He was envious of his brother. He had a job that had, in the past, always been given to a woman, and had to give his body over and over to people he barely knew. He was expressive and lovely and emotional. Most alluring to Bai Xue, though—and he expected it was the same for most of the people who visited Liu Xiaokai, if not all of them—was something that he hadn’t expected he would ever find attractive: the darkness behind Liu Xiaokai’s gaze that would at times consume his eyes entirely, furious and fiery and devastatingly lonely all at once. It was a pleasure and a privilege to see those eyes underneath you, yielding to you, even as they burned with something powerful enough to swallow you whole. Bai Xue knew that Liu Xiaokai had already been broken, that he’d broken first when he was sixteen years old and had to be patched together, that he’d been broken again and again later on in the appointments that marked his body, that he’d found some semblance of comfort in Bai Xue but that Bai Xue was not the one who could put him back together. Not that he wanted to, of course; if Liu Xiaokai was in any sense of the word “fixed” then he would lose much of what made him valuable. A Liu Xiaokai who was comfortable with his place in the world and didn’t see any need to fight for a higher position or a better life…there would be no more pleasure to be gained from conquering the fire. Liu Xiaokai was special because he held fury in his heart that only grew stronger with each passing year. If he could hold onto that fury—and if he could properly combine it with his intelligence, his managerial capabilities, his ability to manipulate everyone around him, his ability to make people feel fascinated with and protective of him—he would be the perfect leader of the List.

And if Bai Xue gave that news to him…

If Bai Xue told him that he was the heir, that he was higher than his useless brother Liu Xingyu, that he could order Liu Xingyu and Liu Baiyan and Sun Yue and anyone else to death or whatever else he wanted—wouldn’t Liu Xiaokai be so grateful? No matter how much Bai Xue hurt him, it would always be Bai Xue who gave him that power and position. He would fall back into Bai Xue’s arms without complaint, let Bai Xue love him and use him as he pleased.

Liu Xiaokai would be at the top of the world, but he would still be beneath Bai Xue.

The thought made him smile, and then it made him laugh.