Suining stopped in his tracks and turned his head to look at him.
The two of them stood at the edge of the deck, surrounded by a passing crowd of ashen-faced people, none of whom noticed what they were saying.
Before coming, Shen Wenta had brought quite a few men to ensure his own safety.
Although those bodyguards were technically not allowed to accompany him, for the Shen family, rules had always been something that money could rewrite.
“There are my people outside on the deck,” he said, staring at Suining. “If it comes to it, they’ll protect you. In my room, there’s a gun in the cabinet—it’s loaded. You know how to use it.”
Suining listened without giving any indication of agreement or disagreement.
“Before you leave, can you take Shen Yi with you? She’s still in the guest room.”
The sea wind swept into the space between them, causing his voice to tremble slightly.
Shen Wenta stood with his back against the dying twilight, his expression urgent, like a gambler who had staked his last chip on the table.
This made Suining feel a sense of unfamiliarity.
“They won’t care about your whereabouts. At the end of the day, they just want to bleed you dry. We’re their real target. After I’m dead, you take Shen Yi off the ship with you, all right?” Shen Wenta paused, grinding his molars almost to dust before forcing the words out completely: “My sister has a very good impression of you. She said she likes you a lot.”
Suining raised an eyebrow.
Shen Wenta continued speaking, his face expressionless. “If I die, she’ll inherit everything I own.”
“In the estate division, I wrote everything down under her name—real estate, funds, stocks… all of it. You can negotiate with her for those things.”
He had said so much, trying to use all these factors to sway Suining.
And Suining was indeed taken aback.
He had to admit that this man really knew how to make a pitch.
For any normal man, hearing the brother of a girl say, “She has a very good impression of you,” especially when that girl was about to inherit unimaginable wealth, would be enough to stir the heart.
It was only human nature.
Suining’s heart did skip a beat; he felt it too. Because it was too tempting—the Shen family’s fortune, their network of connections.
A girl who thought well of him, a girl he also genuinely liked, and the reality that her brother was about to die.
He had never expected this.
Shen Wenta—that selfish, stingy man—had actually been willing to dangle this kind of bait to persuade him.
Blood seeped from Shen Wenta’s bitten lips as he stared fixedly at Suining. “You have to protect her. Get her off the ship. Otherwise, I…”
He swallowed the threat, his words trailing off into weakness.
What could he do? He was about to die. What leverage could a dying man hold over someone who would go on living?
Threatened again, Suining, even with his typically good temper, felt a surge of sarcasm. “Even in death, you’re still worrying this much? If your sister ever suffers in the future, I suppose you’ll haunt whoever wrongs her, won’t you, Mr. Shen? With so much resentment, you probably won’t be able to rest in peace.”
Shen Wenta ignored his mockery, his voice choked with uncontrollable urgency. “She doesn’t even know how to socialize. When she talks to those socialites, she needs someone by her side. When you leave, you’ll have to take other boats they’ve arranged. The nearest port to dock will be a harbor in international waters overseas. She’s not familiar with foreign countries at all. Can you please…”
“Enough,” Suining interrupted, growing irritated.
Shen Wenta finally stopped talking. His face was pale, and he wiped the blood beads away with his lips, looking panicked. “Please, take her away.”
Shen Wenta didn’t actually trust Suining at all.
He looked down on Suining, despised the man.
In truth, his sister had the ability to protect herself. Killing people like him, who were helpless, would be easy for her.
But he couldn’t stop imagining every possible accident.
She wasn’t that ruthless. She couldn’t kill every survivor. She had little worldly experience and couldn’t even handle basic social situations.
She was clueless, and this place was full of people with more schemes than a beehive.
If he died, what would happen to her if she encountered danger on the ship alone? And there was also Lorenzo, lurking and scheming.
The thought of it sent a wave of suffocating panic crashing over him, squeezing his chest.
Suining had never met anyone with such an excessive amount of worries in his life.
“I’ll take her with me. Rest assured,” he said.
“I promise you, no matter what happens, I’ll stay with her.”
With that, Suining didn’t want to waste any more time and turned to leave.
Having gotten his promise, Shen Wenta’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly. He stood there, dazed, before tears began to fall, welling up ahead of his own awareness. He actually started to cry.
Why was he crying?
Crying because he hadn’t said goodbye properly.
Crying because why did it have to be him who stayed behind to die?
Crying because he would never see her again.
Crying because Shen Yi wouldn’t come back.
