Faced with her question repeated twice, Sui Ning still did not answer.
He reached out a hand to pull her closer, his tone stripped of its former tenderness, flat and direct. “Leave with me, Xiaoyi. Once we land, I’ll arrange everything.”
Shen Yi stepped back, watching Sui Ning, who was rarely so forceful.
She turned to leave.
Footsteps followed behind her—and not just one pair.
Song Guanyan was also walking toward her, the two of them flanking her left and right, both telling her to come back, both trying to grab her wrist and pull her away.
Shen Yi stopped.
Without warning, she pulled a short gun from her pocket and aimed it at Sui Ning, then shifted it slightly toward Song Guanyan behind him. Her voice turned cold. “Can you both just stop bothering me?”
She was not a parasitic vine.
She didn’t need to be saved.
These two… were both so annoying!
Sui Ning’s eyelid twitched.
His gaze settled on the gun in her hand.
The girl held the weapon steadily, her index finger resting outside the trigger guard, the angle of the muzzle toward the ground carrying a kind of habit—a motion performed many times before.
It suddenly dawned on him: when she had kicked open the door earlier and ransacked the place, and recalling that Shen Wen He had brought a gun onto the ship, he understood.
So she had gone into Shen Wen He’s room to get the gun.
Song Guanyan also halted in his tracks.
Being pointed at by Shen Yi’s gun forcibly reminded him of years ago.
Back then, she had only been five or six, holding a knife in front of Shen Wen He, protecting her brother with no blood relation, and had struck him without hesitation.
“That thing is dangerous, Yiyi,” his voice trembled, laced with a sense of cruel fate. “Put the gun down first.”
Before he could finish speaking,
Shen Yi expressionlessly twisted her wrist and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot exploded across the deck, short and muffled.
A streak of blood traced across Song Guanyan’s shoulder. He froze entirely in place.
“Stop bothering me,” Shen Yi said.
The muzzle of her gun was still emitting a thin wisp of white smoke.
The pain drained Song Guanyan’s face of color even more. He stared at his wound, blood seeping through his fingers and spreading a dark stain on his deep-colored suit fabric.
But the pain on his face didn’t seem to come from the gunshot.
More than the physical injury, he was crushed by the realization that Shen Yi could fire that shot without any mercy.
She had actually pulled the trigger.
Just like years ago, at him—without hesitation, without a tremor, without a trace of kindness.
“Yiyi—”
“I said,” Shen Yi cut him off, her gun still aiming at him, her voice frigid, “stop bothering me.”
Song Guanyan finally shut his mouth.
“And Sui Ning, you’re a really good person.”
Shen Yi felt that it would be hard to find someone as willing to help her as him anywhere in the world. Whatever his motives, he counted as a genuinely decent person.
“You should take another boat and leave. Thank you, but I won’t be going.”
Sui Ning was a man who knew when to adapt. Faced with Shen Yi’s gun, he immediately raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
Under this suddenly dangerous situation, the young man let out a laugh.
“Shen Yi,” his voice dropped slightly, “I suddenly feel… like today is the first time I’ve truly met you.”
His impression of her had always lingered on “that girl with a weird brain.”
Every time they talked, he felt she wasn’t quite normal, somehow out of sync with the world.
Later, after meeting her brother, Sui Ning’s perception shifted to “the peculiar rich girl, the doll tightly guarded by her brother—pretty, strange, in need of protection.”
Until now.
She stood in the twilight, holding a gun, the barrel still smoking, casually handing him a “good person” card.
“I’m a very shallow person,” Sui Ning said. “The first time I noticed you, it was because you looked just like my childhood doll. My mother loved those dolls, and my favorite one looked exactly like you.
‘Love at first sight’ is always rooted in childhood aesthetics—because I liked it then, I never changed as I grew up. I’ve always liked you, and I used to call you ‘Doll’ in private.”
He paused.
“But you’re not a doll.”
She had taken the gun, raised it, fired, and said goodbye.
In those few seconds, he had truly glimpsed her soul for the first time.
She had nothing in common with a doll.
Sui Ning stood there with his hands still raised, his smile more genuine than any he had shown before.
“Go,” he said. “I won’t stop you.”
“Good luck, Xiaoyi.”
“They’re on the west side deck.”
Shen Yi holstered her gun, murmured a thanks, and turned away.
Sui Ning remained where he was, watching her back disappear, and the smile slowly faded from his lips.
He looked down at his hands, still in a surrender position—empty, having clutched nothing.
So this is what it’s like to be in the underworld, huh.
Fierce.
…
Shen Yi hid the gun, suspecting she might not need it anymore.
She was ready to reload—though before reloading, she had to figure out what was really going on, so she wouldn’t be in the dark again.
The west side deck was crowded with armed men. Shen Yi messed up her hair, adjusted her expression to look utterly flustered, like a lost little girl stumbling into the scene.
As she rushed onto the deck, she deliberately staggered, the heel of her shoe clicking sharply against the floor.
Initially, the armed men were alert, a few gazes sweeping over her. But once they saw it was just a teenage girl, their wariness unconsciously relaxed.
“Get out. What are you doing here?” someone warned her in a rough voice, thick with an accent.
Shen Yi raised her head with a timid look, her eyes scanning their faces. Speaking in English, she said, “My brother is still inside. Can you let me in?”
The man’s attitude turned impatient. He waved her off. “Get lost.”
Seeing that pretending weakness didn’t work, Shen Yi stopped. She stared at him for two seconds, and the timid expression on her face vanished instantly, replaced by a childish fury.
She stomped her foot, her behavior deliberately bratty and naive.
In full view of everyone, she suddenly punched him without warning.
The fist landed on his chin, not terribly strong, but enough to make him stagger.
The man was stunned.
The other armed men were stunned too.
No one had expected a seemingly harmless little girl to start throwing punches.
The man she had punched rubbed his chin, snarled, and wiped the corner of his mouth. “So eager to find your brother? Fine, then come along with us.”
He grabbed her arm, his grip as strong as iron pliers, and shoved her deeper into the deck.
Shen Yi stumbled a few steps, shaking him off irritably, putting on the act of a spoiled rich girl. “Let go of me. I’ll walk on my own.”
Having achieved her goal, she sprinted forward, pushing through the wall of armed men.
The wind on the deck howled, and the salty sea breeze rushed toward her.
