Chapter 158 The Player's Slow Realization
"Mom, I'll take care of the wedding this time."
Under Big Mom's gaze, Katakuri forced himself to say, "Cracker is too young."
Stussy: ?
Stussy's lips twitched, and his expression turned ugly.
That's only because of Katakuri. If anyone else dared to make such a sarcastic remark about her age, her Seastone lipstick would be shoved down their throat in the next second!
Katakuri, my brother!
Looking at Katakuri standing protectively in front of him, Cracker belatedly realized how dangerous his earlier attempt to refuse his mother had been.
The mother might think the wedding can't go on, and she, who has been looking forward to the wedding cake, might suddenly develop a food craving under such pressure!
Cracker swallowed hard, still shaken, and looked nervously at his brother Katakuri, then at his mother who seemed to be pondering Katakuri's suggestion and remained silent.
He should stand up, even though he was unwilling. But Cracker wasn't the kind of coward who would just hide behind his brother!
Cracker took a deep breath, Cracker mustered his courage, Cracker prepared to get up, Cracker... Cracker couldn't stand up at all?!
Katakuri's mochi tentacles were tied way too tightly; Cracker simply couldn't break free without attracting his mother's attention!
“MAMA…Stusi, it seems you’re quite popular with my children.”
"Hehe..." Stussy wasn't some love-struck girl. If Lingling's sons were really vying to marry her, Stussy should feel more horrified than happy. "Lingling, you're joking. When it comes to being liked by boys, who can compare to you, Lingling?"
Lingling doesn't care whether she's liked by men or not; her strength and domineering nature are enough for her to ignore the question of "whether others like her or not."
She'd just snatch anything she set her sights on; whether others wanted it or not was completely irrelevant and wouldn't affect her in the slightest.
In fact, Lingling didn't like those so-called "husbands" at all. They were just tools for Lingling to collect people of different races to fulfill her fairytale-like ideals.
However, when Lingling was young, she had seen women with such strong charm that they could bewitch the men at sea so much that they almost forgot who they were.
Recalling the emperor of the Amazonian lily kingdom and the terrible turmoil her beauty and charm caused on the sea, even Lingling, who was a witness to it all, had a doubt that it might all have been just a dream.
After all, the beauty of that Amazonian lily emperor named Shakjac ultimately led to the God Valley Incident and the fall of Rocks, the King of the World!
Looking at Katakuri with a scrutinizing gaze, Linlin, who didn't see the same look the Rocks crew had given Shakky in Katakuri, temporarily suppressed that memory back in her heart.
"A love that flows between two people, it really gives you that blissful feeling of eating a vanilla chocolate cream puff." It was hard to tell from Lingling's tone whether she was being sarcastic or genuinely believing it. "Long bread?"
After serving all the afternoon tea desserts, the long bread, which had been standing silently under the shade of the tree like a shadow, stepped forward and said, "Mom."
"I hope the engagement ceremony can be held in two days, and the wedding ceremony can take place the day after the engagement ceremony."
Of course, the most important part of a wedding is the dessert. Lingling meticulously explained to the long bread roll everything she expected her wedding should have.
"Both engagement cakes should be ten layers long, one with vanilla chocolate mousse and the other with ten layers of mixed fruit flavors."
"Both wedding cakes should be sixteen layers long. One should be a cheesecake ice cream with pudding, and the other should be a red velvet cheesecake coffee cake. Both cakes should have a bride and groom made of fondant..."
Lingling ordered a long list of desserts that should be served at an engagement and wedding banquet. Just hearing the names of the desserts made Violet, who was sitting next to her, feel like her pancreas was about to go on strike.
"...These two weddings are very important, and I don't want to see any surprises."
It wasn't until she suddenly sensed the murderous aura emanating from Lingling that Vera snapped out of her daze.
Longbread, however, nodded respectfully to Lingling with a serious expression, as if it were a habit: "You will see everything you desire in the next few days."
Listening to the other party's confident and calm tone, Violet couldn't help but think that there was a reason why Longbread could work in the Big Mom Pirates for so many years without any Charlotte bloodline and still earn the respect of Charlotte's children, including Perospero.
With so much food and the engagement and wedding dates so close together, just gathering the ingredients would be a headache, let alone organizing people to prepare it.
This isn't peacetime. You can't just slack off and do nothing after your boss makes unreasonable demands. At worst, you'll just get fired, and the boss will even give you N+1.
Daring to slack off at Lingling's long-awaited engagement and wedding... No, don't even mention slack off. If they do anything even slightly subpar and fail to satisfy this tyrant, she won't care about the time or manpower. If they disappoint her, then ten, twenty years, or even their entire lifespan will be directly taken away as punishment.
Vera thought to herself, "You really can't underestimate anyone with a name, no matter how ordinary their appearance or how random their name."
“MAMA! That’s wonderful! Let’s have the engagement ceremony in two days and the wedding ceremony in three days.” Lingling stood up. “My friends can stay on Whole Cake Island for the next two days. Perospero, remember to treat them well.”
"Oh right, I almost forgot, MAMA... It's best if the bride and groom don't meet before the engagement. Can you two keep that promise, Smoothie and Katakuri?"
"Yes, Mom!"
After Lingling's figure left the garden, Katakuri finally retracted the mochi tentacles that had been tightly binding Cracker and preventing him from moving. Cracker stood up abruptly as if there was firewood burning under his chair.
"Smoothie, Katakuri, are you really getting married?"
"Katakuri is one thing, but no matter how old Stussy really is, at least he looks young. But what is that Umit? He's ugly and old, he could be Smoothie's grandfather!"
Smoothie opened her mouth: "...It's not that bad."
Although Umit does look older than her age and is indeed not young, it's a bit much to call her her grandfather.
Smoothie: "And it doesn't matter what he looks like."
Smoothie has decided to let Umit die on the night of the wedding. In Smoothie's eyes, Umit is already a dead person. What does it matter what a dead person looks like? There are no good-looking dead people!
Katakuri remained silent.
Katakuri wasn't usually the talkative type, so his silence at this moment didn't alert his brothers and sisters, including Perospero.
Except for chocolate bars.
Watching Katakuri's silent departure, Cracker suddenly had a flash of inspiration and, with his explosive emotional intelligence, deciphered Katakuri's current emotions from his face, which was only half covered by a scarf.
Is Katakuri's older brother angry?
Is it because Katakuri's brother also dislikes annexing other forces in this way? No, it doesn't seem that simple.
When Mom announced the bride and groom who were going to have their wedding in Whole Cake Island, Katakuri seemed to glance at the table where Mom was sitting. At the time, he thought Katakuri was looking at Umit, the guy who was going to marry Smoothie's sister...
But now that I think about it, was Katakuri really watching Umit back then?
Although there was no evidence, a guess flashed through Cracker's mind at that moment—was Katakuri looking at Violet next to Umit?
At that time, under those circumstances, why did Katakuri look at Violet?
Why is he angry now? Is it because Violet has been a bystander the whole time? What did Katakuri originally hope Violet would do at that moment?
Cracker stared in the direction Katakuri had left, and a sense of crisis suddenly welled up in his heart, the reason for which he couldn't explain.
——
That night.
Having prepared herself amidst the aroma of frosting and butter cookies, and lying on her soft bed ready to sleep, Vera suddenly opened her eyes.
Wait a minute, the way Katakuri looked back at her when he left... was he angry?
Katakuri doesn't want to get married? He hopes I can help stop it all?
Hiss—then why not just say it directly… Oh right, Lingling was there at the time, and no one dared to directly refute a sea emperor who was so looking forward to the wedding.
So the sudden chill she felt behind her was actually Katakuri giving her a hint? No, how could she possibly understand a hint of that level?!
Realizing belatedly that she had made a choice that caused her favorability rating to plummet, Violet immediately dressed, got up, and climbed out the window to leave, intending to find Katakuri's temporary address on Whole Cake Island. At the same time, she comforted herself with a sliver of hope, thinking that the hint was too subtle and unclear, and it was no wonder she couldn't understand it in such a short time.
...But the fact that she couldn't understand Katakuri's hints made Katakuri angrier than the fact that the hints failed.
Katakuri's place is easy to find; Violet doesn't even need to ask for directions. She just needs to find the spot with the donut decorations outside the house.
As Linlin's second son and one of the Sweet Commanders with a distinguished status, Katakuri's living quarters have been continuously upgraded as his bounty has increased, becoming at least more luxurious than the house that Violet saw on her last visit to Whole Cake Island.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe this place as a villa rather than a house.
Shrubs trimmed into the shapes of various desserts and trees shaped like donuts adorn the garden in front of the villa. Instead of the patrolling Homies that Violet had imagined, the garden is empty and exudes an eerie atmosphere of silence.
The strawberry donut-shaped decorative lamps with colorful candy hanging next to the villa's gate were still lit, illuminating the gate, which was decorated with images of the King and Queen from playing cards.
Even compared to her short stature a few years ago, Violet, who has an equally high level of exercise and appetite, has already experienced a rapid growth spurt in height, breaking through the 1.85-meter mark from a short bean. It's only a matter of time before she grows even taller, breaking through 1.9 meters or even 2 meters.
This finally put Violet's mind at ease, as she had been worried about not growing taller ever since Shanks mocked her, and she no longer drank milk nervously every night.
However, this height is not enough to compare with Katakuri, and the magnificent double doors made to match Katakuri's height of over five meters are even more frightening to Violet.
...Especially since these two doors were eerily half-open in the middle of the night, revealing a tall, dark front hall between them.
Glug.
Vera swallowed hard, finding the scene incredibly unsettling.
Just as Violet was hesitating at the door, wondering whether she should be polite and not disturb Katakuri's sleep, and wait until the next day to come to see him, Katakuri's voice suddenly came from inside the door.
"What, aren't you coming in?"
"Vell".
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Author's Note: Vera: ...This atmosphere is just too hard to read [cracks]
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