He took another moment to gather more information before he moved: he was comfortable. He still had his clothes on. He wasn’t tied down to anything. It was…daytime still; he could see the sunlight coming through the curtains on the window as they fluttered under the air of the air conditioner. He was…safe? But who had knocked him out? And who had brought him here?

Xiaokai sat up slowly. His head ached, but not so much that it was unbearable. Would he be able to leave here without noticing? His phone—no, it wasn’t here. Had he dropped it somewhere? It wasn’t anywhere on the bed around him, wasn’t on the floor—

“You’re awake.”

Xiaokai froze. He turned. Bai Xue was standing in the bathroom doorway. He was smiling.

“Bai Xue? You’re the one who knocked me out?”

“Oh, no. I can’t be in a place with so many cameras. I just sent one of my people.” He came out of the bathroom, shutting the door after him. Xiaokai wondered about the plausibility of getting out of here without getting caught—if he just made a run for it now, somehow overpowering the pain in his head that he knew would make him dizzy enough to send him back to the ground, he could probably get past Bai Xue, but what about the door? Was the door even unlocked? What was beyond the door? If Bai Xue had someone who could sneak in among an entire staff of a television show, knock Xiaokai out, and bring him to a hotel without anyone noticing, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that he also had more people who could easily take Xiaokai down before he got even a step out the door, much less out of the hotel? Should he take the risk anyway? Should he—

“Don’t look so worried.” Bai Xue was suddenly in front of him, reaching forward and smoothing out the crease between Xiaokai’s brows. Xiaokai leaned away from him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”

“Bullshit. If you wanted to talk, you could have called.”

“You know I don’t have a phone.”

“You think I’m going to believe that you don’t have a phone just because you didn’t use one during our appointments? Even if you didn’t, use a payphone.”

Bai Xue smiled and withdrew his hand. “I really do want to talk to you, Mei Hua. But it’s important enough to make the effort and speak face to face.”

“I don’t want to hear whatever it is you have to say.”

“You’ll want to hear this.”

“I really doubt that.”