He started going to bed earlier and earlier, substituting simple rest for sleep, hoping that lying in bed with his eyes closed—even if he wasn’t actually unconscious—would accomplish what he needed accomplished. Of course it wasn’t the same, no matter how long he stayed there; everyone knew that lounging around in bed all day was nothing comparable to sleeping all night. As a result, he slid out of his covers each morning feeling only more fatigued than he had the day before.

He was actually quite proud of himself that none of the people in this house with him had said anything. They were all the sort of people who would say something if they noticed, so that none of them had commented on his exhaustion—well, it must be that Liu Xiaokai was such a good liar that they had no idea what was going on.

Every night, he laid himself into the bed, closed his eyes, and folded his hands over his chest, and every night the bottles in his bathroom seemed more and more tempting, the situation more and more helpless, his failures more and more prominent. He’d made a fool of himself for the last twenty-four years trying to become Liu Baiyan’s heir. He’d trained so long to become Sun Yue’s heir. He was being groomed to be Bai Xue’s heir without knowing. He had fucked and let himself be fucked too many times to count. He had seduced Weiran, the one part of his brother’s life that he could snatch away. He had spent many nights dreaming about running away with a man who only wanted to bring him further into the List. He had failed when he was sixteen, he was failing now—

There was a knock at Xiaokai’s door. He was in the middle of washing his face, and hadn’t yet dressed after he’d shed his sleepwear, so he threw on a robe and toweled off the water as he went to the door.

It was Liu Xingyu. It was also Zhang Weiran.

Zhang Weiran immediately flushed at the sight of Xiaokai in his open robe, but Xingyu barely glanced downward, and perhaps did not even register that Xiaokai wasn’t dressed.

“Oh, good. You’re up.”

Xiaokai glared at him. “Is there a reason you’re both at my door?”

“I wanted to discuss a possibility with you. Have you done many interviews?”

“Some.” Xiaokai decided to just answer the next question before he had to hear Xingyu ask it, because he at least knew his brother well enough to make these predictions: “They were largely magazine interviews, but I’ve done a few television pieces. Why do you want to know?”

“A-Wei saw in your inbox you have someone wanting an interview with the two of us. I think it would be a good opportunity to ensure your reputation doesn’t suffer.”

“Who cares about my reputation?”