“You can look through them, but it’s going to be difficult figuring out which one he’s in, and the police will likely be swarming all his properties soon anyway. It’s also entirely possible that he’s got his own property under a name other than Bai Xue. How do you expect to find him then?”

Xingyu’s jaw set. Weiran, who couldn’t bear to see all of that torment swirling around in his friend’s eyes anymore, looked away. “We’ll figure it out,” Xingyu said. “I’ll make him pay for what he did.”

27

THE SHOW

AS IT TURNED out, finding and pulling the weed that was Bai Xue out from the city was no easy task. He had, after all, been operating the List for a great many years, and had the kind of reach and influence within the city that none of his three hunters could fathom. They’d even warned the police through the files Huang Fei’er delivered that there was someone else to watch out for—but then of course they were only able to provide the alias “Bai Xue” and a description, neither of which were particularly helpful to anyone. Sometimes these three hunters even wondered if the police believed there was another monster to hunt at all—there had been news of all sorts of arrests so far, but none of these stories had even broached the possibility that there was someone else.

Nothing to worry about, Liu Xiaokai assured the two others. If there was an investigation, it would be kept under wraps. There was no point in spreading the name “Bai Xue” everywhere. It would just make him go further into hiding, maybe flee the city if he hadn’t already. It was better they weren’t hearing anything yet, Xiaokai said. Indeed, this was the second-best scenario, only after news of Bai Xue’s arrest.

Neither Zhang Weiran nor Liu Xingyu seemed to want to bring up any relationship between Xiaokai and Bai Xue, but by the end of Monday, three days after Huang Fei’er had turned in the Files and then left for her safe house and the end of the first day of arrests, they were both getting restless with the lack of information, and eventually Liu Xingyu broke.

“Is there anything you know about him that might be able to help us?”

Xiao-Xiao shrugged. “What can I say? He dressed in the same kind of outfits every day and we only ever met at the hotel. Other than the week he kept me at that warehouse, the routine was always the same.”