Shen Wenta stood not far away. He bent down, touched the cold snow, grasped a handful in his palm, and walked forward quietly. "Shen Yi."
Shen Yi turned her head to look at him. "Third Brother?"
Shen Wenta leaned down, his face very close to hers.
Shen Yi could even smell the faint scent of fir wood lingering on his clothes.
The young man's eyes and brows were soft, the corners of his lips slightly raised, looking like a plum tree suddenly blooming in the dead of winter.
Then, he reached out and, without a moment of hesitation, pressed the half-melted snowball he was holding directly against Shen Yi's face.
As the freezing touch suddenly met her warm skin, Shen Yi shivered instantly. She shrieked, "Shen Wenta!"
"Who told you not to choose me." Shen Wenta sneered, withdrawing his hand and taking a step back.
"Are you childish or what?" she asked angrily.
"Not childish."
"..."
Shen Yi decided to stop wasting words on him.
She bent down, scooped up a handful of snow, packed it into a ball, and hurled it right at him.
Shen Wenta gently dodged to the side. The snowball brushed past his ear and smacked directly into the face of Shen Zhizhao, who was standing behind him. Snowflakes clung to the young man's eyebrows and eyelashes.
"..."
The world seemed to fall dead silent for a few seconds.
Shen Zhizhao raised his hand and slowly wiped the snow from his face. It was hard to tell from his expression whether he was amused or annoyed. He simply stared at Shen Yi with a thoughtful, appraising gaze.
"You've never been very obedient, Little Yi." His tone wasn't heavy; rather than anger, it sounded more like helplessness.
"Does being obedient help?" She tentatively poked her head out, thought for a moment, and then added righteously, "Isn't Third Brother quite obedient? But you don't seem to give him any special treatment."
In fact, whenever Shen Wenta mentioned their eldest brother, he would immediately bring up the time Shen Zhizhao ordered people to open fire, completely disregarding his own brother's life.
Shen Zhizhao wiped the melted snow from his face and chuckled softly.
"It is helpful, Little Yi."
To him, a well-behaved younger brother would get the stick.
But a well-behaved younger sister would definitely get a reward.
Shen Zhizhao was a very traditional and honest man.
A brother's obedience was definitely fake.
But a sister's obedience was definitely real.
"Then I will definitely listen to you from now on, just don't throw snow at me." Seeing that he wasn't mad at her, Shen Yi breathed a sigh of relief and grinning, she skipped a bit further away.
Her movements were nimble, quickly putting distance between them, kicking up snow like a rabbit in a snowy field.
Wen Ya had a slight headache from these noisy kids.
Why play in the snow?
What was the fun in hurting each other?
Shen Yi skipped away and crouched down, ready to continue her great snowman-building project with Shen Xun.
Halfway through, she had been interrupted and attacked by that petty, grudge-holding Shen Wenta.
She stomped her feet in annoyance.
Suddenly, she stopped.
She turned her head and looked at the snowman she had been building.
That massive, incredibly ugly snowman.
She walked up to the snowman and wrapped her hands around the round snowball that was even bigger than her own head.
With a forceful tug.
The snowman's neck let out a muffled crack, and she ripped its head right off on the spot.
Shen Xun, still holding his shovel, looked on in stunned disbelief as his sister carried away the giant snowman head.
...Are we still building it?
Weren't we supposed to build a snowman together? Why did you take its head?
Shen Xun's mind was full of question marks.
Shen Yi, carrying the giant snowball, marched over to Shen Wenta in quick strides.
With perfect accuracy, she smashed it fiercely into his face. "Since you like snowballs so much, I'll spoil you just this once."
Snow flew everywhere, covering Shen Wenta's head and face, with a lot of it even falling down his collar.
"What others have, you must have too."
"Yours is even bigger than Second Brother's snowball, how about that, Third Brother?"
Shen Wenta didn't dodge. The impact of the snowball pushed him back a step, and he fell backward into the snow.
Snowflakes landed on his face as his voice trailed up with an indescribable hint of amusement. "Then I am truly honored."
Shen Wenta simply wanted to play with her.
The two hadn't seen each other in a long time.
But the price was a bit steep. Lying flat in the snow, his hair was somewhat damp, and his body was covered in snowflakes.
Shen Wenta really disliked this wet and soggy feeling.
"You little brat, quite bossy aren't you." Suddenly hearing the phrase 'I'll spoil you just this once,' Shen Ruxu laughed like crazy, grabbing Shen Yi and rolling into a ball with her in the snow.
Shen Wenta pushed his upper body up from the snow, frowning as he looked at the two rolling around. "Shen Ruxu, rolling her around in the snow like that will easily make her catch a cold."
The young man's eyelashes were dusted with snow, his expression cold.
A breathtaking beauty caught between the moonlight and the snow.
After Shen Ruxu let her go, Shen Yi climbed up from the snow and looked back.
She was struck hard by his beauty.
Covering her mouth, she muttered to herself, "I think Shen Wenta's face should be registered as a World Heritage site."
Shen Ruxu curiously rubbed his chin against her head. "Do you really like his face?"
"Not really." Shen Yi said honestly, "I like ugly ones."
"..."
As soon as she made this declaration, the others who were shoveling snow turned to look at her in unison.
Their eldest brother's tone carried a hint of uncertain confusion. "Ugly ones?"
"Yeah." Shen Yi felt uncomfortable being stared at. "What are you looking at me for? You all have your own preferences, so please respect my taste in beauty, okay?"
"..."
No one said a word.
But that look of "we are trying hard to respect it but we really can't" was more lethal than any words.
It was the first time Shen Ruxu had ever heard that Shen Yi liked ugly men.
He pondered for a moment and, without the slightest sense of respecting client privacy, took out his phone.
He opened up photos of many clients. "Which type do you like? Show me."
Shen Ruxu had interacted with many people, and he wanted to see exactly what kind Shen Yi liked.
Shen Yi swiped a couple of times, immediately ruling out the social elite look.
Finally, she pointed to a simple and honest-looking man. "This kind of person. He just looks super reliable and safe."
Shen Sixing was just plain and featureless, looking like a pitiful corporate drone who might collapse from exhaustion at any second, completely harmless.
And the man in the photo looked even more rustic.
Simple-minded.
Honest and harmless.
Shen Ruxu glanced at the man, recalled all of his past deeds, and three seconds later, let out a miserable shriek like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "Your brother forbids it, Little Yi!!"
"Do you know what he does? He has a wife, but in private he's a total sleaze! The number of mistresses he cheats with is so long they need to take a number to line up, and you actually like this kind of trash?"
"Little Yi, what are you going to do when you grow up? If you go out on your own, you'll definitely get scammed by a scumbag until you're living on the streets."
He couldn't help but grip his phone tightly, growing more panicked the more he thought about it. He could even envision Shen Yi, scammed by a scumbag and covered in dirt, squatting on a street corner crying as she pitifully called him: "Second Brother, I'm out of money. That ugly man promised to love me forever, but he ended up swindling all my cash..."
