Chapter 31:

12 year old Jung was walking in the forest while absently looking at his stat sheet.

Congratulations! You leveled up!

Current level: 11

-You received 5 Skill Points (SP)

Current XP: 72,211Total XP needed for the next level up: 90,180

It is the weekend, and Jung is visiting Mrs. Chung ha’s home in the outskirts of town. The old widow is living alone, but thankfully, she is the sole beneficiary of her husband's pension, who is a retired colonel in the army. So she is at least living comfortably compared to the others. Her children, two sons and a daughter, are now living elsewhere in Korea and have infrequently visited her. So she always welcomes Jung’s visits.

Jung has been working for her since he was seven years old, doing little jobs here and there. Jung cleaned her rooftop gutter, replaced outlets, painted the small gate, and even replaced a couple of windows. Jung is an excellent communicator and listener, and he admires the boy's hard work and work ethics. That is why the lonely old lady appreciate his presence every time he comes by.

Aunty Chung-ha, as Jung thought of her in his mind, but the old woman shamelessly demand that she be called Chungha-noona, or big sister, instead of the much more appropriate Aunty. Jung didn’t mind. She called Jung for a job, and of course Jung jumped at the opportunity.

Jung hee’s family doesn’t have a phone, either a landline or a smartphone. The way Aunt Chung-ha is able to get hold of Jung is by talking to any member of the cooperative, which is almost 40 percent of the entire town, and tell them that she is looking for young Jung. The cooperative member will tell other members, who will then talk to Jung’s dad or old man Song or any prominent member of the organization, and since Jung visits the co-op building almost 3x a week, he will get the message sooner or later. Others who wanted to get hold of Jung and get some help from the young man also did this to get Jung’s attention.

Jung will then visit their home, and from there they will tell him what they want. After a quick negotiation of payment, they will arrange an appropriate schedule, and Jung will fix their problem then.

Aunt Chung-ha called Jung to weed out her backyard and basically clean it up. Jung will then get paid 5000 won, or the equivalent of just about $4. He was halfway through when the older lady called out and told him to take a break first. She offered him some sweet buns and lemonade. Actually, the water is more like simple lime water. The woman is diabetic and forgot to add sugar to the “juice.”

Even so, Jung was grateful, and a bun was in his mouth seconds after saying thank you. Smiling at the young man, Chung ha patted the boy in the head like a cute puppy and left him for a moment. The snack was in her small dining room, and Jung wondered around a bit, inspecting her home, which is filled with knickknacks and pictures of her family. It was then that Jung noticed a massive vintage television at the heart of her living room. Jung was impressed. Of everyone in town, only Kwang’s family is the only one Jung knows who has access to a television set.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Jung leaned forward and was inspecting it when the old lady returned and noticed his interest. She smirked while saying, “Oh, don’t bother with that old thing. It hasn’t been working since... well, since as long as I remember. It was a gift from my late husband.”

Jung looked behind the television set and noticed an outlet connector just behind the machine. Then Jung asked her, “Would you mind if I try and fixed it for you? I promised I’ll be careful.”

The older lady blinked at him in surprise. “Well, I don’t mind. But that thing hasn’t been working for ages. I highly doubt that you can make it do anything.”

“We’ll see,” Jung said confidently. “Truth be told, I just want to look inside. I love puzzling over machines.”

"Uhm, well then, go ahead.”

When Jung accepted the job the day before and learned what he needed to do, he brought with him several gardening tools like his sturdy scissor and a small one-handed hoe, since he knew he will be spending a lot of his time in the backyard. but he also brought a few more items, such as a hammer, a small hand axe, and his trusty screwdriver. Now, with the help of the screwdriver, Jung barely took 5 minutes to dismantle the entire TV set and break it into parts to analyze it. He cleaned the dust inside and noticed at least 3 or 4 possible reasons why the television isn’t working based on how the circuitry works in the old device.

One of the old suction tubes was misaligned, and he rearranged it. There was also a connection wire untangled from its soldering base. So Jung cut a small metal wire the old lady used in the backyard to hang her laundry, then asked for any candles. He lit it up and then bent the metal wire into another shape that made it susceptible to holding heat. Jung then let the metal wire heat up in the candle for more than 3–5 minutes. Only then is he able to re-heat the old solder metal alloy made up of a combination of tin and lead. When they melted, he reconnected the wiring and let it cool down. The wiring was reestablished on the old circuitry board, and after Jung plugged the power in, he said a prayer and activated the television set. Instantly, the face of the host anchor of the government channel showed up in the screen. The screen was black and white, but the resolution was relatively still high. Aunt Chung ha gasped in delighted surprise.

Jung smiled at her smugly for a job well done, but his smile vanished when the old lady began to cry. Jung was almost jumping up and done like a dork as he panicked. Fixing complex machines was something he had no problem doing since you just needed to find the proper logic and puzzle it out. Eventually, you’ll be able to find the problem and fix it. But a woman crying? Jung has no idea how to fix that, and it terrified him.

“Are you okay, noona?! I’m so sorry!” Jung blurted out. He was ready to kowtow. Instead, he gave her some water, and then he returned to bring her some of her own sweet buns.

The older lady sat down in a sofa and Jung helped her immediately. Jung automatically checks her temperature and pulse. The woman gently waved him away.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “I just got overwhelmed with joy seeing that thing work again.”

With a little bit of coaxing, Jung is able to pull out the story about the importance of the tv set from the old lady. It turned out that her late husband bought the TV set from a friendly fence after he got promoted to captain in the army. Black marketing was a thriving business in North Korea then and even now. And it became her husband’s favorite thing in the house, except for his wife of course. It was his pride and joy.

So when her husband suddenly died from a heart attack, Aunt Chung-ha kept the machine where it is. It works for several more years until it simply stops working one day. She asked around for repairmen, of course, but the price they were asking for is simply too much for a simple pensioned widow. It remained a centerpiece of the living room despite its nonworking condition since it is one of her few remaining mementos of her late husband.

Then Jung fixed the damn thing just like that. It was like life returned to her home for a moment, and the entire house bloomed like a flower in the summer. It was not as if Jung brought her husband back to her, but it was close enough.

“Thank you, young man. I… well, thank you.”

Jung smiled. He initially just encouraged the old woman to talk so that she could compose herself again, but the story was actually interesting to him too. Jung unconsciously patted the old woman’s cheek as if she were a child. “Don’t worry about it. I’m glad I can help out. Now come with me in the table and tell me more about your husband while we eat your delicious sweet buns.”

Later, Jung continued to fix the backyard. And with his good mood, he had done an excellent job fixing and cleaning the place up. Jung is basically there all day, until he is about to leave and the old lady pays him 50,000 won instead of the 5k won they agreed upon. “EH?! What is this, Noona? This is too much!”

“Take it,” Chung-ha said insistently. “You did a good job fixing my backyard and my husband’s TV.”

“The television service is free! I didn’t do it for-“

“I know, but still, you made me very happy today, so take it,” she said with a sad smile. “I know that your family needs the money.”

They made pushing motion with the money back and forth for a moment until Jung was forced to take it. In Asia, not only in korea, old people has a lot of power, especially in their own families, and saying no to an order from an old grandma is simply bad form. Jung secured the money in his pocket and promised himself that from now on, Aunt Chung-ha would have priority to his service.

He waved his good-bye and left the old woman’s house.