Weiran wasn’t exactly able to give very many details. All he’d told Xingyu was “They know I’m faking it. We should stop.” After all, how was he supposed to explain it? “Your brother showed up to the appointment. He offered to have sex and told me to pretend he was you.” He couldn’t say that. He needed something else. “They, ah. They alluded to knowing that I wasn’t who I said I was.”

“Alluded? What did they say exactly?”

Weiran was going to either scream or cry any second now. “Exactly?”

“As close as you can get it.”

Weiran was nervous about something, clearly. He hadn’t touched his coffee, he wouldn’t look at Xingyu, and every time Xingyu asked him questions he would just give these strange, vague answers. How were they supposed to get anything accomplished like this? Something had clearly happened, and Weiran wasn’t admitting it.

“Ah, well.” Weiran rubbed the back of his neck. He was using English vocal fillers now, which was just further proof that he was up to something. “It was like… ‘You don’t look anything like I thought you would’ and ‘I didn’t think Liu Xingyu was into this kind of thing.’ I don’t remember exactly. I tried to brush it off as a joke, but it looks like they didn’t buy it. In any case…” He knotted his fingers together over the table. “Well, in any case…I don’t think we should keep going with this stage.”

“Weiran.” Xingyu reached across the table and grabbed Weiran’s wrist, and Weiran jerked back. He stared at Xingyu with wide eyes. “Listen to me. Do you still want to do this?”

His eyes got wider, and then they narrowed. “What?” He yanked out of Xingyu’s grasp. “Of course I do. I wouldn’t betray my parents just like that.”

Xingyu studied him for a moment. He seemed serious, but he always seemed serious when it came to this revenge plot. Xingyu still couldn’t fully comprehend that kind of loyalty to one’s parents—even Xingyu’s father didn’t want that kind of loyalty from him. To risk your life just because your parents asked you to—he would never be able to understand that, but it was frankly apparent in everything Weiran did. It was like he existed for his parents. They were dead, and he was still a good son, even though he knew that it would get him killed.

But this…?

Weiran was usually honest with Xingyu. He knew how important it was to be absolutely clear in their communication. This was the first time he was straying from that.