The morning sunlight pierced through the gaps in the curtains, casting a bright beam of light across the floor.
Zack Vance opened his eyes and habitually stretched his left shoulder.
A distinct soreness rippled through his muscles.
The gray fabric sofa was already empty.
The thin blanket that had been draped over Joanne was neatly folded and placed on the sofa’s armrest.
The sliding glass door to the balcony was left slightly ajar, letting a cool autumn morning breeze drift into the living room, carrying away the lingering scent of last night’s hot pot broth.
She always left before dawn.
As the star of Vought International, Joanne’s daily schedule was packed tight, without a single gap.
She needed to get back to Vought Tower before eight o’clock, slip into her glittering super-suit, and resume her role as America’s flawless sweetheart.
Zack got up from the sofa and walked into the kitchen to pour a glass of warm water.
He picked up his phone from the kitchen island.
The screen lit up, showing an unread bank notification resting quietly on the lock screen.
With the eight million dollars that had come in last night, his available cash flow had now reached forty-one million.
It was a massive sum that would turn heads anywhere in New York, but Zack felt calmer than ever.
He finished his water, turned around, and went into the bathroom to wash up.
Changing into a plain dark hoodie and jeans, he grabbed his black backpack containing his laptop and stepped out of the apartment.
It was Monday, and he had class.
Godolkin University, located on the outskirts of New York, was the only higher education institution in the United States dedicated entirely to supes.
On paper, it was meant to train the next generation of superheroes; in reality, it was a massive star-making factory used by Vought International to screen high-quality merchandise and incubate commercial IPs.
Zack took the subway, following the crowded stream of commuters out of the campus station.
The early autumn campus was picturesque.
Lining both sides of the wide, tree-lined boulevard were life-sized bronze statues of famous alumni.
From current members of The Seven to the veteran heroes of Payback, every single statue was polished to a spotless shine, gleaming in the sunlight with the distinct luster of money.
Young people dressed in designer brands and wielding various superpowers could be seen everywhere along the paths.
Someone on the lawn was showing off a weak pyrokinesis ability, drawing cheers from the crowd, while another hovered in midair, basking in the envious gazes of onlookers.
Here, superpowers were the ultimate currency, and the social divide was even more nakedly exposed than in the outside world.
As an Asian exchange student without any superpowers, Zack was like an invisible ghost in this school.
No one cared about him, and no one would spare a second glance for an ordinary human.
The morning criminology class ended quickly.
The professor on the podium droned on about the psychological motives behind super-abled crimes, but Zack didn’t absorb a single word.
He packed his bag, walked through the bustling corridors, and made his way to a secluded corner on the fourth floor of the campus library.
The sunlight here was beautiful, and the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a quiet man-made lake.
Zack pulled out a chair, sat down, took his laptop from his backpack, and pressed the power button.
The screen lit up, bypassing the tedious operating system boot sequence and opening directly into a heavily encrypted darknet terminal.
Zack’s fingers danced across the keyboard, sending streams of complex code and financial commands scrolling rapidly across the screen.
Without proper deployment, forty-odd million dollars in cash was just a pile of meaningless numbers in this capitalist world.
He needed a legitimate front.
Over the next two hours, utilizing the hacking skills granted by his system, Zack bypassed the firewalls of several national financial regulatory authorities.
He registered three secret offshore companies in the Cayman Islands and set up cross-shareholdings through Swiss trusts.
Ultimately, this intricate web of equity structures converged under a single name: Great Wall Capital.
On paper, it was a venture capital firm funded by an overseas conglomerate; in reality, it was entirely controlled by Zack himself.
With the corporate structure finalized, Zack injected his first tranche of twenty million dollars into Great Wall Capital’s account.
Instead of investing in trendy tech stocks or real estate, he set his sights on a specific ticker symbol on the Nasdaq trading board: VHT.
The stock ticker for Vought International.
Due to a few recent supe terrorist attacks and the covert sabotage caused by The Boys, Vought’s stock price was currently in a relatively depressed, volatile phase.
Zack hit Enter.
The twenty million dollars transformed into countless small, fragmented buy orders, flowing silently into the stock market like a drop of water merging into the ocean, slowly absorbing the Vought shares being dumped by retail investors.
This level of capital wouldn’t even cause a ripple in front of a multi-hundred-billion-dollar giant like Vought.
But Zack had plenty of time.
As long as the system kept running and Joanne kept coming to eat at his apartment, his funding stream was infinite.
One day, these scattered shares would accumulate into a noose tight enough to choke Stan Edgar.
Closing his laptop, Zack exhaled a long breath.
The high-intensity mental work left him feeling a bit drained.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, packed his laptop back into his backpack, and stood up, planning to head down to the first-floor cafe to grab an iced Americano to perk himself up.
The ground-floor lobby of the library was bustling with foot traffic.
With lunchtime approaching, students gathered in small groups, chatting about afternoon parties or combat training classes.
Zack walked along the aisle of the book stacks, his gaze casually sweeping over the shelves.
Hurried footsteps echoed from around the corner.
A Black girl wearing a slightly faded flannel shirt, cradling a tall stack of heavy academic textbooks, was rushing forward with her head down.
Her steps were hurried, as if she were running from something, and she paid absolutely no attention to what was ahead.
The two inevitably collided at the intersection of two rows of bookshelves.
A dull thud echoed.
The girl let out a sharp gasp, losing her balance and stumbling back two steps.
The stack of books in her arms cascaded to the floor, a few even sliding to the edge of Zack’s sneakers.
“Sorry!
I wasn’t looking where I was going.
I’m so sorry.”
Ignoring her aching shoulder, the girl hurriedly knelt down to pick up the books.
Her voice carried the tense, awkward reserve of a newcomer.
Zack stopped, bent down, and picked up a copy of *Supe Anatomy and Physiology* that had landed near his feet.
He handed the book over, his eyes naturally falling on her face.
It was a young, somewhat stubborn, and anxious face.
Faint, tiny old scars were visible around her wrists—the telltale marks of prolonged use of a specific superpower.
Zack’s heart skipped a beat.
The name of the girl who could manipulate blood, hardening it into sharp weapons, flashed through his mind.
Marie Moreau.
The central protagonist of *Gen V*, a girl carrying a heavy past who would eventually be swept into the darkest secrets of Godolkin University.
The main plot of this world wasn’t just advancing on Hughie and Butcher’s end.
In “The Woods,” the secret underground laboratory beneath Godolkin University, the lethal virus specifically targeting supes was also being developed in full swing.
“Thank you.”
Marie took the book from Zack’s hand and looked up at him gratefully.
She noticed that the Asian guy in front of her didn’t carry that typical aura of superiority, which eased her constant tension slightly.
“I’m Marie, a freshman.
I was just looking for the public relations classroom and took a wrong turn,” she explained, trying to mask her embarrassment with conversation.
Zack looked at her outstretched hand and the longing in her eyes to be accepted by her peers.
He knew all too well what kind of vortex swirled around this girl.
Golden Boy’s self-destruction, Cate’s mind control, and that lethal virus that could kill Joanne.
For now, his primary mission was to keep the female devil in the sky satisfied and build his own fortress in the financial markets.
He absolutely could not afford to get dragged into the eye of the main plot’s storm this early.
Zack simply nodded, stepping back half a pace to draw a polite but very distinct social distance.
“The classroom is in the East Wing.
Go left when you leave the library, walk across the lawn, and you’ll see it.”
Zack’s tone was calm, showing no excess warmth.
Marie’s hand froze in midair, and then she retracted it awkwardly.
She hugged the books tighter and forced a smile.
“Okay, thank you.”
Watching Marie hurry off with her books, Zack withdrew his gaze and turned back toward the cafe.
Self-preservation was not just a choice in the world of *The Boys*; it was an absolute rule of survival.
After buying his coffee, Zack stepped out of the library entrance.
The afternoon sun shone down on him, offering a trace of warmth.
Just as he poked the straw into his iced Americano, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
Pulling it out, he saw an unsaved number flashing on the screen with a text.
But in this world, only one person would text him with such a naturally demanding and commanding tone.
[The AC at Vought Tower must be broken.
The conference room is as cold as a morgue.]
Looking at this random complaint, Zack pictured Joanne wrapped in her star-spangled cape, sitting at the conference table and glaring coldly at the executives.
A few seconds later, a second text popped up right after.
[Make that red soup tonight.
Remember to pick out those little round things that make your mouth go numb when you bite them.
I don’t want to choke on them again.]
Zack took a sip of his iced coffee.
The bitter liquid slid down his throat, clearing his mind of thoughts regarding Marie and the supe-killing virus.
Standing on the tree-lined boulevard, surrounded by passing supe students, his slender fingers tapped rapidly on the screen, firing back without hesitation.
[Those are Sichuan peppercorns.
If you pick them out, the soup loses its soul.
Also, I’m a tuition-paying international student, not a personal chef assigned to you by Vought.]
Less than three seconds after he sent it, her reply shot back like a bullet.
[Just try putting a single one of those round things in tonight.
I’ll burn a hole through your wooden floor in a second.]
Right after, another one followed.
[Eight o’clock.
Don’t make me wait.]