He realized now, sitting at the coffee shop with the latte that had miraculously appeared in front of him, that he’d never seen Liu Xiaokai in any of those pictures. He would have remembered if he had—Liu Xiaokai was a direct clone of his brother, after all—they were both reasonable mixes of their parents, despite the fact that Weiran had expected they would fall into the sibling trope of one looking like one parent and one looking like the other, and they looked exactly the same as long as you didn’t pay attention to the little details. No, if Liu Xiaokai was in any of the pictures, Weiran would have recognized Xingyu in him immediately—would have concluded that he must be Liu Xiaokai, would have immediately hated him.

Why wasn’t the supposed favorite son in any of the pictures?

He searched for something else first: Liu Baiyan + son.

The results: Liu Baiyan and son Liu Xingyu; Liu Baiyan with son Liu Xingyu; Liu Baiyan with Xiao Xingyu. In each, they stood side by side looking regal and dazzling, Xingyu still with some charming baby fat in his cheeks, giving the cameras the exact same wide smile. It made Weiran feel uneasy, looking at that smile. He’d never seen Xingyu use it before.

So Xingyu had no issues appearing in photographs with his parents. Liu Baiyan was even parading him around—Xingyu had said that he spent basically every waking minute with his father. It made sense. It also didn’t make sense.

He searched: Liu Baiyan + Liu Xiaokai.

Articles.

Just a lot of articles.

Speculation on whether Liu Xiaokai would be inheriting the company if Xingyu never returned.

Speculation on whether Liu Xiaokai was worthy of inheriting the company.

Speculation on Liu Baiyan’s relationship with Liu Xiaokai.

So Weiran wasn’t the only one who was wondering why Liu Baiyan never seemed to address Liu Xiaokai.

Maybe…

He searched Sun Yue + Liu Xiaokai.

There were some results now—quite a few, but they looked like they were from the same couple days. Liu Xiaokai was young, maybe five or six, and he stood behind his mother and grasped her skirt like she was a shield from the photographers. The stark contrast between these pictures and the pictures of Liu Baiyan with Xingyu was more startling than Weiran thought it would be: in the latter, Xingyu was already made to be independent at such a young age, made to be confident in front of the cameras, made to be the perfect son; in the former, Xiaokai was allowed to be a child still, allowed to hide behind his mother, allowed to show emotion, vulnerability. Something almost akin to fury bubbled up in Weiran’s chest.