Chapter 2042

With no income, the Wilson family faced starvation. Since Christopher and Harold kidnapped Elaine Ma and mistakenly kidnapped Cynthia, the four family members had drastically lost weight and lived in misery. In contrast, their neighbors spent the first day of the new year at Cameron Isaac's hot spring villa, a gift to Charlie Wade, enjoying a two-day relaxing getaway.

That evening, Cynthia sat in their dilapidated rental house, bored, staring at a takeout dumpling. Since Charlie Wade had confined her in Aurouss Hill, she subsisted solely on takeout, though Charlie didn't allow her to order herself. Don Albertt's men handled all orders, limiting each meal to a maximum of thirty dollars.

This forced Cynthia to sample numerous popular dishes she'd never tried before: stewed chicken and rice, green pepper and shredded pork over rice, Gongbao chicken over rice, Lanzhou ramen, Northeast potato noodles, donkey meat, and others. The Wade family, however, considered these dishes trash; even a taste would be repulsive to them.

Yet, Cynthia, once living a life of luxury, now ate this food daily. On New Year's Eve, takeout was unavailable, so Don Albertt's men provided two boxes of instant noodles, a bag of ham sausage, and two halved eggs. Furious at eating such "garbage" on New Year's Eve—and lacking dumplings—Cynthia threatened suicide.

Consequently, Don Albertt's men delivered dumplings they had made themselves. Filled with pork and pickled vegetables—a favorite of Don Albertt's brother's family from Northeast China—they were a stark contrast to Cynthia's usual diet. Having always eaten the finest seafood, she'd never encountered such dumplings. The Wade family's dumplings typically included lobster and wild yellow fish, hand-minced, and enhanced with shark fin and abalone. Pickled vegetables were strictly forbidden.

To Cynthia, pickled foods were akin to poison. After a single bite of the pork and pickled vegetable dumpling, she vomited and gargled repeatedly to remove the taste. She angrily confronted Don Albertt's brother: "What kind of bullshit dumplings are these? Is this something for people to eat?!"

Enraged, the man retorted in a Northeastern accent: "What the fuck are you talking about, bitch? My mom made these dumplings. I gave them to you out of kindness, and you're talking like that? Is it a lack of manners?!"