Chapter 232: Rosaline (7)

“W...Wait.”

Young-Joon stood up.

“Let’s take a five-minute break. Something urgent just came up.”

Young-Joon quickly stopped the meeting and ran outside. He called out to Rosaline as he walked toward his office.

“Rosaline.”

—...

There was no response. The status window didn’t even pop up.

‘Damn it.’

Young-Joon clutched his head as he entered his office. This was because of the pathogen; it must have caused something to go wrong.

‘That’s why I told her to just destroy it...’

—I’m not going to destroy it.

Rosaline’s message popped up.

“Rosaline!” Young-Joon shouted. “Where did you go? Are you okay?”

—I’m fine. I’m feeling a little nauseous, though.

Rosaline popped out of Young-Joon’s body. She changed into Ryu Sae-Yi and immediately flopped down on the couch.

—I’m really tired.

Lying down, Rosaline rolled her feet on the bed.

—Do you remember when I told you that I was becoming more and more like you, and that I was getting tired and craving sleep?

“Of course.”

—I’m like that right now.

Rosaline laid on the bed.

—It’s kind of like when you pass out into bed with a high fever when you catch a strong flu virus.

“Is it related to the pathogen you absorbed?”

—Yes.

Rosaline Rosaline was calmly lying on the bed.

—I never knew I could get infected with pathogens.

“... Why don’t you just spit out that gene?”

—Hm...

Rosaline thought for a moment. It was hard to put it into words, but the gene fit Rosaline like the final piece of a puzzle; it was probably because it was always a part of her.

—I think it will be better if I hold onto it.

“Really?”

—I was able to grow tremendously by going through the trauma of Ryu Sae-Yi in your brain.

“That’s when you were able to walk about outside of my body as Sae-Yi.”

—I think I might be able to grow like that if this turns out well.

Rosaline sounded confident.

—Give me a little more time. I’ll try to absorb this.

‘...’

—And I might fall asleep again, so don’t be surprised if I do.

Young-Joon stared at Rosaline with a slight frown on his face.

—Why are you looking at me like that?

Rosaline looked up at Young-Joon.

“I’m just a little worried.”

—What? About me?

“What if you push yourself and get hurt...”

—Haha, if I disappear, I guess it will be a major setback to your future research. But don’t worry, you already think a lot differently than a normal human being; you’ve developed an eye for reading the fundamentals of biology.

“That’s not it,” Young-Joon said. “We’ve used the same body for over a year now, and... You’re my closest friend. Sometimes, you’re like a kid, so I wonder if this is what it feels like to have a daughter. You look at Sae-Yi, so it sometimes feels like she’s come back alive; you’re like my little sister.

—...

“Don’t push yourself. Please. And don’t get hurt, kiddo.”

Young-Joon chuckled and pretended to flick Rosaline on the head.

Then, he went back to the conference room.

“I’m sorry, something urgent came up, but I took care of it. Where were we?” Young-Joon asked.

“We were talking about how we need to amend the law on clinical trials,” Song Ji-Hyun said.

“Oh, right.”

Young-Joon nodded.

“Alright. I’ll run it through our legal team.”

The meeting was over in about two hours.

“We’ll gather more data and meet again at this time next week,” said Young-Joon as he stood up.

As he was about to leave, Song Ji-Hyun stopped him.

“Doctor Ryu, do you want to have dinner together?” she asked.

Park Dong-Hyun, who heard them from behind, walked up to them.

“Oh, nice. We should... Ack!”

Jung Hae-Rim pinched his shoulder and stopped him from talking.

“We have a team dinner planned, so...”

Jung Hae-Rim dragged Park Dong-Hyun out with an awkward laugh.

“And you’re not invited today, sir,” Cheon Ji-Myung said jokingly and followed them out.

“But Nobel Prize recipients are welcome,” Bae Sun-Mi said, taking Carpentier out with them.

Young-Joon shrugged his shoulders in disbelief as he watched them.

“Well, I guess they’re off to dinner. Where should we go?” Young-Joon asked.

“There’s a new Korean restaurant in front of here. Do you want to go there?”

“... You still live near Jungyoon University, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then what about the izakaya we went to before?”

“Izakaya?”

“You know, the one we went to the first time we met. Late Night Kiyoi?”

“Oh!”

Song Ji-Hyun nodded.

“Sure.”

* * *

When Young-Joon and Song Ji-Hyun had just met, they had a drink together in a private room at a bar near Jungyoon University.

“Is it the first time we’ve had a drink together since then?” Young-Joon asked.

“No. We’ve had wine while having dinner together before, and we had a drink at the celebration party after the A-Bio Cancer Laboratory was completed,” Song Ji-Hyun said. “But you rarely drank.”

“Hm... I see. Actually, someone’s always nagging me when I drink.”

“But are you drinking today?” Song Ji-Hyun asked as Young-Joon raised his glass.

Then, he shrugged.

“They’re probably sleeping today.”

“Sleeping?”

“They got a stomach ache after eating something weird, so they took some medicine and fell asleep. I can probably drink today.”

—I’m not sleeping. Don’t drink.

Rosaline sent him a message. Young-Joon flinched. He quietly put down his glass.

“I should just stick to Coke.”

“I wonder who it is,” Song Ji-Hyun said.

“The person who’s nagging me?”

“Yes. Is it... your girlfriend?”

“Haha, no, of course not.”

Young-Joon shook his hand in denial. Song Ji-Hyun was a little relieved.

“Did you take care of the urgent business that you had earlier?” she asked.

“Yes, it ended well. I didn’t take up too much time, did I?”

“Yes. But I thought you were in trouble when you walked out because you were completely pale. We were going to pack up because we thought the meeting was over, but we were surprised since you came back sooner than we expected. What happened?” Song Ji-Hyun asked. “I actually asked you to dinner because I was worried about that.”

Young-Joon took a few sips of his Coke.

He couldn’t explain anything about Rosaline, not because he didn’t trust her, but because he was worried about how crazy it sounded to have a biologically omniscient genius cell living inside his body.

As such, Young-Joon deflected the conversation by asking another question.

“Doctor Song,” Young-Joon said. “What do you think about scientists who misuse science?”

He was just trying to change the subject, but after asking, he became genuinely curious. Rosaline and he had been arguing about this, but they hadn’t come to a conclusion yet.

“A scientist who misuses science?”

“That’s the dilemma I’ve always felt while running A-GenBio. I’m talking about people like President Chen Shue, for example,” Young-Joon said. “In the end, he got an artificial heart transplant at Next Generation Hospital, right? A regime change seems to be happening in China centered around Governor Yang Gunyu, but the president who did the crazy act of kidnapping and killing healthy people for organ harvesting is still alive.”

“Sure.”

“He’s alive because of the technology I developed,” Young-Joon said. “You know the virus that went around in Xinjiang?”

“Yes.”

“Some terrorists from the Middle East developed that, and they did a lot of genetic engineering to create that virus. They probably used CRISPR-Cas9 for that, since it’s the easiest and most convenient genetic scissors,” Young-Joon said. “And as you know, I invented Cas9. And people like He Jiankui used those genetic scissors to manipulate human genes and give birth to immunodeficient babies.”

“Do you feel guilty?” Song Ji-Hyun asked.

“No, not necessarily, but...”

“It makes you a little uncomfortable, right?”

“Yes.”

Song Ji-Hyun took a sip of her drink.

“The reason it makes you feel that way is because you’re an ethical person, Doctor Ryu,” she said. “It would be great if only people like you did science in the world, but that’s not realistic.”

“...”

“About ten years ago, a scientist who was the chief scientific advisor to the British government published something called the Universal Ethical Code for Scientists.”

“The Universal Ethical Code for Scientists?”

“It was announced because he thought scientists should also have something like the Hippocratic Oath for doctors, but it didn’t have much of an impact. It wasn’t well-known, either,” Song Ji-Hyun. “Even you don’t know it, and you’re the most powerful ethical scientist in the world.”

“...”

Young-Joon’s ears were flushed in embarrassment.

“It’s because scientists don’t really care about codes of ethics and things like that. And frankly, scientists are mostly arrogant in nature and kind of insensitive to ethics,” Song Ji-Hyun said. “But Doctor Ryu.”

Song Ji-Hyun leaned into Young-Joon.

“The whole academic community was impacted when you held a conference in Beijing to announce the moratorium, did you know that? All the top scientists swarmed to the conference, and subsequent declarations of the moratorium came from all over the world.”

“...”

“Even though it was a declaration to slow down the pace of research, they all agreed based on bioethics and followed you, Doctor Ryu. You haven’t just been making advances in technology,” Song Ji-Hyun said. “The academic world is changing. The battlefield that you’ve been fighting isn’t just about humanity and disease; it’s also the battlefield of scientists and unethicality. And I think you’ve had a lot of victories there as well.”

“Do you think so...” “Yes, so don’t worry too much.”

Song Ji-Hyun poured Young-Joon a glass of liquor.

“Shall we toast for the ethical and progressive future of science?”

Song Ji-Hyun raised her own glass, then paused.

“Oh, you said you weren’t going to drink. Right?”

—One glass.

Rosaline sent a message.

—I’ll let you have one glass.

“I’ll have just one glass, then.”

Young-Joon chuckled and raised his glass.

* * *

“You’re really good at making lawyers suffer, you know that?” Park Dong-Hyun complained to Young-Joon. “This is the only pharmaceutical company in the world that asks the National Assembly to change the law so they can conduct clinical trials on cadavers.”

“I’m sorry. Please keep up the good work,” Young-Joon said.

“Are you going to kidnap some aliens next year and ask me to help you do clinical trials on them?”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but that’s a really good idea.”

“Geez...”

“So, how’s it going?” Young-Joon asked, leaning back against the desk.

“Well, we’re first looking for people in the Assembly who can initiate and push for an amendment to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act. A congresswoman named Yang Hye-Sook is going to propose the amendment for us.”

“Yang Hye-Sook?”

“Yeah. She used to teach biological engineering at Jungyoon University.”

“Wait, I think I know her.”

Young-Joon’s eyes widened.

“You probably do because it hasn’t been long since she gave up her professorship and went into politics. She was probably there when you were doing your degree,” Park Joo-Hyuk said.

“Oh... I should go see her.”