"It wasn’t her, Mom. Just stop asking!" Nina Walsh said, exasperated.
But Mindy Walsh wasn’t listening. She just shouted loudly toward the master bedroom, "Caleb Sumrs! Caleb Sumrs! Caleb Sumrs, get over here!"
"What is it? What’s wrong?" Caleb Sumrs rushed out of the bedroom, asking in confusion.
Mindy Walsh presented Nina Walsh’s red, swollen, and scraped face for him to see. "Look at your daughter’s face!" she said angrily. "Look what your niece did to her! She was so vicious. We have to call the police and have her arrested!"
Caleb Sumrs froze. "lody? Why would she hit Nina?"
"It wasn’t her! Ugh! Just stop asking!" Nina Walsh was frantic. All she wanted was to put this whole thing to rest.
She’d been a good girl her whole life, and Mindy Walsh had always been very strict with her. She was terrified of this blowing up. If it did, the fact that she had tried to trick lody Sumrs and gotten involved with criminals would all co out.
Mindy Walsh said skeptically, "Is that so? Then why don’t you tell what really happened? Who hit you?"
Nina Walsh stamred, not knowing what to say.
Seeing this, Mindy Walsh beca even more certain that lody Sumrs was the culprit. She grabbed her bag and headed for the door, grumbling, "No, I have to go to lody Sumrs’s house and demand an explanation. What gives her the right to lay a hand on my daughter! If she doesn’t give a proper answer, I’m calling the police!"
"Argh! Mom!" Nina Walsh scread. "I already told you, it really wasn’t her! Just leave it alone!"
Nina Walsh’s heart was pounding. She was panicked and angry. ’If Mom keeps this up,’ she thought, ’she’s going to drag into an even deeper ss.’
But Mindy Walsh was adamant. "No. If you don’t explain, I’m going."
Mindy Walsh had a strong need to control Nina Walsh. After all, she only had one daughter. She couldn’t possibly let it go after her daughter had been slapped for no reason.
Nina Walsh’s mind was a complete ss. She was already in turmoil, and now with Mindy Walsh causing such a scene, she felt like she was being driven mad. She clutched her head and scread, "AHH—! Are you trying to kill ?! I told you it has nothing to do with her! I forbid you from going to her!"
Mindy Walsh stared at Nina Walsh’s hysterical state, frozen and at a loss. She asked hesitantly, "Then tell , what happened to you? If you don’t say anything, Mommy will have no choice but to go ask at lody Sumrs’s house."
Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, Nina Walsh ran straight to the kitchen, grabbed a cleaver, and shrieked, "If you dare go, I’ll kill myself right in front of you!"
Seeing this, Caleb Sumrs hurried over to diate. "Alright, alright. She already said it has nothing to do with lody. Stop making a fuss."
Caleb Sumrs quickly snatched the cleaver from Nina Walsh’s hand and gently comforted her.
Mindy Walsh never expected her usually obedient daughter to threaten her with a knife. She was frightened, but her daughter’s extre reaction only made her feel that sothing was even more wrong. She murmured, at a loss, "But..."
Caleb Sumrs quickly shot her a look. "That’s enough! Are you really trying to drive your daughter crazy?"
Hearing this, Mindy Walsh lowered her head and fell silent.
Caleb Sumrs helped Nina Walsh back to her room, gently soothing her and repeatedly promising that he wouldn’t let Mindy Walsh go bother lody Sumrs.
Nina Walsh’s heart still felt like it was being twisted by a knife. She regretted going with Wendy Sheffield to et those two friends, she regretted sending that ssage to lody Sumrs, and she especially regretted ntioning lody Sumrs’s na just now.
Her thoughts in a jumble, she pulled the covers over her head and began to cry silently.
"What on earth happened to her to make her like this?" Mindy Walsh paced back and forth in the living room, fraught with anxiety. "You still have to sneak over to the Sumrs family and get the story straight from lody Sumrs!"
"That’s enough!" Caleb Sumrs said, annoyed. He was fed up with his wife’s one-track mind. "Stop pushing our daughter. The world is so unstable right now, do you really have to go looking for trouble?"
Mindy Walsh’s eyes went wide. In disbelief, she said, "Caleb Sumrs, you’ve grown so backbone, have you! How dare you talk to like that?!"
Caleb Sumrs pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and snorted, "You’re the one stirring up all this drama in our family day after day. If you don’t want to live this life anymore, then don’t."
Mindy Walsh trembled with anger. She pointed a shaking finger at Caleb Sumrs and said, "Fine, fine! You and your daughter both despise . I’m going back to my parents’ house right now!"
Unexpectedly, Caleb Sumrs just said calmly, "Suit yourself," and turned back to his room.
Mindy Walsh stared blankly at Caleb Sumrs’s retreating back, then covered her face and began to sob quietly. Ever since her father had passed away, Caleb Sumrs was no longer as obedient and accommodating as he used to be.
She had noticed the change in her husband’s attitude long ago, but there was nothing she could do about it.
Mindy Walsh sat alone in the living room for a long ti. Finally, with a sigh, she put down her bag and went back to the kitchen to continue cooking.
*
lody Sumrs wasn’t concerned with the turmoil outside. She had recently butchered and listed several more miniature pigs. The piglets were growing incredibly fast. Thankfully, the pens in her farm were large enough, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to keep them all.
The most popular items in the space were the wild mushrooms and honey, followed by the miniature pigs.
"User xxx: Finally back in stock! Ever since my employer’s son tried this roast pork, he’s been demanding it every day. He won’t eat pork from any other farm my employer buys from. Now my employer has watching this shop every day to snag it."
"User xxx: This is insane. I couldn’t get any pork so I grabbed the offal instead. Made congee with it and there wasn’t even a hint of that gamy pork sll."
"User xxx: Finally got so pork! Shopkeeper, could you lift the purchase limit on the honey? The old man at ho can’t live without it. His blood pressure even went down after drinking it. Two jars a month really isn’t enough."
’I wonder if the Arcadian Space has different seasons,’ lody Sumrs thought as she packed and shipped the orders. The number of wild mushrooms in the forest had noticeably decreased over the past few days.
For the past two months, the wild mushrooms had been sprouting from the ground like they were being fired from a machine gun. Now, the yield was only a tenth of what it used to be.
lody Sumrs was afraid she would deplete the supply if this continued, so she reluctantly removed the wild mushrooms from her shop.
After finishing the shipnts, lody Sumrs left the space with her cat in her arms and took a nice, comfortable bath.
The high temperatures continued. The tid water supply had been reduced from one hour twice a day to thirty minutes twice a day. The water flow was just a trickle, barely enough for a family’s daily drinking needs.
lody Sumrs often took the opportunity when her family wasn’t looking to restock the mineral water in the basent from her space. Every so often, she would use the Arcadian Stream to refill the family’s water storage tanks.
After her bath, lody Sumrs dried her hair, put one portion of the miniature pig’s pork belly in the fridge, and took another portion with her to Crystal Mart.
She was scrolling through her phone as she walked when she suddenly stopped in her tracks:
"5-1107 Azure: Everyone be careful. There have been muggings in the residential complex for the past two days. It’s really scary."
"6-702 The Lover: There are ard police at the supermarket. Who would be so bold? Didn’t the police open fire?"
"4-2009 Nina: You don’t think their guns are empty, do you?"
"12-1803 AAA Lawson’s Building & Reno: They definitely have bullets. I was coming ho late two nights ago and saw soone sneak over the complex gate and try to attack an officer. The cop opened fire right away."
"5-1107 Azure: It’s not at the complex supermarket. It’s happening near the apartnt buildings in the back. They see you carrying sothing and they just rob you. My husband was even slashed by them."
"6-702 The Lover: That’s terrifying! Did you call the police?"
"5-1107 Azure: We did. The police investigation found that the security caras had been destroyed beforehand."
"2-1908 Coco: This is the aftermath of mass layoffs and soaring prices. Things can’t go on like this."
"2-1408 Bella Grant: My husband’s company went bankrupt too. The high temperatures have lasted for over half a year, and businesses are closing down everywhere. No one has any inco. But the cost of electricity and water is so high, and prices for everything else have shot up so much. Ordinary people can barely survive."
"12-1803 AAA Lawson’s Building & Reno: If you’re desperate, you can just apply for the governnt’s interest-free loan. You don’t have to pay it back for a year. You can just buy rice and flour. It’s not a great life, but you won’t starve to death. It’s not so bad that people need to resort to robbery."
"2-1908 Coco: Desperate tis call for desperate asures. We’ll see how the police handle it."
"..."
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