[Initial 60-Minute Response Profile]
LH (Luteinizing Hormone): Explosive spike (Peak).
★ Deduction: Confirmed direct stimulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis (GnRH / Ghost lineage).
[24–96 Hour Sustained Pattern]
Total/Free Testosterone: Plateau maintained at the peak levels of a man in his twenties.
DHT and Estradiol: Abnormal synchronized surge (Aromatase metabolism induced by the massive explosion of male hormones).
hCG (Human Chorionic Genadotropin): Trace amounts detected in blood plasma.
"Curious..."
Baek Seo-woun adjusted her metal-framed glasses with a sharp flick.
Her eyes locked on the Phase 4 Crash analysis graph flickering across her screen.
Even though the raw data had yielded a structurally flawless reverse-engineered profile, a toxic strand of doubt remained coiled deep inside her mind.
It’s a paradox.
The half-life of the variant hormones that serve as the genetic foundation for this substance is a mere four minutes. It’s a molecule that disappears almost instantly.
How can a molecular signal lasting only four minutes completely dominate a human brain for five full days?
It defied the basic principles of modern biology. A four-minute signal producing a ninety-six-hour biological effect.
Yet, Seo-woun shook her head. Human endocrinology was still a map filled with uncharted territory.
And once that cursed ninety-six-hour threshold expired, heaven collapsed without warning.
By the morning of the fifth day, the data harvested from the two old men at six-hour intervals was catastrophic.
Their testosterone levels suffered a vertical, catastrophic plunge, while cortisol—the primary stress hormone—fluctuated erratically.
On the surgical tables, the two titans shuddered violently under a freezing chill.
"D-Dr. Baek... it’s fading. The drug is gone," Jeong Hyun-jin muttered, his teeth clacking together in a humiliating display of desperation.
"Every bone in my body feels like it's fracturing. Call Lee Seo-han. Tell that son of a bitch to bring another vial. Now!"
It was a grotesque spectacle.
Monarchs anchoring the nation's economy, their very souls mortgaged to a single syringe, groaning like wounded animals.
But Baek Seo-woun was utterly indifferent to their screams.
Her focus was entirely consumed by the final deduction of the Phase 5 drug classification materializing on her monitor.
She began to ruthlessly comb through the global database of unapproved pipelines and buried patent registries, cross-referencing them with the response trajectory.
After hours of glaring into the screen, her fingers came to a sudden halt over an unpublicized archival research log from a major US pharmaceutical house.
Her pupils dilated violently.
"...Ghost-125."
On the screen sat the unreleased raw clinical data for Ghost-125.
It was an advanced agonist that a global big pharma had abandoned after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars.
The exact millisecond she overlaid the archival graph atop the tracing profiles of the two old men, Seo-woun’s lips twitched in a fine tremor.
"It’s an exact match. Every single line."
The explosive LH wave within the first fifteen minutes, the testosterone plateau locking the body into its twenties for ninety-six hours, and the brutal descent of the crash.
The substance Lee Seo-han had injected into their veins matched the clinical ghost data of the discontinued Ghost-125 subcutaneous formulation with terrifying precision.
"I’ve identified it," she murmured. "He simply resurrected a failed big-pharma compound and used it to fool us."
A wave of greedy, volatile euphoria instantly washed over the pale, shivering face of Vice Chairman Jeong Hyun-jin.
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"Throw this sequence to our internal bio-labs immediately! Demand mass synthesis! Cut that arrogant bastard’s leash once and for all! Just make the damn drug!"
Beside him, Chairman Jeong Ui-hyun pressed her with bloodshot eyes.
But Baek Seo-woun simply delivered a freezing response without looking away from the monitor.
"We can't."
"Why the hell not? We have the exact identity! Do not underestimate the weight of domestic capital, Dr. Baek!"
"Vice Chairman! I am not finished."
Seo-woun raised her voice sharply, slamming her tablet onto the table.
On the screen, a molecular cluster anomalously bound to the tail end of the Ghost-125 amino acid chain magnified significantly.
"If this were pure Ghost-125, we could synthesize it tomorrow."
"But because of this synthetic amino acid architecture, merely sourcing the raw materials and structuring the purification protocol will take three months minimum."
"You two feel as though you are rotting away by next week—do you honestly believe your bodies can endure three months?"
Seo-woun glared at the two tycoons with bloodshot eyes.
"Furthermore, Lee Seo-han is a lunatic. To accelerate the absorption rate and manipulate the half-life, he forcibly grafted a proprietary fatty acid chain to the core skeleton of Ghost-125."
"He engineered a terrifying hybrid."
Her voice dropped an octave, turning heavy.
"If we copy this sequence straight out of a textbook and inject it into your bodies without unlocking the exact chemical ratio and volume of this linker, do you know what happens?"
"Your pituitary receptors will burn out on the spot. It triggers a state of total chemical castration."
"Instead of youth, you will be reduced to permanent invalids in a fraction of a second."
The room’s breathing vanished.
The insurmountable temporal barrier of synthesizing specialized amino acids, and the demonic trap of the fatty acid linker Lee Seo-han had deliberately left behind.
Seo-woun’s words cut through the shallow calculations of the two capitalists like a scalpel, tearing their logic down to the molecular level.
"Lee Seo-han... that ruthless, absolute monster..."
Jeong Hyun-jin groaned, his voice cracking as he stared blankly at the dark needle punctures decorating his own arm.
To think that the price of their ninety-six hours of heaven was a biological booby trap designed to incinerate their pituitary glands the moment they touched it.
"And there is an even more fundamental cliff we face, Chairman," Seo-woun said, her gaze shifting to the silent, frozen figure of Jeong Ui-hyun.
"Even if we miraculously replicate it, the core structure of Ghost-125 is public data."
"The exact moment we initiate clinical trials under the guise of an anti-aging therapy, every fast-follower on the global stage will turn into a hyena."
"Global big pharmas backed by astronomical capital will flood the market with structural variants. Our monopoly ends overnight."
Jeong Hyun-jin finally lost his composure, his voice breaking into a hysterical shriek.
"Then you're saying we have no choice? We are reduced to begging that bastard scientist like stray rats for the rest of our lives?!"
The terror of decay had long since paralyzed the intellect of the nation’s top vice chairman.
Facing his hysteria, Baek Seo-woun let out a sigh weighed down by a profound sense of futility.
"He never handed you that substance to be analyzed, Vice Chairman."
"He built an iron wall using massive human serum albumin to ensure we couldn't even catch a glimpse of the compound's skeleton."
"It cannot be fragmented, and it cannot be scanned whole. He engineered a flawless dead end."
Yet, as she watched their desperate subjugation, a cruel, clinical smirk slowly spread across the scientist’s lips.
"Ultimately, the asset we require isn't the drug. It’s Lee Seo-han himself."
Seo-woun stepped closer to the surgical tables, drawing a sleek tablet from her lab coat pocket.
With a light flick of her finger, a photograph of Yoon Seol-hee cut through the darkness of the room. She was a carefully constructed imitation of perfection.
"Aether Bio is merely an unlisted startup backed by a cumulative investment of sixty billion won."
"But you can tear apart their servers and raid their laboratories for a hundred days, and you won't find a single speck of dust."
"A man like Lee Seo-han has likely stored the original research data nowhere but inside his own head."
Chairman Jeong Ui-hyun’s hollow eyes flashed as he swallowed dryly.
"If it isn't within the enterprise... where else could the source be, Dr. Baek?"
"So we shift the board. Instead of fighting his defense, we steal the source powder entirely."
"The hundred-percent pure, unadulterated API solid before he laces it with that demonic albumin shield."
"If you can place that pure essence onto my laboratory table, I can map the exact molecular formula with flawless precision in under ten minutes."
Jeong Hyun-jin wiped the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand, his eyes narrowing.
"You expect us to stake the entire architecture of our capital on a single woman? I cannot blindly trust her based on a paper profile, Doctor."
"Naturally, I have no intention of relying solely on Yoon Seol-hee."
Seo-woun turned the tablet back toward them, displaying the structural diagrams of Ghost-125 alongside the analysis reports.
"What we truly need isn't the drug. It's his reaction."
"His reaction?"
"Yes." Seo-woun let out a cold laugh. "Lee Seo-han remains absolutely convinced that no one can breach the identity of his substance."
She pointed to the surging curves on the graph.
"But what happens if, out of nowhere, he discovers that we have successfully traced the existence and core structure of Ghost-125?"
Jeong Hyun-jin’s eyes narrowed to slits. "..."
"I want to see exactly what move he makes when his certainty shatters."
Her bitter, mocking laugh drifted and dissolved into the sterile air of the room.
"Lee Seo-han’s arrogance stems entirely from his conviction that none of us possess the intellect to decipher his work."
"Therefore, we don't need to replicate it; we merely need to demonstrate that we have traced a piece of the puzzle."
Her gaze darkened with a cold, manipulative precision.
"The moment he realizes the security grid he believed was impenetrable has cracked, even a man as controlled as Lee Seo-han will lose his composure."
"He will falter."
"And that is the exact threshold where Yoon Seol-hee will step into his orbit, wearing the face of his perfect savior."
It was a ruthlessly calculated chain of dominoes.
"People hide when they feel threatened. When they feel anxious, they seek verification," Seo-woun said, closing the tablet.
"We only need to engineer that single window of anxiety."
Her eyes anchored on the photograph of Yoon Seol-hee.
"The rest belongs to her."
Jeong Hyun-jin frowned. "Do you truly believe a man like him will be deceived by a single woman?"
Baek Seo-woun offered a faint, chilling smile, her fingernail lightly tapping the analytical report on the screen.
"We aren't trying to deceive him with a lie."
The hidden room fell into a heavy stillness.
"Because the information we're about to give him is a forgery as well."
"People are never deceived by pure lies. They are deceived by the story they desperately want to believe."