“He says he’s fine. The hospital released him. He’s been staying here at the house.” She must not be leaving her room at all, if she didn’t know Xiaokai was back. Weiran tried not to wonder whether she’d been eating.

But of course that answer didn’t fool Sun Yue. “How is he really?”

“Bad,” Weiran said. “You knew that Bai Xue had him this whole time, didn’t you?”

Sun Yue pressed her lips together.

“I need to know where he is.”

“He’s a dangerous man. He’s a dangerous man who’s been backed into a corner. You, Xingyu—you don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“He went to Kami no Ha.”

Sun Yue’s eyebrows came together and her gaze darted back to meet Weiran’s in the reflection. “When?”

“I guess right after he dumped Xiaokai on the side of the road like he was a piece of garbage. He went to offer his services to become one of the Kishi, but they turned him down. He has nowhere else to go. I know he’s at one of the residential properties Liu Baiyan purchased from Hu Yongzhu in the deal he was finalizing before he died. Is it the downtown location, or is it the seaside location?”

Sun Yue’s hands curled into fists.

“I don’t think you wanted any of this for him,” Weiran said. “If you really wanted him to keep living like he was inside the List—if you wanted the List to survive with its claws in him—you would have never given him the Files. I think we both know you aren’t so naïve that you didn’t know exactly what he wanted with them—exactly what we wanted with them.”

Sun Yue still didn’t speak.

“Unless I’m wrong,” said Weiran. “Unless that heartlessness toward your business rivals and threats to the List extend to your children too. Unless you wanted him to come home feeling used every day, covered in bruises and cuts and who knows what else, pretending that he’s fine, and hiding in his room until he eventually has to get up again and put a smile on for the public. Unless that’s what you envisioned when you gave birth to him. Unless you enjoyed giving a little boy lessons that no one should ever have to experience. If that’s the case, I won’t waste your time.”