Chapter 26: Soldier Boy Awakens
The snow was still falling outside. Mikhail's SUV was parked three hundred meters away, its headlights on. Mikhail stood beside the vehicle, holding a shotgun in his hand; his eyes widened when he saw them rushing out of the snow.
"Get in!" he shouted.
Lu Ren threw Soldier Boy into the backseat, and Kimikoscrambled in after him. He sat in the passenger seat himself.
Mikhail stepped on the gas, the SUV spun in the snow, and then surged forward.
Behind them, the sound of alarms blared from the direction of the base.
Red lights flickered in the snowy night, like a wounded eye.
"What was that?" Mikhail asked.
"Soldier Boy," Lu Ren said. "We found him."
Mikhail glanced at the old man in the backseat, who was covered in frost, and said nothing.
He floored the gas pedal.
The SUV sped across the snowy plains, leaving deep tire tracks behind.
The snow fell harder and harder, soon burying the tracks.
As if nothing had ever happened.
---
The return journey was longer than the trip there.
Soldier Boy lay on the backseat, covered by Kimiko's windbreaker and Lu Ren's hoodie, but he was still shivering. It wasn't the shivering from cold—his body temperature had slowly risen to near-normal levels—but rather a deeper, unconscious tremor as his body rebooted.
Lu Ren sat in the passenger seat, watching him through the rearview mirror. The old man's lips had turned from purple to deep red, the frozen muscles on his face began to relax, and his wrinkles slowly smoothed out like crumpled paper. His breathing was stronger than it had been in the cryo-chamber, his chest rising and falling much more significantly, and he occasionally let out a low groan. He was visibly growing younger.
"What is he saying?" Mikhail asked.
"No words," Kimiko said, poking her head out from the back seat. "Just sounds."
Mikhail lit a cigarette, clamped it in his mouth, and held the steering wheel with one hand.
"I've heard stories about this guy," he said. "Back when I was in the KGB, there was an old instructor who had fought in the Afghan War. He said the Soviet Union had suffered a loss in Afghanistan—not because of the mujahideen, but because of an American. Not a soldier, just one man. That man stormed into a Soviet military base, killed dozens of soldiers, and then vanished. The military suppressed the incident, but word spread internally. They said the man wore an old-style U.S. military uniform with a shield-shaped emblem on his chest."
"That must be him," Lu Ren said.
"Why did he storm a Soviet base?"
"Because he was crazy," Lu Ren said. "Or because Vought International made him do it. Maybe both."
Mikhail glanced at the old man in the backseat again.
"Now that he's awake, what will he do?"
"I don't know."
The car drove for two hours until they reached a cabin on the outskirts of Murmansk. Mikhail said it was his house, "Safe, no one will come here." The cabin wasn't big: two bedrooms, a living room, and a wood-burning stove. Several yellowed photos hung on the wall—a younger Mikhail wearing a KGB uniform, standing in a place where the background was unclear, his expression as solemn as if he were attending a funeral.
They carried Soldier Boy to the sofa in the living room. The sofa was small; his legs rested on the armrest, and his upper body barely managed to lie flat.
Kimiko went to the kitchen to boil water. Mikhail took a bottle of vodka out of the cabinet, poured three glasses, and downed one in a single gulp.
"How do you plan on getting him back to the United States?" he asked.
"The same way we came. Transfer in Moscow, then to Newark."
"He won't get through security looking like that."
"We're not taking commercial flights," Lu Ren had already thought about this. "Butcher said he has a contact at a private airfield in New Jersey who can arrange a small plane."
Mikhail nodded and poured another glass of vodka.
"I'll take you to Moscow. You're on your own for the rest of the way."
Soldier Boy on the sofa suddenly moved.
It wasn't the unconscious trembling from before, but a clear, purposeful movement—his right hand lifted, hovered in the air for two seconds, and then landed heavily on the sofa armrest.
His eyelids were moving. Not fluttering, but struggling to open.
"He's waking up," Kimiko said, walking out of the kitchen with hot water.
The three of them gathered around the sofa, watching Soldier Boy's eyes slowly open.
At first, it was just two slits revealing a bit of murky blue-gray. Then the slits widened, his pupils adapting to the light—contracting, dilating, contracting—like an autofocus lens.
His lips moved, emitting a hoarse, barely audible sound.
"...Wher…e…"
Lu Ren leaned down.
"The United States. You're safe."
Soldier Boy's pupils focused. He looked at Lu Ren's face for a few seconds, then shifted his gaze to Kimiko's face, and then to Mikhail's.
His eyes suddenly widened.
Not fear, not surprise, but a violent, almost brutal cognitive shock—he didn't recognize these people, didn't recognize this room, didn't recognize this era.
"Who are you?" His voice became clearer, but it was still very hoarse, like the noise of a machine that hadn't been used in a long time restarting.
"My name is Lu Ren. I rescued you from the Soviet Union's cryo-chamber."
"Soviet Union." Soldier Boy repeated the words and then closed his eyes, as if recalling something. A few seconds later, he opened them again. "How long did the Soviet Union keep me locked up?"
"Forty years. Just about."
Soldier Boy fell silent.
He sat up slowly, his movements sluggish, like a rusted robot. Kimiko tried to help him, but he gently pushed her away. He sat on the sofa, looking down at his hands—a pair of hands with loose skin, protruding veins, and yellowed nails.
"Old," he said.
"Can you still fight?" Lu Ren asked.
Soldier Boy looked up at Lu Ren. His gaze had changed—from blank to a sharp, scrutinizing look, like a veteran assessing friend or foe on the battlefield.
"Who do you want me to fight?"
"No target yet. But when you see one person, you might want to hit him."
"Who?"
"Your son."
There was no expression on Soldier Boy's face.
"I don't have a son."
"You do," Lu Ren said. "Vought International used your DNA to create someone. His name is Homelander. He is the strongest superhero in the world, and also the most dangerous."
The room fell silent.
The wood in the stove crackled, the firelight dancing on Soldier Boy's face, illuminating the changes in his expression—from denial to confusion, from confusion to anger, and from anger to a barely perceptible, fleeting sadness.
"Homelander," he said slowly. "What the fuck kind of name is that."
Chapter 27: Homelander? What the hell kind of name is that?
"Vought International came up with it. Do you like it?"
"I don't." Soldier Boy pushed his body up and stood up from the sofa.
His body swayed for a moment, but he quickly steadied himself.
He was half a head taller than Lu Ren, and his shoulders were as broad as a door panel. Even though he was old, his frame remained, still giving people a sense of oppression.
"I want to see this Homelander."
"You will," Lu Ren said. "But not now. When you do see him, I want to ensure you won't be killed by him."
Soldier Boy looked down at him.
"Kid, I've fought more wars than you—"
"I know," Lu Ren interrupted him. "You fought in World War II, the Cold War, and fought the Soviet Union. But you haven't fought Homelander. He can burn a building to ash without even blinking."
Soldier Boy stared at him for a few seconds, then laughed.
It was a dry, cold laugh.
"Sounds like me."
"Worse than you," Lu Ren said. "You didn't smile at the camera on TV and then go home to laser anyone you didn't like. He does that every day."
Soldier Boy's smile vanished.
He picked up the windbreaker and hoodie that had been covering him, looked at them, and threw them back onto the sofa.
"Where is my uniform?"
"I don't know. Probably molding away in some Vought International warehouse."
"Then what do I wear?"
Mikhail rummaged through the closet and pulled out an old military overcoat—dark gray, wool material, with a few moth holes on the shoulders.
Soldier Boy took it and put it on. The coat looked a bit small on him; the sleeves were too short, revealing his thick wrists.
"Let's go," he said.
"Where to?"
"Wherever you say." Soldier Boy walked toward the door and pushed it open. Cold wind rushed in, blowing his hair into a mess, but his back remained straight. "I wasn't saved by you. I belong to myself. But I owe you my life. Once I've repaid this debt, we can talk about other things."
He walked into the snow.
Lu Ren watched his back and turned to Kimiko. "Doesn't he look like a grumpy grandfather who crawled out of a coffin?"
"Not a grandfather," Kimiko said. "Like a ghost that hasn't fully died yet."
Mikhail picked up the vodka on the table and poured another glass.
"I'm only taking you as far as Moscow," he said. "This man—he's ominous. Stay with him too long, and you'll have bad luck."
The next afternoon, Moscow.
Mikhail dropped them off at a private airfield on the outskirts of Moscow.
The airfield was small, with only one runway and a short terminal building, surrounded by bare birch forests. An old Learjet was parked on the tarmac, its white paint yellowed, with a blurry logo on the tail—an eagle inside a circle, but the eagle's head was missing.
The contact Butcher mentioned was a bald American old man wearing a leather jacket with a cigar in his mouth, looking like he'd walked right out of a 1970s action movie.
"Where's the money?" the old man said to Lu Ren.
"We'll pay when we get to New York."
"No money, no takeoff."
Lu Ren pulled an envelope from his pocket—prepared in advance by Butcher, containing twenty thousand dollars in cash.
The old man opened the envelope, counted it, and nodded.
"Get on the plane. Taking off in forty minutes."
Soldier Boy was the first to climb the stairs. His body had recovered a lot; he no longer wobbled when walking, and he even refused Kimiko's help. He entered the cabin, sat by the window in the last row, fastened his seatbelt, and closed his eyes.
Kimiko sat in the middle row, placing her backpack on her lap, and unzipped it to check the contents—a folding knife, a flashlight, a bottle of water, and a pack of compressed biscuits.
Lu Ren sat in the first row and took out his phone. The last message before turning on airplane mode was from Starlight.
"Did you see the aurora?"
He didn't reply.
The plane took off. The roar of the engines was deafening, and the fuselage shook as if it were about to fall apart. Outside the window was Russia's vast snowfield, white and boundless, like a huge blank screen.
Soldier Boy suddenly spoke from the last row.
"I've killed people."
Lu Ren turned his head.
"I've killed a lot of people." Soldier Boy opened his eyes but didn't look at anyone, staring instead at a crack in the ceiling. "On the battlefield, I told myself it was executing a mission. On the battlefield, the people you kill have names, ranks, and nationalities. You know why you have to kill them, and you know why they have to kill you. But outside the battlefield—"
He paused.
"Outside the battlefield, the people I killed had no names."
The plane hit turbulence and jolted violently. The lights in the cabin flickered and then brightened again.
"I did whatever Vought International told me to do." Soldier Boy's voice was flat, like he was reading a report. "They said this person was a threat to America, so I went to kill that person. They said this country needed to be intimidated, so I went to intimidate that country. I never asked why. I thought that was what a hero was supposed to do."
"And then?" Lu Ren asked.
"Then they sold me out," Soldier Boy said. "I don't know how much the Soviet Union paid. But I know one number—how much my life was worth."
He closed his eyes.
"One point two million dollars. Vought International sold me to the Soviet Union for one point two million dollars."
The cabin went quiet.
There was only the roar of the engines and the whistling of the wind outside the window.
"Do you know why they sold me?" Soldier Boy didn't open his eyes. "Because I started asking questions. I asked them if the people we killed were actually enemies. I asked them if the people we protected were actually worth protecting. I asked them if I was a hero or just a gun."
He opened his eyes and looked at Lu Ren.
"They are businessmen. Businessmen don't need a gun that asks questions."
The plane broke through the clouds, and sunlight streamed in through the windows, illuminating Soldier Boy's face. His face looked even older in the sunlight—wrinkles, age spots, sagging skin—but the light in his eyes hadn't aged. It was something that had been buried underground for forty years and still hadn't been extinguished.
"Does Homelander ask questions?" he asked.
"He doesn't," Lu Ren said. "He thinks he doesn't need to ask. He thinks he is the answer."
Soldier Boy was silent for a long time.
"Then I want to see him even more."
Ten hours later, New York.
The private airfield in New Jersey was even smaller than the one in Moscow, with a few small planes parked by the runway and a trailer surrounded by weeds. It was already dark, and the airfield had no lights, save for a sliver of dim yellow light shining from the trailer's window.
A black SUV was parked by the runway.
Butcher was leaning against the car door, not holding a beer, but clutching a cigarette. The smoke dissipated quickly in the cold air, blown away by the wind without a trace.
MM stood next to him, wearing a bulletproof vest and holding a shotgun. Kimiko jumped off the plane, bumped fists with him first, then pointed behind her.
Soldier Boy walked down the stairs.
Butcher put the cigarette in his mouth and looked him up and down.
"You're Soldier Boy?"
"Who the fuck are you?"
Chapter 28: Why Are You Following Me?
Butcher laughed, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and crushed it in his palm.
"I'm the one who fished you out of that damn freezer." He walked up to Soldier Boy, looked up at the old man who was half a head taller than him, and said, "From now on, you are my weapon."
Soldier Boy looked down at him, his face expressionless.
"I am no one's weapon," he said. "I wasn't before, and I'm not now."
The corner of Butcher's mouth twitched.
"You owe me your life."
"I owe him," Soldier Boy pointed at Lu Ren, "not you."
The two men stared at each other for a few seconds. Butcher looked away first, then turned to Lu Ren and said, "Take him back to the hideout. I have something to tell you."
Lu Ren got Soldier Boy into the SUV. Kimiko was in the driver's seat, and MM was in the passenger seat.
Butcher pulled Lu Ren into the shadows by the runway and lit a new cigarette.
"Vought International has already started investigating," he said, his voice very low. "The alarm in the North Wing, Dr. Vogelbaum going missing, Translucent taking leave recently—wait, Translucent took leave?"
"Leave?"
"Yeah. He said he wasn't feeling well and went to Miamifor a vacation. But I don't think so." Butcher took a drag of his cigarette. "I think he caught wind of something and is hiding."
"Translucent isn't that smart."
"Maybe it wasn't his own decision. Maybe someone told him to hide."
"Who?"
Butcher flicked the ash.
"Homelander. Or Victoria Neuman. Or Edgar. Anyway, we'll have to wait on the Translucent lead."
"What about Soldier Boy? What do you plan to do with him?"
"Let him rest for a few days to recover his strength. And then—" Butcher's mouth curled into a cold, joyless smile. "Then let him go see his son."
"You want him to go straight to killing Homelander?"
"Why not?"
"He can't beat him," Lu Ren said. "He hasn't moved in forty years, his body hasn't recovered, and there's no telling how much his abilities have atrophied. Homelander is twice as strong as he was in his prime. If he goes after Homelandernow, it's suicide."
Butcher was silent for a few seconds, then dropped the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it with his boot.
"Then let him recover," he said. "I'll wait as long as it takes."
He turned and walked toward the SUV.
"Get in. Back to the hideout. We need to plan this out properly."
New York, 2:00 AM.
The hideout, an abandoned factory.
Soldier Boy sat in the chair Butcher usually sat in, with a plate of sandwiches in front of him—ham, cheese, and lettuce, tucked between dry white bread. He ate very slowly, chewing carefully, like someone eating for the first time, learning how to chew.
Dr. Vogelbaum was tied to an iron chair in the corner, watching Soldier Boy, his eyes flickering with a complex, almost reverent light.
"You were the first," he murmured. "The first successful one."
Soldier Boy looked up at him.
"Who are you?"
"The one who created you," Dr. Vogelbaum said. "Not the only one, but the first. I formulated your compound v."
Soldier Boy put down the sandwich, stood up, walked over to Dr. Vogelbaum, and looked down at him.
"What did you turn me into?"
"A hero," Dr. Vogelbaum's voice trembled, but his tone remained stubborn. "A being that transcends humanity. You should thank me."
Soldier Boy reached out and pinched Dr. Vogelbaum's face.
The old man's face felt like a piece of overripe fruit in Soldier Boy's large hand, his skin wrinkling and his bones creaking.
"Do I look like I'm thanking you?"
"Soldier Boy." Lu Ren called out from behind him.
Soldier Boy's hand paused, but he didn't let go.
"Let him go. He's still useful."
Soldier Boy glanced at Lu Ren, then released his hand. Dr. Vogelbaum's face was left with red marks where he had been pinched. He gasped for air, and for the first time, fear appeared in his eyes.
"Useful." Soldier Boy repeated the word, sat back in the chair, and continued eating the sandwich.
Lu Ren walked over to Butcher and lowered his voice.
"He's dangerous."
"I know," Butcher also lowered his voice. "But the more dangerous something is, the more useful it can be."
"You can't control him."
"I don't need to control him," Butcher glanced at Soldier Boy, then at Dr. Vogelbaum, who had his eyes closed in the corner. "I just need to make them hate each other. Soldier Boy hates Vought International. Dr. Vogelbaumfears Homelander. When those two forces collide, all I have to do is stand on the sidelines and watch."
Lu Ren didn't respond.
His phone vibrated.
A message from Starlight. Only four words:
"Are you back?"
Lu Ren typed: "Just arrived. How did you know?"
"I'm at the airport."
Lu Ren's finger hovered over the screen for two seconds.
"Which airport?"
"The one in New Jersey."
Lu Ren looked up and glanced around the hideout. Kimikowas cleaning her gun, MM was looking at the computer, Butcher was talking to Soldier Boy, and Dr. Vogelbaumwas dozing in the corner.
He walked to the window, pulled back a corner of the curtain, and looked out into the night.
In the distance, across the road, a white car was parked on the side of the road. Its headlights were off, but a faint glimmer of light shone from under the seam of the driver's side door—it was the light from a phone screen.
Starlight was sitting in that car.
How did she know he was here?
Lu Ren pulled the curtain shut, picked up his phone, and typed a few words:
"Don't get out. Wait for me."
He walked toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Butcher asked.
"To the bathroom."
"There's one inside."
"The air outside is better."
Lu Ren pushed the door open and stepped into the night.
---
The night was heavy. There were no streetlights in this corner of Queens, only a mercury lamp on the roof of a distant warehouse emitting a ghastly pale light, casting a cold, fan-shaped patch of light on the ground. Lu Renwalked, stepping on his own shadow. His steps were light, his sneakers making faint crunching sounds on the gravel road.
The white car was parked across the road, engine off, lights off, like a white animal crouching by the side of the road. As he approached, the driver's side window rolled down a crack, and Starlight's face appeared through the gap, her blonde hair looking exceptionally bright under the dim light of the car's reading lamp.
"Get in," she said.
Lu Ren opened the door and sat in the passenger seat. The heater was on inside the car, and the temperature was much higher than outside. The air smelled of strawberry air freshener—the same kind Starlight used in her Vought Tower apartment.
Starlight was dressed in casual clothes. A light gray hoodie with a white fur trim around the hood, her hair tied loosely behind her head, no makeup.
She had deep dark circles under her eyes.
"How did you find this place?" Lu Ren asked.
"I followed you," Starlight said, her tone so calm it didn't sound like something that would make a person nervous. "The day you left Vought Tower for the airport, I put a GPS tracker on your jacket. It was smaller than a coin, stuck to the back of the collar tag."
Lu Ren instinctively touched his collar. The tag was still there, but there was nothing on it—she had already removed it.
"Why are you following me?"
Chapter 29: Lovely Starlight
"Because you didn't tell me where you were going." Starlight turned her head to look at him, her bloodshot eyes showing she clearly hadn't slept in a long time. "You said you were going to see the aurora. Do you take me for a fucking idiot?"
Lu Ren did not answer.
"I checked your flight," Starlight continued. "Newark to Moscow, connecting in Murmansk. The northernmost city in Russia, inside the Arctic Circle. You could definitely see the aurora there, but you didn't go to see the aurora, did you? You went to do something else."
"Did you come here just to ask me that?"
"I came here because—" Starlight's lips moved as if she were weighing her words, "—because I wanted to confirm you were still alive. You were gone for four days, not answering a single call or replying to a single message. I called your phone over twenty times, and all of them were out of service area. I even went to ask Homelander where you were, and he said, 'He might not be coming back.'"
"He said that?"
"The exact words were: 'The rookie might not be coming back. Russian winters are very cold.'"
Lu Ren was silent for a few seconds.
"Does Homelander know I went to Russia?"
"He knows you took leave, but he doesn't know where you went," Starlight shook her head. "I didn't tell him. When I told Ashley, Homelander wasn't there."
"Then who did you tell?"
"I didn't tell anyone."
The two of them were silent for a while. A dull thud came from the direction of the warehouse in the distance, like someone throwing a heavy object onto the ground.
Starlight glanced in that direction.
"Who is in there?"
"Someone I brought back from Russia."
"What kind of person?"
Lu Ren looked into her eyes. In those eyes, there was worry, confusion, exhaustion, and something else—an unspoken, uncertain emotion.
"Someone who can change everything," he said.
Starlight didn't press for more. She turned back to look at the windshield. The night outside was dark, and the windshield reflected her own face—a blurry, pale, and exhausted face.
"Do you remember?" she said softly, "The things you said to me on the balcony the first time."
"I remember."
"You said if I needed help, you'd be there," Starlight's voice tightened slightly. "You said I wasn't alone. But now I feel—you're the one who doesn't want to be alone. You went to Russia, did things I don't know about, with someone I don't know, and then you came back without telling me anything. You make me feel like I'm standing outside a wall, and important things are happening inside, but I can't get in."
Lu Ren didn't speak.
"I'm not asking you to tell me everything," Starlight lowered her head, looking at her hands resting on her knees. "I just want you to know that when you're inside the wall, there's someone waiting outside."
She raised her hand and used her finger to draw a simple pattern on the fogged-up car window—a circle with an X inside.
"What does this mean?" Lu Ren asked.
"A sign my mom taught me when I was little to help me find my way," Starlight said. "A circle with an X inside means 'I'm waiting for you here.'"
Next to that pattern, she drew another circle with an X inside.
"This one is yours," she said. "You don't have to come. But you know it's here."
Lu Ren looked at the two small, transparent "markers," which were slowly fading on the glass, with water droplets beginning to slide down from the edges.
Starlight started the engine.
"I'll drive you back. Which warehouse are you at?"
"I'll walk."
"Get in," Starlight's tone brooked no refusal. "It's cold outside."
She didn't wait for him to answer; she unlocked the doors, shifted into reverse, backed the car off the roadside, and made a U-turn.
Lu Ren sat back in the passenger seat.
The car drove along the dilapidated road, passing through the industrial area of Queens, crossing the bridge, and entering Manhattan. The city lights grew brighter, turning from scattered stars into a vast ocean.
Starlight's right hand gripped the steering wheel, while her left hand rested on the gear shift, her fingers unconsciously tapping the leather surface of the knob.
"Are you sleepy?" she suddenly asked.
"I'm alright."
"I'm hungry."
Starlight drove off the main road and turned into a quiet street. The street was lined with rows of brownstone townhouses, and the road was covered in fallen sycamore leaves, illuminated by the headlights like a golden carpet. At the end of the street, a pizza shop still had its lights on.
"This place is still open?" Lu Ren checked his phone—3:10 AM.
"It stays open until five in the morning," Starlight parked the car in front of the pizza shop. "I scouted it out."
"Scouted?"
"Just couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, went out for a drive, and found this place was still open. Scouted it for three nights in a row."
They pushed the door open and walked into the pizza shop. The shop was very small, with only four tables, and the walls were decorated with a map of Italy and a few black-and-white photos. Behind the counter stood a chubby middle-aged man, his apron covered in flour, as he slid a pizza into the oven.
"You're here," he greeted Starlight without looking up, his tone as familiar as an old friend.
"What do you have today?" Starlight walked to the counter and stood on tiptoes to look at the menu.
"Same as yesterday. Don't bother ordering." The man looked up, glanced at Lu Ren, then lowered his head again to continue working on the pizza. "One more person. Should I add more?"
"Yes. Double cheese."
Starlight took a twenty-dollar bill from her pocket, placed it on the counter, and then walked to the table in the back and sat down. Lu Ren sat opposite her.
"Do you come here often?" he asked.
"Three nights," Starlight held up three fingers. "Third night. You're the first person to come here with me."
The pizza arrived. It was a large, thin-crust pie with plenty of cheese, sprinkled with chopped fresh basil leaves on top. Starlight didn't use a knife or fork; she tore off a piece with her hands, the cheese stretching out into long strings, like a golden rubber band under the lights.
She took a bite, her eyes narrowing—that brief, purely physiological satisfaction that only appears when eating something delicious.
"Good?" Lu Ren asked.
"Good," Starlight said, her mouth full. "A hundred times better than the quinoa salad the Vought Internationalnutritionist preps."
Lu Ren also tore off a piece and took a bite. The cheese was hot, the crust was crispy, and the sweet and sour tomato sauce mixed with the fresh aroma of basil—it was a simple, straightforward deliciousness that needed no explanation.
"Never had this kind of pizza before?" Starlight watched him eat, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"I've had the big brands. Never had one from a small shop open at three in the morning."
"The big brands are all fake," Starlight tore off another piece. "Small shops hidden in alleys like this are the real ones. Just like people—those standing in the spotlight aren't real; the real people are in places the lights can't reach."
She looked at Lu Ren.
"You spent four days in a place the lights couldn't reach. Now you're back under the lights. Can you tell me what kind of person you became in those four days?"
Lu Ren put down his pizza and wiped his hands.
"I found someone in those four days," he said. "Someone much more important than me."
"More important than you?"
"Someone who can change everything," Lu Ren repeated what he had said in the car earlier. "I'm not exaggerating. After he returns, this country, this city, Vought International, The Seven—everything will change. Homelander will change, too."
Starlight's expression changed.
"Who exactly is this person you're talking about?"
Chapter 30: Drinking Milk
"You'll know soon enough," Lu Ren said. "A week at most."
Starlight stared at him for a few seconds, then lowered her head and continued eating her pizza. This time, she ate slowly, chewing for a long time before swallowing.
"A week," she repeated. "Fine. I'll wait a week."
She tore off another piece of pizza, but this time she didn't put it in her own mouth; instead, she held it out to Lu Ren.
"Try this piece. The edge is a bit burnt, but the burnt part is the best."
Lu Ren took the pizza.
The burnt part was indeed the best—a savory taste with a hint of bitterness. Like many good things, perfection always needed a touch of imperfection to be truly flavorful.
It was four in the morning, and the lights in the pizza shop were still on. The chubby owner was dozing off behind the counter, his head bobbing down, only to jerk back up just before it hit the counter.
Starlight packed the remaining pizza into a cardboard box. As she walked out the door, she breathed out a puff of white mist—it was colder outside than when they had entered.
"I'll drive you back to Vought Tower," she said, pulling open the car door. "You can't just disappear for a day and then walk in through the front door. Someone will ask where you went."
"What do you tell people when you go somewhere?"
"I say I went back to Wisconsin to see my mom. No one checks." Starlight started the engine. "Because if you disappear, it doesn't affect them; if I disappear, it does. That's the cruel law of The Seven—the more useful you are, the less they let you leave. The more useless you are, the less they care where you go."
The car pulled out of the small street and merged onto the empty avenues of Manhattan.
"Am I useful?" Lu Ren asked.
Starlight didn't look at him, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.
"You're useful to me," she said.
It only took seven minutes to drive from the pizza shop to Vought Tower. Starlight deliberately took a detour, turning The Seven-minute drive into fifteen.
She pulled up at the entrance of the underground garage of Vought Tower.
"You go up yourself. I'll go in through the front door."
Lu Ren pushed open the car door, stepped out, leaned down, and said "Thank you" to the window.
Starlight rolled down the window.
"Lu Ren."
"Yeah?"
"You have flour on your clothes." She pointed to the sleeve of his hoodie.
Lu Ren looked down—there was indeed a small patch of white flour on his cuff, probably from the pizza shop.
"Good night. No, good morning." Starlight rolled up the window, and the car drove down the ramp into the underground garage.
Lu Ren stood at the garage entrance, watching the taillights of the white car disappear around the bend.
Then he walked into the stairwell.
The forty-sixth floor. The hallway was quiet. Looking out the window, the eastern sky was already beginning to pale into a shallow, cold, grayish-blue.
He paused as he passed Starlight's room. There was no light under the door; she hadn't come up yet.
He walked to his room door, took out his key, and opened it.
The lights in the room were on.
Homelander was sitting on the sofa, holding a glass of milk.
"You're back," he said, his tone exactly the same as last time—like someone waiting for a late-coming roommate.
Lu Ren closed the door and placed the boxed pizza on the table.
"Still drinking milk?"
"It helps with sleep." Homelander took a sip of milk, a ring of white milk residue staining the corners of his mouth. "Where did you go?"
"To see the aurora."
"Was it nice?"
"Not bad."
Homelander set down the milk glass, stood up, and walked over to Lu Ren.
He smelled of milk, aftershave, and another indescribable scent unique to him—not perfume, but something deeper, something seeping from his skin.
"Do you know why I'm waiting here for you?" Homelander's voice was very soft.
"I don't."
"Because in the four days you were gone, two things happened." Homelander held up two fingers. "First, Translucent has gone missing. His phone was last tracked to a hotel in Miami, but he wasn't in the room. The bed was made, his luggage was still there, but he was gone."
"Maybe he left on his own."
"Maybe." Homelander didn't refute him. "The second thing—Dr. Vogelbaum's lab was broken into. Someone broke into that lab a few days ago and took all the research data and samples. The surveillance was destroyed, but we found traces of residual energy at the scene."
He reached out, his fingertip lightly tapping Lu Ren's chest.
"Silver Lightning," he said. "Your energy."
Lu Ren didn't back away, nor did he offer a defense.
"It wasn't me."
"I know it wasn't you." Homelander smiled. "But Edgardoesn't think so. He held two board meetings to discuss this, and I sat in on both. He said, 'There is evidence suggesting Lu Ren is involved.' I said, 'The evidence could be forged.' He asked me why I was so sure. I said—"
He leaned in closer, his blue eyes staring straight into Lu Ren's.
"—I said, because I trust him."
Lu Ren looked into Homelander's eyes. There was no trust, no goodwill, no emotion belonging to "belief" in those eyes. There was one thing—curiosity. A near-paranoid curiosity about the unknown.
"You don't trust me," Lu Ren said.
"Of course I don't trust you." Homelander straightened up and patted Lu Ren on the shoulder. "But I trust Edgar even less. He told me to watch you, so I did. I sat here for four nights, waiting for you every single night. Do you know why?"
"Why?"
"Because I want to be the first to know your secret." Homelander's smile widened. "I think your secret must be very interesting."
He walked toward the door, opened it, and paused.
"The pizza looks good. Bring me a slice next time."
The door closed.
Lu Ren stood in the room, looking at the half-finished glass of milk Homelander had left. The cup was a Vought International mug, white, with The Seven's logo printed on it. There was a faint lipstick stain on the rim—not left by Homelander, but by the cup's previous owner.
Homelander had used someone else's cup.
He sat on someone else's sofa, drank someone else's milk, and waited for four nights, just to say, "I want to be the first to know your secret."
Lu Ren opened the pizza box; there were two slices left.
He picked one up and took a bite. It was cold, the cheese had congealed into a lump, and the crust had hardened, but the flavor was still there.
His phone vibrated.
A message from Starlight: "Did you get to your room?"
Lu Ren typed: "I did."
"That's good. Good night."
"Good night."
He turned off the lights and sat by the window, watching the eastern sky slowly turn from grayish-blue to pale orange, and then from pale orange to a bright gold.
The sunrise in Manhattan was always fast, as if someone had pressed a fast-forward button in the sky.
He finished the cold pizza and threw the box into the trash can.
Then he remembered something.
Homelander said Translucent was missing. Not "on leave," not "in Miami," but "missing." The bed was made, the luggage was there, but he was gone.
Butcher said Translucent was on leave in Miami.
The two stories didn't match.
Either Homelander was lying, or Butcher's source of information was flawed.
Lu Ren picked up his phone and sent a message to Butcher: "Translucent isn't on leave. He's missing. Homelander said so."
A few seconds later, Butcher replied: "I saw. The surveillance at the Miami hotel was pulled by Vought International. They're hiding something."
"What do you think it is?"
"Either Translucent ran off on his own, or someone got to him first."
"Who?"