The basement of the main building, Department of Pharmacology, Seoul National University College of Medicine.
The air inside the top-secret analysis lab—strictly off-limits to civilians—was heavy and cold.
The only sound was the rhythmic hum of the LC-MS/MS system filling the room.
In front of a monitor flickering like a dying lightbulb, Professor Ki Jong-ho rubbed his bloodshot eyes.
He had spent three days and nights locked inside this cramped, sealed laboratory.
The pungent chemical smell of acetonitrile stung his nose, mixed with the damp smell of his own sweat, was suffocating.
Thud.
The thick, soundproof door swung open, and Vice Chairman Jeong Hyun-jin walked in.
This was a dust-free cleanroom zone, yet he hadn't even bothered to wear a proper hazmat suit. The hem of his ultra-luxury Italian cashmere coat whipped wildly behind him.
His face was a tense blur of anxiety and pale fury.
"Professor Ki. What’s the verdict?"
There was no moisture in his voice.
The moment he stepped inside, Hyun-jin gripped Ki Jong-ho’s shoulder and glared fiercely at the screen, as if ready to rip the graphs right out of the monitor to find his answer.
"You mapped out the ingredient sequence, didn't you? I gave you the best equipment in the country."
Professor Ki slowly pulled down his mask. His exposed lips were chapped white, and his complexion was the color of dirt.
Overwhelmed by Hyun-jin’s suffocating pressure, he swallowed hard.
"Vice Chairman... The thing is... the analysis results are highly unusual."
"Unusual? What the hell does that mean?"
Hyun-jin’s brow furrowed. His fingertips tapped anxiously against the buttons of his coat.
With a trembling hand, Ki manipulated the mouse, pointing at the chromatogram peaks on the screen.
A chaotic mess of endlessly spiking graphs filled the display.
"I ran a proteomics analysis on the microscopic residue left on the tip of the syringe needle. But... the base material itself isn't a standard buffer solution."
"Then what is it?"
"It’s human serum."
"Serum?"
Hyun-jin let out a hollow laugh.
"You mean blood? Why is that unusual? I suppose it's just a drug designed to be mixed with blood before administration."
Professor Ki shook his head.
His eyes held the deep helplessness and dread of a scholar confronting the limits of his field.
"It’s not just mixed in, sir. Biological serum proteins, including albumin and immunoglobulin, are blended in at an intricately high concentration.
Clinically speaking, this would carry unacceptable immunogenicity risks and would never be used in an injectable product. Yet, the fact that it was designed this way..."
"Designed?"
"It appears to have been designed from the outset on the assumption that someone would eventually try to analyze it."
Ki’s voice trembled slightly.
"Human serum contains thousands of massive protein peaks. The active substance we are looking for is likely a microscopic trace on a nanogram scale.
But this massive tsunami of serum proteins acts as a noise barrier, completely burying the amino acid sequence of the actual drug."
He pointed to the blurred, crushed graphs on the monitor.
"No ultra-high-resolution spectrometer in existence can isolate and map the genuine active ingredients from this artificial pile of serum.
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It’s like throwing a single grain of sand into a muddy lake and demanding we recover that exact grain."
Hyun-jin’s face turned to stone. The rims of his eyes burned red.
The horrific exhaustion and fear of aging that crept up on him every time the drug wore off seemed to coil around his entire body once more.
"Impossible? Ki Jong-ho, are you playing weak with me right now?
I don't care how much it costs. If your equipment is lacking, import the most expensive gear in the world right this instance!"
"It’s not a problem with the equipment, Vice Chairman!"
Professor Ki finally snapped, shouting back.
Startled by his own sudden outburst, he hesitated for a second, but quickly continued in a desperate tone.
"CEO Lee Seo-han... that man is no ordinary person. He exploited a fundamental blind spot in analytical chemistry.
There is only one way to break through this blockade and secure the blueprint of the actual drug."
"What is it? Tell me."
Hyun-jin stepped in so close he looked ready to grab Ki by the collar. The oppressive mix of his expensive cologne and cold sweat closed in on the professor.
"Something untainted by anyone else's blood.
We need a whole vial of the pure, undiluted, highly concentrated original solution.
We need at least several milliliters of the raw solution to forcefully filter out this serum noise and derive the structural formula. With a trace sample like this—nothing more than a smudge on a needle tip—it's... impossible."
Hyun-jin’s breathing grew ragged.
He realized he had been completely played by a damned young venture entrepreneur.
At that moment, Hyun-jin finally understood: Lee Seo-han had never viewed him as a client. From the very beginning, he had never been a client.
He had been a subject.
Bang!
Unable to contain his rage, Hyun-jin slammed his fist onto the plastic lab table.
With a dull, cracking thud, the small reagent bottles rattled violently.
"Are you telling me that university hospital equipment worth hundreds of billions can't even break through a maze built by some venture punk? Do you all just carry brains as ornaments?!"
He spun around, drawing sharp, ragged breaths. His vision swam, but his mind began to operate with a chillingly cold precision.
A raw vial. And it had to be a complete, undiluted bottle.
Lee Seo-han’s arrogant face flashed in his mind. To put a leash on that bastard, he first had to take away the real trump card he possessed.
Hyun-jin muttered under his breath, a venomous glint settling into his eyes.
A few days later.
When the promised time for administration arrived, Lee Seo-han stepped into the deep recesses of the Hannam-dong safe house.
The click of his shoe heels echoed quietly against the marble floor.
The air was thick with a heavy, raw leather scent—Jeong Hyun-jin's signature aroma.
The rich scent of leather, tinged with faint notes of tar and oil, defined the secret, dominant atmosphere of the space.
Seo-han walked forward, his posture impeccable.
Sunk deep into the leather sofa, Hyun-jin shifted his gaze onto Seo-han.
His eyes were parched with a desperate thirst. He craved that overwhelming focus and drive the drug provided—the illusion that the entire world was back in his hands.
With an indifferent expression, Seo-han set his black bag onto the table. The sound of the zipper opening cut through the silence.
What emerged from the bag was a precise, silver-gleaming injection device.
His movements were clinical, dry, and arrogant, like a surgeon preparing for an operation.
"I’ll see the list first."
Seo-han demanded the prepared list of women in a flat tone.
Without so much as a glance at the documents, Hyun-jin wore a sly, serpentine smile, like a snake sizing up its prey.
He slowly rose from his seat and lightly patted Seo-han’s shoulder.
"CEO Lee, you’ve gone through a lot of trouble, coming all the way to Hannam-dong every week with such precious cargo."
A heavy leather bag already sat on the table. Hyun-jin clicked the buckle with his finger.
With a crisp click, tightly packed stacks of 50,000-won bills revealed themselves. It was the contracted 100 million won in cash.
"I’ve been doing some thinking lately. And I wonder if there’s any need for us to keep going through this tedious routine every single time."
Seo-han’s hand froze right as he was reaching for the vial.
He slowly raised his head and locked eyes with Jeong Hyun-jin.
The glint in Seo-han’s eyes behind his glasses was ice-cold—a gaze so clear it felt surgical, as if stripping away the man's skin to inspect the neural network underneath.
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
Hyun-jin swallowed hard at Seo-han’s chilling demeanor, but he fought to maintain his relaxed smile on the surface.
He slid the leather bag of cash firmly toward Seo-han.
Leaning his upper body forward, he lowered his voice. A slightly raspy breath escaped from behind his leather cologne.
"I’ll raise your monthly compensation to 200 million won. A clean double."
Hyun-jin flashed two fingers in the air.
"But there's a condition. Instead of making this tedious trip every week, hand over a month’s supply all at once—four weeks' worth, by the vial.
You’re a busy man running Aether Bio with no time to spare; wouldn't it be better for both of us to save some time? Don't you think?"
"..."
Seo-han didn't answer. He simply stared at Hyun-jin's face.
As the silence stretched, Hyun-jin quickly added more words, trying to mask his mounting anxiety.
"Ah, you don't have to worry about the introductions to those daughters from Korea's most powerful families.
Even if I have to grind my entire corporate secretariat network to dust, I’ll personally arrange introductions to the very best women in the country. You just need to come by at your convenience and enjoy yourself."
Inside Hyun-jin’s eyes, a slimy greed and a deceptive sense of triumph swirled together. His mind was likely already celebrating.
The moment a four-week supply of the highly concentrated raw vial fell into his hands, Professor Ki Jong-ho’s research team at SNU Medicine would lock themselves away and flawlessly extract the structural formula he so desperately craved.
The second they pierced that serum shield and obtained the true blueprint of the drug, this arrogant biotech genius would be finished.
Seo-han looked at Hyun-jin’s face.
He knew the man was scheming something. But what it was didn't matter.
Only one thing mattered: Jeong Hyun-jin had already become a man who could no longer live without Phantom.
The faint upward curl at the corner of his mouth after making the proposal was proof enough.
Gulp.
Hyun-jin's Adam's apple bobbed heavily.
Seo-han remained completely silent.
And that silence only drove Hyun-jin deeper into anxiety.