“I mean, he caught you while you were in Liu Baiyan’s office. How do we know this isn’t a trap and—”

“How do I know my little brother isn’t trying to kill me?” Xingyu cocked his head to one side, pretending to think. “Let’s see…he caught me while I was in Ba’s office, in the middle of a building that the List controls, five minutes away from getting caught, and instead of, I don’t know, calling security or calling Ba or just taking a picture of me in the act, he told me the password to get into Ba’s computer, told me when I needed to be out of there, and—oh, that’s right. Didn’t tell anyone.” The elevator arrived and Xingyu stepped in right away.

Weiran pressed his lips together.

“He’s on our side,” Xingyu said, pressing the button for the fifth floor. “I’ve been saying so since the beginning.”

“You also said he had nothing to do with the List.”

“Ah…yes. I did.”

“And look where that got us.”

Xingyu raked his hands through his hair. “I know. Not only did he know about the List, he also knew the members of the List kept pertinent information with them at all times.” His words were troubled, but there was still no expression on Xingyu’s face, and Weiran got the funny feeling that this was the way his face was naturally—that everything he showed to Weiran was not letting his guard down but rather putting his guard up, putting on a show. Now, faced with this situation he didn’t know how to handle, he was no longer making that effort.

The elevator dinged. The doors slid open. Weiran grimaced at the empty hallway.

“You’ve been here before,” said Xingyu suddenly. “Right? Xiao-Xiao was acting like you would know about this room.”

“Uh…yeah. I had one of my appointments here.” Was he being obvious? Should Weiran just come clean and tell him?

“So he knew about the appointments, then. That you were impersonating me.”

Did he know? Weiran wanted to laugh. “I guess.”

They stopped in front of the room. Xingyu looked at the door number for a long time while Weiran wondered whether he would be able to pry open a window somewhere and jump to his death. Then Xingyu said, “What time is it?”

“Two minutes to five.”

Xingyu knocked.