Blanca, dressed in bodyguard attire, had been standing behind the crowd, listening to these words. She looked steadily at Paige.
The Folsom family were slum dwellers in another sense. They were also persecuted by the plutocrats, they also bore a grudge, and they also had a monstrous hatred. Paige could not feel the hatred of the Folsom family, but what about the slums?
She wanted to know what Paige was thinking.
She wanted to understand what kind of person her daughter really was.
“I said, aren’t you all a bit presumptuous?”
Enrico snorted again. “Does she owe you anything? Does she have to worry about all your lives for the rest of your lives?”
“…” Uncle Artie was embarrassed by what he had said and lowered his head in silence.
“I don’t want to go too far, I just want to go this far,” Paige said indifferently, expressing her decision.
“Once Country A is engulfed in a major riot, those who will suffer the most will definitely not be the plutocrats, but the common people. Just as it was a hundred years ago, too many common people will die,”
Master Chris, lying in a rocking chair, looked at Paige and said slowly, “You don’t understand the mindset of my disciple, and you are not in a position to accuse her.”
Paige looked at the old woman with some surprise. It was rare for the old woman to speak up for her.
Blanca looked at the old woman with the broken arm from the crowd and listened quietly.
Her daughter just didn’t want to see the situation of bloodshed.
“Continue to allow those profit-obsessed plutocrats to exist, and the common people will still be exploited and persecuted?”
Sitting Alfredo reached out and pressed his hand to his chest, speaking with some difficulty. His tone was calm, not as indignant as the others.
“The economic framework of Country A has long been set in stone. It will take time for changes to be made, not a retaliatory change to the overall situation.”
Paige’s thoughts were very clear, and her tone was very calm.
Before coming, she knew that some people would not accept this condition.
“In the end, we can only give up revenge and live on. When we go back, do we still have to act grateful and smile in the face of our enemies?” someone asked bitterly.
“I know that most of you have a deep-seated grudge, and I’m afraid that when you heard the news about Dejima yesterday, many of you were thinking about going back to take revenge,”
Paige said as she stood there. “But in my opinion, revenge has never been the most urgent thing for everyone.”
“Then what do you think is the most urgent thing? Just survival?”
“It’s inheritance,”
Paige enunciated these words clearly.
There was another moment of silence.
Paige pointed at her feet and said, “How many years has this so-called slum existed? One hundred years. How many people have died here and how many families have perished in that time? Don’t they hate? They do, but their hatred completely disappeared with the death of their family on this island.”
The crowd was silent, with pairs of eyes staring at her.
“Even if your next generation of children don’t know if they can survive, what gives you the right to talk about hatred?” Paige’s voice grew louder, her words cold.
“…”
Enrico looked sideways at her face and stared at her in silence.
“I, Paige, am not a saint, nor am I as great as you think I am. I can tell you clearly that your hatred is ultimately your own. If you want me to subvert the entire country of A for you and do such a grand and heroic thing, I can’t do it.”
As she spoke, Paige’s voice grew colder and colder, “If you want to, sign this agreement and come with me on the cruise ship and leave here; if you don’t want to, you can stay, and I will also send someone to the island to build some basic infrastructure for you to live a simple life.”
This was all she could do.
She didn’t want to reason with them slowly, she just wanted to use a simple and forceful method to force everyone to make their own choice.
“Don’t think leaving the island is an easy matter. You have no idea how much Paige has sacrificed for you.” Kevin stood up at this moment and looked at everyone and said, “Paige has thought a lot about you. Look carefully at this agreement. It clearly states that everyone must keep their mouths shut and not seek revenge. However, Paige has also made a deal with those people. You cannot be harmed after returning to the mainland, otherwise, she will help you fight back.”
“You should understand one thing. What Paige wants is stability on both sides. The price she will have to pay in the future is also greater than that of each of you.”
“…” Everyone looked at Paige, feeling a little guilty.
“Also, revenge is no longer possible, but you can strengthen yourselves and cultivate the next generation. There will always be a generation that can overpower the next generation of your enemies,” Kevin said. “This is not a different kind of revenge.”
Kevin’s words undoubtedly gave everyone a glimmer of hope. After all, the Zaibao were all big shots, while they, they had nothing.
But a glimmer of hope was still hope.
As Paige had said, if they were not even sure whether their next generation could survive, who would inherit this hatred and remember the humiliation of their fathers and even their grandfathers?
As it was, many people were persuaded, and one after the other they took up the pen and began to sign their names on the paper.
“You can think it over again,”
Paige spoke again, “If you sign your name, it will no longer be worthless paper. If someone regrets it in the future, I won’t let them off the hook.”
“…”
The crowd fell silent. Everyone looked around, unsure whether or not to sign for a moment.
They all knew a bit about Paige’s personality. She could be really ruthless when she was determined. In case they couldn’t help but seek revenge when they returned to the mainland, she… would really show no mercy.
“Paige,” Alfredo looked up at Paige, “these past three years, it must have been really hard for you, being away from home, right?”
This was the first time someone from the island had asked her if she had a hard time outside.
After all, everyone subconsciously thinks that it is better outside than on Wind Island.
Paige was stunned for a moment, then gave him a faint smile and said nothing.
“You have worked hard for us.”
Alfredo bowed his head to her, then took a pen and signed his name on the agreement he had crumpled.
The handwriting was forceful.
Seeing Alfredo sign, everyone else signed too, even Bastion, who wrote his name with great care.
…
In the afternoon, everyone’s signatures were complete, and they were just waiting to leave.
Some were happy, some were sad, some were forced to go, and some knelt down by the sea and bowed to their departed loved ones to say goodbye.
Paige sat next to master Chris, playing with a blade of grass in her hands as she quietly watched everyone walking around, and some people were in the shack getting their luggage ready to take on the cruise.
“You’re just going to tire yourself out doing this.”
Master Chris suddenly said as he lay there looking ahead, “In the future, if there’s a problem, you’ll have to bear all the guilt.”
That’s silly.
Paige froze in her movements, not knowing what to say, when a cool voice came from behind her, “There’s no choice. My woman just loves to live the leisurely life of a concubine, but she has to do this kind of thing.”
She looked behind her and saw Enrico standing behind her, staring at her with lowered eyes, obviously unhappy with everyone questioning her.
“So what do you want to do?” Paige laughed lightly, looked at the old face of master Chris, and said in a relaxed tone, ‘I want to let the teacher, let Bastion, let you all remove this yoke from your hands.”
“I’m afraid not everyone knows how to be grateful,’ Enrico snorted.
master Chris deeply agreed, human nature is the most complicated, if you do something for their own good, they will still think nonsense!
She thought so, but didn’t say so, instead looking at Enrico unhappily, “Why do you keep sneering at my apprentice?”
“Old lady, this is my woman.”