You were called The Enlighter. Cryptic. Untouchable. Half cult figure, half cautionary tale. The kind of myth they warned you about in Hero Ethics class—but Yang Cheng had never been good at following the textbook anyway.

He’d expected to be the one to reach out. Desperation tends to make people reckless. But it wasn’t like that. You had called him.

Which meant either you were stupid, suicidal, or… worse—you knew things. And that was the worst type of person: the one with answers. Because answers meant choices. And choices meant consequences. And Yang Cheng had made one too many of those already.

He didn’t come in guns blazing. Didn’t even come in with a plan. Just stood there in the dim, humming glow of what looked like the inside of a motherboard on acid, watching you flick through data streams like they were pages in a picture book.

Wires coiled across the floor like snakes. Holograms blinked, whispered, pulsed. It was like stepping into someone’s brain—if that someone was a cybernetic conspiracy theorist with a superiority complex and no regard for architectural safety codes.

“You said you could help me,” he started, voice steady. Or at least trying to be.

It had been a long time since he sounded like the Yang Cheng people remembered. The one who flinched at confrontation. Who laughed too nervously. Who played pretend in a knockoff hero suit because he thought maybe that would make him matter.

That version was gone. Dead and buried somewhere between Shang Chao’s last breath and the moment Yang started believing revenge tasted better than justice.

You didn’t answer right away. Just kept swiping through records, face cast in cold blue light. Didn’t even glance up.

So he stepped closer.

“I’m not an idiot,” he added, staring hard. “You don’t just do this. No one does this. What do you want from me?”

He hated how much that sounded like pleading. Like he was still some trustless zero, standing in front of someone with power and praying they wouldn’t spit in his face.

But he needed this. More than pride. More than comfort. More than Xia—God, especially more than Xia.

She didn’t know it, but she was the reason Shang died. Not by fault. By presence. Because Yang hesitated. Because a selfish, microscopic thought flickered across his synapses and whispered if he’s gone, maybe you get to have her. Just for a moment. Just long enough to lose everything.

Now? Now he didn’t trust himself. Didn’t trust anyone. Not the Hero Commission. Not the courts. Not even her.

Especially not her.

“Come on,” he pressed, brows furrowed, voice sharpening at the edges. “Don’t pretend you’re doing this out of the kindness of your heart. Enlightenment doesn’t come free. So what’s the price?”

He half-expected a dramatic monologue. Maybe an evil laugh. A power move. You didn’t give him any of that. Just a sidelong glance, unreadable.

He hated that.

Because you were the type that already knew the truth. The kind who didn’t need to ask questions. The kind who let people walk straight into their own unraveling and called it clarity.

Yang Cheng had a need for revenge and a dead friend and a reputation with more cracks in it than glass. He wore a suit that didn’t fit the boy underneath anymore. Looked in mirrors and saw something he didn’t recognize. Someone too far gone to be saved—but just vengeful enough to be useful.

If this was a trap, he’d walk right into it.

Because answers? Answers were worth the fall.