"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 Summers! Caleb Summers! Caleb Summers, get over here!"

"What is it? What’s wrong?" Caleb Summers 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 Summers froze. "Melody? 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 Melody Summers and gotten involved with criminals would all come out.

Mindy Walsh said skeptically, "Is that so? Then why don’t you tell me what really happened? Who hit you?"

Nina Walsh stammered, not knowing what to say.

Seeing this, Mindy Walsh became even more certain that Melody Summers was the culprit. She grabbed her bag and headed for the door, grumbling, "No, I have to go to Melody Summers’s house and demand an explanation. What gives her the right to lay a hand on my daughter! If she doesn’t give me a proper answer, I’m calling the police!"

"Argh! Mom!" Nina Walsh screamed. "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 me into an even deeper mess.’

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 mess. 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 screamed, "AHH—! Are you trying to kill me?! 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 me, what happened to you? If you don’t say anything, Mommy will have no choice but to go ask at Melody Summers’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 Summers hurried over to mediate. "Alright, alright. She already said it has nothing to do with Melody. Stop making a fuss."

Caleb Summers 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 extreme reaction only made her feel that something was even more wrong. She murmured, at a loss, "But..."

Caleb Summers 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 Summers helped Nina Walsh back to her room, gently soothing her and repeatedly promising that he wouldn’t let Mindy Walsh go bother Melody Summers.

Nina Walsh’s heart still felt like it was being twisted by a knife. She regretted going with Wendy Sheffield to meet those two friends, she regretted sending that message to Melody Summers, and she especially regretted mentioning Melody Summers’s name 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 Summers family and get the story straight from Melody Summers!"

"That’s enough!" Caleb Summers 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 Summers, you’ve grown some backbone, have you! How dare you talk to me like that?!"

Caleb Summers 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 Summers and said, "Fine, fine! You and your daughter both despise me. I’m going back to my parents’ house right now!"

Unexpectedly, Caleb Summers just said calmly, "Suit yourself," and turned back to his room.

Mindy Walsh stared blankly at Caleb Summers’s retreating back, then covered her face and began to sob quietly. Ever since her father had passed away, Caleb Summers 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 time. Finally, with a sigh, she put down her bag and went back to the kitchen to continue cooking.

*

Melody Summers 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 me 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 smell."

"User xxx: Finally got some pork! Shopkeeper, could you lift the purchase limit on the honey? The old man at home 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,’ Melody Summers 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.

Melody Summers was afraid she would deplete the supply if this continued, so she reluctantly removed the wild mushrooms from her shop.

After finishing the shipments, Melody Summers left the space with her cat in her arms and took a nice, comfortable bath.

The high temperatures continued. The timed 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.

Melody Summers often took the opportunity when her family wasn’t looking to restock the mineral water in the basement from her space. Every so often, she would use the Arcadian Stream to refill the family’s water storage tanks.

After her bath, Melody Summers 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 armed 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 home late two nights ago and saw someone 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 apartment buildings in the back. They see you carrying something 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 cameras 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 income. 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 government’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 times call for desperate measures. We’ll see how the police handle it."

"..."