“I do understand how serious death is. Dear Ba gave me plenty of lessons on life and death and the burden of taking a life. I was only applying those lessons.” He steepled his fingers together. “Take care of this before my meeting with Hu Yongzhu.”

“You think you can just take over like this?”

“And what is the alternative? It’s already done. His body’s growing cold. You can either help me cover this up and then help me take over the company in his absence, or you can let the company crumble around us. I think we both know which you will choose. The meeting with Hu Yongzhu is at five, so I suggest you hurry.”

Laoma struggled with this for a moment, her face flickering between anger and resignation, and then she stood. “I’ll make some calls.”

“Good choice.”

SUN YUE CALLED Xiaokai on his way to an appointment with Chen Jun. He was half grateful for the interruption—he was exhausted and wasn’t sure if he’d be able to balance in whatever heels Chen Jun was going to stuff him in, much less try to figure out how to navigate the first appointment he was going to have since Bai Xue…. Well.

It had been nearly a week since his release—a week since Sun Yue’s strange behavior and the little pill she pressed into his hand. A week of monotonous work he slowly churned his way through under the careful, watchful eyes of Meimei. Every night since, Sun Yue had shown up at his door and quietly given him another pill, only offering one explanation when Xiaokai raised a questioning eyebrow on the second night: “It helps me.” Every night, Xiaokai took the pill, and he slept dreamlessly.

“Hello?” He was already half-hoping that Sun Yue would tell him Chen Jun had cancelled the appointment, which he had only done maybe once in the countless times they’d had appointments—or, even better, that Chen Jun had a tragic accident and Xiaokai would never have to see his face again.

“Xiaokai. Your father is dead.”

Xiaokai blinked. A nervous smile flickered at the corners of his lips. “Excuse me?”

“Liu Baiyan is dead. Xingyu killed him.” Sun Yue sighed into the phone, but Xiaokai was still frozen with his phone to his ear and that half smile on his mouth. “He’s even more ruthless than his father. Liu Baiyan at least had the decency to make it look like an accident.”

Liu Baiyan—dead. By Xingyu’s hand. Slowly the smile slid off Xiaokai’s face. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, concentrating everything on not just hanging up, hunting Liu Xingyu down, and shaking him by the shoulders. “How are you handling it?”