“Of course I don’t,” Weiran grumbled. “I thought he was on the List’s side when I first met him. He obviously isn’t now.”

“I didn’t ask this last night, but…when did Xiaokai go back to your room?”

Damn. And Weiran thought they were lucky, too.

“I don’t know. Maybe around ten? He was done with his meeting and came back to make sure I had everything packed and ready to go. I didn’t even think about telling you.”

Still, Xingyu just kept looking at him.

“Okay, the whole being bothered thing? I’m bothered now.”

“Mn. Sorry.” Xingyu moved his gaze back to the papers in front of him. “I’ve always studied you a bit, but you used to not look back.”

What? “Huh?” said Weiran, and Xingyu waved a hand.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s just that you were a really good source to study emotions on people, and you usually couldn’t meet my eye.”

Weiran was apparently a lot more obvious than he thought he was. Did he really think that he’d been good at keeping it secret? He tried to keep his tone light: “I can try looking away again?”

“No,” said Xingyu with a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Look wherever you like, A-Wei.”

“WHEN IS YOUR meeting with Bai Xue?”

“You know my schedule,” Xiaokai said flatly. He was already sweating at the thought of it, and his hands had a strange tremor again that he knew wouldn’t go away anytime soon. Just the thought of Bai Xue touching him again, of not knowing if Bai Xue was going to caress him or hurt him—

“Come to my office afterward.”

Xiaokai glanced at her in the mirror as he fixed his tie. “You can’t make me come to your office beforehand and make me cancel the appointment, I’m guessing?”

She had a strange expression on her face. For a long moment she just busied herself rearranging her long white dress around her legs, and Xiaokai wondered if she would just never answer him. Then: “I’m sorry, Xiaokai. You need to go.”

He huffed out an irritated sigh. “I know.”

“You can cancel anyone else’s appointments and I’ll handle the repercussions for you, but you can’t cancel appointments with Bai Xue.”

“Why, because he’ll hold me captive and beat me within an inch of my life again?”

“Because he’s more powerful than you know.”

Xiaokai turned to look at her. He felt his stomach turn. “He’s the one in charge of the List,” he said, and Sun Yue grimaced.

“Don’t tell him that you know. Just…be careful around him. And if he asks you any questions, be as honest as you can. He doesn’t take kindly to liars.”

“What kind of questions is he going to ask?”