QT: Don't fall in love with the Male Lead

Xi Zirui is very busy over the next couple of days.

Lonely too. 

He drifts through the giant penthouse making calls and arranging everything for Su Xueyi's  disappearance. 

Su Xueyi keeps constant tabs on him. "Who were you on the phone with for so long?"

"The bank, liquidizing all assets in my name."

Su Xueyi is silent for some time. "Why did you do that?"

"I'm going to disappear with you right? It's only logical, besides. I need the money to pay off the Shen family."

That gets his interest. "They accepted that?"

"Of course not, they want you dead." That much is true, the payout is to ensure they can do everything to Su Xueyi except kill him. "I've managed to convince them that I can lure you back to the glass house where you'll be disposed of. They still want to extort me, though."

It takes all of Xi Zirui's willpower not to smile when he hears Ni Ni's familiar chime.

"Congratulations Host! CEO's favor up by +4 points. Now at 90 points of a possible 100 points."

"Did you freeze your accounts like I asked you to?" Xi Zirui asks, inspecting his nails. 

"I did, but baby, I trust you," Su Xueyi purrs, his smooth voice even lower through the connection, "I can unfreeze them if you need money."

"No, idiot, it has to look like we're at odds, or neither the Shen family or Bai Mi will believe I want to get rid of you," Xi Zirui sighs, long-suffering. "But there is something I need you to do."

"Anything for you, baby," he says, as if he wasn't threatening Xi Zirui's life just days before.

Crazy motherfucker.

"You're going to turn Greydot into a worker's cooperative."

Predictably, Su Xueyi laughs. "Now, why would I do that?"

"We're going to disappear remember? If you want the Shen family to trust the information I've been sharing with them, you need to behave as someone who really is going off the map," Xi Zirui says, patiently laying out his lies as if he's explaining everything to a very small child. 

"If you want to fuck over Bai Mi, this is how you do it, because she's expecting to become majority shareholder once the company finally goes public after your tragic demise."

That's also not a lie, Bai Mi won't see that one coming, and won't be happy about it, but she can have the money in Su Xueyi's bank accounts once he returns, for all Xi Zirui cares.

Su Xueyi grumbles. "And how am I supposed to get Greydot back once the dust settles?"

Now it's Xi Zirui's turn to laugh. "You're not."

He savors Su Xueyi's shocked silence like a fine wine for a moment longer, before saying, "I guess you shouldn't have killed Shen Yun without really thinking things through." He clicks his tongue. "I said you'd be able to return, but it won't be a fast thing. We're going have to lay low for some time, years maybe, before everything I've set in motion with the Shen family pays off."

"How are you going to get the Shen family off my scent?" Su Xueyi asks, still disgruntled about the dismantling of his empire.

"I'm going to tie up one of your many loose ends," Xi Zirui says, pacing around the spacious living room with the handset pressed to his ear. Chancing the occasional look out of the panoramic windows. "That Cao Fei is going to be lured to the glass house, and butchered beyond recognition. I've already arranged everything to have an autopsy report confirm the remains to be yours."

Su Xueyi lets out a dry chuckle, darkly amused. "My baby is such a sadist, I really didn't think you were the jealous type."

Xi Zirui turns around from where he knows the cameras are trained on him and rolls his eyes so hard he almost strains a nerve. "I guess, he shouldn't have touched what's mine."

He can almost feel Su Xueyi's satisfaction pouring in from the other end of the line.

Why not try to raise his favor while he's at it too? "Expect to be punished for the humiliation you've made me suffer and for all the work I'm having to do now to clean up your mess."

"Congratulations Host! CEO's favor up by +1 point. Now at 91 points of a possible 100 points."

Cheap bastard, Xi Zirui thinks, along with many other unkind thoughts.

"Are you going to punish me the same way you punished Han Yu?" Su Xueyi croons, his voice silky and low, and threatening. "I have to say, that was incredibly hot. You never choked me."

"I was afraid if I started I would never stop," Xi Zirui deadpans.

Su Xueyi laughs again. "My little rabid dog...," the fondness in his voice makes something cold run down Xi Zirui's spine. The more he likes Xi Zirui the more dangerous Su Xueyi is. "I'm curious how you're going to solve the problem of the Shen family for good, though, in order for me to be able to return."

That's the brilliance of Xi Zirui's fake plan. "Remember Cao Fei's partner, Jin Ranyu?" Su Xueyi hums. "Did you know they are lovers?"

Actually, Xi Zirui has no idea if they are lovers in this world, but that scarcely matters for the purpose of lying to Su Xueyi.

"I didn't, no."

Xi Zirui scoffs. "How can you be so incompetent that you fail at researching the mercenaries you hire?"

"Congratulations Host! CEO's favor up by +1 point. Now at 92 points of a possible 100 points."

It's so fortuitous that Xi Zirui loves insulting Su Xueyi and that Su Xueyi loves being insulted by him in this world. Truly serendipitous.

Xi Zirui clears his throat once it becomes apparent Su Xueyi doesn't have anything to say in his defense. "Anyway, everyone will think the dead body is Cao Fei's, except Jin Ranyu who I'll make sure knows what happened to his partner, and who will be convinced it was all the Shen family's doing, as revenge for the two of them murdering Shen Yun on your orders."

"Clever, very clever, I suppose he will need time to enact his revenge," Su Xueyi says, musing aloud. "But who is going to kill Cao Fei? Don't take this the wrong way, baby, but you couldn't take on a professional assassin."

Xi Zirui frowns, away from the camera. He resents that, he absolutely could take out a hired killer, he spent days sweating under layers of heavy costume and wearing a one thousand li wig, killing someone is easy compared to that.

"Of course not, you idiot," he hisses into the headset, because as far as Su Xueyi is concerned he's a pampered househusband who thinks loading the dishwasher is heavy labour. "I won't be doing anything, Han Yu will."

That, Xi Zirui can tell, makes Su Xueyi really happy. "Oh?"

"I've been giving him the cold shoulder for days," Xi Zirui says, knowing Su Xueyi has seen him alone at the house for all that time. "He's so desperate for my attention, he'll do anything I ask of him." 

"How are you going to spin it?" Su Xueyi asks, genuinely curious.

"I'm going to tell him Cao Fei is a threat, maybe pretend he showed up here and roughed me up a little," he sighs," that's not important, we'll see where the mood takes me. The point is, Han Yu will kill Cao Fei for me, and the Shen family believes he'll kill you for me, too."

"Everybody wins," he adds, with a dramatic bow towards the camera mounted above the mantle.

"Except Han Yu," Su Xueyi says, thrilled about it.

"Congratulations Host! CEO's favor up by +3 points. Now at 95 points of a possible 100 points," Ni Ni says, predictably.

"Except Han Yu," Xi Zirui agrees, "And almost everyone else besides me and you."

Su Xueyi positively purrs. "Baby, that's just how I like it."

He hangs up after that, to leave Xi Zirui to his plans.

The first order of business is for him to call Ji Limei, and get the ball rolling towards turning Greydot into a cooperative. The first ever tech cooperative, perhaps. 

The second order of business is to hold himself together until all his ducks are in a row and he can finally stop this charade.

---

Not two days later Xi Zirui has an interesting photo to show Su Xueyi when he calls.

He holds up the photo towards the nearest camera, and asks into the handset, "Are you seeing it?"

"I see a bloody mess," Su Xueyi says, his disgust palpable through the phone.

Xi Zirui rolls his eyes. "That's the point. He should be unrecognizable if we want this to work." And if Xi Zirui wants to pass off the bloody pig carcass staining the glass house's pristine floors as a human being.

"Anyway, I've transferred the money to the Shen family." A great deal of the money did go towards the Shen family, as much as it pains Xi Zirui, but he managed to transfer an even greater sum to Li Siqi, unbeknownst to all involved. "They're sending their people there now, to look at the scene, but I'm going to arrange the funeral and get the autopsy report."

Su Xueyi snorts. "What am I going to die of?"

"Murdered in a jealous rage by Han Yu," Xi Zirui says. "The Shen family will make sure he commits suicide about it." 

"I've lost a lot of money by not bringing you into the fold sooner," Su Xueyi says, his tone contemplative.

"Well, nothing like the present," Xi Zirui says, trying to stave off his boredom. Acting really isn't for him, it's tiring to keep up the farce. 

Everything is coming together. "I have to go, I have your funeral to plan."

In more ways than one.

---

Planning a wake and funeral is hard fucking work, even for a pig carcass. 

As Su Xueyi's husband, and the youngest member in his family, due to their lack of children, the task falls solely on Xi Zirui's shoulders. Not that there is a lot of family to begin with, both parents tragically dead, and a distant brother who promises he'll try to make it after calling Xi Zirui, Xi Zihui.

To make up for all the nuisance he wears a suit he scrounges from the depths of the original's closet in which the jacket's back is hold together by interlaced silk ribbons that come around the front to tie the whole thing together - it looks like fetish gear and it's what Su Xueyi deserves at his shitty fake funeral.

"You really aren't trying to look like the grieving widower, uh?" Bai Mi says, as soon as she sees him at the wake, standing awkwardly next to Su Xueyi's blown up photo and accepting flowers from the mourners.

"I'm letting all of Su Xueyi's rich friends know that I'm on the market for a new husband," he says, fluttering his lashes vapidly.

Bai Mi snorts into her drink. "I'd believe you if you weren't doing your damnest to come out of this situation as the only loser."

They've had this conversation, Xi Zirui doesn't give a fuck about Su Xueyi's money. "I have other priorities."

She sighs. "Your priorities are safe and sound at my place, by the way, annoying the hell out of me, though, so the faster we get rid of Su Xueyi the better."

Speaking of which...Xi Zirui takes the new mobile he bought after the original's had its impromptu flight out of a speeding car's window, and hands it to Bai Mi.

"Take a picture of me next to his awful funeral photo so that I can prove that there was a wake," Xi Zirui says, straightening his shoulders besides the wooden picture frame but not trying particularly hard to look solemn.

Bai Mi's smirk pulls at the corner of her lips. "Want to strike a pose? Show him your sexy funeral outfit?"

"No need, I'm going to write 'I wish you were here' over his face, before showing it to him."

After all is said and done, Su Xueyi will wish that too.