It had been three days since Xiaokai left. He’d been gone before—gone without word, which had been awful and worrying, but now that he was gone after telling them off? Weiran was tempted to say it was a worse experience. At least before Weiran felt like Xiaokai would come back. They had a job to do, after all. They had to bring down the List. As soon as Xiaokai said he was going to help them, he was committed to it. But now? Now the job was done, and Xiaokai was furious with them, and he hadn’t contacted them, and Weiran was getting the terrible feeling that Xiaokai wasn’t going to come back.

“Neither he or He Peilin have contacted us since then.”

“But it won’t last forever.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” Weiran pulled his legs up onto the couch and hugged them to his chest. “Or is that a guess? Because from what I can tell, Xingyu—no offense—but it seems like he hasn’t really forgiven you at all.”

Xingyu climbed over the back of the couch and sat next to Weiran. He had a glass in one hand that smelled strongly of alcohol. “Fair enough,” he said. “But I do think he’s relaxed a bit toward me. He used to not even want to look at me. It probably got better since he stopped wanting to inherit Liu Baiyan’s position.”

Weiran reached out, took Xingyu’s drink from his hand, and took a sip of it. It was strong, familiar—Weiran wondered if it was the same brand that he’d had in the club all that time ago. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

“About what?”

“About being in love with Bai Xue.”

Xingyu took the glass back, but he didn’t drink from it. He just swirled it around and watched the liquid move. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I think it would be strange, if he was. I don’t know whether to be happy for him.”

“Why the hell would you be happy for him? Bai Xue was a monster.” A monster that had crumpled beneath Weiran’s hands. “It wouldn’t be a good thing if he was in love with him.”

“It would be a good thing that he could love at all.” Xingyu was looking at Weiran with something almost like softness in his eyes. “I never thought that either of us would be able to. Shouldn’t you be pleased that you have a chance now?”