Chapter 241: Chapter 235
Yenam began to read webtoons. He often turned his head to look at Hyunwoo sitting behind him as if he was conscious of Hyunwoo.
Every time he did, Hyunwoo quickly turned his eyes away. As Hyunwoo reacted first, Yenam could not sense at all that Hyunwoo was watching him.
What was the reason? Yenam looked back less and less and focused on webtoons before he knew.
Only then could Hyonwoo discover Yenam’s real worth. Yenam was far from an ordinary man.
“Hahaha. Do you know who I’m? I’m none other than Ultra Wind.”
Yenam mumbled to the character of the webtoon that he was reading. He seemed to talk with it as if he were its main character. In short, he was completely absorbed in it.
That’s why he left such replies, Hyunwoo mumbled to himself.
Yenam tended to become absorbed in it when he read an interesting story to the point that he could not tell reality from fantasy.
Hyunwoo kept watching him.
Yenam showed another surprising ability.
I hear he is quite good at speed reading. How can he read it so fast?
The webtoon was a ten-minute long video.
But when it was produced as a webtoon comic, it became longer that took at least 15 minutes to read it carefully.
But Yenam read it in less than five minutes.
His concentration was also very powerful. Once he was absorbed in the webtoon, he could not take his eyes off the monitor. Though two hours passed since he started reading the webtoons, he was still immersed in them.
Feeling anyhow, Hyunwoo was about to stretch. At that moment, Yenam began to show unusual reaction abruptly. Moving his body violently, he raised his voice, “How dare? It’s my turn to attack!”
Surprised, Hyunwoo stopped stretching and looked at him. He was waving his hands while sharply watching the monitor.
Hyunwoo eyed Yenam’s monitor askance. He was watching a webtoon titled “Ice Worm’, registered No. 17.
Let me take a close look at this one, too.
Hyunwoo then wrote down the number 1 in the 17th webtoon on his laptop.
Hyunwoo kept watching him like that and wrote down the number when Yenam was done with a particular webtoon.
After that, Yenam continued to focus on webtoons. Though it was already 10 pm, he sat before the monitor as if he didn’t feel tired at all while he was focused on webtoons.
While watching him, Hyunwoo was a bit worried.
Besides, Yenam just finished reading up to 23 works. He could not finish reading the remaining works today.
Hyunwoo let him read one more webtoon and stopped him.
“Done! Is it this hour already? Let’s go out.”
“Oh, got it.”
Yenam turned off the computer reluctantly. He apparently wanted to read all the webtoons through the night.
“Don’t overwork yourself. You can resume tomorrow. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Then, he took Yenam to a beer house. As there were none nearby, they had to go out far.
Neither talked much. Hyunwoo asked him if he had any inconveniences in living or working, or if there was any help he needed.
“Well, it is somewhat inconvenient for me to go to the restroom.”
“Oh, I see.”
Hyunwoo forgot that Yenam was handicapped. He, who was in a wheelchair, must have felt it hard to cross over the raised spot of his workplace. Hyunwoo knew it well because his father Duyoung was also in a wheelchair.
“Got it. Let me take the measure to fix it immediately. What else?”
Yenam asked him some more favor, which Hyunwoo gladly accepted.
After taking him to his house, Hyunwoo headed back home.
Hope Yenam’s discerning eye can pay off!
The next day Hyunwoo held Yenam late in the evening with various excuses. And then he sat behind Yenam like before and analyzed his reaction and ranked the webtoons.
While he was on it, he received a call from Sungjin, who flew to Vietnam the other day.
Sungjin gave him the good news that he was waiting for.
“I made a final decision with my friends. In our opinion, DF Technology has potential when they make use of our technical skills. If you help, we want to try.”
“Sure, I can help you. Please let me know what you need anytime.”
“I think I have to move all the machines in my factory in Ansan here. And I need to give the workers several months of back pay…”
Sungjin briefed Hyunwoo about his observation of DF Technology. As Sungjin himself ran a factory, he presented an idea on how to revive the factory.
Hyunwoo found there was no big problem.
One thing that bothered him was the amount of investment. Sungjin said he would need 3 billion won.
“That much? The president of DF Technology told me he needed 1.5 billion won…”
“I heard from him that he was ripped off by a swindler recently. He said he sold some of his factory sites to take care of the most urgent problem, but the broker ran away with the money. He said he lost 700 million won.”
“Oh no! I wish he reported it to the police quickly to catch the broker.”
“He already did, but it looked like he didn’t expect much. With no kickback, they wouldn’t begin the investigation, I hear. Anyway, he is in need of money badly.”
“Got it. Let me check it out and take the measure immediately.”
Hyunwoo sent Sukju Hwang with KOVE DREAM to Vietnam quickly.
There was nothing particular Sukju, a high school alumnus of Juhwan, could do in Vietnam. As for the contract, Hyunwoo negotiated with the president of DF Technology over the phone.
Under the contract, Hyunwoo would take 20% of the stocks of DF Technology in return for his investment worth 3 billion won. Sungjin and his friends received 1% of the stocks in the form of investment with their factory machines.
“Take a close look at the contract. Show it to Mr. Na for a thorough review,” Hyunwoo told Sukju.
“Got it.”
Sujku flew to Vietnam with Hyunwoo’s instruction.
In the meantime, they were done with vetting all the animated short stories.
Hyunwoo divided the vetting committees into three groups for the evaluation.
The first group included the staff and students of Ani & Funny, the second group included KOVE DREAM staff and the third group was composed of just one person, Yenam.
Of course, the first and second groups could never know the results of the third group’s evaluation. Only Hyunwoo could check.
With a feeling of expectation Hyunwoo checked out how Yenam’s evaluation was different from that of other groups.
After confirming the results, Hyunwoo was all happy. The results of the evaluation on the top four works by the three vetting groups were the same.
The top winner was called ‘Ice Worm.’
Hyunwoo selected those whose evaluation was the same as or similar to Yenam’s and wrote down their names. Repeating the vetting process like this, he felt he could find another talent like Yenam.
Hyunwoo also checked out Yenam’s replies.
As expected, Hyunwoo could not find any special replies that characterized Yenam’s evaluations. That meant Yenam posted his replies carefully this time, conscious of others.
But Hyunwoo wanted to have the replies composed like Yenam did.
He called together three students and gave them some instructions. His instruction was something pretty much unexpected.
Winking at them, Hyunwoo said.
“Just do as instructed.”
“Got it.”
The next day Hyunwoo released all the replies to the animation short stories. Not only Ani & Funny staff but those who participated in the evaluation could see them.
He called together the students and said, “As you know, No, 17 work ‘Ice Worm’ won the top place. Let me give the cash award to those who did a good job as I promised.”
Several students clenched their fists, yelling for joy. But those who didn’t receive the awards cast an envious look at them.
“You don’t have to get disappointed because you didn’t receive the award this time. This is just a process. Let me make the four selected works webtoon series and check out the customers’ reactions. The four students who received the awards will stop their storyboard work and focus on making the series from now on.”
Hyunwoo had them rearrange the existing team members. Except for the four students, the remaining 38 students were regrouped into nine teams.
The four students shouted for joy. They were thrilled that the works they completed on their own would be published serially in Story Mecca and that they were recognized by Hyunwoo, above all.
Though they didn’t receive the award, those students who took a place got down to work seriously. What they did first was to check out the comments on their evaluation of each work.
But the students who confirmed the commentaries were stunned.
“What the heck is this? Their anonymous comments are understandable, but can we accept these kinds of hate replies?”
“We can’t say this is a comment. This is just all slandering!”
“Yea, too excessive.”
Other students also reacted similarly after checking out the comments.
Though there were only a few, they were not comments but just hate replies.
But none of the students, who participated as evaluators, could not express their complaints openly because of Hyunwoo’s instruction.
Hyunwoo told them they should take even such comments with appreciation.
Employees of KOVE DREAM also confirmed the comments.
They showed the same reaction as the students.
“Oh no! This is too much.”
“Our students must have been hurt.”
Yenam also checked out the comments. Even he opened his eyes at the comments close to slandering.