Some details that came up in court, the news said, have been censored for public viewing. Not appropriate for children. Have been made private due to the explicit nature. Weiran could see Xingyu’s gaze linger on these words, his throat working.

He’d been in a clearly dangerous position he couldn’t possibly refuse.

Some details have been made private due to the explicit nature.

But some other articles weren’t nearly so sensitive—news tabloids that had once sung the Liu family’s praises were now tearing him apart limb from limb: Liu family scandal, second heir and the Little Chrysanthemum of the city was a prostitute in the night, city was controlled by a secret organization—Weiran wanted to find each reporter and attack them as mercilessly as they were attacking Xiaokai. What did they know? Why were they judging him for not crying as he recounted his childhood, all the training, all the appointments? Why were they judging him for not crying when he nodded at the pictures they showed him of all the terrible bruises and burns from his clients that he’d meticulously taken each time they hurt him? They didn’t know anything about him. They didn’t understand anything about him. All they knew was that he was involved with the List, that he slept with people he wasn’t in love with, that he pretended to be upright and honest during all of this. That he pretended to be the perfect fu’erdai.

And the worst part—the worst part was that Weiran couldn’t talk to him about any of it. That he couldn’t try to comfort him, even if Xiaokai would have never accepted it in the first place. He knew that Xiaokai would say that none of it bothered him—he didn’t like the pity on peoples’ faces, he would say, and articles meant that he didn’t have to look at any faces now—but Weiran wasn’t so convinced. How could anyone be okay in a position like that? Before, yes, it might be believable that Xiaokai was able to brush it all off—he was a fu’erdai, after all, and no number of insults would tear him down from that position as long as he had his family to protect him. But now—now Xiaokai was alone in prison, his father dead, his mother arrested and awaiting trial, his brother forbidden from interfering; no longer was he able to fall back on his wealth or reputation. How could someone be okay when the world turned against them like that? How could someone be okay without a support system amidst all that?