"So, Robin is my person now. What are you going to do about it?" Yun Lie suddenly chuckled, his well-defined fingers already wrapped around Robin's slender waist.
Before anyone could react, he leaned down and lightly pecked her lips, his action carrying an irresistible dominance.
The sea breeze, carrying the scent of roasted meat, swept by, making this sudden intimate gesture even more ambiguous.
Robin instinctively stiffened, her fingertips almost pressing against his chest, but she stopped abruptly when she met his calm, unruffled eyes.
Yun Lie's eyelashes were lowered, the tranquility in his eyes flowing like an impenetrable net, silently enveloping all her anxieties.
In countless nights of escape in her memory, she had curled up in cold corners, but now she was completely enveloped by this warm body.
She ultimately just clutched his lapels, letting the body heat spread between their touching bodies, her heartbeat resonating in her chest.
"It seems he is your choice then?" The air around Aokiji suddenly solidified, and tiny ice crystals fell from the edges of his cloak.
This strong man, who had roamed the seas for many years, now seemed like a giant beast whose reverse scale had been touched, even his voice was laced with ice shards.
Robin buried her face in Yun Lie's neck, her hair brushing against his warm skin.
She didn't answer, only clutched Yun Lie's jacket tighter. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks suddenly became exceptionally clear, weaving a silent net between the three of them.
"You've been chasing her for so many years, and protecting her for so many years. Anyone who didn't know would think you had some perverted Hobbies. Aren't you tired of pretending?"
Yun Lie tilted his head to meet Aokiji's chilling gaze, a mocking arc on his lips.
He deliberately emphasized the word "protect," watching the emotions churning in Aokiji's eyes, like tearing open a never-healed wound.
Aokiji's pupils contracted sharply. The towering flames of Ohara, Saul's back with his arms spread wide, Robin's figure fleeing through the flames—these scenes, sealed deep in his memory, suddenly surged forth.
"You know too much, don't you?" Cold air rose from Aokiji's palm, and the sand beneath his feet instantly crystallized into a spiderweb-like pattern of ice.
He suddenly realized that the man in front of him looked at him as if he were an open book.
"I'll explain later. You go to Nami first. I'll talk to this guy." When Yun Lie lowered his head, his hair brushed Robin's reddened ear. His voice was very soft, but it carried a reassuring strength.
Robin hesitated for a moment, then finally released his lapels, walking towards Nami in the distance, turning back three times with each step. Her black skirt swept across the sand, leaving a trail of varying footprints.
"I know far more than you do." Yun Lie suddenly took a half-step forward, the seawater washing over his ankles. "Like Marine Vice Admiral Saul, he should still be alive, right?" This sentence was like a heavy hammer, striking Aokiji's most vulnerable nerve. The truth that he had deliberately let his old friend go, no one in this world should know!
Before he finished speaking, bone-chilling coldness attacked him like a physical entity. Aokiji's ice crystals had already frozen half of Yun Lie's body, even his eyelashes were covered with tiny ice beads.
But the next second, Yun Lie's figure dissipated like smoke, appearing on a rock ten steps away.
He shook his still-chilled arm, Armament Haki flowing across his skin in dark purple patterns: "You're already a Marine Admiral, why can't you keep your composure?"
The crabs in the rock crevices, startled by the cold, scattered, leaving chaotic trails on the sand.
"Who exactly are you?!" Aokiji's ice blade flew past Yun Lie's ear, embedding itself in the tree trunk behind him. "The Marine can't find any information on you, why—"
"Me? Is my identity important?" Yun Lie suddenly threw his head back and laughed loudly, sunlight piercing through his flying hair, casting dappled shadows on the ground. "What's important is that I can protect Robin, openly and honorably protect her!"
His voice echoed over the sea, startling a flock of circling seabirds.
Aokiji's movements suddenly froze. In his ice-blue eyes, the gloom accumulated over many years seemed to be dispelled somewhat by this loud laugh.
He looked at Robin and Nami embracing in the distance, remembering the little girl who always shivered under the Moonlight, now able to be cherished by someone like this.
"No wonder she chose you." Aokiji suddenly sighed, the coldness in his palm gradually dissipating.
He mounted his ice-made bicycle, the sound of its wheels crunching on the sand crisp as bells. "She's been tired these past years. I hope you take good care of her."
Watching the white figure gradually disappear over the horizon, Yun Lie finally breathed a sigh of relief.
If Aokiji had really intended to attack him, he would have had no choice but to use his trump card and escape with the women.
He shook off the last ice crystal on his arm, but when he turned, he put on a wronged expression: "Robin, that guy froze my hand. I need you to warm it up for me."
He deliberately grimaced and shook his arm, feigning pain, which made the people around him unable to help but laugh.
"Oh, Mitsuri-chan, come quickly! Yun Lie-kun is hurt, he needs a few needles." Robin blinked and pushed the little Mitsuri, who was hiding behind her, forward.
Little Mitsuri immediately understood, pulling out her usual syringe and shaking it: "Such severe frostbite, a few needles won't do. He needs eighty-one needles to fully recover!"
She stood on tiptoe to examine Yun Lie's arm with a serious expression, her braids swaying cheerfully with her movements.
"Go on, go on, what are you little kids doing here?" Yun Lie glared at little Mitsuri in feigned anger, but secretly he was relieved.
If he hadn't activated his Hollowfication ability in time when Aokiji released his cold aura, he might really have turned into an ice sculpture by now.
He looked at the sparkling sea, suddenly remembering Akainu's scorching magma—thankfully, that madman didn't come, or he might have had to use his trump card to escape today.
"Yun Lie, the Log Pose isn't full yet, why don't we continue our picnic?" Nami shook the Log Pose on her wrist, Moonlight shimmering in her orange hair. "I still want to hear you tell me Aokiji's story!"
"Yes, yes!" Nojiko came over, holding a re-lit torch, the firelight making her cheeks flush. "Did he really protect Robin in secret all this time?"
Yun Lie looked at the girls surrounding him, and suddenly felt the sea breeze become gentler.
He took the roasted meat Nami handed him, pointed at the darkening sky, and smiled: "Let's set up the tents first. Tonight's story will be enough to keep us talking until the Moonlight reaches its zenith."
........
And at this moment, on the sea, Aokiji hummed a tuneless little song, pedaling his bicycle quickly.
The salty wind lifted his cloak, revealing a long-absent smile on his lips.
Those secrets, sealed for many years, finally seemed able to sink peacefully to the bottom of the sea.
He looked at the twinkling stars in the night sky, remembering what Saul often said: "People can have their own justice."
Perhaps, he should also go and find his own justice.