Laoma said, “Do you really think he didn’t know that you would return? You know him. Nothing is out of his control.” The way she said it—like she was defeated—made a chill crawl up Xingyu’s spine. She was probably right, and he knew it: Ba had probably molded him in such a way that he knew Xingyu would eventually return, and he might have even planned for Xingyu to try to bring down the List. If he had—was it some kind of power play here, that he wasn’t admitting that he knew? Did he have something bigger planned? Was he waiting until Xingyu got closer to bringing down the List before he brought him crashing down instead?

“Do you really believe that?” Xingyu asked at last. “Do you believe that he’s in control of everything?”

“You know his position in the List,” said Laoma. “He’s told you that much.”

“Yes.”

“Then you know there’s one person higher than him.”

Something caught in Xingyu’s chest. He hadn’t actually known that—Ba wasn’t the sort of person who would admit that he was below anyone. “You mean…the person in charge of the List.”

“Yes.”

“Who—”

“You know I can’t tell you that, A-Yu. You can’t imagine…” This time she really did trail off in hesitance, and her gaze moved away from Xingyu. “Your father is both more powerful and less powerful than you think.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t press it, Xingyu.”

Laoma eventually left to work in her office, and Xingyu, effectively alone now, started to cook some lunch for himself in the kitchen. He knew that they had a chef that he could summon at any point to make him whatever he wanted, but, just like he still wasn’t used to anyone opening his doors or carrying his luggage for him, he didn’t know how to comfortably sit back and watch someone do the work for him. He’d cooked for himself—with great difficulty in the first couple weeks—for an entire decade. He couldn’t delegate the task after all that time.

He decided on lamian18 after little deliberation—it was cold enough, after all, and it wasn’t as if he had the time or the patience to make himself proper huoguo,19 which was what he really wanted—and set to chopping vegetables while the water came to a boil on the stove.

So Xiao-Xiao was never going to be the heir.