Chapter 43: A Player of Life (5)
A few hours after Ryu Ji-Won, Park Joo-Hyuk, and Lee Hae-Won left, the members of the Life Creation Department showed up. Young-Joon did hear that they were all coming to see him, but he wondered if it was okay for all of them to come to Daejeon together.
“Isn’t it work hours right now? It’s a weekday today.”
“We all took the evening off. We arranged all the work in the morning, so don’t worry.”
Jung Hae-Rim approached Young-Joon with a worried face.
“Seriously, what happened?”
“I think Ji Kwang-Man did this,” Young-Joon replied.
They all froze.
“What does... But is there a reason for him to do something this bad?” Park Dong-Hyun asked like this was unbelievable.
“Are you sure it’s Ji Kwang-Man?” Cheon Ji-Myung asked Young-Joon.
“I think so.”
“Do you have proof?” Jung Hae-Rim asked.
“There will be some soon.”
“Will be some?”
“Well, I reached out to some politicians, the prosecution, and places like that?”
“You?”
Cheon Ji-Myung tilted his head in confusion. It was like seeing a cow eat beef.
“It’s true. I just thought that it might not proceed according to the law if I let it be, so I just gave it a little nudge so that it would. Ji Kwang-Man will be caught in the investigation soon enough.”
“Oh my...”
“But isn’t it better for you to question him if you have suspicions?” Bae Sun-Mi asked.
“Then, it could look like I had a veiled fight for power with Ji Kwang-Man. I am going to keep my stance as the victim,” Young-Joon replied. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at B1nNovel.
Since he had a lot of people who would play for him, there was no need for him to hold a knife and put blood on his bands.
“Other than that, how did the Alzheimer’s mice experiment go? Did we get the data?” Young-Joon asked Bae Sun-Mi.
“I win! Give it to me!”
Suddenly, Jung Hae-Rim exclaimed and put out her hand towards Park Dong-Hyun and Koh Soon-Yeol.
“Hmph. I’ll transfer you the money.”
“I’ll give it to you in cash.”
Koh Soon-Yeol pulled out a few ten thousand won bills and gave it to Jung Hae-Rim.
“What kind of bet did you have?” Young-Joon asked in bewilderment.
“I predicted that you were going to definitely ask about research progress and I bet my money on that,” Jung Hae-Rim remarked with a proud smirk.
“I didn’t think someone who was just hit by a car and lying in the hospital would ask about work,” Park Dong-Hyun said in a depressed voice.
“So, did we get the data?” Young-Joon asked Bae Sun-Mi again.
“I also bet that you would ask, so I brought my laptop. I’ll show you the data.”
Bae Sun-Mi pulled out her laptop and put it on the side table beside the bed. The first slide that showed up when she opened the PowerPoint file was the brain dissection of an APP model mouse. An APP mouse referred to a Beta-Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) model mouse. This mouse had a V717F variant in the APP gene, so the beta-amyloid protein kept accumulating outside the brain cells. As human Alzheimer’s was also caused by beta-amyloid proteins accumulating in the brain, APP model mice were basically a recreation of human Alzheimer’s in mice.
“If you see here, you can see the formation of the amyloid plaque, and you can see the locations where synapses were lost,” Bae Sun-Mi said as she pointed to the checkmarks on the picture.
“As time passed, the brain was continuously destroyed to turn into this kind of shape.”
She turned to the next slide. The picture now showed a brain that had a much more contracted shape than before.
“And the result of the stem cell therapy Doctor Ryu created...”
She turned to the next slide. Ninety percent of the destroyed brain tissue had been recovered. Now, there was no noticeable difference compared to a healthy mouse’s brain.
“They also showed significant improvements in cognitive ability and memory tests. I think that one hundred percent of their brain will be recovered if we give them more time.”
“We succeeded.”
Young-Joon grinned.
“Yes.”
Bae Sun-Mi looked exhilarated.
“Doctor Ryu, rest well and take your time. I’ll be preparing for clinical trials.”
* * *
Young-Joon was getting ready to be discharged. He changed into his jeans and shirt, and organized his stuff that he had set up in his room.
As he was packing up his stuff, the news came on the television.
—Today, the prosecution indicted Ji Kwang-Man, a registered director of A-Gen, who was immediately arrested on charges of soliciting the murder of Doctor Ryu Young-Joon.
On the screen, Young-Joon saw Ji Kwang-Man being bombarded with camera flashes from the reporters.
—The prosecution suspects that Ji had planned a hit on Doctor Ryu Young-Joon after identifying him as a threat to management. They think that Ji saw him as a direct enemy as Doctor Ryu Young-Joon became famous after obtaining a large stake in the company and becoming a director. He is denying all charges.
Ji Kwang-Man’s short interview came out next.
—I did not commission anything like that. I heard that my name was mentioned by the broker, but I have never seen him before, and...
—On the other hand, the Korean Organization for Rare Diseases and A-Gen shareholders organized a rally condemning Ji today as well.
“Hello.”
When Young-Joon turned at the sound of a man’s voice, he saw a boy standing at the door. He was a big guy who was holding Ryu Ji-Won’s stuff.
“My name is Yang Dong-Wook, Ji-Won’s friend.”
“Hello. Thanks for helping out. Come in.”
“What happened to Ji-Won?”
She was sitting on the floor up until a few seconds ago, but she was gone now that Young-Joon saw. Then, they heard a scream from the small room.
“Ack! My room is amazing! It’s exhilarating!”
Ryu Ji-Won was jumping up and down in excitement.
“You like it that much?”
Young-Joon chuckled as he watched her from her room entrance.
“You haven’t lived in our dorm, right? It’s not a home. It’s basically like a human farm.”
“Farm...”
“Ask Dong-Wook. He lives in the dorm as well.”
Yang Dong-Wook nodded and added, “The upper floors hardly get any hot water.”
“Instead of getting water, they have cockroaches every now and then. The rooms are tiny, and they are not even sound-proof,” Ryu Ji-Won said with a feigned shiver as she thought about the disgusting circumstances.
“And I have a girl who’s a year older than me as one of my roommates, but man, I couldn’t live with her because she had no common courtesy. She kept putting on music and clacking her keyboard when I was sleeping.”
“Should I donate to Jungyoon University when I get rich so they can build some dorms? It is my university,” Young-Joon said.
“Then your name is going to be on the donor's plaque in the main hall. That’s cool.”
“I hate things like that.”
“Wouldn’t he get a memorial hall dedicated to him if he donated enough money to build a dorm?” Yang Dong-Wook said.
“You’re right. The Ryu Young-Joon Hall. There’s some empty land beside the engineering building, where they took down the Future Hall. I think they’re building a new building there, so they can name it the Ryu Young-Joon Hall.”
Ryu Ji-Won smirked.
“The Ryu Young-Joon Hall. That's hilarious. My oppa really is a great person.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“What? I’m serious. You saved me from a chicken pit.”
Ryu Ji-Won jumped into bed and laid down. She hugged her blankets and stretched.
“I was suffering from assignments and my job, but I can relax now...”
A silly expression crept onto Ryu Ji-Won’s face. Yang Dong-Wook saw her response and turned away with a faint red hue on his cheeks.
Young-Joon walked out of Ryu Ji-Won's room, he asked, “Dong-Wook, can I ask a personal question?”
“Of course!”
“Are you dating Ji-Won?”
“What? No!”
“I won’t say anything even if you are. I’m just curious. It’s normal for her to have a boyfriend since she’s all grown up now.”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“So you’re just here to help her as a friend?”
“Um... Actually...”
Yang Dong-Wook hesitated.
“I actually came here to see you, hyung...”[2]
“Mhm... Huh?”
‘What kind of twist is this?’
Yang Dong-Wook added, “I’m a big fan of you, and I’m in biological engineering. After you succeeded, a lot of students wanted to go to graduate school and work in Professor Ban Du-Il’s lab, the one where you got your doctorate from. And I’m one of them. Although, I still have a long ways to go until I go.”
“Professor Ban Du-Il.”
It was a nice name to hear.
‘I wonder if he’s doing well. I should go visit him.’
“Hyung, my dream is to get my doctorate at his lab and then go into A-Bio,” Yang Dong-Wook said. “It will be a really big company by then, right? Since it’s like ten years later.”
“... Yeah, sure. Probably?”
“You are the future of Korea’s science. Can I get your autograph after we organize everything?”
“But are you really releasing an Alzheimer’s cure?” Yang Dong-Wook asked him another question.
“Information about the research stages is confidential until we hand out press releases.”
“I had five million won that I saved from working, and I put all of it into A-Gen since they’re low right now because of Ji Kwang-Man. It’s going to be fine, right?”
“Five million?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should come to the special shareholders’ meeting and get some A-Bio shares. It won’t be a lot at the beginning, but you’ll be able to escape that chicken pit or human farm and move to your own place soon.”
1. Oppa is an informal way for younger females to refer to older males. It is used between friends, but also family. ?
2. Hyung is an informal way for a younger male to refer to an older male. ?