Ghosts of Eternity

Jung Hyun-jin lifted the heavy crystal decanter.

The amber single malt whiskey poured into the glass, softly disrupting the silence, followed immediately by the sharp, chilly clink of ice striking the glass walls.

Across from him, Jung Se-ah leaned back into a deep leather sofa, her eyes fixed on the tablet lying on the table. Dressed in a sharp tailored jacket, she read down the screen without moving a muscle. Beneath the soft recessed lighting, the gleam in her eyes was cold and perfectly zeroed in.

"Lee Seo-han has notified us of Ghost's official clinical protocol. He intends to go through formal procedures," Jung Hyun-jin muttered quietly as he set the heavy glass down on the table. The sharp aroma of whiskey spread through the cold office air.

"If Ghost enters the legal system, that works in our favor. It cuts away the risks from the shadows."

Jung Se-ah nodded slightly, still staring at the tablet screen. Since the legal risks were gone, she thought this was the perfect moment to choke Lee Seo-han with the 45-billion-won funding structured by Yoon Tae-hee.

Jung Hyun-jin paused just as he was about to bring the whiskey glass to his lips. The ice in the glass shifted, making a sharp scratching sound. His expression darkened, and rage gathered in the dark shadows beneath his eyes.

"Lee Seo-han kicked away our lead funding proposal entirely. As if he doesn't need a single penny of investment."

Jung Se-ah's eyes narrowed. She lightly swiped down on the tablet screen to refresh the data.

"He rejected it? With Aether Bio’s current balance, they can barely pay their researchers' salaries, let alone enter Phase 2 clinical trials. Did that arrogant genius just shoot himself in the foot and kick away his lifeline?"

"No, he didn't just kick it away. He completely flipped the board right over our heads. He built a structure that sustains itself. And he did it in a way we never even considered."

Jung Hyun-jin roughly shoved the tablet toward the center of the table.

On the screen, a red line traced the cash flow from Eterno to Aether Bio. It was not a simple arrow. It looked like a noose tightening around Jung Hyun-jin’s neck.

"The obscene subscription fee we pay Eterno every month. All just to cling to one more day of feeling young. He plans to use Eterno’s revenue to fund Aether Bio’s next capital raise himself. Since it counts as official revenue, not outside capital, he no longer needs to beg foreign investors for money."

Jung Hyun-jin stared blankly at his glass.

The dozens of pages of poison pill provisions they had prepared by mobilizing top-tier lawyers from Kim & Chang scattered in his mind like scrap paper. His meticulous plan—to dilute Lee Seo-han’s ownership with a massive capital raise, seize the board, and usurp management rights—had been blocked before it could even begin.

"So, in the end, he's solidifying his own dominance with the money we paid. He’s forging a shield with our money. A shield that will be turned against us," Jung Se-ah leaned back against the sofa cushions, letting out a cold sneer.

"Uncle, we are literally hauling bricks for the structure Lee Seo-han built. And at an incredibly, incredibly steep price at that. The price of desire you pay to regain youth is directly transforming into Lee Seo-han’s power."

Jung Hyun-jin downed the single malt in one gulp.

That was how Jung Hyun-jin perceived it. The money they had shed to hold onto youth had somehow become the gold leaf plating Lee Seo-han’s shield. A wave of humiliation, hotter and more venomous than the burning sensation in his esophagus, surged up his throat.

"Does this mean he's invincible even in the open now?"

Jung Hyun-jin roughly threw two ice cubes into his empty whiskey glass. A heavy clink echoed through the chilly room. A strange madness settled in his eyes.

"If the board is set up to this extent, it's actually more profitable to become Lee Seo-han's most reliable ally."

Jung Se-ah leaned forward slightly. Her calm gaze settled solemnly upon the marble table.

"An ally? Uncle, do you mean to wear those shackles for the rest of your life?"

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"They aren’t shackles. They’re a golden leash. Think about launching that hair removal product on a massive scale. It's a nuclear bomb that will overturn the landscape of the global beauty market. The moment the milestones and royalties generated from it flow into Eterno, S Group and Eterno will become an inseparable, singular ecosystem."

Jung Hyun-jin wore a sinister smile as he lightly swirled his glass. The amber liquid swirled between the ice.

"Becoming allies isn't a matter of pride. It's a matter of who ends up holding the real power. If we seize the distribution networks and global marketing, becoming the massive shield that protects Lee Seo-han’s intellectual property, he will ultimately have no choice but to breathe only within the infrastructure we provide."

Jung Se-ah's eyes dimmed quietly. In her head, she precisely calculated the profits and losses of the new dynamic proposed by Jung Hyun-jin.

"If things go as you say, Uncle, those massive royalties pouring into Eterno will become the strongest bond tying us to Seo-han. All while connecting a lethal conduit directly to each other's hearts."

"Exactly. It's a structure where S Group's influence grows proportionally as Eterno expands. Legally and financially, there is no alliance sturdier than this."

Jung Hyun-jin gripped the decanter again to refill his glass. This time, his touch was far more relaxed than before.

"We are pouring our capital into the machine Lee Seo-han designed. If we can’t kill the hound, we build the largest cage in the world and keep it in our yard."

Exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke, Jung Hyun-jin looked at Jung Se-ah.

"So, have you decided on the brand name you were going to coordinate with the marketing team?"

As if she had been waiting for the question, a chilling smile brushed Jung Se-ah's lips.

"Lysis."

"Lysis?"

"Yes. It’s a biological term for the breakdown of a cell. I chose it to suggest the elegant dissolution of traces one wishes to erase."

Jung Hyun-jin nodded in satisfaction, regaining his composure. The conversation swung back into its main track.

"Good. Then what is the current status of Lysis?"

His dry gaze fell upon Jung Se-ah. Opening her leather binder, she neatly laid out the rigorous validation report on the table.

"Efficacy validation for the final formulation is entirely complete. The automation line setup at Pyeongtaek Plant 2 is also finished. We will enter full-scale mass production starting next Monday."

Jung Hyun-jin merely gave a slight nod.

"So the original design handed over by Lee Seo-han is finally being transformed into the tangible reality of a commercial product."

Jung Se-ah packed her handbag, rising gracefully from her seat.

"The board of the beauty care market is already moving according to our design. Legacy laser medical device companies had better come up with measures to defend against a stock crash. Ultimately, the final victor will be decided in the open market Lysis is about to create."

Left alone in the office, Jung Hyun-jin downed the rest of his whiskey. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass window, the Seoul nightscape looked down coldly. The colossal machinery meant to convert Eterno's gray funds into a clean revenue stream in the open market had finally locked its gears and begun to turn.

Walking down the marble corridor, Jung Se-ah pulled out her smartphone to call her secretary.

"Track the initial production yield without a single mistake. If even a minor defect occurs, I will replace the line manager first thing."

Hanging up, she stepped into the private elevator. The black sedan carrying her glided smoothly out of the building's underground parking lot.

The following week, the automation lines at Pyeongtaek Plant 2 were awake before dawn.

It was the beginning of an enormous, merciless process—the original design handed over by Lee Seo-han finally converting into the tangible reality of a commercial product. Silver tubes poured out from the end of the line at regular intervals.

The product name was a mere five letters.

LYSIS.

Every time that word was printed, another corner of the old market built around laser hair removal machines and dermatology clinics quietly began to crumble.

Jung Se-ah convened the marketing execution team at a quiet membership lounge in Apgujeong.

"We aren't doing anything as vulgar as mass advertising. Just finalize the segment list to secretly distribute samples."

She tossed a list across the table. It listed the groups most sensitive to appearance management and social influence: top-tier actors from major agencies, crew management offices of major airlines, and daughters of luxury hotel owner families.

“Just leak that simply applying it breaks hair bonds without any pain, and the more you use it, the longer the maintenance cycle becomes. Whisper that the tedious era of burning yourself with laser machines is over—keep it highly private.”

Word of mouth spread silently, yet far more deeply than any advertisement, riding through the closed networks of the upper class.

The first reaction emerged from the dressing room of a major entertainment agency. A top actress preparing for a dawn shoot stepped out of the shower and quietly called over her exclusive makeup team leader. She asked if she could get just one more of that silver tube delivered yesterday. Normally, she would have rushed to a fully-booked Cheongdam-dong dermatology clinic, but that day, she didn’t even make a phone call to their waiting room.

A similar report came from an airline's crew management office. On the hair removal clinic reservation sheets, which used to be booked as a natural ritual before and after long-haul flights, cancellations and postponements began to surge for no clear reason. When the team manager asked for the reason, the replies were uniformly vague: "I think I'll be fine for this month."

The daughters of luxury hotel owner families were even faster. They didn't ask for the product name. They didn't ask about ingredients, price, or the launch date either. They simply requested more of “that thing.”

There was no advertising copy, no official sales channel. Yet within the closed language of the high-society elite, Lysis was already being called by desire instead of its name.

Lysis hadn't even been released yet.

But the market was already reacting.

The very first thing to shake was the reservation logs of the laser hair removal clinics in Gangnam.