Ghosts of Eternity

The cramped conference room at Aeterno felt less like an office than a laboratory humming with high-voltage current.

In stark contrast to the mundane cityscape beyond the window, the air inside felt thin, stretched taut by the pressure radiating from the three figures within.

Kang Si-hyun, dressed in a white silk blouse and midnight blue slacks, broke the silence.

The rustle of her turning a page cut through the quiet, unusually loud. On her wrist, the slender secondhand of her watch sliced the silence into precise increments.

Seo-han pushed his tablet forward, his face an unreadable mask.

On the screen, crisp graphs accompanied a keratin structure deconstructed down to the molecular level, along with the results of a control animal study.

“AEC-101. It doesn’t rely on physical trauma, the way abrasion or lasers do. It recognizes a specific structural feature of the hair, minimizing impact on the skin barrier and surrounding tissue while selectively weakening the hair fiber itself.”

Seo-han pointed at the screen. On one side of the display, the small notation KRT85 caught the light, but Jeong Hyeon-jin heard something else entirely—the sound of a market collapsing.

Jeong Hyeon-jin adjusted the reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and scanned the data.

Beyond the cuff of his flashy royal blue suit, his eyes shook violently with a mixture of awe and dread.

As a retail tycoon who had spent a lifetime reading the desires of the masses, Jeong Hyeon-jin instinctively sensed the explosive force those precise equations would unleash if dropped into the market.

It was no mere array of numbers; it was a battering ram that would shatter the massive walls of the traditional beauty and aesthetics industries.

“This…… is no simple beauty product. You’re talking about tearing down the very paradigm of hair removal from its foundations. From laser hair removal manufacturers to waxing franchises, the entire existing value chain will face massive price pressure. This thing redraws the market entirely.”

Jeong Hyeon-jin let out a hollow, dry laugh, his sharp gaze piercing Seo-han.

Ever since Ghost 2.0, he had been reduced to a man dependent on the ‘daily ration of youth’ Seo-han handed out each morning, yet the predatory instincts honed over decades in the jungle of business still gave his voice a razor-sharp edge.

“Dr. Lee, you are truly a terrifying man. Did you map out this entire board just to swallow my retail infrastructure whole? Forty percent of S-Group’s beauty subsidiary revenue comes from the hair removal and skincare market. Your intent in bringing this to me is a little too transparent, don’t you think?”

Without a hint of movement, Seo-han took a sip from the ice water sitting on the desk.

“Your retail network itself is not my destination, Vice Chairman. It is merely incidental fuel to scale my research to a grander dimension. What I am offering you right now is a sort of ‘hardware upgrade’ to legally and economically cement Aeterno’s corporate identity.”

Just then, Kang Si-hyun, who had been silently reading between the lines of the documents, snapped her fountain pen cap shut with a sharp click and looked up.

“The unofficial funds flowing into Aeterno’s accounts every month have already crossed the threshold. With Chairman Namgoong Hwi joining this shadow pipeline, laundering this massive, bloated cash flow under the flimsy pretext of ‘management consulting fees’ is a legally fragile risk.”

Si-hyun’s voice, low and calm, commanded the room. As a former senior partner at Kim & Chang, she knew better than anyone how invisible power crumbled.

“The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit is not staffed by fools. They won’t turn a blind eye to this massive stream of capital pouring into a shell company as a mere consulting expense forever. It’s only a matter of time before we are flagged for suspicious money laundering transactions.”

Seo-han nodded slightly, smoothly taking the baton from the precise legal logic Kang Si-hyun had laid down.

“Which is why we need a clear substance: a ‘technology licensing fee’ for AEC-101. Let Aeterno manage this peerless core patent, and have S-Group’s beauty subsidiary pay an official, exclusive license fee to Aeterno. When backed by a tangible, revolutionary technology, that massive flow of capital you send me finally gains an untouchable, legitimate authority.”

Jeong Hyeon-jin’s lips trembled infinitesimally.

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The brilliant retail empire he had spent his life building was shaking helplessly before this tiny vial Seo-han had thrown down and the chilling clauses of Si-hyun’s contract.

It went beyond a simple business deal; it was a proposition to trade his leash for a chain forged in the name of legality.

“So you mean to pass three billion won in cold cash through official ledger entries as technology fees. In doing so, Aeterno ceases to be a mere venture and becomes a highly efficient, high-yield IP holding company…….”

Seo-han smiled faintly.

“It is not a shell made for the ledgers. This substance is real. Test it first in your internal research labs, Vice Chairman. Gauge its biological integrity, not its marketability. The moment that developmental potential hardens into certainty, we will officially negotiate the down payment and royalty terms.”

Jeong Hyeon-jin swallowed dryly, his fingers compulsively fumbling with the button of his wrinkled jacket.

He realized that in Seo-han’s blueprint, he was both the stakeholder paying the steepest price and, simultaneously, the most powerful shield. Yet, he lacked the power to turn away from what that technology promised.

“Fine. Tomorrow at dawn, I’ll call a private session with the beauty lab team leaders. Prove the sample's efficacy, and I'll match whatever contract terms you want. In exchange, I control the supply price and distribution share. That is my line in the sand.”

In Jeong Hyeon-jin’s world, when a tycoon spoke that firmly, the matter was settled.

Kang Si-hyun wound the gears of her watch once more with mechanical precision, a cold smile playing on her lips.

“I’ll handle the finer adjustments. In line with Dr. Lee’s methods, I will etch every single clause into the contract ‘transparently and ruthlessly’ so that no one can object. Don't you worry, Vice Chairman.”

Jeong Hyeon-jin’s suit vanished through the crack of the door.

The heavy oak door drifted shut, the door closer letting out a low, mechanical hum. Left behind in the room was the lingering, sharp scent of Jeong Hyeon-jin’s cologne and the instantly chilled air.

Si-hyun sank deep into her chair and crossed her legs, the smooth fabric of her slacks producing a soft, crisp friction.

“Isn't it about time you showed me your cards?”

Seo-han turned down his rolled-up shirt sleeves and fastened his cufflinks, his gaze remaining fixed on the dark, blank reflection of the monitor.

“What cards are you referring to?”

“Let’s drop the act. The reason the S-Group Vice Chairman and the H-Group Chairman are being led by the nose by a single forty-three-year-old scientist.”

Si-hyun stared at Seo-han, her eyes piercing.

“I’m starting to wonder about the underlying context—why the apex predators of the Korean upper class act like hounds so hyper-aware of the leash in front of you.”

Si-hyun leaned forward slightly, closing the distance. The sharp gleam behind her glasses mirrored that of a prosecutor dissecting a defendant's alibi.

“Do you take me for someone naive enough to believe a mere hair-removal platform like AEC-101 keeps them under your thumb? This isn't simple business tension. They are acting like people who have completely surrendered the initiative for their own survival. No lawyer in this business thinks the three billion won wired to Aeterno every month is purely for ‘advice’.”

Seo-han slowly turned his head to meet Si-hyun’s razor-sharp gaze. His eyes were dry, yet bright and unshakeable.

“As a lawyer, Attorney Kang, what do you think those shrewd tycoons have left in my hands as hostage?”

Si-hyun narrowed her eyes, leaning in even closer. A faint scent of leather drifted from the strap of her Cartier Tank watch.

“Their dark secrets, no doubt. The filthy, institutionalized corruption that no legal code can cover up, or the fatal errors they committed in the past to secure their thrones. I believed you held their pasts like a remote control, ready to hand down a social death sentence at any moment.”

A microscopic, bloodless arc formed at the corner of Seo-han’s mouth. It was less a smirk and more the cold detachment of a scholar hearing a hypothesis far wide of the mark.

“You are wrong. It is closer to craving than fear. Human beings are far more pathetic when a sense they believed they had lost forever is dangled before them, rather than when their past sins are uncovered.”

Seo-han lightly tapped the matte chrome case sitting on the table.

A sharp, metallic ping sliced through the cold air of the empty conference room, resonating like the first tone of a system coming online.

“When a man begins to experience a difference that money cannot buy every single morning, he starts to mistake that difference for a right. And the moment you lose what feels like a right, it isn't just a deficiency—it's a plunge.”

Si-hyun’s pupils contracted sharply.

It was a matter far more unsettling than whether something was legal or illegal. It was an order that altered human behavior long before the law could ever give it a name.

“So, you mean to say you are rationing something to them right now?”

“It is not rationing.”

Seo-han’s voice was utterly flat.

“It is a baseline reset.”

A brief silence descended upon the room.

“They do not come back because they are being blackmailed. They come back because they can no longer tolerate returning to their former bodies. I didn’t create that sense of loss; I merely showed them the baseline they had forgotten.”

Si-hyun’s hand tightened, causing the cap of her Montblanc fountain pen to tremble faintly.

“A baseline reset…… If you are manipulating their biological states, this is no longer business. It’s an order that alters human behavior before the law can even define it.”

Instead of answering, Seo-han stood up. He neatly adjusted his sleeves and draped the navy long coat that had been hanging over his chair across his arm.

“The law merely chases after phenomena that have already occurred and tries to contain the damage. Science creates what did not exist before. Right now, I am creating a phenomenon.”

Seo-han walked toward the heavy oak door. Before grasping the handle, he turned his head slightly to drive home his final point.

“Your job, Attorney Kang, is simply to build a transparent, unbreakable legal glass wall around this phenomenon and the chairmen who rely on it, ensuring it doesn't collapse. What happens inside that wall is not ready for legal language yet. For now, it belongs to observation.”

Si-hyun watched Seo-han’s upright figure recede, her grip tightening fiercely around her pen.

Through the silence of Aeterno, his measured footsteps receded like the heartbeat of some massive machine.

A strange chill ran through her. She could no longer tell whether she was the architect raising the outer wall of a vast structure—or its first witness about to be sealed inside.