Ghosts of Eternity

The teacup settled onto the heavy marble table with a low, brittle clink.

Clink.

There was not a single tremor in Koo Tae-min’s fingertips as he set the cup down. As if by prior agreement, Jeong Hyeon-jin and Jeong Ui-hyeon focused entirely on Tae-min’s lips.

The faint scent of agarwood rising from the cooling tea lingered in the room. Amid that fragrance, a taut, tightly strung tension settled heavily.

“I have personally met with CEO Lee Seo-han.”

The moment Tae-min’s voice sliced through the silence, Hyeon-jin could not contain himself and pulled his upper body sharply forward. Within his eyes flared a turbulent gleam of mixed anticipation and doubt.

Conversely, Ui-hyeon remained buried deep in the leather seat of the sofa, staring at Tae-min without a single movement. A heavy silence descended over the thick stack of documents resting on his knees.

“Well? What did that stubborn bastard say? Is he putting Ghost into official clinical trials?”

An impatience rasped in Hyeon-jin’s voice.

Ghost 2.0—sprayed into the nose every single morning. The transparent liquid absorbed through the nasal mucosa demanded an insane subscription fee of one hundred million won a month, but to him, it was already an unbreakable leash.

Tae-min did not answer immediately. Instead, he shook his head slowly. It was less a negation and more a sign that the question itself was far too narrow.

He pulled a slim tablet from his bag and powered it on. Across the cold, matte screen, the numbers “100,” “120,” and “150” appeared clearly alongside intricately tangled protein structural formulas.

“Ghost itself will enter official clinical trials. However, what CEO Lee is looking at is not the simple commercialization of a single nasal spray.”

Tae-min turned the screen toward them.

“He does not view human lifespan as a straight line. He believes that the required intervention axes are entirely different for one hundred, one hundred and twenty, and one hundred and fifty years. Therefore, I will call his plan the ‘Lifespan Matrix.’”

“The Lifespan Matrix?” Hyeon-jin repeated under his breath.

Tae-min’s finger swiped fluidly across the screen, continuing his analysis.

“One hundred is just the baseline. Then one hundred and twenty, and ultimately, one hundred and fifty. It is not about merely prolonging life while hooked up to a ventilator. It means completely redesigning the body’s nervous and endocrine systems to match each threshold. He has defined aging not as an inevitable law of nature, but as a treatable malfunction.”

Hyeon-jin’s complexion shifted instantly.

The visceral terror of biological degradation he felt every single night at the threshold of his sixties seemed to vanish cleanly behind the name of this savior, Lee Seo-han. Ui-hyeon, too, fixed his heavily settled gaze onto the screen.

“Does that mean his insane theory is finally entering an official clinical stage?”

“On the surface, he will push Aether Bio to the front line—a company with sixty billion won in cumulative investment and only six billion won left in its balance. It means he will use it as a shield to weather the onslaught of regulatory bodies and public criticism.”

Tae-min subtly adjusted his glasses frames.

“Conversely, there is a high probability that Eterno will remain behind the curtain, holding the capital and rights structure to act as the true axis moving the entire board.”

Ui-hyeon swallowed dryly.

“If the data can be secured flawlessly, this is not a business of merely selling drugs anymore. It is an enterprise that divides those who age from those who do not. The odds are there.”

Despite Ui-hyeon’s tone of absolute conviction, Tae-min’s expression remained calm, almost frigid. He looked back and forth between the two men. His gaze was like a cold lens observing a subject, completely stripped of emotion.

“Vice Chairman Jeong, and the rest of you, have viewed CEO Lee as nothing more than a clever blackmailer—someone wielding Ghost simply to extort money.”

Hyeon-jin shrugged his shoulders carelessly.

“The methods used by those of low birth when they want to grasp wealth and power are always entirely predictable. Ultimately, he is just raising his price tag because he wants to secure a seat by catching the warmth of a conglomerate like ours, is he not?”

“You are wrong,” Tae-min cut him off flatly, leaning forward.

“He does not view us as partners. He does not even view us as equal human beings to begin with.”

Instantly, the air in the room froze as if coming to a dead halt. Tae-min’s voice dropped low.

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“To him, we are merely lab rats endlessly generating high-resolution biological data. Even that ecstatic vitality and the rush of a second adolescence we feel every morning when we spray Ghost... it is nothing more than a calculated component of his own design.”

Ui-hyeon’s eyes sank heavily.

“Lab rats? That is a bit excessive.”

“It is the reality. He is observing our collapse—as we age, sicken, and break down—in real time. He intends to harvest those fragments to complete his own academic achievement. All to engrave the name ‘Lee Seo-han’ into history as an irreplaceable, singular existence. We are merely high-concentration fuel to erect his vast structure.”

Hyeon-jin could not formulate an immediate response.

As he unconsciously toyed with the empty teacup in his hand, a frigid chill of unpleasant truth scraped past the back of his neck. The sensation of a wall of genius that could not be bought with capital looking down upon them was bizarre beyond measure.

“Therefore, I propose this: do not react individually. Summon CEO Lee to this exact room tomorrow.”

“You want all three of us to face that stubborn bastard together?”

“Yes. We must make him feel, down to his bones, that we are in a state of absolute solidarity. If we remain scattered, each begging for our youth individually, we will ultimately be caught in the orbit Lee Seo-han has drawn and get picked off one by one.”

Ui-hyeon nodded his head slowly.

To Ui-hyeon, there was only one way to handle a genius possessed by academic madness: show him a wall of capital too massive to ignore. Controlling and shaking the money lines was the sole solution.

They still believed that capital held the ultimate command.

“We must gather in one place to coordinate if we are not to lose the initiative. We cannot allow him to swing us around by our weaknesses.”

“Precisely. We must speak with one voice to break his arrogance and drag him down into the arena of business. No matter how much of a genius he is, Aether Bio’s remaining runway is not long.”

Tae-min lifted the receiver connected to the secretariat.

Hyeon-jin and Ui-hyeon confirmed each other’s expressions, signaling their assent with a heavy silence. Within their eyes, the greed of aging men and an obsession for survival tangled restlessly.

“I will schedule the meeting for tomorrow evening. The location will be right here. Tomorrow, the three of us will face CEO Lee Seo-han together.”

***

[The Following Evening, Hannam-dong Safehouse]

The heavy, soundproof door engaged without a sound.

Within the silence of the safehouse sat the three men positioned at the absolute pinnacle of South Korean capital.

Seo-han stood directly in front of their glares, dressed in an immaculate dark navy suit. His expressionless face, entirely stripped of emotion, reduced this high-tension confrontation to nothing more than a thoroughly controlled business table.

Jeong Hyeon-jin appeared orderly on the surface, yet a microscopic tremor in his movements betrayed an anxiety marking the end of his dosing cycle. Within Jeong Ui-hyeon’s eyes swam a physiological aversion to aging, while Koo Tae-min coldly monitored Seo-han’s every single action.

“Welcome, CEO Lee,” Jeong Hyeon-jin broke the silence first.

His tone was smooth, yet he could not completely conceal the urgency beneath it. Seo-han responded with a slight bow of his head.

“Let us get straight to the point. I hear that Ghost’s official clinical plan has been finalized.”

Hyeon-jin’s gaze locked onto Seo-han’s face. To them, this project was a survival condition that surpassed a simple new drug development. Seo-han answered calmly, his posture unshakeable.

“The protocol design for Ghost is complete. Currently, we are in the final review stage for official clinical entry.”

Jeong Ui-hyeon set his teacup down, adding his heavy voice to the table.

“When can we expect the supply timeline? What we want is a definitive schedule.”

“Immediately after Aether Bio’s listing process is complete.”

Seo-han’s response was decisive enough to sound mechanical. Hyeon-jin’s brow furrowed minutely.

“Waiting for the listing will delay things far too much. If capital is what you require, I can immediately authorize a fund injection of tens of billions of won through a private equity firm right now.”

It was an explicit pressure, an attempt to swing the decision-making through the sheer volume of capital. Yet, Seo-han countered without a single ripple of agitation.

“I am the CEO of Aether Bio. Unless the market’s official vetting and a verification of the corporate value come first, I will not commence any unofficial projects.”

It was a rejection leveraging the institutional market as his most powerful shield. Over the three men who intended to control the board using capital as a weapon, Seo-han’s dry, frigid silence settled heavily.

“Then what if we invest directly into Aether Bio ourselves?” Jeong Ui-hyeon proposed, leaning his upper body minutely across the table. His eyes held the unyielding tenacity of a seasoned capitalist.

“If you open a path for us to participate in a private placement at the scale we want, Aether Bio’s funding risk will completely evaporate as of today.”

Seo-han silently powered down the screen of the tablet resting in front of him. Without a light flicker of emotion or any unnecessary movement, he merely stared back at his counterpart with a static demeanor.

“I refuse.”

Tae-min’s eyes narrowed into a fine line. Ui-hyeon, too, silently tightened his grip on his teacup. Seo-han continued speaking in a flawless, even tone.

“The cash flow generated by Eterno is more than enough to sustain our capital requirements. If necessary, I will gradually strengthen my equity position and voting rights in Aether Bio within a strictly legal framework.”

Ui-hyeon organized the folder in front of him, countering calmly.

“The analysts in Yeouido and Teheran-ro will not evaluate Aether Bio’s market value so favorably.”

“The ongoing IR is not a simple fundraising procedure. It is the process of imprinting Aether Bio’s presence and baseline valuation onto the market.”

Seo-han’s gaze passed through the eyes of the three men in sequence.

“What the three of you desire is speed, while what I require is a verified structure. The two point in the same direction, but they do not move by the same logic.”

Seo-han buttoned his suit jacket and rose from his chair.

On the table, the teacup he had left untouched was cooling down. Seo-han offered a light bow and exited the meeting room.

As his orderly footsteps fading down the corridor disappeared entirely, only the mechanical hum of the ventilation system remained in the room.

Jeong Hyeon-jin loosened his tie knot slightly, his expression stiffened.

“He never had any intention of letting our capital enter to begin with.”

“It wasn't capital he was securing; it was time,” Jeong Ui-hyeon muttered, burying himself deep into the sofa. A dense fatigue and caution cast a shadow over his complexion.

“It means the massive funds we are paying to Eterno are ultimately returning as the very bullets he uses to reinforce his control over Aether Bio.”

“Then are you saying we must remain mere bystanders?” Hyeon-jin murmured, setting his glass down.

“While Lee Seo-han held our weaknesses to complete his own dominance structure, we have been funding those bullets for him in real time.”

Koo Tae-min looked out the window.

Amid the brilliant lights of the city, the black sedan carrying Seo-han slid smoothly out of the parking lot and merged into the veins of the road network.

“In the end, it turns out we were the ones who handed him that shield.”