BWLHF 03

Chapter 3

“Urgh… ugh.”

“Ah, ever since we increased the dosage, he’s been throwing up nonstop. His test results are normal, though.”

With the payment doubled, the dosage of the injections had also been doubled.

The body they had expected to endure it well convulsed violently every time Young-in received an injection, and he vomited as though he were about to expel every organ in his abdomen.

His body was instinctively rejecting the drugs.

“Let’s put him to sleep for a while and administer the rest again in two hours. Young-in, go get some sleep.”

Young-in would collapse unconscious in his private room, only to be carried back once he had passed out, where they would inject him with the remaining dose.

From that point onward, he began begging them not to inject him anymore.

He cried and ran away from them.

Even so, they couldn’t stop the experiment.

Young-in was the only person in all of South Korea who had survived Phase 0 Trials 2, 3, and 4.

“Let’s stop after this month, Young-in. If we continue any longer, you’re going to die.”

Perhaps they still had some conscience left.

The research institute ordered Young-in to leave after he had endured nine months of the extended trial.

Young-in used more than half of the money he had received during the extension period to pay off the loan sharks and clear the rest of his debt.

Then, with a light heart, he finally walked out of the research institute.

“…The sun.”

He hadn’t exactly been deprived of sunlight while inside the institute, but strangely, simply crossing over the boundary wall filled him with an overwhelming sense of awe.

It felt as though he had escaped from a dark underground world and was seeing the sun in the sky for the very first time.

“The bus… Ah, is that the one I should take?”

Waiting for the bus with a carefree heart, Young-in decided to head straight for the city.

He planned to rent a small room and slowly rebuild his life from the ground up.

But before he could even board the bus, a group of loan sharks suddenly appeared, grabbed him, and shoved him into a van.

With a cloth pulled over his head, Young-in was taken to some warehouse whose location he couldn’t identify.

The moment he was brought before the man who had lent him the money, Young-in clung desperately to the man’s leg.

“W-Why are you doing this, sir?! I-I paid you back!”

“That’s right. You paid it all back. But the source of that money was pretty interesting, wasn’t it? I heard you made it easily by getting injections of some new drug at a hospital. Kid, you’re pretty clever for someone so young. Did you eat well? Get plenty of rest?”

Inside the dark room, the men lightly traced the tip of a sharp scalpel over Young-in’s abdomen as they chuckled and made chilling jokes.

Young-in couldn’t understand why he had been brought to a place like this after paying off his entire debt.

“You didn’t secretly have one of your organs removed somewhere without telling your brothers, did you? If you’ve been resting at a research institute for over a year while getting nutritional injections, your body should be in perfect condition. Let’s just open you up for a little bit and take a look before closing you back up.”

“What are you talking about? That’s impossible, ngh…!”

A human body wasn’t some kind of bag that could simply be opened and closed for a moment.

But before Young-in could do anything, the men grabbed his arms and legs and placed him on a cold operating table.

His hands and feet were restrained with tight belts, and his mouth was sealed shut with duct tape as he struggled helplessly.

The loan sharks laughed.

“Draw his blood first. It’d be a waste to throw away even a single drop.”

When they rolled up his long sleeves, his snow-white forearms were covered in countless needle marks, blackened as though someone had sprinkled them with black sesame seeds.

The man frowned and gently stroked Young-in’s cheek.

“My goodness, look at those arms. They’re a complete mess…”

“Young-in, you shouldn’t be this responsible, you know? You’re gonna make your big brother cry. I’m seriously touched!”

“Mmph! Mm, mmph! Ngh, mmph!”

The men rolled up both of Young-in’s sleeves and simultaneously pulled out syringes.

“We’ll be done in no time. That’s it, good boy. Here we go. Just a little prick.”

Even at the hospital where they had treated him like livestock, they had always drawn only one vial of blood at a time because they were afraid he might go into shock.

But despite Young-in’s resistance, needles were inserted into both arms simultaneously.

“D-Dizzy… Sir… ngh… I’m getting dizzy…”

One bag.

Two bags.

Three bags…

The blood was drawn recklessly, and Young-in’s complexion began to turn pale in real time.

His consciousness gradually grew hazy.

Just before he lost consciousness, the syringes were finally removed.

The last thing he saw was the smiles of the men as they carried away six bags of his freshly drawn blood.

“We don’t even need to use a muscle relaxant. He’s already completely out of it.”

“Dr. Lee will be here soon with the blood sample test results. Get the scalpel and the bucket ready. When we send the shipment to Hong Kong today, we’ll add one more domestic item.”

“What if they say his condition isn’t good?”

“Then, well…”

Young-in’s eyelids felt heavy.

I spent two years killing myself trying to pay off that debt, and this is how it ends.

Still…

Isn’t this too much?

If there’s a God, He shouldn’t do this to me.

What… what did I do that was so wrong?

All I ever did was live every day prepared to die…

Someone… please… anyone…

Please save me…

Young-in’s pale lips moved desperately, pleading for salvation.

And just as he slowly closed his eyes—

“YOU SON OF A—!”

BANG!

The door suddenly flew open.

A man stormed inside and immediately spotted Young-in lying dazed on the operating table.

His face twisted violently.

He hurriedly threw open the window.

The loan sharks standing beside Young-in looked startled and quickly got to their feet.

“W-What’s going on? Why are you acting like that?”

“What’s going on? You knew, didn’t you? You knew, you bastard!”

“Knew what, you fucking—?!”

The doctor who had opened the window grabbed the loan shark by the collar.

“This guy was a Phase 0 trial subject! Forget the new drug bullshit—there are dozens of viruses accumulated in this bastard’s body! And you were trying to dump this piece of meat on me?! Fuck! And of all things, his blood splashed into my eye…”

The doctor trembled with rage.

He furiously rubbed at his reddened eyes, then kicked the operating table where Young-in was lying.

CRASH!

The bed toppled sideways with a tremendous noise.

Young-in, who was tightly secured by the Velcro restraints, was dragged down with it and slammed onto the cold floor.

At the mention of the word virus, the men who had brought Young-in there hesitated as they watched him twitch on the floor.

“Th-Then what happens? Is it only transmitted through blood? Or… what about saliva or other bodily fluids? Can it spread that way or not?!”

“Yes, you fucking idiots! He’s basically a walking mass of pathogens! A mass of extremely fucking dangerous pathogens!”

“Then what about the deal? We already drew six bags of blood!”

The doctor frantically washed his eyes with cleaning solution before putting on several layers of masks.

“If you want to die together, keep handling him like you are and go ahead and sell him. The hospital had already used that bastard until there was nothing left and then thrown him away. And you idiots thought you’d make some money by picking him up…”

“Forget it. Get rid of him and get out! Disinfect everything! Disinfect it!”

The doctor suddenly stopped.

“No, wait. You guys touched him just now, didn’t you?”

“Fuck! Then don’t come any closer!”

The men fled the room, shouting about viruses and calling Young-in a rotten piece of meat.

They didn’t even have the presence of mind to close the door behind them.

Young-in was rescued exactly one day later.