Lu Cheng gripped his phone, his eyes fixed on the rows of steel cabinets in the archives room.
“How did you get my number?” A light laugh came through the speaker, airy and detached from any identifiable emotion.
“I know the number of everyone in this building.” Homelander paused.
“You haven’t answered me.” Lu Cheng pulled the archives door shut and leaned against the frame.
“You want me to come see you?” “I didn’t say I wanted to.” Homelander’s tone shifted, tinged with a thin veil of impatience.
“I just think you should come.
Aren’t you my doctor?” “I am.
So I’ll come at our agreed time.” “I don’t like waiting.” When those words left his mouth, the breathing on the other end sped up.
Lu Cheng heard it clearly.
It wasn’t anger.
It was restlessness.
A urge wrapped in an arrogant shell, hovering somewhere between a command and a plea.
“Tomorrow at three p.m.,” Lu Cheng said.
“I’ll be there on time.” “Why tomorrow?” “Because today’s prep work isn’t done yet.” “What prep work?” Lu Cheng didn’t answer directly.
He tapped his fingers twice against the back of his phone.
“Do you like classical music?” Three seconds of silence.
Homelander didn’t hang up, nor did he speak.
Lu Cheng waited.
Then, an extremely faint, almost imperceptible hum came from the other side.
“Whatever.” The call ended.
Lu Cheng stowed his phone and stood there, thinking for ten seconds.
He hadn’t made or taken this call carelessly.
Homelander had super-hearing; he could eavesdrop on any conversation in this building at any given moment.
But he had chosen to make a phone call instead of flying down directly or sending someone with a message.
Calling meant he had placed Lu Cheng in a specific category: a person worth interacting with like a “normal human.” At the same time, the phrasing of “When are you coming to see me?” was a question, not a command.
An entity accustomed to commanding everyone had used a question.
In his mind, Lu Cheng added a line to yesterday’s profile notes: *Dependence signals are appearing faster than expected.
The pace must be controlled; advancing too quickly will trigger his vigilance mechanisms.* He stayed in the archives for four hours.
HL-001’s file occupied three full steel cabinets, detailing everything down to the smallest detail—from birth medical records to emotional fluctuation scores during every public event.
When he reached the seventh folder, he found the childhood laboratory records.
An entry labeled “Emotional Soothing Protocol C-19” caught his eye.
Lab staff had once tried using white noise and classical music to conduct emotional interventions on the young Homelander.
The results column read: *Mozart K.
448—effective, but brief.
Chopin Nocturne in E-flat major, Op.
9 No.
2—subject’s heart rate decreased by 12%, longest duration recorded at forty-seven minutes.* The experiment was later terminated.
The termination reason read: *Subject exhibited severe separation anxiety upon conclusion of experiment and destroyed the playback equipment.* Lu Cheng snapped a picture of the page with his phone.
At 2:40 p.m.
the next day, carrying a vintage vinyl record player, he walked into the corridor of the third basement level.
He had dug the record player out of a storage room off the staff lounge.
It was covered in a thick layer of dust, likely a personal item left behind by some former employee.
There was only one record, but it happened to be a collection of Chopin nocturnes.
At 2:55 p.m., he pushed open the door to the S-Class Evaluation Room.
layout hadn’t changed since last time.
The scorch mark on the table was still there, as were the five finger-shaped indentations on the sofa’s armrest.
He didn’t sit on the sofa, nor did he take a chair.
He placed the record player on the tabletop, right beside the scorch mark, and then sat directly on the floor himself, back against the wall, a book open across his knees.
The stylus dropped into the groove.
The opening notes of Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major drifted out, circling through the empty evaluation room.
At three o’clock sharp, the door opened.
Homelander stood in the doorway.
His gaze landed first on the empty chair, then on the record player on the table, and finally on Lu Cheng sitting against the wall on the floor.
His brows knitted slightly.
“What are you doing on the floor?” “The chair smells like disinfectant.
Sitting there too long gives me a headache.” Lu Cheng turned a page, not looking up.
Homelander remained at the doorway, his eyes fixed on the record player.
Chopin’s melody slowly unfolded between them, sliding down from the high register before soaring back up, the silence filling every gap between the notes.
Lu Cheng felt a change in the room’s temperature.
It wasn’t getting colder; it was a subtle kind of loosening.
No scent of ozone appeared, nor any precursor signals of heat vision.
Homelander walked in.
His steps were lighter than last time, the hem of his cape brushing the floor with a soft, rustling sound.
He didn’t sit in the chair.
He stood beside the record player, staring down in silence at the spinning vinyl record.
One minute.
Three minutes.
Lu Cheng turned another page, tracking the muscle tension in Homelander’s right hand out of the corner of his eye.
Relaxed.
His five fingers hung naturally at the side of his cape—unclenched, uncurled.
Even his habitual, unconscious tapping had stopped.
After five minutes, Homelander pulled back a chair and sat down.
His posture was entirely different from last time.
Last time, he had crossed his legs and rested his chin on one hand, radiating a condescending aura.
This time, his legs were together, his hands rested on his knees, and his shoulders were about two centimeters lower.
Lu Cheng noted internally: *Defensive posture lowered.
Body language shifted from ‘demonstrative dominance’ to ‘receptive waiting.’* Ten minutes passed.
The nocturne on the record player entered its second, minor-key rondo section.
Neither of them spoke.
Lu Cheng turned pages; Homelander sat quietly.
At the twelfth minute, the silence broke.
“This piece,” Homelander said, his voice noticeably lower than usual.
“I’ve heard it before.” Lu Cheng’s hand halted as he turned the page, but the pause was natural.
“Oh?
Where did you hear it?” Homelander didn’t answer.
His eyes were fixed on the record player’s spindle, his lips moving slightly as if chewing on a word he hadn’t touched in a long time.
Lu Cheng didn’t push.
He lowered his head and continued reading.
Another five minutes went by.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” Lu Cheng looked up.
Homelander was watching him.
There was no glow of heat vision in his blue eyes; his pupils were dilated within normal parameters, their irises leaning gray-blue under the cool white light.
“Do you want me to be afraid of you?” The question caused the corner of Homelander’s mouth to twitch—not a smile, but an expression Lu Cheng couldn’t fully classify yet.
“Everyone is afraid of me.” “You said ‘everyone,’ not ‘everyone should be.'” Lu Cheng closed the book and rested it on his knees.
“That means you’re stating a fact, not expressing a desire.” Homelander’s Adam’s apple bobbed once.
Silence held for about twenty seconds.
The nocturne’s melody near the window reached a long, sustained tone, pausing for an almost imperceptible breath before the notes flooded back in.
“What’s your book?” Lu Cheng turned the cover to show him.
An English edition of Milton’s *Paradise Lost*.
Homelander looked at it for two seconds, then averted his eyes.
He didn’t speak again.
But he didn’t leave, either.
Forty minutes later, the record played its final note.
The stylus produced a rhythmic hiss against the empty groove.
Homelander stood up and walked to the door.
His hand rested on the doorframe, the heel of his palm pressing against the metal trim, his knuckles tightening and relaxing.
“Next time,” he said, his back turned to Lu Cheng, his voice kept very low.
“Play this piece again.” The door closed.
Lu Cheng sat on the floor, the back of his head resting against the cool wall.
He pulled the pen from his pocket and wrote a line in the blank space of the book’s flyleaf: *Emotional anchor successfully planted.
Chopin Nocturne in E-flat major, Op.
9 No.
2.
Second exposure after approximately twenty-three years showed a significant emotional regression response.* *Subject actively requested repeat playback, indicating the stimulus is preliminarily bound to a ‘sense of security.’* *Next step: Reinforce the association between this piece and the evaluator.* *Ultimate goal: Induce an emotional response to this piece equivalent to attachment toward the evaluator.* He capped the pen and slipped it back into his pocket.
On the table, the record player was still spinning aimlessly, the stylus tracing endless circles in the terminal groove.
Lu Cheng reached out, but he didn’t turn it off.
Let it spin.
He needed to consider another issue.
Edgar had given him a two-week deadline, and Madelyn had given him a two-week deadline as well.
Two people at different levels giving the exact same number was no coincidence.
It was standardized testing protocol.
At the asset meeting two weeks from now, what he needed to present was more than just a report.
His phone rang again.
An unknown number appeared on the screen.
He answered.
“Dr.
Lu?
This is Ashley from Public Relations.
For tomorrow morning’s press conference, Homelander specifically requested that you be on standby on site.” Lu Cheng traced his finger along the edge of the record player.
“He specified me?” “Yes.
His exact words were: ‘Have my doctor stand by nearby.'”