Once they’d both said their goodbyes and hung up, Xingyu came back out of his room and went to Xiao-Xiao’s door. He hadn’t been able to discuss becoming the heir again, and he hadn’t been able to ask him about that look he’d shot at him because, as soon as their incredibly intense dinner had come to a close, their mother had dragged Xiaokai away to her office. At this point, though, Xiao-Xiao must have gone to bed, right?

He rapped his knuckles on the door. Xiaokai heard the knock but had no intentions of answering. He was putting on his sleepwear, and then he was brushing his teeth, and then he was doing his face care routine, and then he was looking at the medicine bottle in his hand, and then he was putting the medicine bottle back on the counter.

He went to bed.

Xingyu knocked at the door again.

ZHANG WEIRAN WAS having the chili oil dumplings again—he wanted to actually see what they tasted like after his unsuccessful attempt last time with Xingyu. Xingyu, across the table, had not even picked up any eating utensils and was sitting with his beautiful hands folded in front of him.

“So he knew something was wrong.”

“Yeah. But he won’t say anything.”

“And you can guarantee that?”

“All he said was that I wasn’t part of the regular clientele, and that his—ah—coworkers might talk about me if I did the same thing with them. He doesn’t know that I was up to anything else. He has no reason to suspect that I was.” Weiran took up one of the wontons and bit into it. “Anyway,” he said around the food, “he believed my excuse, so I’m not very worried about it.”

“So what are you going to do next time?”

Weiran stopped chewing. He put down his chopsticks. “I’m not exactly sure yet.”

“If not doing anything is suspicious, then isn’t the solution obvious?” Xingyu’s gaze met Weiran’s, unwavering. “Next time, just sleep with him.”

Weiran’s heart dropped to the floor. “What?”

“I understand it might be difficult to sleep with a man, but you can just imagine someone else and I’m sure it will be fine.”

Weiran’s vision was starting to go out. Very slowly, he reached down and gripped the arms of his chair with both hands. His sexuality had never been a matter of discussion between them—Weiran had always been struck with terror every time he even considered telling Xingyu that he was bisexual, much less how he felt—but now Xingyu was in front of him, just telling him to sleep with a random man.

“I don’t—” He swallowed hard. “I don’t feel—” Skip over the fact that it would be a man, Weiran. “I don’t feel right using people like that.”