By Nathaniel Nathan’s deliberate design, two young delinquents were placed in Cara Preston’s holding cell. The girls, already fuming from being locked up, took all their anger out on Cara as soon as they saw her.

Normally, police would be stationed outside the holding cells to prevent fights. But thanks to Rona Langdon, she was making such a scene that all the officers had gone to the front to help, leaving the cell area completely unsupervised.

And so, Cara Preston was beaten black and blue!

Jack Judd, her so-called boyfriend, was a heartless bastard. As she was being beaten, he watched from the adjacent cell, chuckling as he called out to the delinquents, "Hey ladies, you’re not supposed to hit the face! Pull her hair instead!"

A moment later, he added, "Tsk tsk, her face is so much prettier than yours."

"Her boobs are bigger than yours, her ass is rounder, and her legs are longer!"

By the time she was released, her face was swollen, one of her eyes was bruised black, her neck was covered in scratches, a clump of her hair had been ripped out, two buttons were missing from her clothes, and a large hole was torn in the fabric. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

As she stood at the entrance of the police station, she glared at the building with immense resentment. ’I wish I could burn this whole place to the ground!’

Jack Judd was released at the same time as Cara Preston. He approached her with a chuckle and said, "Hey wifey, want me to take you home?"

Rona Langdon, who by now knew the full story of Cara’s detention, instantly realized who Jack Judd was when she heard him speak. Grabbing a broom from a corner, she started swinging it at him. "Who do you think you’re calling ’wifey’? What are you spouting nonsense for? I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!"

Seeing things were not going his way, Jack Judd bolted. "Cara, my dear wifey," he shouted as he ran, "I’ll come looking for you another day! Be sure to wait for me, okay!"

Rona Langdon unleashed a torrent of curses at his retreating back, only stopping once he had completely disappeared from sight.

Seeing Cara Preston’s wretched state, Rona Langdon’s heart ached. She immediately stormed back into the police station to raise hell. "My daughter was perfectly fine when she came in, but now she’s this badly injured! You must compensate us!"

The police officers, faced with her off-the-charts belligerence and unable to do anything to restrain her, had no other choice. A few of them pitched in, scrounging up two hundred yuan to give to Rona Langdon as compensation. On top of that, she managed to swipe a coat that someone had left in an office and draped it over Cara Preston’s shoulders.

And so, Rona Langdon became the first civilian in all of Crestfall to successfully extort money from a police station on the spot.

Rona Langdon was still muttering and cursing as she helped Cara Preston out of the station. It was quite a distance back to their residential compound, but she was too stingy to pay for a taxi. Instead, she hailed a three-wheeled pedicab from who-knows-where to take the two of them home.

On the way back, because of the visible injuries on Cara’s face and the fact that the pedicab was completely open, pedestrians kept turning to stare, pointing and whispering amongst themselves.

After being locked up all night and taking a beating, Cara Preston’s heart was filled with resentment. "Mom," she asked, "they kept me so late. Does that mean Dad didn’t do anything to help me?"

The topic made Rona Langdon furious as well. "All your father ever talks about is ’judicial fairness’ and being a ’public servant.’ Asking him to call in a favor to get you released was like asking for his life!"

To Cara’s ears, this was confirmation: Zachary Preston hadn’t lifted a finger to help her.

Her fists clenched. She took a deep breath, her heart swelling with anger and a sense of being wronged. ’I’ve called Zachary Preston ’Dad’ for so many years... How could he just abandon me? How could he be so cruel, so heartless, so inhuman!’