The air in the pavilion seemed to freeze.
Shen Wenta didn't speak.
He just stood there, eyes lowered, biting his lower lip tight. A bead of blood slowly seeped out, forming a piercingly bright red spot against his excessively pale skin.
Shen Yi looked at the drop of blood. "Your... lip is bleeding."
Not gonna lie, it actually looked pretty good.
Shen Wenta didn't wipe it.
He didn't even move.
Just as Shen Yi was feeling baffled, Shen Wenta revealed a very light, very slow, and somewhat strange smile. "Do you really like the gift he gave you?"
"I do," Shen Yi answered honestly. "It looks very valuable."
The emerald green pendant was small and delicate, not looking old-fashioned at all. The craftsmanship was exceptionally exquisite, and just looking at its clarity, one could tell it was worth a fortune.
"Plus, it really looks beautiful, don't you think? Brother?"
She didn't know where that Homeless Bro got it from, but his taste in aesthetics was flawless.
Shen Wenta closed his eyes in disbelief. Opening them again, he forced out a few words through gritted teeth:
"It's too beautiful."
It was his stuff, how could it not be beautiful?
Shen Yi: "..." Was it an illusion?
It felt like her brother was speaking through gritted teeth.
Shen Wenta picked up the thin chain around her neck with his fingertips. After inspecting it for a moment and finally confirming something, he looked at her genuinely happy expression and somewhat calmed his emotions. He said lightly:
"I have a pair of bracelets here that were polished together with this necklace. I'll have someone bring them to you when we get home."
Shen Yi accurately caught the implication in his words: "A set?"
"How do you have the rest of the set?"
"That's a very good question." Shen Wenta's expression was calm, his tone even carrying a hint of almost absurd composure. "Because what that bastard stole were all things from my collection room."
Before she could be shocked, Shen Wenta was already calmly judging the other party with a condescending tone:
"Like father, like son? Can I understand it as his dad is a thief, so he is also a thief? Or maybe his whole family is a bunch of thieves?"
Saying this, the young man sneered:
"What a great example of carrying on the family business."
Shen Yi: "..."
She couldn't help but gasp.
"This is... yours?"
"Otherwise, how do you think that poor ghost could produce it?"
He gave a short laugh. "From a poor ghost who sneaks food everywhere? He probably struggles so much out there that he'd get diarrhea just from drinking the cold wind."
The meanness in Shen Wenta's words was practically overflowing.
Shen Yi was left speechless.
She was completely dumbfounded.
She had seen shameless people, but she had never seen such a shameless homeless man.
He actually stole from her brother!
How could he boastfully claim it was a gift for her without feeling any shame?
Who gave him the courage?
Seeing her hanging her head in a daze, Shen Wenta thought this might be a good educational opportunity.
He reached out and gently embraced her, letting Shen Yi's head rest against his chest.
Over the past year or so, Shen Yi had grown really slowly.
"Everyone who approaches you has ulterior motives."
"You can't be completely unguarded against everyone," his voice came from above her head, carrying a hint of imperceptible exhaustion. "Any man who wants to get close to you, you should feed him a bullet, and then tell him that our family rule is that before becoming friends, they have to take a shot to prove their strength."
With her face pressed against his chest, Shen Yi couldn't help but make one last struggle: "I really didn't."
"I didn't mean to speak up for him."
"I don't like him either."
She simply didn't know how to deal with that kind of dangerous person.
Unfortunately running into him, what else could Shen Yi do besides playing dumb in front of him?
She couldn't possibly point at his face right off the bat, call him an extreme terrorist, and demand he be thrown in jail, right?
If she dared to do that, she would be the one resting eternally underground the next second.
"Brother, why do you like lecturing me so much?" Shen Yi hugged him back, not understanding.
She never saw Shen Wenta lecturing Shen Xun normally.
"I have the ability to judge. You don't need to micromanage me."
Really.
Shen Yi felt that whenever it came to her matters, Shen Wenta was always getting mad to the point of dying.
"I never understood why you're always so bad at relying on others to solve problems, when you're clearly just a child."
"An early rebellious phase?" He seemed to stare at her in confusion, his mouth slightly open as he muttered.
Shen Yi: "You're the one in a rebellious phase. I'm only six."
After saying that, she suddenly felt nothing under her feet.
She was picked up entirely.
Not held by the hand to walk like usual, but literally hoisted up steadily like a sack of little potatoes.
Shen Wenta continued talking to himself: "I will definitely kill that homeless man, and you don't need to look for any friends in the future either."
"They only approach you with bad intentions."
Shen Yi, being held up by him, gently swung her legs and didn't answer.
"Speak," he urged.
Shen Yi asked curiously, "What if I really want friends? You have a bunch of NPC-like friends. They surround you every day, flattering you. Isn't that a great feeling?"
"..."
Facing the girl's enthusiastic question, Shen Wenta tightened his hold on her.
Once again, he felt that raising a child was truly difficult.
Especially a child still in their early years, full of energy and curiosity.
"..."
"Don't make me mad," seeing Shen Yi remain unmoved, Shen Wenta thought for a moment, decisively clutched his chest, and casually bluffed: "I have a heart condition."
With his pale face, he actually looked the part for a moment.
But there was no way Shen Yi would believe his words.
When he was shouting and clamoring to kill her before, she didn't see him having any illness.
She decisively tilted her face up, glaring at him with her round eyes, not showing any weakness:
"Don't mind me then! I have a mental illness!"
The result of the siblings' magical exchange of blows was Shen Wenta getting half-dead from anger.
"You'd go as far as saying you have a mental illness just to be friends with that poor ghost?"
Shen Yi: "Didn't you just say you have a heart condition?"
The two bickered back and forth in the pavilion for a long time.
This stunned the crowd of onlookers.
They originally thought this young master had finally grown tired of the boring life at the aristocratic school and was preparing to stage a real-life sniper shootout at Hejing.
They never expected it would turn into a shouting debate between the siblings, each voice louder than the last.
Shen Yi wobbled around in his arms, not settling down in the slightest. Shen Wenta frowned, "Can you stop squirming?"
Shen Yi: "You skinny beanpole shouldn't be holding me in the first place."
It was too bony and uncomfortable.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her, leaned in close, and gave a fake smile: "I'll hold you if I want to."
Shen Yi: "..." Boohoo, this detestable scrawny dog!
