He’d taken a shower before he left—multiple showers—as if being clean would mean that he wouldn’t catch anything unsavory from whoever was going to be in that hotel room. The woman had said that they tested everyone regularly, but Weiran wasn’t very convinced.

He checked the little piece of paper: check in at the hotel desk as Ni Chaoshe, go to the room, the person he ordered would be waiting inside for him. He could make any requests he wanted, but the person could leave at any time. If the person went missing or got hurt badly and he complained about it, “they” would hold Weiran accountable. It was an insurance policy, she’d written. But what if he messed up? What if he said the wrong thing? What if this person would sense what he was doing and report him?

But he needed to do this. If he was going to help Xingyu bring down the List, he needed to.

He went to the front desk. “Hi. Checking in for Ni Chaoshe.”

“Ni Chaoshe…yes, I have your key here.”

Zhang Weiran wavered. “Is everything paid for?”

“Yes, sir. Everything is already taken care of. You can go on up.”

It was a nicer hotel than Weiran had expected. He’d thought for some reason that it would, like the appointment he’d arranged, be seedy, but now that he was holding the card in his hand he supposed the List wouldn’t settle for anything less. The card was sturdy, black—like a nice credit card or something—and it provided something almost like an anchor as he moved to the elevator.

What was he going to say?

How was he going to weasel his way out of a sexual encounter here?

Would they be suspicious?

The key card was for room number seven-thirty. He pressed the button for the seventh floor.

What was this person going to be like? What was his voice like?

Floor two.

Was he as nervous as Weiran was, wiping sweaty hands on his pants?

Floor three.

Was he wearing pants?

Floor four.

What did he look like?

Floor five.

A shameful thought—Weiran tried to push it down, suppress it, hide it from even himself—

Floor six.

What if he looked like Xingyu? What if he offered himself and he looked like Xingyu and Weiran lost his mind or something and—

Floor seven.

The doors opened.

Weiran stepped out.

Room seven-thirty. It wasn’t very far from the elevator. He stood in front of the door for a full minute, just feeling the card in his hands, his fingers tracing the ridges of the numbers and the letters. He slid the card into the lock. He opened the door.

There was a man sitting on a luxurious king-sized bed, right in front of Weiran. He was smiling.