Ghosts of Eternity

The executive office of Aether Bio.

Draft agreements exchanged with global CDMO (Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization) companies lay scattered across the desk. Lee Seohan sat with his shirt sleeves rolled up, staring intently at his tablet screen. The tip of his stylus cut through the batch-by-batch purification yield figures without hesitation.

The division head from the partner CDMO, sitting opposite him, swallowed hard and nervously adjusted his collar.

“Sir, the Ghost candidate molecule cannot be handled through existing standard manufacturing processes. Specifically, to reproduce the release profile required to mimic pulsatility, we must minimize coating uniformity errors and batch-to-batch variance to an extreme degree.”

Seohan stopped his pen.

His detached gaze drifted up toward the division head.

“That is exactly why the exclusive process development clause was included in the contract.”

“To match production costs with viable yields, we need a realistic compromise...”

“Any purity level below 95% will be deemed a process failure. Securing the stability of the raw material is the absolute core of this IND application. If impurities leak in during the production stage, we won't even cross the threshold of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.”

The CDMO division head fell silent for a moment.

The man he was dealing with right now was not just another demanding client nitpicking over high purity levels. Most biotech CEOs eventually took a step back when confronted with the realities of timelines and budgets. Expected clinical entry dates, investor report schedules, next-round valuations—those were the things that usually took precedence over manufacturing standards at the negotiation table.

But Lee Seohan was different.

He did not fear escalating costs. He remained entirely unfazed by potential delays. In fact, whenever a suggestion was made to lower standards to salvage a timeline or cut expenses, his expression turned utterly vacant—like a man discovering a contaminant in a sterile lab.

“Sir, if we strictly apply these metrics, the discard rate for initial batches could be substantial,” the division head said with difficulty.

“Discard them,” Seohan replied briefly.

“Scrapping a failed batch is infinitely cheaper than pushing an unstable batch into clinical trials.”

Seohan’s voice was composed yet ironclad. His hand moved without a shred of hesitation as he reviewed the strict process-failure penalty clauses on the final page of the contract.

The smartphone on his desk vibrated briefly. The screen displayed an incoming call from the Hyundai Motor Premium Maintenance Team.

When he picked up, a polite, deferential voice flowed through the speaker.

— Am I speaking with CEO Lee Seohan? This is the Hyundai Motor Premium Care Division.

“Yes. What is this regarding?”

— Our remote diagnostic system has flagged an anomalous signal from your vehicle. We have identified a potential critical defect in the steering mechanism and suspension control modules. In accordance with headquarters' safety protocols, we would like to initiate an emergency recall.

Seohan glanced at his wristwatch.

“A recall? I was driving it just yesterday, and there didn't seem to be any issues at all.”

— It is a micro-contact failure inside the internal sensors, making it virtually imperceptible during routine daily driving. However, it can pose a severe safety hazard during high-speed travel, which is why we are taking preemptive action. We are dispatching a flatbed carrier to the Aether Bio parking lot immediately. The repairs will take about a week, and we have prepared a replacement vehicle of the highest specification.

A faint inconsistency registered in Seohan’s mind. The timing of this anomalous signal was awkward. Yet, words like 'steering mechanism' and 'suspension' were parameters that could not be set aside for later evaluation. Leaving a safety risk unaddressed was highly inefficient.

“Very well. I will leave the key at the first-floor reception desk.”

Hanging up the phone, Seohan immediately turned his attention back to the rest of his schedule.

By afternoon, a new stack of documents landed on the table in his office. It was a precise comparative matrix contrasting domestic and overseas clinical costs against projected timelines.

The CEO of the CRO (Contract Research Organization), newly seated across from him, carefully voiced his counsel.

“Entering Phase 1 directly in the United States poses not only a severe budget strain but also an immense administrative drain. Considering your cash rotation cycle, it borders on a gamble. It is far more efficient to wrap up Phase 1 swiftly in Korea to secure definitive pharmacokinetic data first, then leverage that to target Phase 2 in the US.”

He pushed up the frame of his glasses, adding smoothly.

“We will mobilize our entire network to expedite the domestic Phase 1 approval. Fortunately, we are sensing highly favorable undercurrents from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and certain policy lines, so you won't need to worry about the regulatory hurdles.”

Policy lines.

Seohan paused minutely at the phrase.

Instead of offering a verbal reply, he lightly grasped his teacup. Feeling the fading warmth of the porcelain, he quietly reverse-engineered the hidden hand of the massive, unrevealed backer moving beneath the surface.

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At that exact moment, across the Pacific, the monolithic logo of ‘LYSIS’ illuminated the Manhattan skyscrapers with a cold radiance, colonizing the New York night.

Seoyah Jeong looked down indifferently at the brilliant, bustling stretch of Fifth Avenue through the floor-to-ceiling glass. Behind her stood the core executives of Sephora and Ulta Beauty, the largest beauty retail chains in the United States.

They had once been the gatekeepers who could decide the life or death of a brand with a single shelf allocation, yet at this moment, they stood with their shoulders deferentially lowered, waiting entirely on Seoyah’s word. A heavy, quiet tension filled the room, saturated by the bitter, cold iris scent she wore.

“CEO Jeong, the North American exclusive partnership terms we are proposing are entirely unprecedented. We are offering prime offline placement, sweeping fee exemptions, and...”

The vice president of Sephora wiped the cold sweat from his brow, speaking with measured caution.

What Seoyah was looking at was not the flashing neon spectacle of Times Square outside. It was the razor-sharp metrics updating in real-time across her tablet screen.

Inbound conversion rate.

Post-initial purchase subscription renewal rate.

Skin irritation claim incidence.

The steep, vertical drop of the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) curve.

The data was brutal in its clarity. Retail intermediaries were no longer a source of leverage. Consumers were already bypassing brick-and-mortar storefronts entirely, drawn directly into the Lysis D2C (Direct to Consumer) subscription ecosystem.

What Sephora and Ulta truly feared was not a simple decline in immediate revenue. It was the total eradication of their stores as the customer's first point of contact.

Once a consumer crossed over into the D2C subscription pipeline, they no longer sought the counsel of a retail clerk. They inputted their skin type into the application, configured their delivery intervals, and allowed the system to automatically bill them for the next month's batch. The time spent comparing products in front of retail displays had vanished, replaced entirely by algorithms and automated push notifications.

The true power of a beauty retail chain lay not in the act of selling merchandise, but in monopolizing the exact moment a customer discovered a product.

Lysis was systematically tearing that moment away from them.

“Exclusive?” Seoyah turned around slowly.

“It seems you still fail to grasp the current landscape. Why should we bother placing Lysis on your shelves and wait for customers to walk through your doors?”

The smile lingering on the edge of her lips was dry, and all the more commanding for it.

“Even as you watch the monopoly over distribution infrastructure shift in real-time, how can you still utter such archaic nonsense?”

The executives of Sephora and Ulta Beauty were forced to retreat without securing a single concession.

Seoyah raised her champagne glass in a quiet salute. Live streams from New York’s top beauty influencers were cascading across the monitors alongside explosive spikes in concurrent traffic.

Apply, wait ten minutes.

Every single time the demonstration of body hair cleanly dissolving without a hint of irritation or harsh chemical odor repeated, one could almost hear the collective billions of dollars in market capitalization of Wall Street’s razor manufacturers and laser device corporations evaporating into thin air.

The collapse of an old order, and the raising of their own banner upon its ruins—it was a symphony of destruction.

Seoyah lightly tilted her glass toward the towering skyscrapers outside. The Manhattan skyline was no longer a city; it was merely a massive showroom displaying her metrics.

The 27th-floor grand boardroom of the S Group Headquarters.

Vice Chairman Hyunjin Jeong sat with his chin resting on his hand, staring fixedly at the ultra-large wall screen spanning the front of the room. Across the digital world map on the screen, crimson dots strobed incessantly. The crimson tendrils that completely blanketed the North American continent were now slicing across the Atlantic, rapidly embedding themselves into the heart of London, Paris, and Milan.

“Is this... the current state of affairs?” Hyunjin murmured darkly.

His voice carried a strange undercurrent of excitement, laced with an almost visceral dread toward the anomalous genius that was Lee Seohan. Yet, his gaze vibrated with an uncontainable anxiety.

“Yes, Vice Chairman. The slope of the chart is practically vertical. This isn't a mere trend; it’s a fundamental restructuring of the market’s parameters,” the executive director reported, swallowing hard.

“With this level of cash flow...” Hyunjin said in a low voice.

The director immediately brought up the next screen. Projected monthly subscription revenues, fulfillment logistics costs, return rates, and royalty distribution matrices unfolded in succession. The numbers were absolute.

Lysis was not a mere beauty product. It was a colossal cash-generation engine designed to bankroll Ghost, AX-11, and every unnamed substance Aether Bio had yet to bring into the light.

This wasn't illicit, back-alley money. It was clean, recurring capital, willingly and continuously surrendered by consumers month after month.

Hyunjin finally understood. Lee Seohan had not changed the method of generating wealth. He was altering the very topography through which capital flowed. Hyunjin tapped his finger against the table.

Staring at the crimson nodes on the screen, he felt a strange sensation of vertigo.

On paper, Lysis belonged to S Group. The distribution networks, the marketing campaigns, and the logistical execution of the global launch were all firmly held by S Group’s machinery. Yet, the absolute beating heart of every single dollar generated across London, Paris, and Milan was Seohan’s material.

S Group was a massive chassis equipped with a monstrous engine, and Lee Seohan was the fuel—without which the vehicle would grind to an instant halt.

No, perhaps it was the exact inverse.

S Group had merely deluded themselves into believing they were the chassis, when in reality, they were simply running a race with their own corporate logo plastered on top of a vehicle entirely forged by Lee Seohan.

This was the 'legitimate stream of capital' Seohan had spoken of—the true talons of a leviathan capable of swallowing their entire distribution empire whole.

8:00 PM. With all deliberations concluded for the day, Seohan donned his coat and descended to the lobby of Aether Bio. As agreed, he left the smart key of his original G90 at the first-floor reception desk.

“The Hyundai maintenance team contacted us to let us know they’ve parked the replacement vehicle in the lot, sir. Here is the card key,” the receptionist said, handing over a sleek black card with a polite bow.

Seohan took the key and stepped out through the main entrance. At the center of the lot stood a black G90, identical in every visible metric to his own, radiating a polished gloss. To the naked eye, even the minute offset of the wheels was perfectly symmetrical.

Seohan stepped into the driver's seat of the replacement vehicle and pressed the ignition button.

Hum—

From inside the engine bay, an incredibly smooth vibration, tuned with pathological efficiency, rippled through the chassis. The raw, coarse rotational friction typical of a standard mass-production engine had been completely neutralized.

Synchronizing his smartphone to the vehicle's Bluetooth, Seohan muttered lightly to himself.

“Premium care indeed. The noise dampening is remarkably well-executed.”

He steered the vehicle out of the lot, driving beneath the streetlights of his commute. The illuminance of the lamps had been minutely calibrated, casting a specific wavelength of light that systematically neutralized the fatigue of his retinas.

Seohan concluded that this seamless comfort was simply the result of an exceptionally well-run recall service from a luxury automaker.

At that exact moment, in a secluded corner of the Aether Bio parking lot.

A large, specialized enclosed car carrier carrying Seohan’s conventional G90 was gliding silently out of the perimeter. The flanks of the carrier bore the official corporate logo of an authorized Hyundai Motor partner.

And beneath that logo, written in a typeface far too small for any casual observer to decipher, the actual name of the contractor was inscribed.

[MK Mobility Service]

Seohan did not see the text. The doors of the cage had slid shut without a sound.