"Where are you going, Shen Yi?" He stopped in his tracks, watching her quietly.
"Why are you dressed like that? Here for work?"
At her age, could she even be a sailor?
Sui Ning's thoughts were scrambled. In his wildest dreams, he'd never have imagined that Shen Yi had simply mugged a crew member for their uniform.
The young man stared at her, turning over possibilities in his mind. What was the meaning behind her outfit?
Shen Yi replied, "I'm going to do something big."
Sui Ning thought she had a strange kind of humor about her.
At a time like this, dressed like that, what big thing was she planning to do?
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
Shen Yi spread her hands. "Maybe you'll find out soon enough."
Sui Ning frowned. "Wait. Come with us. It's safer together than alone."
Shen Yi took two light steps back, smiling as she dodged his outstretched hand. "No, no. I still have things to do."
With that, she waved at him. "Hope you live forever, you good-hearted person."
In a few quick strides, Shen Yi disappeared into the chaos of the crowd.
Sui Ning stood frozen in place, his mind spinning. He never could have guessed that this girl was about to take on an entire ship full of gunmen all by herself.
As far as he could see, a young woman showing up in a place like this, moving with ease through a hail of bullets, was strange enough on its own.
Sui Ning wanted to chase after her and stop her, but she was unnervingly fast. In the blink of an eye, she was gone.
Downright bizarre.
What exactly was she?
...
At the same time, urgent voices crackled over a comm channel: "I've found the assassin."
Shen Yi had also grabbed a comm device and was listening in on the discussion about herself.
The other side quickly reported her height, appearance, and current location.
In an instant, a flood of gunmen converged on her position.
Without hesitation, Shen Yi jumped down a level, slipped into a VIP lounge, tore off her crew uniform in a few quick movements, and changed into an inconspicuous set of plain clothes.
Effortlessly, she merged into the fleeing crowd.
Using the crowd as cover, Shen Yi moved in the opposite direction. Time and again, she led the gunmen on a wild chase.
Every time the comm channel gave away her position, she vanished at the next corner, either changing her jacket or switching her route.
The gunmen felt like they were chasing a wisp of smoke—there one moment, gone the next.
But the trick of changing clothes didn't always work.
Even after shooting out cameras and avoiding surveillance, there were still moments of carelessness.
One camera caught a clear shot of her face as she rounded a corner at just the wrong angle.
The screenshot quickly spread to every gunman's phone.
Some of the more frustrated gunmen started grabbing guests and interrogating them: "Have you seen this woman?"
The person being questioned looked down at the screen.
"...Is this someone's kid?" someone muttered.
A gunman growled, "Kid? Are you blind? That's an assassin."
The person being questioned fell silent.
Some even thought—well, an assassin doesn't sound so bad.
At a moment like this, who cared about assassin or not?
As long as someone was causing chaos, they were happy to see it.
Leave identity and morality aside.
Who knew? Maybe the assassin was a good girl at heart.
The gunmen questioned a large number of guests but got no useful leads.
The ship was too big. They could only blockade and search people one by one, regardless of status—waiters, crew, guests, everyone.
Sensing their intent, Shen Yi silently dropped back, stepping out of line.
In the middle of the crowd, she fired two shots.
The crowd exploded into pure pandemonium.
The already tense situation was thrown into complete chaos by those two shots.
At a time like this, the advantage of having so many people was that even the gunmen didn't dare fire recklessly, lest they hit some bigwig the employer wouldn't want harmed.
Their muzzles could only point toward the ceiling or the ground, never pulling the trigger.
The irony?
The most unscrupulous person on site wasn't the gunmen.
It was Shen Yi herself.
Like a wolf mingling among sheep, she stood at the edge of the panicked crowd, using the moment when everyone turned to find the source of the gunfire to slip away quickly.
Before she left, from over a dozen meters away, Shen Yi shot three people with unerring accuracy.
The three dropped one after another. Shen Yi tucked the gun into her coat and took a silent, deep breath.
The longer this dragged on, the worse it was for her.
The crowd in every area was thinning. The corridors were emptying out, giving her fewer places to hide.
...
After multiple failed attempts to hunt her down, the gunmen simply took her photo and went around asking guests if they'd seen Shen Yi.
When Lu Mingyuan saw the photo on the screen, his fingers paused.
Shen Yi's face stood out sharply among the frantic crowd.
He opened his mouth but ultimately made no comment. He simply handed the phone back to the gunman and said, eyes downcast, "Never seen her."
Lu Mingyuan's mind was in turmoil.
He couldn't understand. Why was she here? And why were these gunmen after her?
When Song Guanyan saw the face in the photo, he felt his blood run cold.
He immediately reached into his pocket, pulled out a watch and a ring he always kept on him, and walked up to a gunman who seemed like a squad leader, quietly negotiating.
Song Guanyan tried to buy his temporary freedom by handing over valuables he could pawn off.
The gunman raised an eyebrow at the watch—worth the price of a dozen houses—and the ring, pocketing them.
"I can't let you leave," the gunman said.
Song Guanyan replied, "You've taken my things. So you can't even let me step out for a moment? Do you really think your country or any government would let me die? Not very likely, is it, sir?"
That statement was less a negotiation and more a veiled threat.
Song Guanyan's identity was tied to the interests of too many economies. If something happened to him on this ship, the fallout would be impossible for many to contain.
The gunman had taken his money but wasn't delivering. Song Guanyan was no pushover.
If he chose to settle scores later, the mercenary could already imagine his fate.
The man hesitated for a few seconds before relenting: "Fine. I'll give you some time. Don't go far."
Song Guanyan let out a quiet sigh of relief, thanked him, and immediately set out to find his daughter.
As far as he was concerned, finding Shen Yi couldn't be simpler.
Wherever the gunfire was thickest, she'd most likely be there.
For her part, Shen Yi was experiencing for the first time what it felt like to be at odds with the entire world. To be honest, it was exhilarating.
To keep the sound of gunfire from drawing more people, she ditched her gun altogether and switched to a knife.
She hid silently in the shadows.
Her knife work wasn't clean enough, which left her clothes splattered with blood, the dark fabric absorbing most of the crimson stain.
Just then, footsteps grew closer.
