The Liu estate reminded Zhang Weiran of the Zhu estate—of the house he’d grown up in. The entry hall was big both in height and in width—shining hardwood floors stretched out before him, and on either side curved staircases lead to the second floor. Weiran paused in the doorway, his mouth dropping open a little, and Xingyu tugged on his arm.

“This way. Your room is a few doors down from mine.”

Definitely words that would have made Weiran unreasonably excited, once upon a time. Now, he just wanted to ask how that was in comparison to Xiaokai’s room.

“Is Sun Yue—your mom, I mean—not going to say anything?”

“She’s out of her mind, anyway. And, at this point, she can’t say anything. Keeping you in the house is the best option for now. We have better security, and there’s less of a chance that someone can go after you without one of us knowing about it. I’ll take you to the office with me too. You can be a proper secretary, right?”

“Um,” said Weiran.

“Don’t worry about it too much. Just don’t talk and make it look like you’re taking a lot of notes.” They stopped in the hallway and Xingyu pushed open a door. “You’ll be staying in here. If you need me, I’m two doors that way.”

“What if, uh.” Weiran peered inside the room. It was, of course, ridiculously large and extravagant. “What if you’re busy?”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem, but just in case.” Xingyu pointed the other way. “At the end of the hallway is Xiao-Xiao’s room. Don’t expect him to let you in, though. He doesn’t like people poking around in his things.”

“Oh, I don’t think I would ever…” Weiran let his voice trail off. He just nodded a few times instead. “Okay. When do you leave in the morning?”

“I’ll need to leave at about six in the morning.” At Weiran’s look of horror, he added, “Or we could leave at seven?”

Weiran regularly woke up at ten or later, and it was well past midnight now. He grimaced, rubbed his face. “No, I can get up that early. When does Xiaokai get up?”

“I’m not sure. I know he goes to bed pretty late most nights, but I’ve only ever run into him in the morning once. If you ever want to go in a little later and he leaves after me, you can arrange that with him.”

Weiran looked over his shoulder, back at Xiaokai’s room. “Do you think he’s sleeping now?”

“Probably not. I think he headed back to the office after he left the hotel.”