So he used him. Used the thought of Weiran, used the fact that Weiran was in love with Xingyu, used the fact that Weiran hated Xiaokai—he used all of that and let the disgust with himself build up until he finally came, and then wonderfully—gloriously—his eyelids drooped.

Finally, he thought.

Finally.

15

THE MISTAKE

THE THREE OF them met early Monday morning in Weiran’s room—earlier than Weiran usually got up, which wasn’t saying much. Earlier than Xiaokai usually went to work, which was saying quite a lot. Weiran was barely staying awake and had to walk around and busy himself with different things. If he sat down, he knew he would fall back asleep immediately, no matter what kind of important things Xingyu and Xiaokai were talking about.

It was strange, seeing them side by side like this. He’d learned a lot more about Xiaokai since the last time he saw them all together. Now that they were all in the room at the same time, he couldn’t help comparing them again—Xingyu was taller and had longer hair and was more handsome, Xiaokai was shorter and had shorter hair and had those little birthmarks by his lip and under his eye. Xingyu was brighter, more charismatic; Xiaokai didn’t bother to hide his scowls or comments. Yes, he definitely still liked Xingyu a lot, and he still disliked Xiaokai. No matter how tragic his backstory.

“I don’t have much time,” Xiaokai was saying when Weiran finally shook himself out of falling asleep on his feet. “I told Miss Huang that I would be by earlier to make up for the days I missed last week.”

Miss Huang—that was Xiaokai’s secretary. Weiran couldn’t even imagine having a secretary.

“We can get this done fast,” Xingyu assured him. “Let’s just go over what we’ve done so far. Weiran?”

Weiran really was half asleep. He blinked a few times, trying to process what Xingyu said, before he was able to answer. “Well, Xiaokai gave me a bunch of information to go through. The appointments he’s been on since we started this have given me good information, but it’s not enough for me to take anyone down and be convinced that they’ll stay down.”

“I’ve given about all the information I can to Zhang,” Xiaokai added. “I can pass over copies from what I gather for Sun Yue, but until I get access to Sun Yue’s Files, there’s not much else I can give him.”

Xingyu nodded. “That’s fine. We knew that would be an obstacle.”