Dae-Hyun did not sleep.

Not in the way people sleep. Not for rest, not for healing.

Sleep was no longer a refuge. It had become a place of weakness, a place where his mind wandered into chaos, where his grief clawed at him like rats in a cage. So, he abandoned it.

Instead, he spent his nights tethered to machines — to artificial intelligence systems that he had designed himself, built from the ground up with the help of a select group of engineers and neuroscientists. These AIs were not for profit. They were not for business. They were, at their core, tools of resurrection. He called them Persephone. They worked alongside world-class surgeons, geneticists, and cutting-edge neurosurgeons, all operating under his command in a labyrinthine underground facility hidden beneath the Kang estate.

In this quiet, sterile labyrinth, they worked on Soo-Ah.

Her body lay in a hyperbaric chamber, untouched by time, surrounded by IVs, wires, and the hum of machines. Every day, Dae-Hyun sent orders: inject this, run this scan, initiate neuro-stimulation. Every night, he poured over data — neural patterns, genetic maps, brainwave frequencies. There was always something new to try, always another procedure, another possibility.

Her coma was a puzzle. A riddle that could not be solved through traditional medicine. But Dae-Hyun had no use for tradition. Not anymore.

His obsession bled into every hour of his waking life. It was not enough that he had mastered the empire he had inherited. It was not enough that he was a success by every measurable metric. What mattered — what consumed him — was that he had to bring Soo-Ah back. To rebuild her. To restore her soul to a body that was still, still as the grave.

He consulted with neuro-engineers who specialized in artificial consciousness. He oversaw the development of deep-brain stimulation techniques that could potentially reawaken dormant neural pathways, but every day, he found himself staring at the blank screen in frustration. He could not wake her.

She was there, on the edge of his mind, but she was always out of reach.

By day, he was a machine. The empire he inherited was now fully his, and his transformation in the boardroom was as drastic as it was terrifying. No longer the spoiled, soft heir, Dae-Hyun was now an entity unto himself — the ultimate businessman, a creature of methodical efficiency and calculated cruelty.

There was no emotion in his decisions. No room for compromise. The directors of KGI quaked beneath his gaze, unsure of which version of their heir they were witnessing. The boy they had once known had become a ruthless, cold force. He was an automaton — and yet beneath that implacable exterior, there was the dark, relentless pulse of grief.

Every decision he made was surgical.

He reshaped Kang Group International with precision, cutting away all inefficiency, expelling any vulnerability. He bullied the board into compliance. Mergers were completed in half the time, negotiations ended before anyone could blink, competitors fell one after another, their acquisitions snatched away with frightening speed.

Dae-Hyun’s rise to dominance was brutal, but there was no joy in it. There was no satisfaction in his cold victories. Every time he shut down a competitor, his mind wandered back to Soo-Ah. Every time he closed a deal, he thought of how he could use this wealth, this influence, to bring her back.

In every meeting, in every room full of corporate elites, Dae-Hyun was a ghost — his eyes haunted, his face perfect, his mind miles away. But they didn’t dare question him. Not after what happened to the last man who did.

But in the darkness of the estate, in the hidden chambers beneath the mansion, Dae-Hyun’s true self was revealed.

His personal life had become a twisted reflection of his corporate life. He no longer ate for pleasure. He ate only for fuel, consuming meticulously measured meals to maintain the physique that he had forced into existence.

Pain had become his only anchor to the world of the living.

It began with small things — long, grueling hours in the gym, his body pushed to exhaustion. But soon, it escalated. It wasn’t enough to run on the treadmill for hours. It wasn’t enough to lift weights until his muscles screamed.

He needed more.

He began to exercise in ways that bordered on dangerous. His trainers would stand by in disbelief as he pushed himself to extremes, lifting weights that could have easily fractured his bones. He ran on the treadmill until his lungs screamed for air, then pushed himself beyond that, until dizziness clouded his vision.

Every drop of sweat was a reminder that he was still alive.

But even that — the physical strain, the exertion — couldn’t distract him for long. The relentless cycle of pain, exertion, and cold perfection became a shell, a facade. His body was changing, yes — his muscles sculpted into something almost inhuman, his bones lean and sharp, his face now a chiselled mask of ethereal handsomeness. But he didn’t care about any of it. It was nothing but a hollow effort to remind himself that he was still breathing.

Still fighting.

Still human.

But in the back of his mind, he knew. It wasn’t enough.

Nothing would ever be enough until he could wake Soo-Ah up.

His AI systems continued their work on Soo-Ah’s mind, processing new data with every passing day. Her neuro-pathways were mapped and remapped, every potential avenue of consciousness explored. He would sit at the central console, watching as the AI made predictions, tweaking settings, running simulations, running scans.

And then, one night, a flicker.

A signal. Just a tiny ripple.

Soo-Ah’s brainwaves had… shifted.

Not enough to make a full recovery, not yet. But for the first time in months, Dae-Hyun felt a tiny flame of hope ignite in the void of his chest.

It was small. It was fragile.

But for the first time since the crash, he allowed himself to smile. It was a twisted, hollow thing, devoid of warmth, but it was a smile nonetheless.