“IT WON’T BE smooth sailing from here,” Xiaokai said. He was calm again, and sat perched in one of the hotel room’s chairs with his computer in his lap. Weiran wanted to apologize to him—wanted to apologize for lashing out on him when he had no idea what he was talking about and never did when it came to Xiaokai. You of all people calling him a monster. You’ve always been bitter toward Xingyu. Xiaokai’s mother had already betrayed him in his childhood over and over again with all those lessons, and then he lost the only person he thought he could trust. Of course he wouldn’t want to be close with Xingyu after that. Weiran was the real monster here.

But he didn’t apologize. He didn’t want to break whatever concentration Xiaokai had mustered up for himself—he was stronger than either of them for being able to put up with them after everything they’d both done to him.

“It’ll be easier than before,” said Xingyu.

“Easier to get information without Liu Baiyan catching you and killing you for it, sure, and that’s only if the board approves your permanent position. That doesn’t mean that any of his contacts are going to trust you just because he’s dead. We’ll work on finding and going through the information he left, but you’re going to have to repair those relationships in the meantime.”

“I’ll make them trust me.”

Weiran shivered. There seemed to be a change in Xingyu since his confession—it seemed like whatever mask he’d been wearing before was gone. He no longer smiled; he no longer offered jokes to lighten the mood. He even had a different aura about him, dark and deep and powerful—the kind of aura that made Weiran want to flinch away.

“It’s not as simple as that. Liu Baiyan didn’t just control these people through fear. These were established relationships that he cultivated over years and years of work. Take some time to make yourself familiar with the deals he’s been making over the last few years. It’ll help with your argument in the board meeting, too. I still have my own meetings with the higher-ups and will delay any demands as long as I can.”

“Ba said you were responsible for making a lot of these deals better for Liu Incorporated. So you’re involved in these negotiations?”

“In a way.”

Weiran shifted on the bed, uncomfortable. Was Xiaokai going to tell him?

“If you need me to go with you to some of these meetings, I will. I don’t know everything about the deals, but I do have some context, and I certainly know a bit about their personalities.”

“What about Laoma? I told her to give you access to everything she had.”

“That’s not happening anytime soon.”