.

He saw Number 17 tremble, just slightly, and then open his eyes very slowly, looking at him with something lost in them.

Perhaps ten seconds passed before Number 17 finally came back to himself; he drew his face away from Lu Heyang's hand, his gaze turning with an almost glacial slowness.

At last he asked, 'When.'

Afraid of hearing Lu Heyang's answer, he went on, 'You knew long ago, didn't you.'

Lu Heyang looked at him, still silent.

So it had been his own stupidity — thinking Lu Heyang would never notice the same voice, the same pheromone, the same build and bearing between Xu Ze and Number 17. He had only ever assumed that Lu Heyang probably had no real impression of that person called Xu Ze, would never think to connect the two.

It turned out not everyone was as dull, as ignorant, as he was.

Xu Ze felt the pain now, belatedly — in his chest, his back, his left shoulder, the place that had once been dislocated. The inhibitor could only suppress pheromone; it could not numb pain.

He did not know, either, why the hurt had suddenly become so severe, so much so that he had drifted into a half-delirious murmur of self-talk.

'Why…' Xu Ze whispered, almost to himself, 'you knew all along…'

Anyone else, and Xu Ze would have assumed they were playing him for a fool; but he did not believe Lu Heyang was that sort of person, and yet he could not think through his reason for acting so, and the not-knowing left him aching in some quiet, sour way.

And then, thinking it over once more: even if Lu Heyang really did feel that way, he had no standing to blame him.

Xu Ze turned his head. Right beside him stood that old long mirror, and in it he saw himself — under the dim light he looked barely human, wretched, his features blurred past recognition. This was what Lu Heyang was seeing now.

Overcome, Xu Ze let his head drop. He truly had no strength left. 'You should go,' he said.

And then, in a tone that sounded almost like pleading, 'Don't come back. Not anymore.'

Without waiting for Lu Heyang's reply, Xu Ze closed his eyes completely and slipped into unconsciousness, his body pitching forward. Lu Heyang caught his shoulder; at the same moment the room door was pushed open and several Alphas came in.

Lu Heyang turned his head and met the eyes of one of them — an Alpha in a white shirt. Zhuo Yan gave a single nod, came over, crouched beside Xu Ze, and ran a quick check along his chest and back. 'No broken bones,' he said. 'The rest we'll need a CT to know.'

The other Alphas stepped forward and lifted Xu Ze onto a stretcher. Xiao Feng was still waiting by the door, with no idea at all where this group of Alphas had materialized from, or how they had gotten in — they simply looked, on the whole, extremely professional. Lu Heyang had Xu Ze's bag in his hand; he walked over to Xiao Feng and said, 'Thank you for today. I'm taking Number 17 to the hospital first.'

'Oh…' Xiao Feng nodded dumbly, not daring to let his eyes wander. 'You guys remember to go out through that side door, otherwise it's easy to run into the big boss's people.'

'Got it.'

Outside the side door was the very alley where Lu Heyang had been robbed the first time. Gu Yunchi and He Wei were already waiting there. Xu Ze lay still on the stretcher, carried into the private hospital's special ambulance.

He Wei's face was a picture of bewilderment. 'Heyang, why did you—'

He knew Zhuo Yan too, but Number 17 had only been back in the backstage for twenty minutes; He Wei could not fathom how Zhuo Yan and the others had arrived so quickly — unless someone had alerted them before the match had even ended.

'I'm going to the hospital with Xu Ze,' Lu Heyang said. 'You two drive back first.'

Only after the car had pulled away did He Wei turn to Gu Yunchi. 'What Xu Ze?'

'S-Class Alphas with your kind of IQ really are a dying breed,' Gu Yunchi said.

A few seconds later it all clicked for He Wei. His eyes went wide. 'You knew too? When did you find out? Why didn't you tell me?!'

'Last time we went to that lecture.'

That afternoon he and He Wei had gone to Lu Heyang and Xu Ze's room to eat and chat, and Gu Yunchi had picked up the first thread of it then. Of course, Lu Heyang must have noticed even earlier than he had.

That Number 17 was Xu Ze meant nothing much to Gu Yunchi — he was not close to Xu Ze, and whoever the other person was had nothing to do with him. As for why Lu Heyang had also kept up the pretense of not knowing, Gu Yunchi thought it was entirely in keeping with his character; in certain ways they were quite alike — for instance, in never feeling curiosity or concern toward people who were not their business.

But the incident at the hotel last time, and tonight's events — Gu Yunchi could not quite parse them.

It didn't matter, though. He Wei was even more in the dark than he was.

On the way to the hospital Xu Ze developed a slight difficulty breathing, accompanied by a small amount of blood in his cough. He frowned, looking very much in pain — probably only in a state of unconsciousness like this would he have given up holding it in.

'It hurts…' Xu Ze breathed fast, a sound slipping out of him without his knowing. 'Morphine… give me a shot…'

The fact that he would say so meant someone had given him morphine during a previous injury.

Since becoming a doctor, most of the patients Zhuo Yan had dealt with were powerful and wealthy; he had never encountered a Xu Ze-type who came straight out and asked for morphine — it was too blunt, too crude. Until the injuries were confirmed, Zhuo Yan could not even give him a painkiller.

When the relief did not come, Xu Ze accepted the reality. His voice grew smaller and smaller, and finally went quiet altogether.

Zhuo Yan glanced at Lu Heyang. Lu Heyang was still sitting on the seat across from him, his face unreadable, neither tense nor flustered — the familiar look, Zhuo Yan knew it well, the look of someone who would never let any single thing matter too much.

After they reached the hospital and the examinations were done, it was confirmed that Xu Ze had a pulmonary contusion with bleeding — not very serious in itself, but if left untreated it could easily lead to complications or lasting damage.

'Your friend?' Zhuo Yan asked Lu Heyang, finishing his notes against the monitor.

The oil paint and the dirty blood had been cleaned from Xu Ze's face, leaving behind a clean, sleeping countenance. Lu Heyang stood by the window, some distance from the bed. 'Not exactly,' he said. 'Someone I know from the same school.'

'A Preparatory Academy student?' Zhuo Yan was a little surprised.

'Mm.' Lu Heyang straightened and walked toward the door. 'When he wakes up, if there's nothing wrong with him and he wants to be discharged, let him be discharged. Thanks for your trouble today.'

'All right.'

When Xu Ze woke, the room was in a dim half-light. He stared at the IV bottle suspended in mid-air for a long time and could only arrive at the conclusion that he was in a hospital now; as for when he had come, or how, he had no memory of either.

He remembered only that before passing out he had told Lu Heyang not to come to the Underground Club again, and he did not know whether Lu Heyang would be displeased by it.

Someone came in, raised the head of Xu Ze's bed, then picked up the remote and drew the curtains open. Only then did Xu Ze see clearly that it was a young doctor.

'I'm Zhuo Yan,' the doctor said. 'How are you feeling now?'

'I'm fine.' Xu Ze sat up, and his next question was, 'Can I settle the bill and do the discharge paperwork now?'

'You can. The medication has been prepared for you — take it on time.' Zhuo Yan went on, 'The bill has already been settled, so don't worry about that.'

He saw the pale Alpha in front of him hesitate for a moment, then ask, 'Who paid it for me?'

'Should be a schoolmate you know.' Zhuo Yan flipped through the report. 'I had a look at your pheromone data — you should be an S-Class Alpha with a fairly frequent Susceptibility Period. Yesterday we also detected a strong-effect Inhibitor in your blood, so I have to flag this for you: during this period, if your Susceptibility Period comes, you cannot use Inhibitors anymore.'

'I'd guess it's probably in the next day or two — last night, because of the injury and the pain, your pheromone secretion was a bit disordered. Keep an eye on it over the next few days; if the Susceptibility Period arrives, it's best to take leave and rest at home.'

'Understood. Thank you.' Xu Ze nodded.

An hour later Xu Ze left the hospital with his medication; the hospital had even arranged a car for him. Xu Ze sat in the back seat and pulled open the small pouch on the very outside of his bag — that crumpled roll of banknotes was still inside. Lu Heyang, of course, would never have taken it.

Back home, Xu Ze went to the bathroom to wash his hands. He looked up at the mirror — he rarely studied himself in a mirror, because he felt there was nothing in him worth looking at.

A bruised corner of the mouth; on his neck, his arms, band-aids and gauze of various sizes stuck over small wounds he had not noticed, had not felt, the night before — the kind he would not normally have bothered with at all — but now each one had been carefully tended by the nurse and properly covered over.

Xu Ze stood there for a while, then went back to his room and opened his books to do his homework. At first his attention would not gather: he kept thinking of Lu Heyang calling his name the night before, kept thinking of all those disguises he had believed were seamless, which had turned out to be the Emperor's new clothes — only no one had bothered to point it out.

Eventually he managed, for the moment, to set aside the embarrassment and the other, more tangled feelings, and finished his homework properly.

His gland was warm. Xu Ze touched the back of his neck — the Susceptibility Period was probably on its way, but there were no Inhibitor patches left at home. He packed up his textbooks and prepared to go out to the pharmacy to buy a box.

His body was still a little sore, but it no longer got in the way of moving about. Xu Ze took his keys, put on a baseball cap, and walked out of his room.

Just as he reached the front door, he heard a knock.

Very few people ever knocked on his door. There was no peephole in the old wooden door. Xu Ze turned the lock and pulled it open.

Through a black security door mottled with rust, Xu Ze looked at the Alpha standing outside, and his first thought was that his head must have been hit yesterday too, and that he was now hallucinating.

'Heading out?' Lu Heyang asked, a faint smile on his face.

Xu Ze's mind was no longer quick enough to support an answer to Lu Heyang's question; while he was still trying to recall what, exactly, he had been going out to buy, his hand had already moved faster than his brain and reached over to open the security door.