The night for Zhan and Yibo ended at six o'clock in the morning when Yibo's mother went into the kitchen and, in probably the loudest way possible, prepared coffee - she ground the coffee beans especially for this - and tea, while she cut a few slices of bread from a loaf of bread with an electric knife and then pureed fruit with a hand mixer, which she then mixed with soy milk, also using a hand mixer. She beat several slices of toast with a meat tenderizer until they were completely flat. Then she put ham sausage and cheese on the flat slices of toast, rolled them up, dipped the rolls in mixed egg, melted a little butter in a pan and began to fry the rolls. When they were browned on all sides, she added some grated cheese to the top of the rolls and placed them on a plate covered with fresh salad leaves.

There was more clattering and rustling in the kitchen for a while, then Yibo's mom slurped through the living room every minute, coughing repeatedly, switching the light on and off and finally Yibo and Zhan had had enough and got up. Obviously, Yibo's mom hadn't intended to let them sleep a second longer than she did.

While Yibo went to complain to his mom about the noise she had made in the kitchen, Zhan went to the bathroom and almost screeched when he opened the bathroom door, turned on the light and saw Yibo's dad sitting on the toilet. The smell told Zhan what Yibo's dad was producing in the toilet, he apologized to him for the disturbance and quickly closed the door again. "I want to go home." Zhan mumbled tiredly to himself and went into the kitchen, where Yibo was just making it clear to his mom that she could have let him and Zhan sleep for at least another hour.

Yibo's mom, who was wearing a pink morning robe and pink pyjamas underneath, smiled, patted Yibo's cheek and said, "Go clean yourself and brush your teeth. Breakfast will be ready soon."

Zhan, who by now had sat down at the table and leaned his head on his hands, mumbled, "Can't. Occupied."

"Oh... Is my husband in the restroom right now?" She asked, not waiting for an answer but picking up the hand mixer again to prepare another fruit milk.

Yibo sat down next to Zhan at the kitchen table, put his head on the table and whined: "I want to go to your apartment."

"Me too." Zhan replied and put his head next to Yibo's. They looked into each other's eyes like that and Zhan asked, "How long do you think your dad will take?"

"I don't know. Was there a light on in the bathroom?"

"Nope."

"Then it will take longer."

"And how long?"

"I don't know."

"I see."

"Zhan?"

"Yes?"

"Are you as tired as I am?"

"Yes."

"What time do you have to be at the lawyer's?"

"At 2 PM. He texted me yesterday and told me to meet him at his office at 2 PM. He told us to bring Isko with us."

"Isko? Isn't he being driven by Wen Rouhan?"

"I think so."

"Well then."

"Yibo?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sleeping at home tonight."

"I'm coming with you."

"You have to be here with your parents."

"Nope, I don't see it. I'd rather stay with you."

"You can't."

"But..." Yibo began and yelped when his mom hit him on the head with the wooden spoon.

"I can hear you!" She said, threatening them both with her wooden spoon. "Now get up and at least wash your faces." She scolded, pointing to the sink in the kitchen, which was full of dirty dishes.

"Mom, why did you put the dishes in there? They were in the dishwasher." Yibo was confused.

"I'll wash it by hand later. It's quicker and doesn't leave such ugly water stains." She explained and left the kitchen. Yibo and Zhan listened after her as she went to the bathroom and shouted at Yibo's dad. "Now hurry up. The kids have to go to the toilet too and they need to wash and brush their teeth. You can continue your business after breakfast.

Zhan was totally confused and overwhelmed. His parents were so different from Yibo's parents. Zhan's mom would never have woken him and his dad up in the morning with noise in the kitchen. His dad would turn on the light when he went to the toilet and lock the bathroom door so that no one would see him sitting on the toilet. They also always made breakfast together and discussed what they wanted to eat.

After a few minutes, they were finally able to go into the bathroom. Zhan rushed into the bathroom first, relieved his bladder, brushed his teeth with a toothbrush that Yibo had bought him yesterday, washed his hands and face, got dressed quickly and let Yibo into the bathroom. Yibo thanked Zhan and did the same.

There was an icy silence at breakfast after Yibo's parents argued for a brief moment. Apparently, Yibo's father doesn't like it when he is disturbed in his "business". And Yibo's mom had no sympathy for this and almost dragged him off the toilet after he told her he needed at least five more minutes. "Five minutes my ass!" Yibo's mom had yelled, making it clear that if Yibo's dad didn't get off the toilet any minute, she was going to get him off.

After breakfast, Yibo explained that he and Zhan really had to leave now to take care of some agent business. They got dressed, left Yibo's apartment and sped off in Yibo's car to Zhan's apartment, where they fell into his bed, tired and exhausted. They held each other in their arms and only had the strength for a minute and a half of kissing before they fell asleep again.

Two relaxing hours of napping later, they woke up when they heard noise from outside in the hallway. A fight! They jumped out of bed and listened curiously at the front door. A man and a woman were arguing. The woman had returned from a business trip and apparently caught her husband in bed with a "female sausage"? Had Zhan and Yibo got that right?

The two listened excitedly. "You're a fucking pig! How can you go to bed with something like that?" She shouted at her husband. He mumbled something back that the two of them couldn't understand, which they thought was stupid because they would have liked to understand it, as it caused the woman to completely freak out and hit her husband with her handbag. And then Wen Rouhan's voice was heard.

"What's going on here?" Wen Rouhan asked. Yibo and Zhan took turns looking through the peephole and saw that Wen Rouhan was standing in front of the arguing couple, looking at them grimly.

"My husband is a pig!" The woman shrieked, her voice almost cracking. "I'm away on a business trip for three days, come back today and find my husband in bed with a thing. A woman who isn't a woman, though, she has a sausage." Suddenly Zhan realized what she meant.

Zhan tapped Yibo and whispered: "She means a shemale!" Yibo looked at him in confusion. "Shemales are people who were classified as male at birth but now have both their own, i.e. male, sexual characteristics and the secondary sexual characteristics of a woman, especially breasts."

Yibo stared at Zhan and now understood. "So a woman on top but a guy on the bottom?"

"Yes." Zhan replied and then they continued to listen.

"Uh-huh." Wen Rouhan said.

"That's none of anyone's business." The man was now becoming heated as he wrapped his wife's robe tighter around his body and a person slipped out of the door opposite and ran off. Obviously the person he had spent the night with.

"There's always something going on in your house, too." Yibo whispered when it was his turn to look through the peephole again and saw that the woman had tried to chase after the person but had been held back by Wen Rouhan.

Zhan shrugged his shoulders, pushed Yibo away from the peephole and just saw the man, the woman and Wen Rouhan disappear into the apartment opposite. "I thought the apartment was empty." Zhan finally said after he and Yibo went into the living room.

"Maybe they just moved in." Yibo said.

"Without anyone noticing? Hardly."

"Well, it doesn't matter. Anyway, now you know that someone lives there and that the man obviously likes people of both sexes."

"Mmm. But I don't care about that. Everyone has their preferences."

"Well, of course. But hey, he's married and cheated on his wife."

"I know. And that was shitty of him."

"Well, I would never cheat on you."

"Neither would I, Yibo."

"Very good. Then that's settled." Yibo said, grinning and kissing Zhan.

While Zhan then sat down at his laptop to read his new e-mails, Yibo called the agency and asked if there was any news. Since there wasn't, the conversation didn't last very long, so he sat down next to Zhan and read the emails with him. When Zhan opened another email, they both paused. "What the hell?" Zhan asked.

"Subject: We want your money." Yibo read out. Then he read on. "Hello, my name is Kira Bell and I want your money. And I give you three days time to give it to me voluntarily before I come with my men and force you to give it to me. Account number to follow. Thank you for your cooperation. PS: You look incredibly good. I like you Xiao Zhan. Maybe we can have a coffee together sometime. And if you want, we can also sleep with each other. I bet you're good in bed. Over and out."

"She's not quite right in the head." Zhan said and couldn't believe what he was reading.

Yibo immediately set about forwarding the email to his new team leader and said: "She seems totally deranged." Then he pulled Zhan into his arms and said, "Don't worry. She won't get close enough to you. I won't let them hurt you." A long kiss and silence followed.

After half an hour, they had both regained their speech and decided that they would also show this email to Wen Rouhan. They took the laptop, went to Wen Rouhan's apartment and knocked. Isko opened the door for them, let them in and they saw Wen Rouhan sitting on the sofa in the living room reading the daily newspaper.

Wen Rouhan put the newspaper down, read through the email, laughed when he read the last part after the "PS" and then became serious again: "Maybe it would be better if you went to visit your parents." He said and handed the laptop back to Zhan.

"Yes, probably so. But this weekend would be stupid. Yibo wants to come with me. But his parents are visiting him." Zhan explained.

"So what? Then take them with you. Your parents' house is big enough." Wen Rouhan said.

"Well, I think that's a good solution." Said Yibo, convinced that these could be some very interesting days.

Zhan took an audible and resigned deep breath and nodded. "All right, then. Then we'll do exactly that. But only after the appointment with the lawyer."

"Sure thing." Wen Rouhan murmured in his usual deep voice.

"In any case." Yibo said.

They went back to Zhan's apartment, where they set about cooking lunch. Yibo, now much more confident as a helper, was allowed to cut the pork into cubes today, while Zhan prepared a noodle dough. Afterwards, Zhan even entrusted him with frying the onion pieces and the meat, which Yibo did surprisingly well, which made Yibo very happy.

When lunch was finally ready, Yibo was so hungry that he wolfed it down and treated himself to a second portion. Then they returned to the sofa for another half hour to relax and Yibo called his parents to ask if they would like to spend the weekend with him and Zhan at Zhan's parents' place in the country. The answer was yes. And then it was already time for them to set off. The appointment with the lawyer was coming up and Zhan was starting to get nervous.

Isko and Wen Rouhan stepped out of the apartment at the same moment as Zhan and Yibo. They went downstairs together and stood by the car for a moment. Isko looked visibly tense and nervous and needed a reassuring pat on the back from Wen Rouhan and his words: "Don't worry. Everything will be fine." Then they got into their cars and made their way to the lawyer's office.