Chemistry

10. Special Research: Venice Entropy(2)

「Yoon Yi-seol」 – Santa Lucia Station Dock

Standing at the water bus dock known as “Baporettora” Yoon Yi-seol held up her ‘1-day unlimited pass’ to the ticket machine in front of Santa Lucia Station and turned her head. As Jeong-woo scanned the routes listed on the information board, she pointed ahead.

“Was it the Castello area? It’s this way. B line.”

“Are you sure? I remember the last time you went grocery shopping, you got lost finding the way…”

“Oh? Did I?”

Yoon Yi-seol, now at ease, waved her travel booklet with a confident smile.

“Don’t worry. I’m quite resourceful when I’m abroad. In LA, I even went to Disneyland on my own.”

“You’ve been to LA too?”

“Where else would I have gone? I’ve accumulated quite a bit of frequent flyer miles.”

She cleared her throat and then observed Jeong-woo’s reaction.

She didn’t want to give the impression that she was following him around for no reason. Since she had come all the way to Venice on purpose, she hoped to stay close to Jeong-woo as long as he didn’t mind.

There was also a small sense of anticipation that if the right moment and atmosphere presented itself, she might just confess her feelings.

Fortunately, Jeong-woo’s gaze turned toward the canal.

“Well then, I’ll trust you, Yi-seol. I came here suddenly without any preparations.”

Having achieved her goal of accompanying Jeong-woo, Yoon Yi-seol sighed in relief and signaled the approaching vaporetto.

“That’s it. The B line.”

“With the heavy engine noise, the boat set sail.

Leaning against the railing, Yoon Yi-seol’s attention was quickly captivated by the cityscape that unfolded along the wide canal. There were old buildings with beautiful brown roofs, standing like sentinels. Small and large waterways extended in all directions like spiderwebs.

Yoon Yi-seol, who had been exclaiming ‘Wow’ repeatedly, took a deep breath, reminding herself to appear composed, just like someone with a lot of experience traveling abroad. Then, she glanced at Jeong-woo and grinned.

“Wow. What’s that? Everywhere you look is like a painting. Yi-seol, could you take a picture with that background? I want to show it off to Soo-chan.”

Jeong-woo, who was too busy looking around to pay much attention to Yoon Yi-seol’s dilemma, dismissed it in one breath.

As they moved further into the city along the S-shaped canal, the movement of the gondolas, traditional Venetian rowing boats, increased. At some point, Yoon Yi-seol’s gaze was fixed on a couple sitting in one of them.

They leaned on each other, exchanging hearty laughter, unmistakably a newlywed couple. Lovers whispering to each other while gazing at the same things. It was envy-inducing and heartwarming.

“What are you looking at, Yi-seol?”

Lost in the romantic sight, Yoon Yi-seol pointed toward a dock where several gondolas were neatly anchored.

“That.”

Watching the oak stake caught at the tip of Yoon Yi-seol’s fingertips, Jeong-woo responded casually as he passed by.

“Oh. That’s aged wood, more than a hundred years old. It’s become incredibly solid due to the rich minerals in the water, like a fossil.”

Jeong-woo’s gaze, strangely luminous, always seemed to make Yoon Yi-seol’s heart race. With curiosity sparked, she turned her finger to point at an elegant wooden bridge.

“How about that? Is it also solid?”

“No. They applied wood preservative to that one. Ah, it won’t last long. Maybe about five years. After that, the joints will wear out, so don’t pass through it.”

“When that time comes, I’ll be careful. What about that?”

“Most of the stone bridges are fine, but some parts are made of sedimentary rock. You know, sand mixed with various rocks. The moment the reaction rates differ significantly in the sedimentary layers, it becomes dangerous. Not immediately, though. Maybe in about 50 years?”

With each movement of her finger, Jeong-woo explained without hesitation when and where the structures might break. Some parts were easy to understand, while others were completely unfamiliar, but Yoon Yi-seol kept listening. It somehow reminded her of the conversations she had observed among the couples on the gondolas.

“When I become a grandmother, you have to be careful. I might forget, so it would be nice if you came with me, Jeong-woo.”

“In 50 years? I don’t even know if I’ll be alive.”

Yoon Yi-seol watched Jeong-woo, who was scratching his chin, and a playful smile formed on her lips.

Under the sky covered with soft, white clouds, the pleasant smell of the salty breeze wafted over, carried by a gentle wind that rustled their hair.

As the boat passed under stone bridges, Jeong-woo, wiping his eyes, said.

“We’ve talked about everything. It must be boring, Yi-seol.”

“No!”

Twenty minutes passed, and Yoon Yi-seol hoped they could stay like this forever. The vaporetto arrived at a dock in the Castello area.”

「Han Jeong-woo」 – Calle Magno Street

Jeong-woo walked down a street lined with modest-looking houses, carefully inspecting the house numbers posted above the doors.

‘2696. Where the heck is this?’

Usually, house numbers were sequential, with the next number being one higher than the previous one. However, here, it seemed they assigned numbers based on the order in which the buildings were constructed, resulting in a chaotic sequence. Most of the houses were so old that the numbers weren’t even visible in some of them.

As he wandered through the maze of alleyways not shown on the map, he found himself completely disoriented.

Seeing Yoon Yi-seol struggling to keep up, Jeong-woo turned his head. But before their eyes met, Yoon Yi-seol apologized.

“I’m sorry. I can’t find it.”

Jeong-woo shook his head.

“In a place like this, anyone who can find a house in one go is the strange one.”

As he passed through yet another alley, Jeong-woo suddenly stopped and stood still. He had spotted a peculiar building with an unusual ventilation structure near the roof. Despite other buildings deteriorating, this ventilation structure remained intact.

“Wait a moment.”

Yoon Yi-seol stopped in her tracks at Jeong-woo’s gesture.

The house number on the door had the last digit faded, but Jeong-woo examined it carefully. The traces of dye confirmed that this was 2696.

Trying to tell Yoon Yi-seol that he had found it, Jeong-woo hesitated for a moment, then pointed to the door and asked.

“Doesn’t this look like it?”

Yoon Yi-seol, showing the address on her phone, carefully examined the door.

“2696? It might be, or it might not be…”

Jeong-woo, who had been fiddling with the combination that Seung-guk’s had provided, sighed in relief when it clicked open.

“Wow, we found it. You’re amazing, Yi-seol.”

“… Yes? It was just a month ago when we went to the market. I didn’t know much about the world then.”

Yoon Yi-seol accepted Jeong-woo’s compliment with an air of confidence.

They were interrupted by the sound of creaking stairs.

“There’s no first floor. This structure is peculiar.”

Jeong-woo, who had opened the door to reveal a dusty table and display stand, faced a facility that was far from KG Chemical’s private lab. Except for beakers, flasks, and similar equipment that were common in experiments around the world, the place was filled with equipment that seemed like something out of a 19th-century scientist’s laboratory.

Yoon Yi-seol followed behind and admired the interior.

“It looks like an old movie set.”

“That’s how everything is around here.”

Jeong-woo picked up a pair of platinum forceps that had not corroded despite the rest of the equipment, confirming that this was real silver. He guessed it was Seung-guk’s personality to leave expensive tools lying around like this.

Yoon Yi-seol, standing close to Jeong-woo, asked, “What is this place?”

“It’s someone’s private research lab. I need to make a call first.”

Jeong-woo opened the wooden window on one side of the lab to let in some fresh air and dialed Seung-guk’s number.

-Have you arrived? It took you an hour. You must have gotten lost.

“Doctor, this place doesn’t look to be clean at all.”

Jeong-woo wiped the dust off the table with his hand and shook his head.

-Then clean it up.

“Clean?”

-If you go down there with a ladder, you’ll find a row of storage compartments. There should be cleaning supplies among them. The water tank should be full too.

Having flown nearly 9,000 km from Seoul to do nothing more than dusting was somewhat heartbreaking, but the other person was a person who had the ability to give Jeong-woo a new life and was also his employer. He had no choice but to comply.

“Sure, I’ll take care of it.”

-Oh, and among the storage compartments, there’s one with electricity. It’s a compound refrigeration facility. Find G proteins in there and try the language activation switch combination I mentioned earlier.

After the call ended, Jeong-woo looked at a square passage and a ladder on one side. Then, he glanced at Yoon Yi-seol, who was curiously playing with an antique scale.

“Yi-seol, it looks like I have to clean up around here…”

“Shall I help?”

“In that case, I feel even more sorry for you. You can take a break here.”

“If you feel sorry, buy me a delicious lunch.”

Yoon Yi-seol replied like this and placed her bag on the table, rolling up her sleeves.

After a moment.

Jeong-woo began the task of scrubbing the floor, filling a bucket with water and using a mop. Yoon Yi-seol, with a handkerchief on her face, started dusting the shelves above. Unlike her, who was humming a tune, Jeong-woo let out a deep sigh.

As he rinsed the mop, black water dripping from it, Jeong-woo shifted his gaze to the view outside the window. A city filled with awe-inspiring buildings as far as the eye could see.

‘What are we doing here?’

After thirty minutes of cleaning, the floor’s pattern was revealed. Jeong-woo, pushing the mop back and forth in the bucket, finally stood up with a groan.

“Ah, my back.”

Yoon Yi-seol, who was tidying up the table, looked at Jeong-woo with a playful smile.

“You worked hard, Mr. Jeong-woo.”

“You did too, Ms. Yi-seol. Let’s stop here, shall we? We’ve cleaned enough. Let’s find a nice restaurant for lunch.”

“Just this one last thing. This pair of tongs sparkles so much; it’s hard to resist polishing it some more.”

Jeong-woo said to Yoon Yi-seol, who was smiling while holding up the tongs.

“It’s silver, that’s why.”

“Is that so?”

Yoon Yi-seol examined the tongs closely. They even had the initials CSG engraved in elegant italics.

The tools were scattered so extravagantly, almost to an absurd degree when compared to their value. She was surprised to learn that all of it was silver.

After giving the large mop one final rinse and hanging it by the window, Jeong-woo descended to the first floor using a ladder.

He opened a refrigerated box in the storage room.

With a slight hiss, the cold air brushed against Jeong-woo’s fingertips.

‘Where is the active protein…?’

Inside the box, thumb-sized vials were neatly organized. Jeong-woo took one out and held it up to the light pouring in from above.

A transparent liquid. It was a solution with diluted protein molecules.

‘Seems like something from the epidermal growth factor family?’

A specific chemical released when the skin is damaged, helping stimulate the growth and division of certain cells, aiding in the healing process. When he picked up the vial beside it, he noticed that it had similar components to epinephrine. In other words, adrenaline. This was a substance that needed to be used carefully.

Most of the items inside the refrigerator were compounds that sent signals to cells, converting the body’s neural responses.

‘Combine signaling proteins that stimulate the language neural circuit, is that what he meant?’

As he contemplated this, a few molecules floated into Jeong-woo’s field of vision like ethereal apparitions.

‘Shall we mix these?’

Jeong-woo laid out several vials on the table and took out a pipette. As he skillfully transferred the solutions to test tubes and mixed them, Yoon Yi-seol, who had been admiring the silver tools, grew curious and approached.

“What is this?”

“This? This one is trisodium phosphate, and this is diascylglycerol…”

Jeong-woo, who had been immersed in the world of molecules, suddenly snapped back to reality.

“It’s just a simple medicine. I have to take it in a little while.”

“Oh, where does it hurt?”

It was a task that would be over soon, so there was no need for elaborate excuses.

“Oh… I feel a bit of a cold coming on.”

Jeong-woo answered this way and examined the solution in the test tube, which had just been completed.

‘Can it really handle all four languages? Well, if it works, thank goodness.’

He made up his mind and swallowed it as it was.

The solution entered his stomach and quickly broke down, spreading throughout his body along the nerves. It felt similar to when he had taken ‘AF-12,’ causing discomfort.

‘Ugh, it tingles.’

As Jeong-woo frowned, Yoon Yi-seol, who had been watching him silently, rummaged through her bag and pulled out a small pouch.

Emergency medicines provided by the staff. From within, she took out a comprehensive cold medicine labeled ‘Pancool-S’ and handed it to Jeong-woo.

“Take this too. It was a bit chilly on the ferry earlier.”

Seeing Yoon Yi-seol’s concern, Jeong-woo tried to reassure her. However, as he was about to say, “I’m fine” words from different languages, such as 『I’m fine / es geht mir gut / sto bene / je vais bien』 simultaneously popped into his mind. His tongue got tangled, and he ended up making a strange noise.

“Ugh…”

Contrary to his intentions, his pronunciation remained uncontrolled, and Jeong-woo closed his mouth.

‘Why are you like this?’

He had tried to say something, but his tongue remained unresponsive.

Seeing Jeong-woo’s worsening complexion, Yoon Yi-seol became flustered as well.

“Are you in that much pain?”

Yoon Yi-seol placed her hand on Jeong-woo’s forehead and looked worried.

“You have a fever.”

This is a situation where the words ‘That’s not a fever’ never came out. What was strange was that the words came to mind in English, German, Italian, and French languages all at the same time.

‘Could this be a side effect?’

Jeong-woo felt like he was going crazy and gestured to Yoon Yi-seol for a moment.

He quickly typed out a message on his phone.

[My throat hurts so much that I’ll keep my mouth shut for a moment. It’s nothing to worry about, just a cold.]

After putting on the most serene smile possible, Jeong-woo immediately sent a text message to Cheon Seung-guk.

[This is a big problem. I took the compound I mixed, and I can’t speak.]

“Drink this at least, Mr. Jeong-woo.”

Yoon Yi-seol handed him a bottle of water, and Jeong-woo expressed his gratitude with his eyes before taking a sip.

Ding.

A reply came, and he checked it right away.

[It seems like a strong stimulus went to the Broca’s area. You’ll adapt soon. Keep exercising your mouth.]

‘Adapt?’

Since Cheon Seung-guk’s response wasn’t too serious in tone, Jeong-woo felt somewhat relieved. However, his temporary mute state was extremely perplexing. Was this some kind of payback for effortlessly learning four languages?

‘Of all times, it had to happen when Ms. Yi-seol is here.’

Pretending to cough, he discreetly observed her. Since his tongue wouldn’t move as he wanted, there was no choice but to continue smiling calmly.

[Ms. Yi-seol, I’m not joking right now; my throat really hurts.]

As he was about to write one more message to show Yoon Yi-seol, a knocking sound came from the direction of the first floor.

‘Is Dr. Cheon here?’

Jeong-woo went downstairs and pulled the door open.

Creak.

On the other side of the open door, a foreigner in his mid-forties with almost no hair on his head faced Jeong-woo.

‘Dr. Cheon was a white guy? That’s surprising.’

This thought was quickly replaced by the words of the other person.

『I apologize. I’m Professor Jeremy Becker. Are you Dr. Cheon Seung-guk? I contacted you regarding the ‘Drex Enzyme’ issue.』

The round-tipped bangs on his forehead were striking, and the white man sized up Jeong-woo from head to toe before tilting his head. It was difficult to determine the age of an Asian, but he seemed too young to be a doctor.

Jeong-woo was fascinated by the fact that he could understand the other person’s English as easily as Korean, but he couldn’t think of how to respond. Therefore, he quickly typed out English on his phone and showed it to the man.

[I’m also waiting for Dr. Cheon Seung-guk. By the way, what is the Drex Enzyme?]

Upon reading this message, Professor Jeremy Becker examined Jeong-woo and, after looking thoughtful, began to speak.

『No one else than Dr. Cheon Seung-guk…』

“Who is this, Mr. Jeong-woo?”

Yoon Yi-seol came down the stairs. Sensing her presence, Jeremy flinched and stepped back.

『This is a top-secret meeting. This can’t be happening. It seems I made a mistake.』

Jeremy turned abruptly and walked away to the other side of the alley. Jeong-woo watched him with a puzzled expression, wondering, “What’s going on?”

“Why is that gentleman heading to the street?”

Jeong-woo quickly typed a message in response to Yoon Yi-seol question.

[He left because the owner was not here.]

Since Cheon Seung-guk hadn’t mentioned anything, Jeong-woo stared blankly at Jeremy’s retreating figure.

Ding.

He received a message from Cheon Seung-guk, as if he had been waiting.

[I just talked to Jeremy. He arrived early too. Go catch him. It’s been a long time since Harvard professors have been so anxious like this. Make sure to check if he brought Drex Enzyme properly and put his mind at ease. I introduced you as my disciple.]

‘Please, tell me this sooner.’

Jeong-woo sent a message to Yoon Yi-seol.

[Close the door and wait. I’ll find him and be back soon.]

He immediately rushed out onto the main road.

In a narrow alleyway leading to the canal where gondolas passed, he spotted a man in a coat, Jeremy.

‘Excuse me!’

He waved his hand to indicate his location, but Jeremy only stared at his phone with an anxious expression.

‘English, English.’

As Jeong-woo walked, pressing on the message from Cheon Seung-guk, a high-speed boat stopped by the canal. It was a blue boat with “POLIZIA LOCAL” written on it, indicating the local police.

Two police officers in uniform walked out from inside and, holding a photo and comparing Jeremy’s face, approached him.

『Are you Jeremy Becker?』

“Why do you call my name?”

『We received a report from customs officers about the contents of your bag that passed through Marco Polo Airport security. It seems to be a substance suspected of biochemical terrorism. You wrote down address 2696 on your immigration declaration form as your destination. What was the reason for your visit? Where is your bag?』

Upon the police officer’s explanation, Jeremy said, “What?” and tilted his head. The police spoke in Italian, and Jeremy in English, so only Jeong-woo, who was overhearing, understood.

『This isn’t getting through.』

『For now, let’s take him. Call for an interpreter and contact the Public Safety Agency.』

Jeremy’s anxious eyes darted around at the police officers’ conversation.

“Why? I am a citizen of the United States!”

『Please calm down! Let’s go calmly. Ian, apprehend him.』

The police officer grabbed Jeremy’s arms and escorted him onto the boat, which immediately started moving.

Jeong-woo watched as the police boat moved away, his mouth agape.

‘What on earth…’

Holding his phone, Jeong-woo sent a message to Cheon Seung-guk.

[The professor has been taken by the police…]

Ding.

[What?]

[I think D-rex was found when he passed through the airport. The customs suspect it’s some kind of terrorist material. What on earth is this?]

[It’s a catalyst related to chemical equilibrium. Completely harmless even if you gulp it down. Go and explain it to those ignorant customs officers. I’ll hurry as well.]

I can’t even speak, how am I supposed to…’

Jeong-woo was typing this message when he cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

“Ah… Uh… La…”

His tongue seemed to loosen a bit, and he tried to recall his English.

“Oooor…”

‘Well, I can manage some Korean, it seems.’

Foreign languages were completely unintelligible, as if his tongue had been numbed. Even English, which had been somewhat possible, was tangled and wouldn’t come out properly.

‘How am I supposed to clear up the misunderstanding like this?’

He had been ordered to do it, so he had to try. Moreover, he felt sorry for Professor Jeremy, who looked so pitiful, being taken away without any fault of his own.

Upon closer consideration, it was just like him, who had come to meet Cheon Seung-guk, only to end up like this.

Jeong-woo reached into his pocket and touched the green compound container. This was also a new substance. Perhaps, the situation Professor Jeremy was in right now could be the same as what he was experiencing.

‘Why did they call a Harvard Professor?’

Muttering to himself, Jeong-woo returned to the alley with address number 2696. He extended his head out of the second-floor window, and his eyes met Yoon Yi-seol’s.

“The ba… it… Ugh, ah… Ouch. Yi-seol, come down with the bag!”

Jeong-woo made various mouth movements and then let out a short sigh.

It had only been two hours since they arrived in Venice. He already had an uncomfortable feeling. It seemed that he wouldn’t be able to spend this day comfortably.