Now she was alone again.
The lowest corridor was empty at this hour.
She picked an empty room at random.
The room was small—a bed and a chair, the walls made of cold metal panels.
Shen Yi took off the waiter’s jacket and draped it over the chairback, then lay down on the bed in just her white shirt.
The mattress wasn’t soft. She turned onto her side, staring for a while at the darkened ceiling light fixture.
She hadn’t closed her eyes once since arriving until now.
The moment she shut them, exhaustion surged up like a tide.
Shen Yi closed her eyes and waited for nightfall.
...
Shen Wenta made a call.
It turned out Shen Yi’s phone was switched off.
In their chat history, he had asked her earlier if she wanted to come aboard with him.
But her reply was just a brief message:
[Something came up. Next time.]
Shen Wenta stared at that line several times.
No explanation, no specific time—just those words.
He reached for his jacket and sat down in the car.
He couldn’t tell if it was disappointment or irritation.
He always felt a pang of resentment whenever she rejected him.
Shen Wenta sat silently in the backseat for a moment, then undid the top button of his collar, but the tightness in his chest remained.
He stubbornly believed Shen Yi just liked to mess with him.
Yet he still brought her gifts.
As the car started, Shen Wenta mentally ran through the list of royal family members likely to attend tonight’s banquet, picturing the jewelry they would wear.
A sapphire necklace had looked stunning on one lady last night.
He planned to find a way to get it back for her.
...
Visconti, as the host, had never shown his face.
With such a huge incident—the head of the family wiped out—and the banquet still going ahead as planned, with all invited guests arriving as promised, it proved they weren’t there for the family, but for the value of the banquet itself.
What the guests wanted was the profit to be exchanged at the event; as for how many people the host family had lost, that was their private affair.
Shen Wenta walked through the crowd, champagne flute in hand.
He hypocritically expressed condolences to a hastily arrived Visconti collateral relative, conveying sympathy for his family’s misfortune.
“My deepest sympathies,” Shen Wenta said, his expression solemn, his eyes carrying just the right touch of pity.
If the Oscars didn’t invite him, it would be a waste.
Everyone with half a brain knew the killer almost certainly had ties to his family, yet there he was, strolling around at the host’s own party.
After his hypocritical pleasantries, just as the banquet was about to end, he ran into Sui Ning.
The two were fairly familiar with each other.
Shen Wenta originally planned to exchange polite greetings and be done with it.
For some reason, he found Sui Ning extremely irritating.
They had cooperated smoothly enough, and Sui Ning was always courteous and considerate.
But Shen Wenta just felt something off about him.
That irritation wasn’t directed at anything he did.
It was aimed at Sui Ning himself.
Shen Wenta couldn’t even find a specific reason to explain it.
So he simply looked away, pretending to admire the seascape outside the window, aloof and dismissive.
“Good evening,” Sui Ning said.
Shen Wenta ignored him.
Blinking at this cold shoulder, Sui Ning wondered to himself:
Just how had he offended this young master?
Lu Mingyuan stood at a distance, casting a dark glance at Shen Wenta’s figure. Instinctively, he searched for Shen Yi’s shadow nearby.
Based on what he knew—
Shen Yi was part of the Shen family. If Shen Wenta was here, Shen Yi might be in some corner too.
But the result disappointed him—
He didn’t see Shen Yi at all.
Perhaps she hadn’t attended the banquet.
Lu Mingyuan had once detested Shen Yi.
At least, that’s how it used to be.
But the memory from his dreams told a different story—
In those dreams, he liked her a lot.
Only back then, Lu Mingyuan still couldn’t forgive her deception.
She was insatiably greedy, trying to use him to escape many things.
And she liked using his status as her shield.
When he asked why she did it, Shen Yi had brazenly told him, “Because you’re my fiancé—you’re supposed to protect me.”
Shamelessly clinging to others, making him protect her.
The Shen Yi in his dreams was far from the conventional good girl.
Yet sadly, he found he still liked her very much.
So that recurring, hazy dream—so different from reality—
Had gradually begun to change Lu Mingyuan’s attitude toward the present Shen Yi.
Perhaps, back then, she had been powerless and could only think of using him; or maybe, back then, she had truly liked him.
Shen Yi was like a dodder flower, with no choice but to climb up by clinging to him.
Only this lifetime—
...Shen Yi seemed to have found a better person to cling to.
At that thought, Lu Mingyuan took a sip of wine, letting it linger on his tongue before swallowing; bitterness spread from the back of his throat.
For some reason, he felt bitter resentment.
...
At night.
Shen Yi took the chance to kill about a dozen people.
The targets on her list were scattered across different cabins and corridors, not concentrated, forcing her to move repeatedly between decks.
Shen Yi avoided the surveillance blind spots, slipping in and out of rooms according to the patrol intervals she had memorized during the day.
Her movements were extremely practiced.
Open the door, step in, withdraw the blade, close the door.
Killing on an assembly line.
During the two days of the banquet’s opening, Shen Yi would find an empty room to rest in during the day.
At night, she would quietly strike, silently eliminating a batch of hired gunmen who had come aboard.
The first two nights were calm.
At least until the third day.
No one realized what was about to happen on that third day.
Then, in the quiet afternoon, the change came.
Hastily the orderly interior of the ship was suddenly filled with the sound of heavy footsteps.
Someone shouted something; others were pulled from their rooms in bewilderment.
Figures armed with guns began appearing in the corridors.
Some person who had been barely noticeable suddenly drew a pistol, forcing everyone to gather on one side of the deck.
Chaos broke out in full force.
Ladies in elegant gowns and gentlemen in suits shoved each other, trying to push through the crowd, their splendid hems tripping more than one person underfoot.
A few of the wealthier guests had brought bodyguards, but they were clearly of little use.
Outnumbered, the bodyguards’ guns were practically useless, only making the scene more complicated and chaotic.
Foreign mercenaries and Asian gunmen gradually closed in, forcing everyone together.
Many who had been resting in their cabins were seized and dragged out.
Pushed forward with gun muzzles at their backs, they were hauled out of bed, not even given time to grab a jacket.
“What’s going on?”
“What happened? Why won’t the ship dock?”
“What the hell is happening?”
No one answered them.
