XINGYU DIDN’T GO into his ba’s waiting room. Everyone knew there was no reason he should be meeting him today—he wasn’t trusted enough yet to go to such meetings, and definitely not trusted to be alone in his office.

So he waited. Waited with Zhang Weiran on the phone, who watched the cameras on his computer, and when he gave him the go-ahead, he went upstairs.

He’d never seen the waiting room empty before. None of Ba’s waiting rooms had ever been empty—he was bitter, paranoid; Liu Xingyu wasn’t allowed to be in there alone even as a child, before he was capable of understanding anything he might have found.

“Are you handling the cameras?” He kept his voice low.

“Go ahead and go in.”

Xingyu pushed his way into the waiting room. “How long can you keep it—?”

“Just get into his office and I’ll turn it off.”

He pushed the code into the door and slipped in.

Ba’s office was even more uncomfortable.

Just the fact that it was his office made it feel oppressive—like there were eyes on him, even though Xingyu knew the man would never let eyes into his office.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Xingyu grumbled. “Did you think he would just have a sign pointing to all the evidence?”

“Jackass.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He went straight to the computer. “This flash drive will get me into his computer, right?”

“It should. It got into Liu Xiaokai’s computer just fine.”

Xiao-Xiao’s computer hadn’t had anything on it, but Xingyu was hopeful that the higher level of security meant that wasn’t the case with his ba. He bent to turn on the computer.

“Wocao.17”

“What? What’s wrong?”

There was a lock on the desk’s door too. Xingyu had never seen it before—had never been on this side of Ba’s desk before Ba had already opened everything up.

“Well, try the—try the lock from the door?”

It didn’t work.

“Does it look electronic?”

“One-one-five-eight-six-four-two-two-seven.”

Xingyu froze. Slowly, he lifted his head.

Xiao-Xiao was standing in the doorway, a cardboard cup of coffee in one hand, his shoulder leaning against the doorframe. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. Lazily, he sipped at the coffee. “The password on the computer is the same number in reverse.”

Xingyu stared at him.

“You won’t find anything on there, though.” He bent the coffee cup all the way back now, draining the rest of it. “Liu Baiyan doesn’t keep anything related to the List on his office computer. It’s fairly standard for the higher members on the List to keep List-related information with them at all times.”