“I’m going to the Sui household,” Wang Zhi declared, taking the decision as he voiced it. He wouldn’t get any work done today. He hesitated at the threshold though. Ding Rong didn’t react in any way, always stoic no matter the order, though he had been getting more inquisitive lately. "Come." Or, if Wang Zhi had taken Ding Rong along.

Sui Zhou watches as Li Zilong hooks a finger through the ring of the kid’s collar to pull him down onto the seat beside him. The kid opens his mouth and sticks his tongue out. Li Zilong places a fat, baby blue pill onto it. The kid closes his mouth but Li Zilong doesn't let him move away, still holding on to the ring in his collar. He lifts up his drink and holds it up to the kid’s lips. The kid struggles to swallow it all. Some liquid spills out and drips down his chin. When it’s over he sticks his tongue out again, showing Li Zilong his empty mouth. Li Zilong pats him lightly on the cheek and shoves him away. / In which Sui Zhou goes to a party, meets a boy and takes him home.

He will never forgive Wang Zhi for being careless enough to get himself killed like this: by a band of common thugs, barefoot and with his hair undone, in Sui Zhou's house, in front of Sui Zhou. But then the thug manhandling Wang Zhi laughs, pulling him up short in the middle of the courtyard. He even shakes him a little. "Look what I found in Baihu Sui's bedroom. It's a boy!" Sui Zhou acquires dangerous knowledge involving the Commander of the Western Depot, Tang Fan breaks new ground for romance novelists, and Wang Zhi is full of surprises.

Sui Zhou has known Tang Fan is gay since he met him, and he's known about drag nights at Huanyi for almost as long. It has never been a problem for him. Seeing it for himself shouldn't change that.

“It’s like my ad says,” Tang Fan says. “We can talk. Or you can talk, and I can listen, or I can talk to you. About anything. Or … I could talk dirty to you?” Tang Fan does have regulars who want sex stuff, but really, what he does only qualifies as phone sex maybe one call in twenty. Mostly, it’s just Tang Fan chatting with lonely people. But he can handle the sexy stuff, obviously, and if the Man with the Sexy Voice wants sexy, Tang Fan is very willing to — actually, he decides, a little unnerved by his own enthusiasm, better not to finish that thought. This is a business transaction, after all. This is the gig economy. “Not this time,” the Man with the Sexy Voice says, almost apologetic, like he’s forgotten that he’s paying Tang Fan for this. “Just — maybe if you could talk to me about something you find interesting?” In which Tang Fan develops some rather inconvenient feelings for a late-night caller to his phone sex line.