“Cheers,” he said, tapping the cups together. “Happy New Year.”

THE REALIZATION THAT Xingyu was always going to be “the Liu heir” from here on out and no longer just some guy who happened to be Weiran’s best friend, combined with that kiss from Xiaokai that was somehow so much more haunting than the several times they’d had sex, culminated in Weiran losing his mind a little in his hotel room, which then resulted in Weiran looking up nearby restaurants and wondering how stealthily he could sneak into them to have at least some semblance of a New Year’s celebration without totally isolating himself. He didn’t want to go to one of the little cafes he’d been to before with Xingyu just in case Xingyu stopped there for any reason, and he didn’t want to go anywhere too expensive—there was somewhere family-friendly nearby which apparently had amazing fish, so he copied down the address on his phone and went out.

It had gotten colder since he’d last been outside. He was glad he’d draped the scarf around his shoulders, and as he walked he wound it tighter and tighter around his neck until he had his chin and nose nestled down into it, trying to retain as much heat as possible. It was snowing too—nothing worrying, but slow and lazy, dusting the ground but not accomplishing much else. Weiran stopped a few times to take pictures of the snow falling onto the trees lining the streets, of the cars making tracks into the white, of the beautiful traditional buildings.

The restaurant he found online was a little hole-in-the-wall place that was already packed at lunchtime. Weiran asked for a table and waited outside in the cold, alternating between burrowing further into his scarf and blowing on his hands, just watching the cars move past him. It was a pretty nice neighborhood, he noticed—mostly clean, modern but not so much that the little pockets of culture were erased. Businesses hadn’t yet swallowed up the residential buildings.

“This is it?”

“It’s discreet. Do you need more?”

That voice sounded familiar. Weiran, still blowing on his hands, turned to look.

Liu Baiyan. Liu Baiyan, a body guard, and an older man probably somewhere in his later sixties. Just walking down the street as if nothing else mattered, chatting about—what, real estate? He could barely hear them. The hatred was already burning up inside of him, crawling up his throat and spilling into his mouth.

“It’ll be acceptable for a temporary stay,” the older man was saying. “Do you have anything I can use for a longer—are you listening to me?”

Liu Baiyan, the man responsible for killing Weiran’s parents and tearing apart his life, was looking directly at Weiran.