"You... you're still alive?"
As soon as Su Xiao finished speaking, the deck fell deathly silent. Even Whitebeard himself looked slightly surprised, and a large number of bubbles rose inside the respiratory-assistance device behind him.
"Of course I'm still alive, gura la la la..."
Whitebeard burst into laughter. He gripped the bottle, which was at least half a meter tall, tilted his head back, and drank deeply. Liquor dripped from the corners of his mouth.
The tense atmosphere around them eased somewhat, but the members of the Whitebeard Pirates still regarded Su Xiao with hostility.
"Don't crowd around here."
Marco's slightly languid voice drifted over. Although the members of the Whitebeard Pirates treated one another like family, some matters couldn't be made completely public. Whitebeard's condition had deteriorated to the point where he could collapse at any moment.
The pirates leaning against the ship's rail didn't leave immediately. They were all worried about Whitebeard's condition, but there was nothing they could do.
"Doctors said ten years ago that I wouldn't live for five years. It was all bullshit."
Whitebeard tossed out the barrel-sized bottle in his hand. It rolled to Su Xiao's feet, where he stopped it.
With a hook of Su Xiao's foot, the empty bottle flipped into the air. He brought its mouth to his nose and sniffed. Whitebeard wasn't drinking the plonk favored by pirates, but hard liquor.
There were only two possibilities. One was that Whitebeard wanted to die sooner. The other was that the injuries and illness inside his body caused unbearable pain, requiring alcohol to numb it. Whitebeard clearly no longer dared to use painkillers, lest his liver be unable to bear the burden. Any medication that entered the body ultimately had to be metabolized by the liver.
The Whitebeard Pirates naturally had plenty