Shen Sixing held the small black box in his hand, turning it over and examining it twice.
The box was tiny, pitch-black, just a plain little square box.
His brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
Familiar.
He found this thing familiar.
He couldn't quite say where he'd seen it, nor why it felt familiar—just a fleeting sense of déjà vu.
The young man clenched the box in his palm, rubbing his thumb across its smooth surface, then suddenly spoke:
"Give her to me too."
The person holding Shen Yi froze, testing the waters with a cautious tone: "...You?"
"I'll raise her." Shen Sixing pocketed the black box, a faint smile spreading across his face. "Is there a problem?"
"...No." The other man swallowed the words he'd been about to say.
Everyone present seemed to hold back their thoughts, exchanging several glances.
What they really wanted to say was: You can't even take care of yourself, can you?
They had all seen Shen Sixing's rented room in the old district.
The door was broken, the lock busted.
With Shen Sixing's combat ability inferior to even a goose’s, if the lock failed and a burglar broke in, he probably couldn't even protect a child.
These people had followed the young master for years, knowing his habits inside out.
The fridge was always empty, and his shabby rental didn't even have a decent bed.
If he raised a child, where would the child sleep?
Shen Sixing himself barely slept three hours a day, lived on convenience store food, and skipped meals altogether when in a bad mood.
Now he wanted to raise a child?
Was that child's survival even guaranteed?
Everyone lowered their heads in silence, eyes fixed on their noses, noses fixed on their hearts.
Shen Sixing had already turned and walked away, the hem of his trench coat sweeping over puddles on the ground. He took two steps, then stopped: "Get her something to eat. Send it to my place."
He added, "Make sure she arrives alive."
Then the young man turned leisurely and walked off without looking back.
He was going out for a drink.
At this hour.
Shen Sixing clearly wasn’t about to bother with a kid—leaving it to his subordinates was the best approach.
Behind him, a group of subordinates exchanged dumbfounded looks, then scrambled into action.
Shen Yi was tossed into the back seat of a car.
Her feelings were mixed.
She figured that with Shen Sixing's pathetic state, sticking with him would probably still mean going hungry.
But at least,
for now, she wouldn't be living on the streets.
The person driving couldn't hold back and blurted out:
"What the hell is Mr. Shen thinking..."
Another chimed in: "He looks like he's in a bad mood."
"When is the young master ever in a good mood?"
Glum-faced all day, exuding an air of dreary depression.
"Yeah, and now he wants to raise a kid? A guy who often ends up at the gambling table, gets beaten up for debts, and looks like he could die any moment. Doesn't the Shen family care at all?"
The Shen family was notoriously ruthless. Logically, with their heir being bullied like this, those who did the bullying would end up dead in horrifying ways, no one would be surprised.
But surprisingly, nothing happened to those who messed with Shen Sixing.
Over time, it seemed Shen Sixing was constantly in a state of exile—no one cared how he fared.
At most, they'd send a few people to keep an eye on his daily activities.
"..."
Shen Yi listened from the back seat, taking in every word of their conversation.
Every word sounded—
So terrible...
Drinking. Gambling.
And worst of all, when he lost at gambling, he'd get beaten up and thrown out.
How had he even survived until now?
Shen Yi was shocked. Shen Yi couldn't believe it.
She had thought her dear second brother, Shen Ruxu, living a life of wandering, was already bad enough.
But now it seemed her second brother was just like a tough stray cat—at least he could take care of himself.
In contrast, Shen Sixing in his youth was more like a homeless tramp anyone could beat up for stress relief.
Shen Yi sighed silently in her heart.
For a while to come, she would be staying by Shen Sixing's side.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing,
she couldn't yet tell.
...
Shen Sixing lay slumped at the bar for a long time.
He drank one glass of whiskey after another, the ice cubes slowly melting, diluting the amber liquid into a pale gold.
He pulled the black box from his pocket and placed it on the counter, spinning it over and over.
Shen Sixing recognized it—it was something he had made himself.
But he didn't remember when he'd designed it.
Nor how to open it.
And why it had ended up in a child's hands was another big question.
He didn't feel like thinking about it.
He was exhausted.
Three days without sleep—his thoughts were like a tangled mess of yarn, every concept requiring him to start from the very beginning.
He didn't have the extra energy to wonder why that box had appeared in a child's hand.
This mission was done; at least he had an accounting of the arsenal's ledger. It meant likely a year of peace ahead.
A year.
He savored the word, but felt no anticipation—just... emptiness.
A whole year was too long, too long to know how to fill it.
As for that child,
she was like keeping a cat or a dog.
Would you get too attached to a cat or dog?
Normal people might, but he wouldn't.
He even suspected her motives—she had been pretending to be unconscious, deliberately revealing that item in front of him.
Shen Sixing's paranoid mind wondered: maybe her parents had been blown up by him.
Her goal in doing this was to stay close to him, waiting for revenge.
Whatever her intentions,
maybe it could bring some amusement to his life.
At worst, if he got bored, he could just kill her.
After downing the last shot of whiskey, he swayed home with a drunken haze.
The night wind hit his face, making him shiver.
The young man walked unsteadily, like a wandering soul returning to that shabby rental.
When he pushed the door open, his mind was still wandering over trivial thoughts:
Should he switch to a different convenience store for junk food tomorrow, and wash the bedsheets while he was at it?
And throw away the withered plant on the windowsill.
These scattered thoughts drifted aimlessly, not a single one concerning the child.
Shen Sixing didn't even register that he was supposed to raise some little creature.
Shen Yi had already been waiting in his rental apartment.
This place was... a complete dump.
Poor and dilapidated.
Shen Yi had been quiet for hours, but as afternoon came and went, her cheap foster father showed no sign of returning.
She was utterly bored.
And for an eight-year-old, both energy and curiosity ran high. Unable to resist, Shen Yi rummaged through his drawers, pulling out all sorts of handguns.
She started arranging them into patterns.
She disassembled and reassembled some of the simpler parts.
Out of boredom, she even gave each gun a name.
When Shen Sixing burst through the door, he completely failed to notice the floor covered with gun parts and firearms this child had set up.
One step in, he stomped onto a pile of hard metal objects.
His foot slipped, his body lost balance, and the next second he fell flat on the ground.
Sprawled out.
Back hitting the floor with a dull thud, his trench coat spread out on the dusty ground like a giant moth suddenly smacked against a wall.
Shen Sixing lay there, the alcohol making his reactions slower than usual.
The boy first stared blankly at the ceiling. His gaze slowly shifted from the familiar crack to the spider web in the corner before he propped himself up and turned his head.
Then he saw it.
Spread neatly across the floor of his shabby rented room were—
—handguns, parts, ammunition magazines, all laid out in rows.
A few of the guns had pieces of paper stuck on them, with crookedly written names scrawled on each.
"Little Black"
"Big Silver"
"Ah Hua"
Every gun had a name.
The boy lifted a somewhat gloomy face and, after a long pause, murmured a single sentence: “I fell down.”
Shen Yi: “...”
Dazed, he finished speaking, pushed himself up from the floor, and stared at the neatly arranged firearms. Then he looked up at the young girl crouching in the corner, still gripping half a gun barrel in one hand.
“What the hell are you?”
