The first part was true. Xingyu didn’t know about the second part; after all, it wasn’t as if Xiaokai liked Xingyu even when they were kids, and he expressed this vocally quite often. As a child, Xingyu had wondered if they were just destined to never get along, but he wanted to so badly, no matter how much Xiaokai pushed him away.

Zhang Weiran looked up from the computer as he waited for the file explorer to open. Xingyu had gone absolutely still, his hands tucked into his pockets, his head tilted to one side, his eyes frozen into position but likely not looking at anything. Was he really considering what Weiran said? If he accepted that his precious didi wasn’t the same kid that he’d left behind—and if he accepted that Xiaokai had plenty of time to get over his ge leaving to save himself—then maybe he could move past this assumption that Xiaokai was innocent. For now, they had to operate as if everyone was part of the List, including Xiaokai.

“Xingyu.”

Xingyu shook his head sharply. “Ah—yes, I’m sorry.” He came around to the other side of the desk and bent down so he could see into the computer, right next to Weiran’s face. “Is there anything?”

“Just business documents so far. I can’t understand most of it, but you might be able to?”

Xingyu skimmed through it. “Nothing that doesn’t look like a business deal so far.”

“Do you know what a deal with the List would look like?”

“Not really. I sat in on some of the deals Ba made, but they were rarely on paper. Most of it was verbal agreements…though I imagine something must have been on paper for insurance that all parties would follow through on the deal. I’m sure if I stayed longer I would have been able to see more, but…”

He was so close. Weiran was almost forgetting how to breathe. Concentrate on what’s in front of you, Weiran. You’ve waited so long for this.

“What about deals your mother made?”

“Ah—I’m not sure about that either. I spent all of my time with Ba. Laoma11 was…more attached to Xiaokai. Ba never even fully explained what it was that she did with the List, but they discussed what he did regularly in front of me…I’m sure she must have been a part of it.”

Weiran sighed and closed out of the file explorer. He went instead to the browser—the only one pinned on the taskbar—and opened up the history. Bank website, though that would take ages to get through and never allowed for automatic passwords to grant full access; some stock trading websites; email—yes, that was what Weiran needed. He opened it up and started scrolling through.

“Chen? Does that ring a bell?” The name was in one of the email addresses communicating with Xiaokai.