“It’s Kang Haichi.”

Xiaokai rubbed his face.

“It’s in half an hour in a hotel nearby the gallery. I suggest you leave now.”

“I understand.” Liu Xiaokai hung up once Sun Yue had given him permission to, then immediately afterward called his driver. “Come pick me up.”

“Yes sir.”

“Are you going somewhere?” Liu Xingyu was watching him.

Liu Xiaokai tucked his phone into his pocket. “Yes. Something came up. I’m sorry, but I will have to depart early.”

Liu Xingyu’s eyebrows met. “Is something wrong?”

Zhang Weiran was giving both of them strange looks.

“Nothing is wrong. As I said, something came up. I will see you at home. And Zhang Weiran—” He stopped, appraised Zhang Weiran and his strange expression for a moment longer. “It was a pleasure seeing you again.”

A blatant lie and Zhang Weiran knew it: his lips twisted into something mocking a smile. “Yeah, pleasure.”

As Liu Xiaokai left, it seemed like the crowds parted like seas around him; Zhang Weiran chuckled low.

“He really is a different breed.”

Xingyu looked at him. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean…it’s just really obvious how he grew up. He stands out.”

“Does he?” Xingyu’s gaze returned to Xiaokai’s back. “Am I like that?”

Weiran’s answer came quick: “No, no. You’re different.”

But Xingyu didn’t seem to care either way. He just kept watching Xiaokai.

“Xingyu.”

Xingyu only shook out of it when Xiaokai disappeared around a corner. “Yes?”

“This is the perfect opportunity to sneak into Liu Xiaokai’s office and poke around as much as we want.”

“What? Weiran, I looked around and I didn’t find anything—”

“You said you just looked at what was on his desk. If he was hiding anything, he wouldn’t just leave it out. We need to actually get into his computer.”

Xingyu grimaced.

“It’s the perfect opportunity and you know it. He’s going out for a meeting or whatever and thinks we’ll be here all night. What kind of opportunity could possibly be better than this?”

“I’d rather just not look at all.”

“Listen, Xingyu.” Weiran took his friend by the shoulders, looking him right in the eye. “We talked about this before your father even contacted us. If we were going to do this, we were going to have to consider your brother just as seriously as we considered everything else. You don’t know what happened in the ten years you were gone.”

“Fine. But you’ll see when we get there—he has nothing to do with this.”

Zhang Weiran was absolutely convinced of the opposite. “Okay,” he said, “then let’s go prove me wrong.”

5

THE OFFICE

NOTES ABOUT KANG Haichi: