His family had been on the List for at least a decade, but he’d only been on it for five years.

He liked inflicting pain.

Liu Xiaokai was lucky so far that slaps were all he’d gotten, but he’d seen the pack of cigarettes in Hu Yongzhu’s pocket and they’d made him nervous—Hu Yongzhu didn’t always stop at hitting.

“Hey, wake up.” A slap on his face.

Xiaokai’s eyes fluttered open. He hadn’t realized he’d lost consciousness. Hu Yongzhu, predictably, was sucking on a cigarette, looking down at Xiaokai with contempt.

“Is that all you have to offer? That’s not worth a deal. I said five hours.”

Xiaokai propped himself up on his elbows with some difficulty. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll make up for it.”

“Will you? How do you plan to do that?”

Xiaokai’s gaze lingered on the cigarette, then traveled down, slowly, from the chest that looked as if it had once been firm to the slight bulge of his stomach to the throbbing red mass between his legs. He wet his lips and crawled forward, and when Hu Yongzhu didn’t say anything to stop him, he slowly slid his lips around the man’s cock.

Hu Yongzhu groaned. He threaded his free hand into Xiaokai’s hair immediately, guiding him up and down his length, making sure he’d pushed all the way to the back of Xiaokai’s throat. “Hnh—yes, yes.” Xiaokai knew just how to act; he held him deep for as long as he could, and then when he came up for air he took breaths only as he moved his tongue languidly around the tip, gazing up at Hu Yongzhu through the fan of his eyelashes. “Tempting,” said Hu Yongzhu, “but that’s still not enough.” He held up the cigarette between two fingers. “Do you smoke?”

“No, sir.”

“Try it.”

That wasn’t what Xiaokai had expected, but he obediently lifted himself up and fastened his mouth around the cigarette with the same sensuality he’d used for the blowjob. From the way the corners of Hu Yongzhu’s mouth lifted, he was pleased.

“Go on, take a puff.”

Xiaokai didn’t smoke regularly, but it wasn’t as if he’d never tried it—he was sometimes required to as a matter of social propriety. But Hu Yongzhu didn’t know that, and of course it wasn’t what he wanted out of this exchange, so when he sucked in he pretended to choke on it and cough it all out, his shoulders shaking appropriately, his chest heaving. He was right—Hu Yongzhu had wanted this result. He was laughing.