Chapter 15: Year-End Seminar (2)

People usually gathered freely for the year-end seminar. If all the scientists at the lab were close to each other, they would rent a bus and go together. If the departments all worked individually without a lot of joint projects, they would go separately by department. It was the latter for Lab Six.

Choi Myung-Joon and Seo Yoon-Ju of the Health Food Department arrived at the conference and walked over to where the coffee was. They greeted Hyun Mi-Ju.

“Heya~ Lead Scientist Hyun, it’s been a while.”

Choi Myung-Joon greeted her and shook her hand.

“Hello. How have you been?” Hyun Mi-Ju asked.

“Great. Are there any outstanding achievements from Lab One this year?”

“Haha, just wait and see. We have something huge. We did an important project with Scientist Park’s team over here,” Hyun Mi-Ju said to Choi Myung-Joon as she put her hand on Park So-Yeon’s shoulder and pulled her close.

“We also did something big with Scientist Seo over here, too,” Choi Myung-Joon replied with a chuckle.

“Is that so? It looks like our departments have bright futures. You guys should get to know each other since you are both young scientists. Both of you will lead the company in the future.”

“Haha, Yoon-Ju here is already leading our team. She contributed a lot in creating this year’s achievements.”

“Is that so? Do you have something good?” Hyun Mi-Joo asked.

“Similar to the year before. You said the Anticancer Drug Research team made something important. Can you tell me in advance?”

“Haha, you can see it when we present it later. The Award for Exceptional Performance is going to be ours this year.”

“Now that I think of it, a celebrity in our lab who has only been at A-Gen for a year said that their team was going to get the award.” Choi Myung-Joon mentioned.

“Celebrity?”

“The person who cursed Lab Director Kim Hyun-Taek in the face.”

“...”

“Ryu Young-Joon?”

“Yes.”

“Ahaha!”

Hyun Mi-Ju burst out in laughter. Park So-Yeon also covered her mouth and lowered her head, trying to keep in her laughter.

“Did Young-Joon say that?” Hyun Mi-Ju asked.

“Yes. That’s what he said.”

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

“

Pfft...

Well, Young-Jun is good, but...

Chuckle...

Oh my, what should we do about that rascal? It’s both funny and pitiful.”

“How was he at your department?” Choi Myung-Joon asked.

“He was smart and was good at his job. He was fine, but the problem was that he was too uptight. People don’t keep their mouths shut about the company being corrupt because they’re bad people, right? It bothered people that he thought he was better than everyone else. Going on and on about research ethics and whatnot. Phew,

just an amazing scientist

,

really.

”

“Haha, he was kind of like that in Lab Six as well. He had a little bit of conflict with Yoon-Ju over here, and it took a weird turn.”

“And no matter how great they are, it’s still the Life Creation Department. How would they get the award?”

“We laughed a while about it, too. I was starting to get worried about his well-being.”

“Hahaha!”

As the three of them were trying to calm their laughter, the main entrance doors opened, and the Life Creation Department came in.

“Hello.”

Park Dong-Hyun and Jung Hae-Rim walked into the conference room and grabbed some coffee.

“Hello.”

Hyun Mi-Ju, Choi Myung-Joon, and Park So-Yeon slowly approached and greeted them.

“Hello, it’s been a while.” Park Dong-Hyun returned the greeting.

“Where is Doctor Ryu Young-Joon?” Choi Myung-Joon asked.

“He’s on his way.”

“The seminar is starting soon.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll be here soon.”

“Koh Soon-Yeol isn’t here either? I need my dry cleaning fee,” Seo Yoon-Ju said to them.

Choi Myung-Joon chuckled.

“See you inside,” Park Dong-Hyun replied.

He grabbed his coffee and walked to their table. The Life Creation Department’s seats were at the very end of the conference room. They only had five chairs even though they had six people. One of the chairs was a cheap one without a back to it, which looked like something someone would bring with them for fishing. The organizers were purposefully trying to mess with them, but the Life Creation Department wasn’t very angry.

“You arrived before us.”

There were two more superiors in the Life Creation Department: there were Principal Scientist Cheon Ji-Myung and Lead Scientist Bae Sun-Mi. They had both been assigned to Cheonan, but they were doing work completely unrelated to their department.

They were helping the GMO Development Department by harvesting genetically modified winter spinach. A-Gen just labeled it as helping the GMO Development Department, but it really was just a way to insult them.

How would doctors who spent their entire lives reading papers and had twenty years of experience with experimentation feel if they were told to go harvest spinach in the middle of winter at a farm? It wasn’t about thinking one job was more valuable or sophisticated than the other; it was about how insulting it was to suddenly assign a professional of a certain subject to do something completely unrelated to their field of expertise.

They had to work outside, shivering in the cold, without proper equipment. And there was no way that other people would stay at a company if they were called slow or stupid while doing something they had never done before. However, they endured it.

“We’re glad you’re back,” Park Dong-Hyun said. He glanced at Cheon Ji-Myung and Bae Sun-Mi with pity.

“We left a lot of unfilled gaps in our work because we left so suddenly, right? You did well, Doctor Park. How did the preparations go for today’s presentation?”

“Well, we finished making the slides.”

Park Dong-Hyun handed Cheon Ji-Myung a USB. Normally, it was the rule for the principal scientist from each department to present. However, Principal Scientist Cheon Ji-Myung didn’t even have a chance to look at the presentation files yet as they could not send it out of the company until this morning because of the security system, and because Cheon Ji-Myung was up until one o’clock in the morning harvesting spinach.

“

Sigh

...”

Park Dong-Hyun explained it to him on the phone, but he wasn’t confident at all. He added some more bad news.

“There’s one problem. The slides in this USB were made from data from two weeks ago.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cheon Ji-Myung frowned.

“We were really busy for the past two weeks with a different project,” Park Dong-Hyun replied.

“Man, did you guys harvest spinach, too?” Bae Sun-Mi asked like she felt bad for them.

“It’s nothing like that. The new member of our department started a new project on his own, but it hit the jackpot, so we were all over the place because we needed to get data for that.”

“Jackpot?”

“I’m sorry for not telling you in advance. We got the data just a couple weeks ago so... I was doubtful at first, but I became really busy once it became clear.”

“What are you talking about? Where is that new member?”

“Um...” Park Dong-Hyun hesitated.

At eight o’clock in the morning before heading to the seminar hall, Park Dong-Hyun, Jung Hae-Rim and Young-Joon were finalizing their presentation data at their office. They put data about Park Dong-Hyun’s life creation project first, then put the data about the embryonic stem cells Young-Joon made after it. The goal was to quickly go over the first part, as it was easy for them to be attacked for it, and come down from the stage with a huge round of applause by emphasizing the later part.

But as they almost finished editing their slides...

“

Kiseki-yo!

”

Koh Soon-Yeol ran into the office all out of breath.

“What is it?” Park Dong-Hyun turned to face him and asked.

“It differentiated into a muscle cell!”

“It differentiated?”

Young-Joon and Jung Hae-Rim shouted and shot up from their seats.

“Wait.”

Park Dong-Hyun quickly calculated the time in his head. It was too late to add that data to their presentation now, but it was evidence much too powerful to give up.

Right now, the only data in their presentation was that they reverted a regular cell into an embryonic stem cell. But what if they were to say that they were able to differentiate that back into a heart muscle cell? That would complete the storyline of their experimental data. With this, they could argue that this technology could be used to treat patients who needed a heart transplant. Instead of looking for an organ donor and waiting, they could just swab the inside of a patient’s mouth, grow a heart, and transplant that into the patient.

A technology that only seemed possible in science fiction was now possible.

“Sunbaes, this presentation will be worth half as much if the data that the cell differentiated into a heart muscle cell isn’t included,” Young-Joon exclaimed.

“You’re right.” Park Dong-Hyun agreed and nodded. He added, “Let’s do this. Doctor Ryu, stay here with Soon-Yeol and organize the data to create a new part for the embryonic stem cell.”

Jung Hae-Rim looked shocked as he told everyone the plan.

“Are you crazy? We have so little time right now that we should be on a taxi headed to the conference hall right now.”

“I know, but we can’t exclude that data. And our lab will most likely be the last one to present.”

She was even more shocked.

“So are you saying that we should enter during the seminar?”

“That’s the best we can do.”

“What if it becomes our turn before Young-Joon gets there?”

“That is why Hae-Rim, you, will go first to prevent that worst-case scenario,” Park Dong-Hyun replied.

“...”

“We’re going to give Manager Cheon the data about the life creation experiment. If the situation you said happens, he will talk about the data from that experiment and buy us some time. I’ll call Doctor Ryu and let him know. When that happens, you stop everything you are doing and call a taxi with the stuff you have done. It takes twenty minutes from here to the conference room, and Manager Cheon can hold them off for more than thirty minutes.”

There was nothing but silence between the four people.

“What do you think? I’m not forcing you, though. Even if we take out the data about the cell differentiating into a heart muscle cell, this can still be an excellent presentation.”

“Then let’s take it out.”

Young-Joon was firm in his decision. Park Dong-Hyun was surprised as it was a bit out of character; considering Young-Joon’s personality, he thought that Young-Joon would ask to go all in even if they were biting off more than they could chew.

“Why?”

“If what Dong-Hyun sunbae says really happens, I have to interrupt and come up onto the stage while Manager Cheon presents.”

“You can. You can’t even do that when you called Kim Hyun-Taek human garbage right to his face?”

“I can do that, but how would that make Manager Cheon feel?”

“...”

“How bad would he feel if a new member ran the stage to present this huge accomplishment while he would have just been berated?”

“...”

Park Dong-Hyun, Jung Hae-Rim and Koh Soon-Yeol stared at Young-Joon for a few seconds with their jaws on the floor.

“Pfft.

” Park Dong-Hyun suddenly began laughing.

“Phahaha!” Then, all three of them burst out in laughter.

“Ah! Crazy!”

Jung Hae-Rim hit him on the shoulder, and Park Dong-Hyun even wiped tears from his eyes.

“W-Why?” Young-Joon asked.

“Doctor Ryu, you are... very kind.” Park Dong-Hyun replied.

“

Chuckle

... Ah, I’m trying... Manager Cheon, you lived a good life... Even getting a subordinate that cares about you,” Jung Hae-Rim added as she also wiped tears away from her eyes.

“Thank you for worrying, Young-Joon, but you don’t have to worry about Manager Cheon. I told you that I’ve been at Lab Six for a really long time, right? And I can’t even say that I’m good at ignoring them in front of Manager Cheon.”

Koh Soon-Yeol nodded and interfered.

“He has been in our department for so long, he’s basically rotting...”

“Young-Joon, he may not look like it, but he spent sixteen years at the Life Creation Department. You don’t have to worry about him,” Jung Hae-Rim added again.

“He’s like a professional tanker or something.

Ningen no namae wa

tough-

desu

..” Koh Soon-Yeol added again. [1]

Park Dong-Hyun gathered up everything with a chuckle.

“And even if you got to the seminar early, you probably won’t be able to explain the embryonic stem cell project to him. Either way, you have to get up there and talk about it yourself, Doctor Ryu. We don’t have the confidence to explain it either. Of course, it’s breaking the rules, but it’s okay since our results are so good that it’ll easily trump small problems like that.”

“...”

“And Manager Cheon was criticized in the company for sixteen years. He would love it if his subordinate embarrassed the lab director. I’m actually worried that he’ll giggle as he thinks about the embryonic stem cells while presenting and getting berated by them.”

“...Okay, let’s do that,” Young-Joon replied.

“Good.”

“The two of you should go now. Soon-Yeol sunbae and I will organize the data as quickly as possible and follow you.”

Park Dong-Hyun grinned, took out the entire part about embryonic stem cells from the presentation files, and pressed save, saving the file as another name.

1.

“Ningen no namae wa

tough

-desu

means “That human's name is tough.” ?