My Alpha Era Began with Gongjindan Chapter 88

Contrary to my expectations, quite a few university alumni had applied to our clinic.

It was a bit baffling. Setting aside the fact that most of them weren’t particularly close with me, weren’t these the same guys who had whispered that I’d quit school soon because I was an omega?

Those kinds of people not only enjoyed gossiping about others but were also unreliable, so I couldn’t easily hire them. Everyone’s resumes looked flashy, but I couldn’t trust everything written on them.

There were so many people who lied about their work experience as if it were real. At first I was uncertain too, but after having to review all kinds of resumes due to the constant influx of spies, I came to realize something.

Resumes are truly something you can’t trust.

When I asked for graduation certificates, they couldn’t fake degrees, but when it came to part-time jobs, internship experience, and skills, the lies were rampant.

I filtered out all the resumes where applicants had filled every possible box trying to look high-spec. Diligent, my ass! This bastard was the one who ghosted on our group projects!

In the end, out of dozens of resumes, only two remained. And among them, the applicant who caught my attention the most was someone I actually knew.

Hong Seonghyeon. Now that’s a name I haven’t seen in a long time.

When I entered university, he was already in his final year, so we didn’t know each other long, but Hong Seonghyeon was a model student whom even the professors praised endlessly.

I’d taken one class with him, and he was the kind of person who would audit a course he’d already taken because he felt he needed more study.

I’d heard he went into a Korean medicine hospital after graduation, and looking at his experience section, it seemed he was still working there.

No matter how well our clinic paid salaries and incentives, it was rare for someone to leave a hospital after successfully completing their internship. The possibility that he was a spy sent from the Korean medicine hospital couldn’t be ignored.

But there was no one as good as Hong Seonghyeon. The other applicants had decent overall profiles, but none of them had actual hospital work experience.

“Nam Jungyoon wouldn’t know Hong Seonghyeon…”

Since he was quite a senior alumnus even to me, I could find out very little about Hong Seonghyeon. Hong Seonghyeon had graduated before Nam Jungyoon even entered.

At this point, the only option was to meet him through an interview. It was also difficult to do reference checks like when hiring assistants. What if he was a spy sent from the Korean medicine hospital?

After much deliberation, I contacted Hong Seonghyeon, praying earnestly that he wouldn’t be a spy.

Hong Seonghyeon arrived at the clinic about 20 minutes earlier than the agreed time.

This guy hadn’t aged much either—he looked pretty much the same as the last time I’d seen him. Even though it had been almost eight years.

“Oh, Yeonghwa, you look the same.”

“Senior hasn’t changed either.”

As I shook hands lightly with Hong Seonghyeon, Nam Jungyoon looked back and forth between me and Hong Seonghyeon with a suspicious expression.

“You know this senior too?”

“Of course. You wouldn’t know, but this senior was famous for studying hard.”

“Well, not quite as much as Yeonghwa, though.”

“…”

“Anyway, since the interview is just a formality, please have a seat. I already know you, and this is our vice-director, Nam Jungyoon.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Nam Jungyoon bowed his head with a slightly reluctant look. At times like this, it was obvious that Nam Jungyoon was still a novice in the workforce. What kind of look was that to give to someone who came for an interview?

I poked Nam Jungyoon sharply in the side. Only then did he seem to realize this was an interview setting and adjusted his posture.

“…Well, looking at your resume, it seems you’re currently working at Dongseo Korean Medicine Hospital. Why are you looking to leave a Korean medicine hospital for a private clinic?”

“I’m interested in Gongjindan—the one that makes alphas. I’m a Korean medicine doctor too, so of course I’d want to work at a place that’s turned the Korean medicine world upside down.”

“…You’re interested in Gongjindan?”

Is he really a spy?

Nam Jungyoon and I looked at each other simultaneously. Is this guy also a spy? While we were both sharing that same concern, Hong Seonghyeon let out a small laugh.

“I know what you’re worried about. I’m not after the formula. It’s just that personally… I have a reason I need to change workplaces.”

It seemed that being interested in Gongjindan was just an interview answer, and needing to change workplaces was the real reason for his career move.

Nam Jungyoon and I looked at Hong Seonghyeon again in unison.

“If it’s not too rude, may I ask what that reason is?”

Nam Jungyoon, as if reading my mind, asked the question for me.

As expected, bringing Nam Jungyoon into the interview was a good call. Since it was a familiar face, I felt a bit awkward asking all sorts of questions.

“Ah, well…”

Hong Seonghyeon scratched his cheek awkwardly. He added that it was such a personal matter that he wasn’t sure how much to explain.

I carefully observed Hong Seonghyeon.

Hong Seonghyeon is seven years older than me. Considering that as a beta, he had completed his military service before graduating college, he’d been working at the hospital for about five to seven years.

Honestly, at that level of seniority, it’d be more beneficial to just stay put at the hospital. Unless he’d caused some major medical accident, a permanent position would usually open up. And unlike Western medicine hospitals, Korean medicine hospitals weren’t particularly prone to medical accidents—since there were no surgeries, incidents were rare…

“I recently got divorced.”

“Excuse me?”

“Huh?”

Not so rare, I guess?

“And my ex-wife is the head nurse at the hospital I currently work at, so…”

“Whoa, that’s crazy…”

“We started separation proceedings a while ago, but we kept running into each other at work, and I realized I just couldn’t keep doing this.”

With Hong Seonghyeon’s news of his divorce, the interview room quickly devolved into something like a university alumni gathering.

Neither I nor Nam Jungyoon could hide our expressions of “Whoa, that’s seriously crazy. This is so personal that I have no idea if I should even be listening to this.”

“Everyone I work with came to our wedding too, so now that we’re divorced, they’re all giving me awkward looks.”

“Oh… you don’t have to say any more.”

“Haha, that was too personal, wasn’t it? Sorry.”

Even though it was a personal story from a senior I hadn’t seen in a while, it was more than enough reason for a career change.

Your ex-spouse works at the same place you do. And clearly, the divorce wasn’t an amicable one.

I pulled Nam Jungyoon outside the director’s office, which we were using for the interview. Having heard the reason, it seemed highly unlikely that Hong Seonghyeon was a spy after the Gongjindan formula.

Setting aside personal matters, from a professional standpoint, there was no one better suited for the vice-director position than Hong Seonghyeon. Since Nam Jungyoon was an alpha and I was an omega, bringing in a beta vice-director would balance the yin and yang of our clinic.

“Jungyoon, what do you think?”

“I think office dating is insane.”

“No, not that. What do you think about Hong Seonghyeon joining us as vice-director?”

“I’m fine with it. I don’t know the reason for his divorce, but he didn’t seem to have any personality flaws. Just in case, I subtly asked a friend of mine who works at that Korean medicine hospital about what kind of person he is…”

“You did a reference check? What an impressive kid.”

“Since senior doesn’t have friends to do that for you, I did it in advance.”

“…Cancel that ‘impressive’ comment. So what did they say? Does he do good work?”

“They said he’s worth a hundred men. They were grinding their teeth telling me not to take him because the hospital wouldn’t function without him. Said they’d die.”

“Hey, we absolutely have to take him. Sorry to the other hospital, but we need to survive first.”

Not just a “he’s decent” answer, but “the hospital wouldn’t function without him”? My heart raced. We have to make this guy our clinic’s slave—I mean, vice-director!

“Should we hire him?”

“Um… I’m fine with it.”

“Go get the assistant. Let’s have her scan him first, and if she gives the OK, we’ll hire him. And tell him viciously to start next week.”

“We sounded exactly like a black company just now.”

“Instead, we give good incentives. Generous ones. Enough to serve as financial therapy.”

“Now we sound like a white company.”

Nam Jungyoon quickly brought Kim Miyoung. Kim Miyoung, the specialist in spy detection, brought Hong Seonghyeon some Job’s tears tea and rapidly scanned him.

It was an incredible skill no matter how I looked at it. Did prolonged exposure to medicinal herbs really make you that good at reading people? I’m so glad I became a generation-crossing mega-best-friend with Kim Miyoung.

“Director, you absolutely have to hire that person. Anyway, it’s clear he’s not a spy. The divorced-person energy is stronger than the spy energy.”

“That much?”

“Absolutely. I’m getting a feeling right now.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“The feeling that, like a man whose home life has fallen apart, he’ll throw himself into work.”

“That’s crazy. Hire!”

And so, for reasons like this, Hong Seonghyeon became our clinic’s second vice-director.

Even if my judgment couldn’t be trusted, Kim Miyoung’s could. Setting everything else aside, Kim Miyoung was someone who evaluated Jung Pureum extremely positively. That meant her eye for people was remarkable.

While I was urging Hong Seonghyeon to sign the employment contract and resign from the Korean medicine hospital, Nam Jungyoon sat next to me, alternating his gaze between Hong Seonghyeon and me.

“I don’t think I can start by next week. I need to do a proper handover. But I should be able to start in two weeks.”

“Alright then. Please start in two weeks.”

“This is the first time I’ve been hired on the spot during an interview. Did I get in because of our school ties? A favor hire?”

“No? It’s not that…”

I couldn’t possibly say he passed because of Kim Miyoung’s “feeling.”

I felt the energy of a clinic slave—no, an excellent vice-director—coming from you! How could I say that? What if he ran away?

“…I trust you, senior?”

I chose my words as carefully as possible. My excellent talent must not escape! I needed Hong Seonghyeon to go to Japan to see Jung Pureum.

The words “I trust you” were also one hundred percent sincere. To be precise, it wasn’t that I trusted Hong Seonghyeon so much as I trusted Kim Miyoung.

“Haha, that’s a bit embarrassing…”

But however Hong Seonghyeon took my words, his ears turned red. And Nam Jungyoon, who had been watching the whole scene, said this as soon as Hong Seonghyeon left:

“Senior, you really live up to your nickname.”

“What? Why are you picking a fight all of a sudden?”

“You just looked exactly like the eye-needle witch.”

When I asked what that meant, Nam Jungyoon shuddered.

What is this, a firstborn sulking because I brought in a second child… This was all to lighten his workload, but Nam Jungyoon remained consistently ungrateful.