The bubbling of boiling water echoed in the quiet kitchen.
Zack Vance deftly dispersed a handful of dry noodles into the pot, stirring gently with long chopsticks to prevent them from sticking.
His movements were methodical, as if the person sitting across the counter weren’t a superpowered woman who could slice an entire building in half with lasers, but just an ordinary customer.
Joanne rested her cheek on one hand, her sapphire-blue eyes unblinkingly fixed on the white foam bubbling in the pot.
The sound of the thunderstorm outside had gradually subsided into a steady drizzle, tapping gently against the French windows with a soft patter.
The apartment was filled with the aroma of scallion oil and the steam of noodle broth, slowly washing away the tense, lethal pressure from before.
“Your noodles are ready.”
Zack turned off the gas, poured the drained noodles into a clean white ceramic bowl, and expertly drizzled the remaining scallion oil sauce over them.
Without any obsequious tone, he simply pushed the bowl toward Joanne’s hand and handed her a glass of warm water.
Joanne picked up her chopsticks and began tackling the second bowl of noodles.
Her eating manners weren’t boorish, but they were far from elegant.
Having grown up under the spotlight of Vought International, she had long been accustomed to maintaining a flawless posture in front of the cameras.
But in this apartment of less than a thousand square feet, there were no calculating eyes of Stan Edgar, nor was there Madelyn Stillwell’s nauseatingly fake care.
Zack stood opposite the kitchen island, quietly watching her.
In his mind, he quickly analyzed everything that had just transpired.
As a transmigrator who knew how the world would unfold, he understood better than anyone how fragile Joanne’s psychological defenses actually were.
She possessed the most invincible body in the world, yet harbored a soul desperately starved of love and basic common sense.
Vought’s executives bound her with approval ratings and a warped, manufactured sense of family, turning her into a puppet constantly on the verge of a breakdown.
[Current Emotion: Satisfied / Mildly confused / Security being established]
She finished her last bite of noodles, picked up the glass beside her, and drank the warm water in one gulp.
The warm liquid slid down her esophagus into her stomach, dispelling the final trace of chill from her high-altitude flight.
Joanne set the glass down, her metal bracers clinking softly against the marble countertop.
She leaned back slightly, her stiff spine relaxing for the very first time in this unfamiliar place.
Her star-spangled cape hung somewhat casually over the back of the barstool, and her wet blonde hair clung to her cheeks, making her look less like an unapproachable deity and more like a real, living human.
Zack pulled out his phone, the glow of the screen reflecting on his face.
An incoming transaction text from an anonymous Swiss trust fund sat quietly in his notification bar.
[Your account ending in 7253 received a deposit at 21:40: 3,000,000.00 USD.]
Staring at the long string of zeros, Zack’s breath hitched for half a second.
Even with the system’s text notification, seeing the massive sum materialize as actual digits in his bank account still hit him with a wave of vertigo.
Three million dollars.
In this Boys-esque world dominated by capital, money was the ultimate pass.
Vought International could bribe politicians, control the media, and cover up every murder committed by superheroes—all because of their colossal financial empire.
Zack raised his eyes to look at Joanne sitting across from him.
If making her happy and stroking her fur the right way could constantly yield gold, then this was the ultimate shortcut to getting a seat at the table.
Rather than living as an ant who could be crushed at any moment by superhero collateral damage in this dangerous world, he might as well latch onto the biggest powerhouse available.
“What are you looking at?”
Joanne keenly sensed the change in Zack’s gaze.
There was less caution and dread than before, replaced by a sort of…
fervor that she couldn’t quite decipher.
“I’m looking at my meal ticket.” Zack set his phone down, pointing naturally to the two empty bowls on the counter.
“Now that you’re full, are you just going to leave?
Or does Vought International’s number one hero plan to wash my dishes before she goes?”
The air in the room seemed to freeze for an instant.
Joanne’s sapphire-blue eyes narrowed, locking onto Zack’s face.
*Washing dishes.*
That phrase didn’t even exist in her vocabulary.
She could crush armored vehicles with her bare hands and vaporize lakes with her heat vision, but in her twenty-plus years of life, no one had ever dared demand she perform such menial household chores.
Joanne knit her brows, a sense of absurdity welling up in her chest.
Red light didn’t flare in her eyes this time; she merely let out a cold snort and stood up from the barstool.
“You can try throwing those dirty dishes at my cape and see if they break first, or if your hand snaps first.”
Lifting her chin, she put her arrogant mask back on and turned toward the French windows.
Her high-top combat boots clicked sharply against the wooden floor.
Leaning against the counter, Zack watched her walk away, a faint smirk playing on his lips.
Of course he knew Joanne wouldn’t actually wash the dishes.
It was just a test to see where her boundaries of tolerance lay in this apartment.
As it turned out, when the radar showed her emotion was in the “Safe Zone,” such harmless banter wouldn’t provoke her.
Instead, it only deepened her reliance on this mode of “equal interaction.”
Joanne reached the French windows.
The rain outside had stopped, and the clouds had cleared to reveal the dazzling neon lights of New York City.
The colorful glare reflected off her star-spangled suit, casting a cold, metallic sheen.
She paused, resting a hand on the window frame, but she didn’t fly off immediately.
A faint blue glow quietly bloomed at the edge of Zack’s vision.
The data stream on the system interface began scrolling in a remarkably steady rhythm.
[Deep emotional settling detected from target.] [Perfect Empathy Radar Assessment: The target feels an unprecedented “freedom from scrutiny” in the current environment.
A structural loosening has occurred in her mental defenses.] [Condition met] [Special Feedback Critical Strike triggered.
Drawing random funds…]
Zack’s breath grew shallow.
He stared intently at the rapidly updating characters on his retina.
[Obtained: $30,000,000 USD in clean funds] [Note: The funds have been washed through multi-level offshore companies via hedging, deposited into the host’s account as legal venture capital returns.
The process is completely untraceable.]
Thirty million dollars.
Zack’s fingers twitched uncontrollably at his side.
He could hear his heart hammering violently against his ribs.
The bowl of noodles earlier had merely pacified her irritation, yielding three million.
But this thirty million was because this apartment, and this dynamic that required no masks, had truly touched the deepest, most starved part of her soul.
“This place is too small,” Joanne said, her back to Zack as she stared at the night view, her voice haughty and critical.
“The ceiling is so low it’s suffocating, the sofa looks like it was scavenged from a flea market, and the security system in this building is practically nonexistent.”
Zack calmed his racing heart and strolled to the center of the living room, stopping about three paces away from her.
“This is an ordinary apartment, not Vought Tower’s penthouse.
I assembled the sofa myself—it might be cheap, but it’s very comfortable.
As for security…”
He looked at her golden hair fluttering in the breeze.
“If some threat capable of bypassing your defense comes looking for trouble, this building’s security wouldn’t help even if it were retrofitted to nuclear submarine standards.”
Joanne turned her head, a trace of an imperceptible smile flashing through her blue eyes.
The smile vanished instantly, quickly masked by her customary coldness.
She let go of the window frame, her body slowly lifting off the ground, feet dangling as her red, white, and blue cape billowed in the night breeze.
“Tomorrow,” she said, hovering in mid-air, looking down at Zack with a tone that brooked no refusal.
“I want to eat the exact same food at the exact same time as today.
If there is even one of those green vegetables missing, or if that dark sauce tastes wrong…”
She paused deliberately, a faint red glow flickering in her eyes right on cue as a warning.
Zack looked at her bluster, knowing full well she was just trying to maintain her god-like dignity.
“They’re called scallions and scallion oil sauce,” Zack said, looking directly into her eyes without flinching.
“I’ll go to the Asian supermarket tomorrow to buy the freshest ingredients.
On one condition: stop crashing through my balcony window.
Use the front door, or send a text beforehand.”
Joanne stared at him coldly for a moment, as if weighing whether this mortal had any right to negotiate.
Ultimately, she turned around without a word.
*Boom—*
A violent sonic boom erupted outside the window, the sudden rush of air blowing the living room curtains high.
A blue blur instantly tore through the New York night sky, turning into a shooting star on the horizon before vanishing without a trace.
The wind blew a few fallen leaves into the living room.
Zack stood quietly in place, listening to the fading sonic boom.
He walked forward, shut the French windows, and drew the curtains, completely sealing off the outside world.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, and another bank deposit notification lit up the screen.
A total available balance of thirty-three million dollars lay quietly in his personal account.
Leaning back against the sofa, Zack exhaled a long breath.
From witnessing Robin being turned to paste in that bloody opening to dancing on the razor’s edge of a female Homelander’s heat vision, these few short hours had drained every ounce of his energy and courage.
But looking at the numbers on his phone, he knew it was all worth it.
He opened a financial app on his phone, his eyes turning sharp.
Step one: register a shell venture capital firm.
Step two: quietly begin gobbling up Vought International’s retail shares on NASDAQ.