“How long do you think you could love me for?” he asked.

Weiran blinked. Then he grinned. Then he laughed. Then he said, “Forever. I could love you forever.”

Xiaokai kissed him again. “Love me forever, then,” he said.

2

“YOU KNOW…” XIAOKAI eyed Xingyu from where he sat on the couch with Weiran, one of Weiran’s arms draped around his shoulder. The sun streamed in from the west window, golden and soft, setting all of them in a gentle light that probably only Weiran deserved. “I’ve been wondering this for a while now, but did they really let you keep so much money after all the arrests and seizures?”

Xingyu let out a little bark of a laugh. “No, not really. I gave a good chunk of it to them voluntarily, and then Weiran helped me come up with a deal to sell Liu Incorporated to a real estate company called Sharp and Associates, which basically tore up all the resources and spit them back up into something that doesn’t even resemble a quarter of the former glory the Liu family built. Do you want to know the best part?”

Xiaokai hadn’t ever looked up what exactly happened to Liu Incorporated while he was imprisoned, but he was pleased with the answer; Liu Baiyan had worked so hard to maintain his family’s glory—but he had crossed the line for Xingyu, and Xingyu had destroyed him and everything he loved because of it. “Tell me,” he said.

“Sharp and Associates is affiliated with Kami no Ha.” Liu Xingyu grinned widely in a way that seemed very self-satisfied and dropped his legs with a thump onto the coffee table. “Isn’t that great? He spent all that time being worried that Kami no Ha was going to take control of the city, and now I’ve just handed control of his company over to them.”

“I’m sure he’s cursing your next life,” said Xiaokai, and Xingyu laughed at that too. “Have you been in any contact with Sun Yue?”

“After what she did to you? Are you kidding me?” Xingyu reached for the wine bottle and refilled his glass. “Why, do you want to get in contact with her? I can make some phone calls, if you really want me to.”

“Not necessarily.” Xiaokai thought quite often about the look in her eyes after Liu Baiyan died. And then the way she looked in handcuffs in the endlessly repeating court tapes they showed in the news. “I just…wonder sometimes how she’s doing. She grew up wealthy and privileged and respected, and now she has none of that.”

“So? You grew up with all of that.”

“Yes, but I wanted to be in prison.”

Weiran flinched against him. He covered it up with a cough and reached for his wine.