Ghosts of Eternity

Aether Bio was a company that boasted a sixty-billion-won investment round.

Yet, Lee Seo-han’s personal bank account was unnervingly dry. On paper, he was worth tens of billions of won in stock, but the debts left behind by his father’s bankruptcy, repayments to early investors, frozen shares, and the self-inflicted fifty percent cut to his own salary were quietly leaving him no room to breathe.

Beneath the armor of a sovereign negotiating with global big pharma hid a precarious balancing act—a man forced to compute his laboratory’s operational expenses for the coming month alongside personal financial hardship.

It was no mere greed that drove Seo-han to hold hostage the pituitaries of tycoons kneeling before the absolute terror of aging—or more precisely, the biological illusion they mistook for youth. It was a desperate blood transfusion required to break through the bio winter, protect the connections by his side, and ultimately finalize the complete longevity clinical trials for Ghost.

He knew. To men like Chairman Jeong and the Vice Chairman, Ghost was no mere novel substance. It was deferred time itself—the only asset that allowed them to enjoy the empires they had built.

This nasal spray, absorbed through the nasal mucosa, injected the vitality of their twenties into their systems every morning, but its efficacy lasted only a single day. It was a strict, subscription-based leash. Capitalizing on their parched thirst, Seo-han extracted untraceable ammunition to spin the massive gears moving the world.

Intoxicated by the heat of an artificial adolescence arriving every morning, the powerful willingly walked into the data swamp he had engineered, handing over vast sums of cash.

To them, money was merely a sequence of numbers, but to Seo-han, it was the sharpest blade—one capable of rebuilding his fracturing world and severing the throats of his enemies.

The damp aroma of ink and old paper pressed heavily against the dry room air.

Dressed in worn sweatpants and a muted sweatshirt, Seo-han sat on the edge of his bed. His eyes drifted to the black briefcases tucked seamlessly beneath the bed frame.

Stacked layer upon layer inside those cases were stacks of fifty-thousand-won bank notes, offered up by the two predators desperate to extend their lifespan. Yet, the mounds of currency failed to stimulate a single secular desire or sense of achievement within him. To the current Seo-han, this heap of cash was nothing more than sterile reagents or inventory utilized in a laboratory.

The bills filling the space beneath his furniture were bloated in volume, but in reality, they were nothing more than glittering waste that could never be funneled into the legitimate financial grid. Unless he converted this black capital into transparent power, he would remain an unstable fugitive, sleeping eternally atop a powder keg.

Ultimately, to refine this massive waste into usable capital, Seo-han faced Jeong Hyun-jin.

Arriving at the rendezvous, the Vice Chairman was entirely captivated by the artificial life force Ghost had gifted him. Having maintained the tight vitality of his early thirties for an entire week without experiencing the violent snapback of aging, his face radiated a bizarre, unnatural sheen.

Jeong Hyun-jin welcomed Seo-han with exaggerated gestures and overt warmth, as if greeting the savior who had reclaimed his lost youth. His complexion was flooded with a healthy crimson flush, erasing the former ashen shadows, yet beneath it bled the faint anxiety of an addict who could not survive a single day without the compound.

Untroubled by Jeong Hyun-jin’s elevated mood, Seo-han quietly slid a single sheet of paper across the table, bearing a neatly stamped corporate seal. The movement carried the cold, deliberate rationality that defined him.

Eterno.

Checking the corporate name stamped at the top of the page—one so concise it verged on arrogant—Jeong Hyun-jin’s brow furrowed minutely. The word, meaning eternity in Latin, struck rawly against the immortal desire he coveted.

Seo-han adjusted the cuffs of his dark navy suit, which was tailored to flawless angles, and spoke in a cold voice completely evacuated of emotion.

"It is a newly established entity," Dr. Lee said. "Moving forward, there is no need to manually transport briefcases of cash. We will structure the revenue as management advisory fees generated by this corporation."

Jeong Hyun-jin’s gaze locked onto the word Eterno. Thanks to the superhuman clarity Ghost 2.0 provided, it felt as though he could read the microscopic texture of the paper itself.

Seo-han pressed the document closer, meeting his bloodshot eyes directly. His gaze was as cold and precise as a scanner reading through strings of data.

"Your accounting team can process it as consultancy fees, and your secretariat can handle the routine, superficial reports required to back it up."

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Jeong Hyun-jin tilted his glass, a subtle smile touching his lips.

"It seems you are finally developing a taste for capital, Doctor."

"The storage space beneath my bed simply reached its maximum capacity. You only need to ensure the transfers occur on the first of every month, Vice Chairman, and enjoy that youth of yours."

The rock ice inside Jeong Hyun-jin’s glass let out a sharp, cold friction sound. Seo-han quietly studied the smooth contours around the man's eyes.

Despite being in his late fifties, the vitality injected by the compound forced a bizarre sheen across his features. It was a preserved, doll-like beauty that defied the natural laws of regression.

Jeong Hyun-jin traced the edge of the document with his fingertips, wetting his lips. The pleasure flowing between his brain cells like an electric current stoked a grander greed inside him.

Seo-han’s calm proposition was no mere change in financial channels. It was the entry point to a thread leading straight into the massive labyrinth of Lee Seo-han. If this fastidious scholar had designed the path of capital first, planting a handler inside that flow was a predator’s instinct.

"Director Lee, advisory fees are not as simple as you think," Jeong Hyun-jin said, setting down his glass to look straight into Seo-han’s eyes, the hyper-confidence of the drug powering his voice. "The National Tax Service holds a razor-sharp edge. If an audit hits, it’s not a matter of money—it would mean catastrophic legal exposure for the company. I cannot allow a valuable asset like you to be distracted by such administrative noise."

He rotated his glass lightly.

"I have a highly capable individual under my command. A former senior partner at a top-tier law firm who currently manages my private equity assets. The man is an unrivaled specialist in both legal frameworks and accounting."

He paused, offering a tight smile.

"Why not seat him as an advisor for Eterno? He can assist with Aether Bio’s IR consulting as well. Use him as you see fit. Your safety is directly tethered to the security of my Ghost compound, after all."

The smile tracing Jeong Hyun-jin’s lips was that of a hunter throwing out bait. It was close surveillance masquerading as institutional support. It was a transparent play to insert a monitoring camera into Seo-han’s secret goldmine under the guise of legal compliance.

Seo-han silently stared at the greed glistening inside the Vice Chairman's pupils.

There was zero reason to reject it. For a man forced to secure forty-five billion won from the ravenous investors of Teheran-ro, a sophisticated legal shield was an absolute necessity. Above all, he had been looking for a professional launderer to manage the shadow company and keep it from being snagged by the legal system.

Defending against a predator using the predator's own assets—to Seo-han, that was the baseline of efficiency.

"Do as you wish," Seo-han replied calmly. "However, I accept only on the condition that he does not audit my operational methods. I despise unmanaged variables."

Seo-han turned his head, taking in the cold cityscape sprawling beyond the glass. The illuminated towers appeared as nothing more than massive configurations of data.

"Let us proceed. I share your desire to see Aether Bio and Eterno operate without a single system error. Since he is an individual you trust, I will not question his parameters."

A microscopic tic rippled across Jeong Hyun-jin’s eye. It was an unadorned affirmation that bypassed his calculations, leaving him uncertain whether Seo-han’s composure stemmed from an optimized counter-strategy or sheer arrogance.

Soon, the Vice Chairman sank deep into the sofa and exhaled in satisfaction.

"You have nothing to worry about. I will ensure that even if we pull six hundred billion won out of Teheran-ro instead of sixty billion, it will be knotted tightly without a shred of exposure. However, ensure you answer his queries thoroughly. Consider it a small collateral required for the trust between us."

Jeong Hyun-jin gripped his fountain pen, carving a brief but authoritative signature at the bottom of the page.

"On the first of every month, I will fill Eterno’s account with the agreed amount. Your only mandate is to focus entirely on engineering that magical compound."

Seo-han stood up. His movements as he smoothed the lapels of his pristine suit were as precise as a machine optimizing its hardware. He offered Jeong Hyun-jin a polite, icy nod.

"Ah, and one more thing. The confidential clinical data delivered through Ms. Yoon Seol-hee was highly illuminating."

The heavy crystal glass inside Jeong Hyun-jin’s hand froze mid-air. The sharp friction of the shifting ice fragments ceased instantly. The atmosphere turned as still as a total vacuum.

"You designated it Project Chronos," Seo-han said, a cold smile tracing his lips. "I had no idea the Chairmen were feeding such valuable data into my anti-aging architecture."

Seo-han’s dry tone carried a microscopic ripple of exhilaration—one laced with academic madness. The color drained fluidly from Jeong Hyun-jin’s face.

"I will fulfill that expectation through far more diverse and rigorous methods. Before long, I will prove it through the advanced outcomes I isolate. So that this burning summer of yours, Vice Chairman, can endure eternally."

Without waiting for a reply, Seo-han exited the room. The heavy thud of the door sealing shut sliced sharply through the silence of the executive suite.

Jeong Hyun-jin stared blankly at the closed door, completely hollowed out. The muscles around his mouth trembled faintly, as if paralyzed.

The original purpose of sending Seol-hee had been to extract clues to Seo-han’s core formulation from his belongings and gather the information needed to breach the laboratory servers. Chronos was merely a beautifully packaged decoy—bait engineered to lure him into the gallery’s subterranean vault.

Project Chronos. It was a defunct clinical trial launched by H Group alongside a global big pharma decades ago, abandoned after bleeding astronomical capital and yielding nothing but severe side effects.

Despite the trillions of won dissolved into the pipeline, the only remnants were meaningless sequences of hormone levels from failed cohorts and fragmented genomic data. It was a ghost of the past, derided by specialists as 'digital waste,' left behind to decay on the servers—and deployed here strictly as a warning to rattle Seo-han's cage.

Yet, Seo-han had offered his gratitude, his eyes flashing as if he had unearthed a hidden masterpiece inside a heap of scrap. He had repurposed the components of the hunter’s snare into genuine collaboration that would advance his research.

Seo-han had taken the data H Group threw into the incinerator and transformed it into the clinical blueprint for Ghost.

For the first time, the heat of youth Ghost provided turned bone-chillingly cold in Jeong Hyun-jin’s fingertips.

The prey had swallowed the predator’s bait—and was evolving into something far greater than the predator itself.