On their way to another traditional medicine practitionerâs house, Sebastian chatted with Winnie.Their topic was none other than the traditional medicine practitioner who had retired.Sebastian said to Winnie, âI need to tell you this first. The place my friend lives is a little remote, and Iâm afraid we might not be able to get there by car. Weâll have to leave the car and walk there, and the path there wonât be an easy one.âWinnie nodded in understanding. âItâs fine. I can have the bodyguard support me. Itâs an old residential area, is it?ââYes, itâs an old residential area.â Sebastian sighed. âIt wonât be a stretch to call it a slum. Honestly, the residential area is in a nice location, and you could even call it the city center back then. But Avenport developed too quickly, and the center of the economy shifted. So, soon, the place she stayed downgraded. They couldnât remove the houses nor could they renovate them, so the buildings slowly became dilapidated.ââYes,â Winnie started wistfully. âAlthough Iâm just a young woman, Iâve seen the immense growth in the countryâs development for the past decade. This is something no country in the world can compare to. Itâs good, but there will always be a group of people who will be negatively affected by it.ââIndeed, but my friend doesnât have any financial troubles. She has properties in other places too.ââThen why didnât she leave?â Winnie asked. âShe can just rent the house sheâs living in. As far as I know, the rental in old residential areas isnât high, and most house owners can rent their places out.ââThatâs right,â Sebastian agreed. âThe environment is bad, but like me, she has a reason to stay in that old house. She, too, is waiting for someone. Sheâs afraid that the one sheâs waiting for wonât be able to find her if she moves away. Thatâs why sheâs stubbornly staying there even though her children have been trying to convince her to leave.âSo thatâs why. Winnie could not help but ask, âWho is she waiting for?ââThe one she loves,â Sebastian replied before sighing. âThe one she loves works as a site investigator. He went outstation many a decade ago, and he never came back. The site investigating team said that he was washed away by a torrent, but they havenât been able to find his body all these years. Itâs the same as my grandson, so she has been waiting for him.
But the wait has been for thirty years. How many thirty years can a person have?ââYouâre right. How many thirty years can a person have?â Tears sprang to Winnieâs eyes. She did not even know whether or not she could live past her first thirty years.After her chat with Josiah the night before, she learned that he had asked his classmates about that certain classmate of his and that he had found out that that classmate used to research artificial eyes.Josiah told her that artificial eyes had been a topic being researched. Alas, no one could reach that classmate anymore.It was not a good sign for Winnie.Nevertheless, she was not a pessimistic person. As long as a small flame of hope existed, she would hold on to that candle.The two of them continued chatting about other topics until they reached their destination.Sure enough, as Sebastian had said, the residential area was not accessible by car.
They had to leave the car and walk into it.After many twists and turns, Winnie and the rest reached the old traditional medicine practitionerâs house.Winnie stayed there for almost three hours.Unfortunately, the old traditional medicine practitioner could not help Winnie out. Still, she shared similar ideas with Sebastian, so Sebastian was a little more confident about Winnieâs case.After that, Sebastian led Winnie back the way they came from.On their way back, Winnie overheard a fight.It sounded like a fight between a landlord and a tenant.The landlord was loud. âYou have to move out today! Did you think you can rent a place for free? Itâs not as if I didnât give you chances. I told you about this a month ago! Every week, you tell me I have to give you three more days. How many weeks has it been since then? Have you given me any money? Iâm an ordinary citizen, too! I need to earn a living! Iâm not running a charity organization here!âIt seemed that the tenant had run out of other options, and Winnie noted that their voice sounded hoarse. âPlease, Maâam! Just one more week! I caught a cold a few days ago. Iâm sure you can tell by how my voice changed. Please just give me a few more days to recuperate from this cold before I move out. If you kick me out now, Iâll have to wander the streets. The weather is getting colder and colder, and I wonât be able to withstand it.âThe landlordâs voice became louder. âThatâs right. I can hear your voice change, but can you see my hair turning white? If I have pity for you, who will do the same for me? My motherâs in the hospital, waiting for me to pay her bills to get surgery. Please, can you just spare me? Hurry up and move out so that I can rent the house out again!âAs the landlord spoke, sounds of things getting thrown could be heard.Winnie guessed that the landlord was throwing out the tenantâs things.She could not see, and she could not figure out what was going on. She asked Sebastian, âWhy donât we wait for a while before leaving?ââSounds good.â
Sebastian glanced at the spot before them. âLetâs wait until theyâre done in case they throw something out.âThey stood by the side of the path for a while.Only when silence returned to the corridor did Sebastian tell Winnie to keep walking.Winnie agreed, thinking that nothing else was going to happen after that. Unexpectedly, right as she took a few steps forward, another burst of shouts sounded out in the corridor. Then, someone nearly crashed into her.Winnie guessed that the person had to be the tenant, who was pushed out by the landlord.The tenant nearly knocked over Winnie, but Winnieâs bodyguard reacted in time to push the tenant away.The tenant fell to the ground.Winnie felt that the bodyguard had been too rough and had acted inappropriately upon hearing the commotion, so she promptly told the bodyguard to help the tenant up.When the tenant heard Winnieâs voice, she snapped her head upward.She was wearing a mask because of the cold she caught, so only her eyes were visible.Nevertheless, upon taking in Winnieâs face, she quickly lowered her head.She was afraid that Winnie would realize who she was.She was none other than Shania.Previously, she had tried to hurt Winnie with a knife, and she had succeeded. Thereafter, she was apprehended by the police. Later on, Stuart tried to get her to work with him against Xavier, so he bailed her out of the cell.However, not long after she came out of the cell, Stuart was caught by the police. After hearing news of that, she fled.However, all of her identification documents had been taken, and her bank account had been frozen. She could not even leave Avenport, so she could only hide away in the slum.She could not even afford the cheapest bed space in the slum and ended up getting kicked out by the landlord.Shania had never thought that she would bump into Winnie at a place like this.