Before they found the little child, his father and uncles had pretty much all been villains through and through. They were cold-blooded and rich in experience.
They had seen far too many cruel deeds, so when they first started raising a child, the very first thing they considered was—
What if the child ran into bad people?
His uncles had taught him survival skills for the wilderness, and of course, they hadn't left out skills for dealing with danger.
The little child's mind whirred as he thought hard. After a while, he calmly sat down with his chubby legs crossed and stopped feeling so panicked.
Rule one when facing bad people: Don't panic. Don't cry.
You can cry after Dad and the elders come to pick you up!
Rule two when facing bad people: Find a way to shake them off. That might not be possible right now, but at least he could leave clues for the adults.
The adults were definitely coming to find him.
Firmly believing he would be found, the little child started patting down his pockets. He went through all of them and found some chocolates.
Besides the chocolates, there were also little gifts he'd prepared for his brother in the box.
The little child tucked anything that might be useful into his clothes.
After what felt like a long, unknown stretch of time—
The little child got hungry.
He didn't eat the chocolates. Instead, he ate quite a few candies—they were hard and came in plain wrapping, so even if he dropped them outside, Dad wouldn't recognize them.
Better to just eat them.
After finishing the candies and some other snacks, he drank a little juice too, filling his little belly right up.
"Alright. All full now."
The little child patted his round little belly, satisfied, and crunched the candy in his mouth before swallowing.
Now that he was full, he'd have the energy to make a run for it.
Half an hour later.
The well-fed little child finally had his box opened.
The one who opened it was a red-haired man. He wasn't particularly good-looking, and the top half of his clothes was sparse, leaving his arms and chest bare.
Wherever his skin was exposed, it was covered in large swaths of tattoos.
So many tattoos—the little child stared in awe.
"Even if I bought tattoo stickers, I couldn't afford ones this big..."
The corner store sold tattoo stickers. The little child had once painfully given up spicy sticks in favor of trendy tattoo stickers, but five star-credits' worth only covered his right arm.
When he'd wanted to stick some on his belly too, he'd run out.
Those five-star-credit tattoo stickers hadn't earned him any amazed praise from Dad.
Instead, he'd gotten pinned over Dad's lap and spanked.
That spanking had hurt so much that his little bottom ached, and he'd had to sleep on his stomach that night.
He could still sleep on his stomach—but Zhan Xi, after the spanking, had been so mad he could barely sleep at all.
"That kind of tattoo sticker takes at least a week to wash off, and he had to go get his vaccines! When he rolled up his sleeve, the doctor probably had a headache figuring out where to even inject!"
Besides making vaccines difficult, those hard-to-wash stickers also contained chemical ingredients.
The little child's skin was soft and tender—after applying the stickers, it turned red and looked awful, and even medication didn't help!
Zhan Xi had been furious about the tattoo stickers. The next day, when the little child saw his dad's dark expression, he touched his stickers, then his sore bottom.
He felt a little defiant, but he was afraid Dad would spank him again.
Now, having been banned from tattoo stickers, the little child was staring blankly at the man's tattoos.
The red-haired man noticed his reaction and found it a bit off.
Why wasn't this child scared?
He studied the little child for a few more seconds, then asked uncertainly, "Are you looking at my tattoos?"
The little child nodded. "Kind of cool."
The design was huge—even though he couldn't tell what the pattern was supposed to be, it looked really cool!
The red-haired man fell silent again.
He looked at this little child who'd called his tattoos cool, and returned the courtesy: "You're a little strange."
The little child: "..."
That didn't sound like a compliment.
Maybe because the child had complimented his tattoos, or maybe because it was genuinely odd that the child wasn't crying or making a fuss—the red-haired man didn't do anything too rough. He lifted the child out of the box and set him down on the floor.
He didn't set the child down steadily—the little one's legs had fallen asleep from sitting cross-legged for so long, and with a plop, he landed right on his bottom.
The man: "..."
Seeing that, the man picked him up again.
But when he set him down once more, the little child plopped right back down.
After three rounds of this, the little child had had enough.
His chubby little bottom stayed firmly planted on the floor, and his round face showed clear displeasure: "My legs are asleep. I can't stand."
Hearing this, the man finally stopped trying to lift him.
"Abel, you're being far too gentle with this child."
A teasing voice came from not far away. The speaker also had red hair and the same tattoos, but his expression carried far more malice.
He looked at Abel, then at the child on the ground, and said slowly, as if teaching a lesson: "You should be crueler to this child. For example, draw some graffiti on his fair little face, or cut off his fingers one by one and keep them in a box."
The words made the little child's back run cold.
Not just his back—his whole little body trembled. His eyes darted around the room, but there was no one else nearby.
There might be no one in this room, but there had to be people on this ship.
The little child was still scrambling to think, while the man with the cruel ideas kept talking: "Abel, our entire Venomspider was slaughtered because of this child. You weren't even recorded in the Venomspider register yet. Now that you're face to face with our enemy, how can you be so calm?"
The man called Abel spoke in a low voice after hearing him out: "I don't kill children."
Children and women—he killed neither.
"I'm not telling you to kill him. This child still has uses—I won't let him die."
The man stared at Abel, his voice cold and sinister: "I'm telling you to—"
"How can you be sure that cutting his skin for graffiti, or chopping off his fingers, won't kill him?"
Abel stared coldly back at the man: "Children are the most fragile, useless creatures. What you're suggesting will either make him die of fright or bleed out."
"Children die easily."
Abel emphasized those last words heavily.
The man who had been goading Abel into doing something to the child grew even more sullen at the rebuff.
But at least Abel's words worked.
The man's gaze swept over the little child once before he turned and walked away.
The child's life had to be spared.
He'd made a deal with someone—this little jinx was worth a lot.
Before the deal was completed, the little jinx couldn't die.
Though he was terrified, the little child had still pricked up his ears and listened to the entire conversation.
From their exchange, he understood one thing: whoever had taken him wouldn't let him die!
Having confirmed that he had value, the little child picked himself up off the floor and stopped sitting idle.
"Uncle, please don't kill me."
The little child tugged at Abel's clothes, his milky voice pleading. He knew Abel wasn't a good person either, but Abel had shown him a moment of softness just now.
And if someone went soft, the little child could use that.
"I told you, I don't kill children."
Abel brushed the little child's hand away and reiterated stiffly.
As he did, he looked down and saw the little child's eyes glistening with tears, on the verge of spilling over as he gazed up at him.
"You said you don't kill children, but I'm still scared!"
The tears were perfectly timed—just enough to make him look pitiful and vulnerable, but not so much that they'd become annoying.
This was the little child's go-to expression when playing pitiful with his dad and brother—it had them wrapped around his little finger every time.
Well, it used to. They'd seen it so many times that they'd built up some immunity.
But Abel, seeing this tearful little act for the first time, clearly reacted. His gaze lingered for a few seconds before he looked away.
"Being scared won't help. You've got bad luck—just be more careful in your next life."
The little child: "..."
This time, the tears in his eyes were a lot more genuine.
What next life?
He hadn't even lived this one to the fullest yet!
He didn't know if he'd passed his kindergarten graduation exam, or whether his brother would get into elementary school.
He still had to help the big bad Demon King Dad find a wife, and find a mom for himself too.
And there was Uncle An Nuo's talk of the royal ruins, the remains of his people...
The little child was so busy—he had so much to do. He didn't want to fast-forward to his next life.
"I—I don't want to die."
The little child sat down again, this time right on Abel's feet.
After watching him for a moment, Abel picked him up and carried him toward the room: "Let's go to your room. There's a bed in there—you can rest."
"I don't want to rest!"
The little child seized the opportunity and scrambled up into Abel's arms, latching firmly onto his neck: "I want to stay with you!"
If he got locked in a room, he wouldn't be able to move around!
Looking at Abel, the little child decided to stick to him like glue for now.
Abel tried to peel the child off, but the little one used every ounce of his strength, his face turning red from the effort as he refused to let go.
After wrestling with him for a while, Abel saw how red the child's face had turned and finally eased his grip, stopping his attempts to pry him off.
If he kept this up, he was afraid the child would suffocate right in his arms and be reborn on the spot.
Sticking to Abel definitely gave him a broader view.
The little child spotted about five or six people on the ship, along with a few corpses. Among the living ones, their appearances and clothing looked perfectly normal, and they had no tattoos.
When they saw Abel carrying the little child, they started mocking him.
They seemed to be speaking a dialect, and every word sounded nasty and crude.
Abel said nothing as they jeered at him.
The ship continued on its course.
While watching their route, Abel finally spoke up: "Take a detour. Don't go through that area ahead."
His words fell on deaf ears.
The little child looked at Abel, then at the people who were mocking him again. His chubby face grew thoughtful.
Good.
Time for the little one to stir up some trouble!
