Yiran rolled his eyes.
Several turns later, Rui said, “Shouldn’t we be going to the eastern wing?”
“That’s where Ash’s room is. I sleep here.”
The western side of the house was by all appearances as grand and well-furnished as the rest of the mansion. Except they both knew the implication of sleeping here instead of in the eastern side of the house together with Ash. The west wing of a siheyuan was traditionally reserved for family members lower in the hierarchy. Yiran’s expression hadn’t changed, but Rui could tell Song Wei’s snub cut deep.
Yiran yanked off his sweater-vest violently and threw himself onto the king-sized bed.
His room was tidier than expected. Probably because he had a small army of servants. Books were shelved in alphabetical order with smooth, untouched spines. Freshly laundered clothes sat in neat little piles on the dresser, ready to be put away into what Rui assumed was a ginormous walk-in closet next to the bathroom.
The place was filled with all the material possessions and tech gadgets anyone would want. But what Yiran needed was something intangible. This entire evening was a too-intimate look into what was lacking in his life.
Yiran’s eyes were closed. Despite the impending curfew, he seemed in no hurry to get back to campus.
Rui rocked on the balls of her feet, considering her conversation options before settling on the most pertinent one.
“Your grandfather’s kind of a jerk to you.”
A glower bloomed on Yiran’s face, only to wilt into a look of resignation. “That obvious, huh?”
She nodded. “You’re a different person when you’re here.”
“What are you, my therapist?”
“It’s not like I want to feel what you’re feeling,” Rui said, frustrated. “It’s that silly link we have.”
It was the first time she had acknowledged the connection in front of him. Instead of denying it, Yiran shrugged, confirmation that he felt it too.
He punched a pillow. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t get it.”
“Help me get it.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because we’re friends,” Rui replied without thinking. And they were. She was upset about what had happened between them, bitter that he’d found his footing in a space she cherished as hers. But none of this was his fault.
Yiran’s throat worked, but he didn’t speak, and he wouldn’t look at her.
Rui leaned against the desk, surprised to find a stack of newspapers piled up in the corner. She’d assumed Yiran got his news the same way she did—digitally. She flipped through the paper on top.
“What the...” Rui took a hard look at the photograph of a man under a report about a string of mysterious deaths in the city. “Look at this.” She shoved the newspaper in front of Yiran’s face. “This man—isn’t he the one who tried to pick a fight with you outside the karaoke club?”
“Looks like the same jackass.”
“He’s dead.”
Yiran sat up. “He’s dead?”
Rui scanned the report. “He died thesamenight we saw him.”
“Coincidence. Maybe he drank too much.”
“Doesn’t seem like it. They don’t know what killed him or the others. Do you remember the woman he left with? There was something off about her. I felt it. Something like...”
Rui stared at the wall.
She remembered the feeling now.
