With no ieing in, the family’s situation is dire; they can barely scrape together enough food, leaving them to face starvation.


    Since Christopher and Harold abducted ine and mistakenly took Cynthia as well, the Wilson family has suffered tremendously, losing significant weight and enduring a miserable existence.


    Meanwhile, the neighbors were enjoying a different fate. On the first day of the new year, they packed their belongings and headed to the hot spring vi that Isaac Cameron had gifted to Charlie, nning to unwind there for a two-day getaway.


    That evening, upon arriving at the hot spring vi, Cynthia found herself in the rundown rental house, staring listlessly at a container of take-out dumplings.


    Since being held captive by Charlie in Aurous Hill, Cynthia’s meals had been limited to take-out.<h3 style="background-color:DodgerBlue">


    Frustratingly, Charlie had forbidden her from choosing her own food; all her meals were ordered and delivered by Don Albert’s associates, and none of them cost more than thirty dors.


    In thest few days, Cynthia was forced to sample a variety of popr dishes she had never tried before in her life.


    These included stewed chicken with rice, green pepper and shredded pork over rice, Gongbao chicken over rice, Lanzhou ramen noodles, Northeast potato noodles, and donkey meat hotpot, among others.


    To the Wade family, these ordinary meals were considered the lowest of the low, and they wouldn’t even deign to taste them, let alone eat them.


    Yet here was Cynthia, once ustomed to luxury, reduced to subsisting on these meals daily.


    On New Year’s Eve, unable to order take-out, Don Albert’s men provided her with two cups of instant noodles, a bag of ham sausage, and two halved eggs.


    Cynthia was infuriated at having to eat such low-quality food on New Year’s Eve, iming that if she couldn’t have dumplings, she would end her life right then and there.


    In response, Don Albert’s people sent her homemade dumplings.


    These dumplings, filled with pork and pickled vegetables, reflected the tastes of Don Albert’s younger brother, whose family hailed from Northeast China.


    However, Cynthia had always enjoyed upscale seafood dishes and had never encountered pork dumplings in the Wade household.


    The Wade family typically indulged in dumplings filled with a blend of top-quality shrimp and wild fish, finely minced and enhanced with shark fin and abalone.


    Moreover, pickled vegetables werepletely foreign to her; Cynthia had never tasted them in her life.<fn423b> ?? ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ???????s, ????s? ??s?? F?ndNovel</fn423b>


    For someone raised in a privileged environment like hers, foods that were pickled or fermented were considered off-limits, almost toxic.


    Thus, when she took a bite of the pork and pickled dumpling, she instantly retched, needing to rinse her mouth several times to rid herself of the unpleasant taste.


    In a fit of anger, Cynthia stormed out and confronted Don Albert’s younger brother, eximing, “What kind of ridiculous dumplings are these? Is this fit for human consumption?!”


    Furious at her remarks, the man, speaking with a thick northeastern ent, shot back, “What the hell is wrong with you, you b*tch? My mom made these dumplings herself! I was nice enough to share them with you, and you’re still talking like that? Do you need a reality check?!”<h3 ss="has-text-align-center" id="chapter-list"><strong></strong>