Shen Yi hid behind a pillar and watched the entire scene unfold.
Her fingers clenched the hem of her clothes so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
When she saw those men shove Shen Sixing, his back slammed into the chair with a muffled thud that seemed to strike her right in the chest.
One of them raised his fist and was about to punch him in the face. Shen Sixing did not even try to dodge. He merely turned his head slightly, looking so resigned that Shen Yi could not hold herself back any longer. She rushed out from behind the pillar.
“Dad!”
Her voice was shrill and piercing.
At the sound, Shen Sixing jerked his head up, his mind buzzing.
When had she followed him here?
The man who had been about to strike looked down at the child who had appeared from nowhere. “Where did this little brat come from?”
Shen Yi’s back went rigid. She lifted her chin and met the man’s eyes, saying, “You can’t hit him.”
Her chest heaved violently, her face drawn tight as she repeated, “You can’t hit him!”
Shen Yi truly had not expected Shen Sixing to be such a coward.
She had thought that he was often bullied outside because he simply could not be bothered to retaliate. She had never imagined that he genuinely would not fight back.
From beginning to end, he had not even raised an arm. He had merely stood there with his shoulders hunched, letting the other man’s fists come down on him.
Shen Sixing was a truly strange person.
He did not hold grudges, nor did he flaunt himself. Sometimes, he barely cared even when people cursed him or beat him up.
Most of the time, his reaction did not resemble forbearance so much as a peculiar kind of dullness.
In that regard, Shen Xun was very much like him.
But Shen Sixing was nothing like Shen Xun, who held grudges down to the last detail. Anyone who made Shen Xun unhappy could expect Shen Xun to make their entire family unhappy.
To put it somewhat absurdly, Shen Sixing really did resemble one of those timid, spineless ordinary men.
Yet calling the heir to a criminal family an ordinary, honest man sounded even more ridiculous.
When she had first met him, Shen Sixing had been smiling. The crazed look on his face as he gunned people down, grinning all the while, had been no act.
In her entire life, Shen Yi had never met anyone more complicated than her father.
He was like an onion. Peel away one layer, and there was another beneath it. Every layer was real, yet none of them represented the whole.
But it did not matter. Shen Yi could protect him now.
The burly man beside them let out a mocking laugh and said impatiently, “Who are you to him? Get out of the way.”
As he spoke, he reached for the troublesome little brat, his five thick fingers stretching toward the back of her neck.
Shen Sixing had always carried a numb, lifeless air about him. Yet this sight seemed to jolt him awake. He suddenly raised his hand and caught the burly man’s wrist with perfect accuracy.
That hand was thin and pale, its knuckles jutting out. It looked as though it could be snapped with ease, yet the force with which it gripped the man’s wrist was astonishing.
Shen Sixing’s eyes were pitch-black and unfathomably deep. When he looked at someone, they resembled two bottomless pits.
“Let her go, will you?”
The burly man met his gaze and inexplicably felt a chill race up his back. He retreated half a step and released his grip before he even realized what he was doing.
Once he had let go, annoyance surfaced in his eyes. He was annoyed that this scrawny pretty boy had actually frightened him into backing down.
But the sensation in that instant had been too strange. Those eyes had looked at him, and the cold had seeped from the top of his head all the way to the soles of his feet.
The moment Shen Sixing saw Shen Yi, his mood turned utterly foul.
He had no time to wonder how she had gotten out. Instinctively, he used his thin body to shield her completely from view.
He pulled her into his arms without thinking. When he lowered his head, he found Shen Yi looking up at him, her lips pressed tightly together. She looked a little unhappy.
Seeing this, Shen Sixing grew irritated as well.
He was only in his teens, and his temper was not especially good. When he spoke to Shen Yi, his voice could not help but carry a trace of displeasure.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay home? Why do you keep running off?”
“But they were hitting you!”
Shen Yi shouted back, just as irritated.
She had been frantic watching him. She had waited and waited, yet he had shown no sign of fighting back.
“So what if they hit me? It’s not the first time.” The moment Shen Sixing finished speaking, he saw Shen Yi’s expression darken even further and hurriedly added, “All right. I won’t let them hit me next time.”
As he spoke, he swept a glance over the surrounding scene.
A mess.
Casinos in this era were generally filled with the nauseating stench of liquor and tobacco.
Warm-colored lights fell across faces that were either numb or feverishly excited, making the whole place seem especially sordid.
It was one thing for Shen Sixing to ruin himself. He truly had no intention of teaching a child to follow his example.
In his eyes, having his daughter witness this scene was simply… embarrassing and humiliating.
He might have had no shame, but he still had some dignity to preserve. With a darkened expression, Shen Sixing instinctively scooped Shen Yi into his arms and pressed her head tightly against him, refusing to let her look around.
The young man’s palm covered the back of her head, forcing her little face against his chest.
Her entire field of vision was suddenly reduced to the fabric of his hoodie.
Several enforcers realized that something was wrong. They went to the side and picked up weapons, preparing to attack.
“What are you waiting for? Beat him up! He dared to cheat here—what does he think our casino is?”
The burly man was not about to show mercy merely because Shen Sixing had a family. How many people who came to a casino did not have families?
Still, it was the first time a child had come looking for one of them.
“Do it!” he ordered.
The instinct to evade was bone-deep in Shen Sixing. He shifted his shoulder and stepped back. The club swept past his back, missing him by a hair.
He had barely regained his footing when a second club came at him.
Shen Sixing turned sideways again and dodged it.
After two strikes in a row missed, the men swung their clubs several more times, only for every blow to fall empty. At once, they tacitly redirected their weapons toward the child in his arms.
They had evidently realized that Shen Sixing was fiercely protective of her and intended to use her as a point of attack.
Seeing this, Shen Sixing wrapped Shen Yi even more tightly in his arms. One hand guarded her neck while his arm shielded most of her body. He bent over her like a drawn bow, covering her completely.
At that very moment, Shen Yi exerted herself.
Her back tensed like a bowstring suddenly released, and her center of gravity dropped sharply. She slipped free from beneath his arm.
The girl moved incredibly fast. Before Shen Sixing could react, he felt his arm close around nothing.
The weight in his arms suddenly vanished.
“Shen Yi!”
Shen Sixing’s voice turned sharp in an instant.
It was a tone of genuine panic, one he almost never allowed himself to make.
