Shen Wenta didn’t want to keep bickering with her. His arm hadn’t fully recovered yet, so he simply pinned the little girl down on the sofa and said in a cool tone, "Have you ever heard the saying? When you're negotiating a deal, you have to listen carefully to the terms of the trade."
Shen Yi gave him a look of pure ignorance, looking completely dazed. "Never heard of it."
Shen Wenta smiled. "It’s a good thing you haven't, because I just made it up."
Shen Yi: "..."
Shen Yi was getting anxious. She couldn’t understand how someone with a personality like Shen Wenta’s could exist in this world.
"You’re so annoying. Hasn't anyone ever cursed you behind your back at school?" Shen Yi felt he deserved every venomous insult in the world.
"Who would dare curse me behind my back?" He raised his voice slightly, looking haughty and superior. He let out a cold laugh. "Anyone who dared to curse me is already six feet under."
At Hejing, there was no such thing as a "Campus F4." Shen Wenta was the absolute center of power.
Even in a place teeming with children of various conglomerates and high-ranking officials, his background was at the very top. Those who dared to offend him were either kicked out or bullied until they dropped out.
The young man’s dark eyes were deep, and his lips curled into a twisted, sinister, and eerily beautiful smile.
Shen Yi stared at him in silence for a long while before she finally couldn’t help herself. she reached out and squished his face until it was misshapen.
The girl said sincerely, "Brother, can you please stop using your magnificent face to make such a mean and despicable expression?"
He looked way too much like a petty villain from a TV drama.
Shen Wenta’s face was squeezed out of shape, and he let out a muffled, confused sound. "Mmph?"
As Chen Jiaojiao watched this family drama unfold from the sidelines, she couldn’t help but nudge the barely-noticeable Shen Xun and whisper, "...Hey, I have to say, the way your family interacts is really strange."
It was such a hardcore way of getting along.
This kind of mutual eccentricity...
As expected of one family!
...
Dinner was prepared by Wen Ya and Shen Sixing together in the kitchen.
However, the two children had eaten so many snacks before dinner that they had no appetite at all. They took a couple of bites and then ran off.
Shen Yi couldn't wait to find suitable pajamas from her closet and hand them to Chen Jiaojiao. After the two children took turns showering, they happily crawled into bed, turned on the air conditioner, and lay down comfortably to chat.
"My mom just called me. She said she won't be coming to the parent-teacher meeting and is letting the nanny go in her place."
Chen Jiaojiao fiddled with the smartwatch on her wrist and rolled around on the bed. "That’s just great."
As the eldest daughter in the family, the thing Chen Jiaojiao feared most in her life was her mother’s deep, piercing eyes. Yes...
That was exactly it.
It definitely wasn't because she didn't get good grades.
Shen Yi was genuinely envious. "I'm so jealous. How can I get my parents not to go to school either?"
"But your parents look really looking forward to it. If you don't let them go, they'll be very sad, right?"
"Yeah," Shen Yi rolled over to get closer to her. "Mom really wants to go, so on the day of the parent-teacher meeting, I just won't go to school."
She would just have to deal with things as they came.
Whatever, it wasn't the end of the world.
"Okay," Chen Jiaojiao said with a giggle. "If you're not going, I'm not going either."
What a best friend!
Shen Yi cheered up.
Chen Jiaojiao thought of something else, raised the watch in her hand, and told her, "Oh right, look, I saved your father's contact information."
"Eh?" Shen Yi was surprised. "You actually saved my dad's phone number."
She thought when Shen Xun mentioned it casually earlier, Chen Jiaojiao had just listened without taking it seriously.
"Yeah," Chen Jiaojiao said. "Your brother looked quite serious at the time, so I saved it as soon as I got home. Just in case I really run into some trouble, right?"
"But I feel like it would be safer to save your mom's number. Your mom is really strong."
"I think so too. My mom is practically a superhero!"
The two girls of similar age laughed and tumbled around under the covers as they talked.
...
"The world is truly going to the dogs; people's hearts are so cold."
"It turns out it’s not that children have turned bad, but that bad people have become children."
On the terrace, Shen Wenta stood in the summer night breeze, a cold sneer on his face as he listened to the accusations coming from the person on the other end of the phone.
"And you, my brother," the voice on the other end suddenly sounded closer, as if the person had pressed their mouth against the phone. The cheerful tone was enough to make one’s skin crawl for no reason. "You really are exceptionally bad. Do you like causing trouble for your big brother that much?"
"Were you the one who hired someone to report me?"
His location had been given to the people responsible for capturing him, and several of his hideouts had been leaked and raided.
It had taken him a lot of effort to escape.
"Fatty," Shen Wenta refused to answer directly. His voice was ghostly cold, and he opened with a personal attack:
"You should be careful out there. Don't let someone accidentally slaughter you like a pig."
"How mean. Is that any way to talk to your second brother?" The other person didn't care about his attitude at all, maintaining that giggling, laughing tone before it suddenly took a sharp turn, his voice turning cold:
"I don't care what you're trying to do, I want to see our sister too."
"You've been living together for a year and actually kept it from me." His tone was exaggerated, as if he had been betrayed by the whole world. "As her brother, my heart is breaking."
Despite saying he was sad, his tone remained that same flippant, obnoxious style that made one want to give him a good punch.
"I’m begging you," Shen Wenta said, growing more frustrated, wishing he could smash the phone. "Just go die already."
When they were kids, Shen Ruxu was a fat kid.
He was fat and loved sweets, and he seemed to have skin hunger, always wanting to cling to people.
Back then he was somewhat normal, but as he grew up, he became childish and malicious, almost like he had a split personality.
Both of his older brothers were psychos.
The eldest brother was a thoroughbred ruler.
He remembered when he was kidnapped once, the kidnapper held a gun to his temple as leverage, thinking they would let him go.
Instead, his eldest brother didn't hesitate to order someone to shoot him.
Even though it missed his vitals, the intense pain caused him to lose consciousness completely.
It led the kidnapper to believe he was dead, and in his panic, the kidnapper realized his hostage was useless. He exposed a flaw and was taken out by a sniper in the shadows.
And Shen Wenta?
He spent half a year recovering, half-dead, only to receive a half-hearted apology from his eldest brother.
He truly had no way to deal with the eldest brother.
But he could handle this second brother, who loved causing trouble everywhere and had a crazy, erratic personality.
"Why are you stopping me?" Shen Ruxu’s pronunciation had that peculiar light, sweet quality of a clear, youthful voice. "You were the one who kept telling me she was a pauper, a wild child that nobody wanted, and now you won't let me see my sister."
"If you don't like her, why don't you bring her to me to raise? I'm very bored by myself."
"You? Raising a child?" Shen Wenta leaned against the window and let out a mocking laugh, remaining unmoved.
“Don’t you trust me? Of course I’ll take care of her. I’ll be so good to her. Please, just bring her out so I can meet her.” Over the phone, the young man’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “It’s really been a long time since I last killed anyone.”
“...”
Shen Wenta decided to give this psycho the cold shoulder.
Keeping someone with such a precarious mental state away from Shen Yi was definitely the right decision.
Shen Wenta could be quite manic himself at times, but he was nothing like this kind of lunatic—the type who could be all smiles and affection one second, only to strangle someone to death the next.
Most people wouldn't even have time to react to his sudden shifts in personality.
Shen Wenta couldn't be bothered to talk to him, but fortunately, Shen Ruxu was perfectly capable of carrying on a monologue without anyone ever needing to respond.
“Mom and Dad won't even tell me where you guys are living, but it doesn't matter. I’ve already found out where you’re going to school.”
He sounded absolutely elated. “I can just go wait for my little sister at the gates of Hejing Academy.”
Hehe.
