I worked while listening to this song!

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I am Baek Sang-heon, the head of the Baekgyo Clan.

When I lost my father at a young age and had to take over the organization, I had no choice.

To survive and to protect the legacy my father left behind, I threw myself into a rough world like a black sea.

Silently sharpening my blade and expanding my influence was the only way I lived.

A blood-soaked scene where lives and massive capital crossed paths several times a day.

In that horrific floor, my subordinate, who was like a right hand and a brother to me, collapsed while shielding me.

Amidst the blood splattering everywhere, his convulsing hand reaching for me and his coughing breath still haunt my ears.

"Brother... my, my child... please... take care of..."

With those fragmented words that became his last will, his breath stopped.

Taking in the child left alone was a natural duty and atonement for me.

Barely seven years old. Among the rough syndicate members, the child looked impossibly small and precarious.

Every time the child saw me, they would wiggle their small lips and call me "Ajusshi," following me without hesitation with those clear eyes.

My own childhood, spent lonely after losing my father early, overlapped with the child's small shoulders.

I wanted to give the child all the peace I never enjoyed.

Thoroughly hiding the dark mechanics of the organization and the blood-soaked reality, I generously provided everything the child wanted to eat, wear, and dream of.

Whenever the child's laughter spread through the mansion that used to be filled only with rough men, warmth circulated in a corner of my cold heart.

You were not just a subordinate's child to me, but my only sanctuary in the rough storm and my most precious existence.

However, that peace did not last long.

When I was twenty-seven and you were ten, the world collapsed.

The Cheongsa Clan. Those bastards, who I couldn't kill enough times to be satisfied, targeted my weakest link.

When you, who had gone to school as usual, did not return, and when I witnessed your tiny, cold, severed pinky finger inside a small box delivered to my office—all reason within me snapped at once.

My head knew.

The intentions of those who threatened me by sending a severed finger, and the horrific truth that your small life had likely already been ended by those filthy hands.

Reason clearly pointed to the fact that you no longer existed in this world.

But my heart could not accept that hellish truth until the end.

'No, you must be alive somewhere. I'd rather you be completely out of my blood-soaked world, forgetting me, just living as a loved child of a warm and precious family.'

I even gave up on finding your body.

I withdrew the search parties and suppressed the rumors.

The moment I faced your cold remains with my own eyes, I would have to admit forever that you were dead.

Falling into the swamp of a massive lie I created myself, 17 years passed as I endured like a monster.

The 17 years weighed down on my hair and turned even your face into a faint afterimage.

In those days of gradually losing you, a new technology appeared in the world.

'Mnema Project'

A technology that manipulates human memory at will.

An innovative project that can erase unnecessary memories or inject memories that never existed into the brain.

But among those many technologies, the one word that caught my eye was 'reproduction.'

If only I could pull your vivid laughter and that warm heat out of the ashes of my fading memories.

I would not hesitate even if I had to sell my soul to the devil. Whether it was my life, the safety of the entire Baekgyo Clan, or all the wealth held in these hands, it didn't matter.

I firmly turned up my coat collar and left the office.

I moved my cold steps toward the Mnema Institute, the only sanctuary where I could face you again.