Half a month later, the old lady who had almost recovered from her treatment was discharged from the hospital.

On the day she returned, I purposely waited at the door.

As soon as the old lady appeared, I hurried over to greet her, "Auntie Zhu, are you feeling better? Please don't casually take other people's things in the future. What I bought was just some food for the praying mantis. If someone else buys something more dangerous next time, you'll suffer even more, won't you?"

Originally, the old lady who used to boss people around and curse at them every day seemed much more subdued now. Faced with my aggressive tone, she could only stay silent.

For a long time after that, probably due to still lacking some nutrition, she never went out to pick up trash again, and we rarely had to endure unpleasant smells.

What's even more fortunate is that, in order to eliminate the cockroaches running rampant in the house, "Sezhuangni" cleared away all the trash her mother had brought back before, freeing up a large space in the house.

They bought various products to get rid of the cockroaches, and the hallway was filled every day with the cockroach corpses they had swept out.

Speaking of which, they were quite disgusting. Instead of disposing of these things themselves, they just swept them into the hallway, causing the cleaning auntie to grumble as soon as she reached our floor.

But, surprisingly, since the cleanup, the hallway smelled much better, and we could occasionally open the windows for ventilation.

I originally thought that the prolonged battle with Auntie Zhu would come to an end here, but little did I know, she only took a brief break before starting to misbehave again.

Learning from my lesson, she had stopped stealing packages, but being confined at home led to her developing a new problem - throwing objects from a height.

Although we were on the sixth floor, dropping something from that height could still cause harm to people.

At first, she couldn't leave the house, so she just threw some household garbage like fruit peels, melon seeds, and tissues. We scolded her in the group chat, but it didn't help much.

Unlike stealing packages and picking up trash, this act couldn't be captured by surveillance cameras, and since the objects couldn't be thrown very high, the cameras could only catch them at the moment they hit the ground, making it impossible to identify the person throwing them.

Despite being a bit disgusting and lacking in manners, everyone just tolerated it.

But our repeated tolerance only led to her escalating her behavior. Finally, when she threw an unextinguished cigarette butt down, it ignited the windshield cover of someone's electric car.

Luckily, there were people downstairs when it caught fire, and they extinguished it immediately. The household only lost the windshield cover.

However, this incident served as a wake-up call, and of course, the household whose car was damaged reported it to the police.

It was considered arson, so they had to investigate thoroughly. In the end, the blame fell on Auntie Zhu.

After criticizing and educating her daughter for a long time and imposing a fine as punishment, her daughter finally lost her temper.

She no longer had a good expression for her troublemaking mother.

In the poorly soundproofed old neighborhood, we could hear her daughter's scolding loud and clear from our own home—

"Look at what has happened to my home since you arrived? It's full of trash and cockroaches. I could tolerate it even if you were my mother! But now, you're throwing things from a height, starting fires. What else are you not capable of?"

"I was thinking of bringing you here to enjoy life, not to cause chaos. Since it's like this, you better go back to the countryside! Do you know? Because of your behavior, your son-in-law is preparing to divorce me!"

"I couldn't have children in my forties, and he already didn't treat me well. But now, because of you, he doesn't even come home anymore!"

"Do you know how others talk about you, about me? Because of you, I'm looked down upon in the neighborhood! When I tried to pay the water and electricity bills on time, they wouldn't even help me! Mom, you've ruined me!"

"Leave, leave now! Go back to your rural hometown, no one cares if you pick up trash there!"

...

I leaned against the door, not knowing if the old lady was silently listening or if her daughter's voice was too soft to hear clearly. In any case, I could only hear her daughter's scolding.

After a while, she finally said slowly, "Mom was wrong. Mom won't pick up trash anymore, won't take other people's things anymore. Please don't be angry, don't drive Mom away..."

Listening to this, I felt a bit melancholic.

It seemed that this old lady feared nothing except being abandoned by her daughter.

I guess both sides eventually calmed down, and the argument gradually subsided.