Chapter 22: I’ve Changed My Mind Now

Chapter 22: Chapter 22: I’ve Changed My Mind Now

"Mom, no matter what, Sister Shu is still Dad’s child. We’re practically family. There’s no need to let things get to a point of no return!"

Zhen Zhen didn’t understand her daughter’s hints at all. With undisguised malice in her eyes, she seemed hell-bent on Shu Yao’s destruction. She even thought her daughter, who was pleading on Shu Yao’s behalf, was being a fool!

"Mom!" Lin Zhenxiang cried out urgently, her meticulously manicured nails nearly digging into Zhen Zhen’s flesh. "There’s really no need!"

Zhen Zhen winced in pain.

She patted her daughter’s hand, reassuring her with great confidence. "Xiangxiang, there’s no need to be afraid of her! The Shu Family might be powerful in the Fourth District, but their influence doesn’t reach us here in Zone 2!"

Unable to persuade her stubborn and foolish mother, Lin Zhenxiang had no choice but to change her approach and try to defuse the impending crisis herself.

"Sister Shu, I’ll take down the video! I’ll go with you to the Imperial Hospital right now to pay the treatment fees, and then I’ll apologize to your son!"

"Xiangxiang, are you crazy?!" Zhen Zhen tugged at her. "That video is proof they were causing trouble in the restaurant! When the district police get here, we’ll hand both them and the evidence over!"

She clearly hadn’t seen the livestream on the Star Network and didn’t know that there was a problem with the ingredients at her daughter’s restaurant.

Lin Zhenxiang ignored her mother, who was only making things worse, and said to Shu Yao in an urgent tone:

"Sister Shu, let’s go, quickly!"

Shu Yao didn’t move a muscle, leaning leisurely against a freezer unit.

"I’ve changed my mind." Her calm, placid gaze fell upon the cutting board. "Eat it."

Following her gaze, Lin Zhenxiang looked at the cut-open small whitefish from Gelang Star on the cutting board. When her eyes fell on the pus oozing from the fish’s belly, her face twisted in disgust.

Forget eating it; just standing here and smelling the foul stench was enough to make her gag.

Zhen Zhen finally noticed the spoiled-looking small whitefish and grew nervous. "Xiangxiang, what’s with that fish?"

Lin Zhenxiang still didn’t pay her any mind.

Forcing herself to look away from the small whitefish, she suppressed the urge to vomit. Waves of intense, frustrated rage cast a sinister shadow in her eyes, clashing violently with the innocent "white lotus" persona she was desperately trying to maintain.

Her face, which was once passably pretty, now looked incredibly unnatural.

Lin Zhenxiang secretly clenched her jaw, suppressing the fury that filled her chest. When she spoke, her voice was fragile.

"But Sister Shu, you just said that if I did what you asked, you wouldn’t pursue this any further!"

Shu Yao’s lips curled into a smirk. In a self-deprecating tone, she said, "I’m just a shameless vermin from the Lower Star District who survives on garbage. Trying to reason with someone like me... are you an idiot?"

"You!" Lin Zhenxiang’s "white lotus" mask was about to shatter.

Shu Yao gave her no quarter. "Are you going to eat it yourself, or should I feed it to you?"

Lin Zhenxiang’s face contorted as she glanced at the cutting board.

After weighing her options, she quickly made a choice.

’Compared to violating the Federation’s food safety laws and being thrown into an interstellar prison, eating this stinking fish from the cutting board isn’t so unacceptable.’

However, she was more worried that Shu Yao would go back on her word again.

Lin Zhenxiang stared at Shu Yao, her expression dark. "Will you keep your word this time? If I eat this fish, will this whole matter be over?"

"Of course." Seeing she still had doubts, Shu Yao gave a faint smile. "Then again, you could choose not to believe me, and we can wait for the district police together."

A conflicted look appeared on Lin Zhenxiang’s face. She then pressed her red lips together tightly.

Two seconds later, she walked expressionlessly to the cutting board, picked up the small whitefish with both hands, put it in her mouth, and swallowed it whole.

Even with her eyes squeezed shut and her breath held, she couldn’t hypnotize herself into ignoring the indescribable, fishy stench. After she swallowed the entire whitefish, a violent wave of nausea surged up from her esophagus, but she clamped a hand over her mouth and forced it back down.

The more wretched she felt at that moment, the more she hated the woman who stood there with a cold smirk playing on her lips.

’Shu Yao!’

’I will repay the humiliation I’ve suffered today!’