Ghosts of Eternity

Taehee Yoon slid the slim tablet across the table.

The lines of her neck, framed beneath her neatly pinned low bun, were tight and cold.

The screen displayed the post-meeting report from Aether Bio's extraordinary shareholder gathering.

“He tore right through the net. He executed a 45 billion won Letter of Commitment with a global IP holding company called Aeterno.”

Taehee looked up at Hyunjin Jeong, her sharp gaze lingering on the final page of the report.

“Our plan to seize management control through the board is dead. Dr. Lee Seohan protected his position perfectly. He was a variable that completely bypassed my calculations.”

Hyunjin Jeong stared out at the Seoul nightscape, lightly swirling the crystal whiskey glass in his hand.

The clinking of ice filled the expansive room.

He wore a boldly patterned royal blue suit.

Despite being in his late fifties, his complexion had grown unnaturally clear lately, his skin carrying the taut vitality of Ghost 2.0.

“We should immediately launch countermeasures. Attack Aether Bio’s funding sources, challenge the friendly equity structure legally—”

“Drop it. No need to make a scene over something so minor,” Jeong cut her off cleanly.

He slowly swiveled his chair to face her.

Instead of the dark shadows that usually hung beneath his eyes, they now blazed with pure desire and vigor. A relaxed smile played on his lips.

“It’s fine. This is more than enough.”

Taehee narrowed her eyes.

For a woman obsessed with flawless, absolute control, Jeong’s lukewarm attitude made zero sense.

Then, Jeong tapped another tablet on the table.

The screen visualized real-time revenue data for Lysis. The crimson curve of the graph shot upward at a near-ninety-degree angle.

“Look at this. Barely a month after launch, ninety percent of laser hair removal revenue at Gangnam clinics has completely evaporated.”

Jeong downed his single malt whiskey in one gulp.

His thick Adam's apple bobbed heavily as the harsh alcohol burned down his throat. Even the tips of his fingers flushed a faint red as he set the glass down.

“If Ghost is a secret religion known only to the elites at the top, this hair remover is a massive industry sweeping up the entire masses. It’s on a completely different scale.”

The diamond cufflinks on his wrists flashed as he tapped the tablet screen with a thick finger.

“Funding cosmetic brands, tying together dermatology networks and plastic surgery chains, and fueling it all with our group’s dominant department stores and home shopping distribution channels... that’s all my home turf."

"The board is already perfectly set. Once this monster truly starts exploding, 45 billion won? That's pocket change earned overnight.”

Taehee stared at the chart without moving. Her measured gaze tracked the sheer, vertical trajectory of the graph.

This wasn't just a successful sales figure.

Lysis.

A specialized conjugate that selectively treated hair tissue without causing a fraction of damage to the skin barrier.

This single line of patented material was uprooting the entire foundation of a beauty and aesthetics market dominated for decades by multinational giants.

Inside the mind of a woman uniquely engineered to trace the flow of capital and extrapolate valuation, the future worth generated by this technology began to calculate at an exponential rate.

“Besides, that new holding company, Aeterno, is locked tight with our distribution lines through an exclusive contract,” Jeong laughed, lifting the crystal decanter.

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The brown whiskey splashed over the ice sphere with a crisp chime.

His eyes, heavily masked in opulence to conceal his deep-seated terror of aging, flashed in the dimly lit room.

“There’s no downside for us. None. We just sit back and rake in the cash.”

Taehee caught a bizarre sense of dissonance in his words. She quietly rolled the name in her mind.

Aether Bio. And Aeterno.

The moment the two corporate entities overlapped, her fingers stiffened. Her gaze, which had been tracking smoothly across the tablet, froze in midair.

She was a veteran in structuring and dismantling capital flows.

In her mind, the massive puzzle pieces slammed together with terrifying speed.

The exact moment Aether Bio's cash reserves dwindled.

The immense upfront fees and royalties conglomerate elites like Jeong were paying Aeterno for the exclusive rights to Lysis.

And the precision timing of that mysterious 45 billion won flooding back into Aether Bio as friendly equity.

“Vice Chairman Jeong,” Taehee spoke, her voice dropping an octave. “What did you just say? You signed an exclusive contract with Aeterno?”

“Yeah. They hold the material patents for Lysis. Why? What’s the issue?”

“And Aeterno is just a paper-thin holding company wrapped around his patents. Maybe it isn’t legally under his name, but he made it clear enough to me. In practice, it’s his.”

Taehee’s eyes narrowed sharply for the first time.

“...You already knew?”

“Ah, did I not mention that?”

Jeong buried himself deep into the sofa, letting out a booming laugh.

“He told me enough. Aeterno holds his patents, takes the cash, and sends it straight back into Aether Bio. He defended his own company with money generated by his own patents. Incredibly ruthless bastard.”

Taehee understood then.

The problem was not whether Seohan legally owned Aeterno. The problem was that everyone’s money had already begun moving as if he did.

Taehee swallowed back the chill rising up her spine as she looked at Jeong.

“Vice Chairman, the immense upfront fees and royalties we handed over to Aeterno just to lock down Lysis—all of it went straight into Lee Seohan’s pockets."

"He took the very money we served him and injected it directly into Aether Bio’s capital increase. You allowed him to defend his own management control using the capital of a major conglomerate.”

“Allowed him?”

Jeong lightly swiveled his crystal glass.

Clink.

In the dim lighting, the heavy rocks glass clinked cleanly, breaking the silence with a tone mixed with subtle anxiety and pure bravado.

His fingertips radiated a slight flush, and a thin sheen of sweat beaded on his forehead—telltale signs of a twenty-something's rhythm surging through his veins.

“Taehee, I know you’ve gotten sharp rolling around in the trenches of the capital market,” Jeong chuckled, pulling back the sleeve of his royal blue suit.

The diamond cufflinks caught the light brilliantly.

“But that’s not how you play a truly massive board. Whether Lee Seohan pulls cash through a paper holding company like Aeterno or uses it to fortify his stake is none of my concern.”

He took a smooth sip of his whiskey. As the burning alcohol slid down his throat, a glint of absolute greed filled his eyes.

“Look at the facts. Thanks to him, S-Group holds the exclusive global distribution rights to a beauty patent completely unprecedented in history."

"We own the entire cash cow siphoning tens of billions of won every single month from across the globe. That is the only game that matters.”

He leaned forward sharply.

His pupils, abnormally dilated from the effects of Ghost 2.0, locked onto Taehee’s face. His voice was low, yet injected with a volatile energy.

“If Lee Seohan falls, we’d be cutting open the goose that lays the golden eggs. That brilliant bastard needs to sit firmly at the head of Aether Bio so that the distribution matrix S-Group built can run like clockwork.”

Jeong traced a net in the air with his thick fingers.

“We just need to cast a heavy net across the choke point and guard it. Keep the net from tearing, and collect everything that swims into it. Isn’t that right?”

Infinitely satisfied with his own logic, Jeong laughed boisterously and raised his glass toward Taehee in a toast.

But Taehee didn't move.

She merely stared at him with an expressionless face. Her gaze drifted back to the tablet screen—at the sheer, soaring curve of Lysis's revenue line and the hidden trajectory of capital underlying it.

Dr. Lee Seohan...

Taehee repeated the name silently.

To her eyes, that was exactly what he was.

A man who tamed a greedy chaebol magnate like Hyunjin Jeong, turning the conglomerate's own distribution infrastructure and capital into bricks to build his own fortress.

Unconsciously, Taehee laid out a valuation sheet in her mind.

The official book value of Aether Bio. The net present value of Lysis’s royalties. The latent potential of the IP portfolio held by Aeterno. The network effect of a trap into which powerful men like Hyunjin Jeong had already willingly slipped their own necks.

The numbers stacked up rapidly, but at a certain point, the math stopped.

Lee Seohan was not a founder who could be neatly plugged into an enterprise valuation formula.

He was closer to a singularity—someone who engineered technology, caused raw desire to latch onto that technology, and forced capital to flow wherever that desire gathered.

An ordinary founder hunts for investors. A great founder convinces the market.

But Lee Seohan was different.

Without ever stepping out of his laboratory, he had the chaebols, the medical cartel, the mass consumers, and the private equity funds all pushing against one another, driven entirely by their own greed.

He didn't command. He didn't persuade.

He merely threw a single piece of technology into the world and let everyone orbit around it of their own accord.

At that realization, Taehee had no choice but to admit it for the first time.

This wasn't a company.

It was a gravitational field formed around a single man.

Perhaps Seohan wouldn't even declare exactly what he was constructing. Yet, the capital was already flowing entirely around his orbit.

A minuscule curve touched the edge of Taehee's thin lips.

It wasn't anger, nor was it wounded pride. It was a visceral thrill that set her entire nervous system on fire.

Compared to any asset she had ever encountered in the financial districts of New York and London, the existence of Lee Seohan was uniquely compelling.

An unquantifiable asset. A terrifyingly brilliant, unmanageable genius.

Taehee powered off the tablet screen.

“He wasn't someone to destroy.”

Jeong stared at her, glass in hand. “What?”

Taehee smiled quietly.

“He was an asset to be owned.”