Maybe if Xingyu had stayed—

Maybe if he hadn’t—

He threw up again.

“HEY, ARE YOU busy?”

“Not if whatever you have to say is important.”

“…”

“Is that a confirmation that it’s not important? Because, if so, yes. I am very busy. I have documents falling out of my—”

“Xingyu asked me to find your medical records.”

“…”

“Xiaokai?”

“Did you give them to him?”

“I—yes, but I thought you should—”

“Okay.”

“Just okay?”

“You didn’t know. I’m not angry at you.”

“…Are you angry at Xingyu?”

“I’ll always be angry at Xingyu.”

HU YONGZHU WAS rough, and Xiaokai let him be.

He tore him apart with all of the toys he brought wrapped up in his duffle bag. All the lessons Xiaokai learned told him to let his clients do what he wanted, but only within reason—he had to make sure that he stayed alive, that he stayed healthy enough to do his work. Hu Yongzhu knew this as well, and he knew that Xiaokai was responsible for drawing the line—that, really, Xiaokai was in charge because it was Xiaokai who had the deeper connections to the List. It was Xiaokai who was the heir to the woman who could bring down Hu Yongzhu with a single word.

But he didn’t tell him to stop, and Hu Yongzhu was milking that for all it was worth. He pushed Xiaokai until he passed out, waited until he regained consciousness, and then he did the same all over again.

They were an hour and a half into a three-hour appointment. Xiaokai was strapped flat onto the bed, his legs spread wide, and though he couldn’t see his body with his eyes covered, he knew that he was covered in wounds that would take a while to heal. He knew that he was bleeding onto the sheets. He knew that he’d cried already several times and had at some point run out of tears. His throat was scraped raw too from the sobbing, and hurt even when he breathed.

“Are you ready to stop?”

Xiaokai took in a ragged breath. “Is the a…is the appointment…over?”

Hu Yongzhu laughed. He was standing above Xiaokai, panting from exertion and sucking on a cigarette. “You want to keep going that bad?”

“I wasn’t…aware that w…that we started.”

Hu Yongzhu laughed again, even more uproariously. He bent and pressed a kiss to Xiaokai, wet and sloppy and tasting distinctly of cigarettes. “You’re so cute.” He kissed him again, right on his jawline. “Let’s keep going then.”