tsk…”

It was the same one-syllable utterance as when he first punched, but somehow it seemed he was making it on purpose.

Woojin opened his mouth to Hyerim.

“Hyerim, the machine seems to be faulty. What should we do? You won’t be able to punch.”

Lee Hyerim laughed in disbelief.

“It doesn’t seem faulty? You hit it too hard…”

Lee Hyerim quickly changed her words at Woojin’s disappointed expression.

It seemed no words would get through to him.

“Woojin, have you ever played Whack-a-Mole? Should we try that?”

“Oh…”

Woojin’s expression was again filled with curiosity.

And so, Woojin and Lee Hyerim went to play Whack-a-Mole, and the people around the punching machine looked back and forth between Woojin and the punching machine.

It seemed like he hit the machine as if he had met his mortal enemy, almost breaking it. As if reacting to his punching, the machine’s power went out.

Meanwhile.

Woojin, who had been watching a woman play Whack-a-Mole, grabbed a hammer when his turn came.

Bang! Bang!

As if to retaliate for not seeing his punching machine score, Woojin swung the hammer at every mole that appeared.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

There was no error.

The moment a mole popped up, the hammer already hit its head.

“Hey… go easy.”

Woojin replied while swinging the hammer.

“It feels like I’m releasing stress I didn’t even know I had…”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

It looked like he was releasing the stress he had gotten from the punching machine.

Soon, Woojin’s lips curled up slightly after he had caught all the moles.

“So this is why people play Whack-a-Mole.”

Woojin reached out his hand and took Lee Hyerim’s bag.

“Leave your bag with me so you can focus.”

Lee Hyerim stared intently, focusing her eyes on where the moles would appear.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

As Lee Hyerim wasn’t hitting the moles well, Woojin spoke up.

“Top left, center, bottom right, left, bottom, top, left.”

The hammer in Lee Hyerim’s slender hand began to accurately strike the moles on the head.

As she listened to Woojin and swung the hammer, a mole unfailingly popped up from that spot every time.

The impact felt incredibly stress-relieving.

To anyone who saw them, their backs looked like a well-matched couple.

When the Whack-a-mole game ended, Lee Hyerim smiled as if a great weight had been lifted.

Lee Hyerim, who was smiling and brushing her hair back, suddenly turned her head to Woojin.

“This isn’t your first time playing this, is it? You’ve played it a lot, right?”

“It’s my first time.”

“Then how did you know where the moles would come out?”

“Looking at the person who played the game before, it seems like the moles come up randomly, but there’s a pattern. Also, there’s a subtle tremor before they come up.”

Lee Hyerim’s eyes blinked.

It means he wasn’t waiting for his turn to play, but rather observing the patterns.

Her surprise was brief.

Because it was Woojin.

“Another game?”

“Deal.”

Woojin and Lee Hyerim entered the arcade.

Many people their age were there, and there were also many couples.

Woojin, who was looking around the arcade like a child, opened his mouth.

“Hyerim, should we try that?”

Woojin’s gaze was fixed on a common Tetris game.

It was something Lee Hyerim had played before too.

“Surely, this isn’t your first time playing Tetris, is it?”

“I haven’t played it before.”

“Do you know the rules?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of it on YouTube.”

“Okay.”

They put in money, sat side by side, and grabbed the joysticks.

Lee Hyerim smiled and leisurely enjoyed the game.

True to her intelligence, she constantly cleared the shapes at the bottom.

Lee Hyerim glanced at Woojin’s screen.

Drop. Drop. Drop. Drop.

Shapes were falling endlessly.

No more than two lines of shapes piled up.

Sometimes he would intentionally stack them high, but even then, he would use a few shapes to make them all disappear.

“You could enter a competition.”

“There are many people in the world more skilled than me.”

Woojin’s lips subtly curved upward.

He was enjoying the game itself, no, the experience itself.

Woojin spent about an hour playing various games with Lee Hyerim like that.

It was interesting even when he lost, and he felt excitement when he won.

And Lee Hyerim also seemed to be having a lot of fun.

***

Back home, Woojin took off his shirt in the bathroom to shower.

And he gazed at his upper body reflected in the mirror.

Scars that would have startled others, but Woojin was not looking at the superficial; he was thinking about the inner workings of his body.

Something had been bothering him since he hit the punching machine.

The punching machine had turned off.

It could have been a machine error or malfunction, but he didn’t care much about that.

He had thought that with the power of any cultivation path, he could use the punching machine to distinguish how high a score that power would yield, but…

However, with the machine off, this incident caused his metacognition to become vague.

He wasn’t 100% aware of how his physical abilities had changed over time.

Woojin muttered as he looked in the mirror.

“I was making a mistake.”

This mistake and the ignorance of metacognition were no different from throwing bait, allowing the unconscious to run wild.

Whoosh.

Woojin organized his thoughts under the refreshing stream of water.

Soon after finishing his shower, Woojin sat in front of the PC.

And he started searching for a suitable boxing gym.

It didn’t take long, only a few minutes, before he found a suitable gym.

It was a gym that had introduced a program allowing even beginners to immediately do mitt work and sparring, to relieve the stress of fast-paced modern people.

Woojin slowly nodded his head.

It seemed he would visit tomorrow.

Woojin’s method was always the same.

He thought and then acted.

And he constantly desired more experience.

* * *

After attending all the lectures, Woojin was getting up from his seat.

Naturally, Mansu approached him again today.

“Woojin, if you have time today, do you want to grab a drink?”

“Today…”

Woojin, who was picking up his bag, stopped speaking and turned to Mansu.

It was because his voice and expression were full of worry.

“Is something wrong?”

Brain Food was doing very well.

Not only will it be featured in Room Song in a week, but I’ve already heard that people want to open a franchise.

Can I get some relationship advice?

Relationship advice? I learned it from books.

However, Woojin was the one who directly applied it to people and elicited reactions.

Mansu smiled awkwardly and revealed his thoughts.

It seems like something’s going on with Bona lately, her expression isn’t good. I don’t know what to do.

He was talking about Jeon Bona, whom he was introduced to by Lee Hyerim.

Have you tried saying comforting things?

I’ve tried telling jokes and talking by myself to lighten the mood, but there doesn’t seem to be any reaction.

Have you asked her why?

No, it could be a family matter. I’m afraid I’d make a mistake if I asked about something like that unnecessarily.

Woojin nodded.

I think it would be good to ask. Forming common ground is the most important thing. You never know, right? Considering Bona looks like she’s in a bad mood but she met you, she might be waiting for you to ask first. If it were me, I would have asked. Like, ‘Is something wrong?’

Is it better to just ask directly?

It’s better to approach it by saying something like, ‘You seem to be going through a tough time lately, your face doesn’t look very good.’ This phrase itself is the stage of forming common ground. And then you compliment her to make her feel better.

Even when I tell her she’s pretty, there’s no reaction. Maybe she’s tired of hearing it…

If the other person’s thoughts are elsewhere, a compliment can cause resentment.

Mansu scratched his head.

I don’t quite understand what you mean…

For example, let’s assume you, Mansu, are an office worker, and you’ve been working overnight for a month, engrossed in a project. You’d be tired, right? It would be difficult. The fatigue would show on your face.

Woojin paused for a moment, then spoke again.

You look busy lately, or you look very tired. If I say this, you would reply that you’re busy with a project these days.

Humans are inherently self-centered; they want others to understand their state and receive compliments.

At this point, you give a compliment.

How?

“It must not be easy to be so immersed in work that you stay up all night. That’s amazing. I don’t think I could do it.”

At Mansu’s knowing yet unknowing expression, Woojin spoke again.

“You form common ground with the other person’s difficulties and naturally lead them to praise you. Flattery and praise are only a hair’s breadth apart. You have to consider whether to go straight into praise based on the other person’s mood, or to lead into praise over several steps.”

“Ah… I think I understand.”

Woojin nodded.

“You shouldn’t say you understand someone’s struggles. It’s not good to say you know well because you’ve been there too. Humans are self-centered, and they immediately feel that their own struggles are harder and more painful than anyone else’s. It’s the same when they seem happy. You look happy today? That one sentence forms common ground with the other person.”

“So, praise is the answer to change the atmosphere?”

“Yes, most people don’t realize how powerful and attractive it is to give someone you like a mental gift rather than a material one. People who give such gifts are bound to gain a lot of favor from others. Because humans are selfish animals.”

Mansu felt a quick understanding.

Even running a simulation by putting himself in that situation, it seemed to be true.

“It seems so. Material things get old and disappear, but mental things are remembered sporadically even after time passes… Hey, you jerk!? You learned it from a book? What book? Is it a dating book or something? Tell me the title!”

“Theory of Evolution, neuroscience, psychology…”

Mansu reached out and covered Woojin’s mouth.

“Okay. I think I know what you mean. Thanks. Form common ground and induce praise? Right?”

Woojin nodded, giving an affirmative answer.

“That’s right. It will definitely work. I’ve tried it.”

***

After parting ways with Mansu, Woojin immediately went to a boxing gym.

To Woojin’s statement that he wanted to start right away, the Gym Owner explained the system.

Hitting the mitts right away was too much; they should first master footwork.

He said they would wear gloves when practicing footwork.

Woojin nodded.

The Gym Owner understood modern society well.

He had discarded the old room-style approach and was satisfying members’ desires by providing quick results.

He had eliminated the gradual boredom.

Perhaps because of that, the number of members in the gym now exceeded twenty.

The Gym Owner said,

“Let’s start with a jump rope to warm up.”

Woojin changed into his workout clothes and started jump-roping while looking in the mirror.

Thirty minutes passed, and he stopped jump-roping.

Woojin felt his body warming up and wrapped the hand wraps he had prepared around his hands.

“Oh? You know how to wrap them?”

Woojin replied to the Gym Owner’s question,

“Yes. I’ve seen it a few times.”

“Alright, hold out your hands.”

When Woojin held out his hands, the Gym Owner personally put on his gloves.

Did the Gym Owner feel Woojin’s gaze at that moment?

He smiled and pointed to the sandbag.

“Would you like to hit it once before the footwork training?”

“Yes.”

“When you hit…”

The Gym Owner’s words didn’t register with Woojin.

He was only thinking about checking which of the Unconscious’s athletic abilities from a Righteous Path he could use after some time had passed.

This was a very important matter.

Woojin muttered to himself,

‘Come out.’