There were already rumors starting to sprout up, which was why Xiao-Xiao had chosen those as his parting words—he knew Xingyu would obsess over them. They were starting off small, questioning about how, if the Liu family was tied to all of these other conglomerates, why weren’t they also being taken in and questioned? They were the sort of whispers that didn’t seem too harmful at first, but as Xingyu had already surmised, the suspicion would probably brush right over him and dive right to Xiaokai. It would also probably swing onto Sun Yue as well, as long as she remained out of jail, but of course that could be remedied as soon as Xiaokai passed over those files as well. He’d said something about how Sun Yue might still have valuable information to give them. Xingyu thought she should consider herself lucky not just because she could stay out of jail for now, but also because Xingyu hadn’t torn her apart for everything she’d done to Xiao-Xiao. And to think Xingyu had once been jealous of Xiaokai!—of the attention lavished on him by their mother, of his lack of interaction with their father, of his ability to cry and smile and cling as much as he pleased without getting scolded. Xingyu wanted to give Sun Yue a much more painful death than he’d granted upon Liu Baiyan, just as much as he wanted to tear apart Bai Xue. But Xiao-Xiao was right: she had managed the Files for many years—had stayed by Liu Baiyan’s side for many years. Even if she’d handed over the Files, she could be holding a wealth of information in her head that she hadn’t yet surrendered.

“Xingyu.” Weiran finally spoke up, his voice rough and low. He was holding his phone in his hand and had been scrolling through it while Xingyu mulled all of this over but had stopped and was staring Xingyu down now.

“Hm?”

“Are you so worried about his reputation in the press?”

“Of course I am.” Xingyu paused. “Aren’t you? The press won’t touch you unless you come forward, and there’s nothing they can say about me that would accomplish anything. Xiao-Xiao is different.”

“I’m worried. But I’m hoping he has a plan, or at least…that we would have a plan.”

“A plan? Like buying the press?”

Weiran made a face. “No. The point of all of this was to remove the corruption from the city, not exploit it for different reasons.”