“Caw… Caw…”

The world seemed to fall silent.

Yu Yingze could almost hear crows cawing overhead as they flew by.

Yuanyuan, trying her hardest to sound fierce, had shouted so loudly that her little body was nearly exhausted from the effort.

Panting heavily, she noticed that the other side still hadn’t reacted, so she put her hands on her hips and yelled again, “You smelly fish! Not even cats would want to eat you! Hmph!!”

That should get them!

Puffing out her small chest proudly, Yuanyuan completely missed the confused looks from the people she had just insulted.

The surrounding onlookers, after a brief moment of trying to understand, finally realized that she had been insulting them and couldn’t help but laugh softly, murmuring about how adorable she was.

But why were they laughing?

Yuanyuan scratched her head in confusion. She had been super fierce just now—weren’t they supposed to be scared?

“You guys are rotten shrimp! Bad fruit! Super annoying stinkies!” Summoning the last of her insult vocabulary, Yuanyuan launched another round of attacks.

This only made the crowd laugh harder.

“…Why are they still laughing?” Yuanyuan couldn’t understand it at all. She thought she had been so fierce, yet everyone seemed amused.

The man, having listened to this string of harmless insults, furrowed his brow and barked, “What kind of nonsense is this? Stop trying to play dumb. Call your parents over here, now, and cut the chatter.”

“Ignore him. Let’s go,” Shen Ji said coldly. He placed his gloved left hand on Yuanyuan’s shoulder and gestured with his eyes for Yu Yingze to follow. Without another word, they began to walk away, completely disregarding the man’s angry outbursts as if he didn’t even exist.

The man’s face flushed red with rage at being so blatantly ignored, and he reached out to grab Yu Yingze’s coat.

But just as his grubby hand moved into Shen Ji’s line of sight, aiming for its target…

A cold gleam flashed in Shen Ji’s eyes as he swiftly grabbed the man’s wrist with his gloved hand.

“Don’t touch him,” Shen Ji’s voice, though still that of a boy, carried a chilling weight that made the man pause. His grip was firm, almost unnatural for someone of his size. “Or you’ll regret it.”

Startled by the intensity of Shen Ji’s words, the man momentarily froze, genuinely unsure whether to press forward.

“You little punk, you must’ve been raised without proper discipline! Get your parents here right now, or this isn’t over!” The man finally pulled his hand free, glaring at the redness on his wrist, his eyes bloodshot with fury as he blocked the kids from leaving.

With so many people watching, he didn’t dare physically harm the kids—someone might record it and put it online, making him look bad. But his sons were injured, and now these little punks were talking back to him, humiliating him in front of all these people. He wasn’t going to let this go without some kind of compensation.

“Yeah, I wasn’t raised properly,” Shen Ji’s expression grew even more menacing. “If you want to meet my family, go ahead and die. You can meet them in the afterlife.”

The man’s body tensed as a wave of cold swept over him, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Shen Ji?! What kind of trouble have you gotten into now?!” Suddenly, the crowd parted as an enraged man stormed forward, yelling. Without hesitation, he kicked Shen Ji hard in the side.

Shen Ji stood still, not even flinching as he absorbed the blow. Slowly, he lifted his head, his eyes dark and filled with malice, half-hidden under his messy bangs.

The uncle who had come charging in hesitated, instinctively stepping back when he noticed Shen Ji’s expression. His gaze immediately darted to Shen Ji’s hands.

The gloves were off.

Panic filled the uncle’s face as he pointed at Shen Ji’s bare hands, his voice trembling with fear. “Put the gloves on! Right now!