"That minx is so shameless. She's living in such a luxurious neighborhood! I know my husband works hard to earn his keep, so I've never asked him for much. God knows how much money that minx has taken from my husband!"

Jinny was still cursing up a storm in her live-stream. Her pretty face was flushed from the anger.

She brought a small group of people with her, and they looked quite intimidating. The security guard had wanted to stop them at the entrance but gave up once he learned they were there to catch a mistress.

He didn't want to meddle in other people's family matters, so he looked the other way and let them in.

So, the mistress she was talking about lived in my neighborhood?

What a coincidence that was.

I wanted to keep watching, but the camera was unstable and was shaking. There was also a lot of static noise. I quickly lost interest in the livestream.

I turned it off and went back to the movie I was watching before.

After a while, I heard someone knocking heavily on my door. I thought the boba tea I ordered had arrived, so I eagerly went to open the door.

I did not expect to see an angry Jinny at my door. She glared at me with a terrifying expression on her face.

I started to have a bad feeling about what was about to happen.

The people behind Jinny began to shout as they pointed the cameras at me.

"You homewrecker! This is that shameless mistress, right? Today, we'll be doing everyone a favor by beating her up."

"Look at this place. The corridor is so long. How many rooms are there?"

"That's not true! You've got the wrong person. I don't even have a boyfriend. I'm not even talking to any man at the moment. How can I be a mistress?"

Although I had no idea what was going on, I quickly refuted their claims.

"Mary Hopkins! You were one of my closest friends. Why would you try to take my man from me? You're disgusting! Get out of my husband's house now!"

The people standing behind Jinny started to get excited again after she said that.

It was such an unbelievable turn of events! The mistress was actually a close friend of the wife! It was true that women had to keep an eye on their close friends!

"I'm not a close friend of hers! We used to be classmates and roommates. We never talked much since our personalities were too different!

"Do not slander me. I'm not a mistress, and I'm not a close friend of hers. Get out of my house right now!"

They were driving me insane. I said I wasn't the mistress they were looking for. What else did they want?

More and more people were gathering near my door. They were probably my neighbors who were attracted by the commotion.

The growing crowd only made me even more upset.

"Mistresses are so shameless! You had the gall to do something like that, but why don't you have the guts to own up to it? The proof is all here. Take a look for yourself. Let's see what you have to say after that."

Jinny covered her stomach with one of her arms and held her phone toward the camera with the other.

"Everyone, take a look at this. My husband bought so many things online, and he used this address for all of them."

Didn't she say she was going to show me proof? Why did she hold her phone so far away from me? I had no choice but to move my head closer to her.

Jinny tapped on her phone, and at that instant, I saw that her phone's wallpaper was a selfie of her with my dad.

"You homewrecker! You've been dating someone's husband. How dare you call him 'honey'? What do you have to say for yourself?"

The picture Jinny showed was a screenshot of a conversation between my parents.

I would never mistake those two profile pictures for anything else.

Their conversation was just casual banter between a married couple.

"Remember to get two bags of salt" or "Buy me a cake."

How could the marriage between my parents, which had lasted for so many years, be fake? It seemed like Jinny was unaware that she was the mistress of the relationship.

She even came all the way to my place to cause a scene.

I remembered that Jinny used to tell us that her "husband" had a bad temper and that he had a tendency to hit people when he was drunk.

She also said that he loved finding faults with everything and throwing insults around.

My dad was such a great actor. He seemed so normal when he was with me and Mom. In reality, he was an immoral man who was cheating on his wife, and he revealed his dark side to his mistress,

We, the roommates, discovered the scars on Jinny once. We were so worried about her, but she kept making excuses for her man.

She said that he treated her very well most of the time and that we didn't need to care about the scars.

Thinking back about all of that, I felt the two of them were meant for each other.

"Look at that tone on you. Do you think my husband is your lapdog? How dare you ask him to buy you all these things? How shameless are you? You're so good at ordering another person's husband around."

Jinny became even more enraged as she was talking. She suddenly grabbed my hair and started swaying my head back and forth.

I couldn't just take all the abuse without retaliating. So, I kicked her in the chest so hard that she fell to the ground.

"Are you out of your mind? How dare you trespass onto my private property and assault me! Besides, my dad's 52 years old. He definitely smells like an old person. How could you even bring yourself to do it with him?"

I adjusted my hair, which had been messed up by Jinny, and tied it up.

"Calm yourself down. We can sit down and talk about this."

I figured my scumbag of a dad might have lied to Jinny. Maybe things could be cleared up if we just talked it out.

I slowly approached her. I was on guard because I didn't want her to pounce on me again, but I wasn't really afraid of her. She was so petite I could send her flying with a single punch.

"Young lady, you must be mistaken. This family of three has been living here for many years. How can this palace belong to your husband?"

Jinny's expression grew darker when she heard the next-door neighbor say that.

"My husband brought this place for you, right? How dare you bring your family over here? Have you no shame?"

I was dumbfounded. She was utterly delusional. Didn't I hint at the fact that her so-called husband was my dad?

Jinny was still yelling as the people she brought with her came between her and me.

"What has this world come to? How can a mistress be so bold? She even had the audacity to attack the wife!!

"Jinny's pregnant! We won't let you off the hook if anything happens to her baby!"

Jinny stuck her nose in the air smugly when she heard the people defending her.

"Give her a good beating! You're doing god's work by beating up a mistress. She was the one who started it anyway."

The people's expressions became menacing when they heard that. They rolled up their sleeves and walked toward me.

"Hey, I have heart conditions and diabetes. Will you guys be able to afford it if something goes wrong?"

I lay down on the floor with a nonchalant expression.

"Jinny, didn't you say this woman was a close friend of yours? Does she really have all those conditions? We can't exactly risk killing her, can we?"

The people with Jinny became hesitant. They turned around and looked at Jinny.

"Why do you care about all that? Just beat her up!"

Jinny didn't answer their question. Instead, she urged them to beat me up.

Back when we were in school together, we would only ever speak with each other when it was something related to school. That was why we didn't know much about each other.

I just had to make something up. I knew she wouldn't know if I was lying or not.

The girls with her were clearly paid by Jinny to back her up. None of them were prepared to take a life for some money and get sent to jail.

None of them moved a muscle since they didn't get a clear answer from Jinny. They just stood around me and hurled insults at me.

I picked up my phone and aimed the camera at them to record a video. Then, I sent it to my mom. I also sent the link to Jinny's livestream to her.

I urged her to come home quickly and to bring my dad with her.

"What is the meaning of this? Did I pay you all for nothing? That hussy is still smiling over there."

Jinny was enraged. She walked over to me slowly while clutching her stomach. She swung her fist at me, but I caught her hand easily.

Then, she started to growl angrily.

"Then, throw her out of here! This should be my place! This is my husband's property. That's right! Strip her and throw her out. A homewrecker like her deserves to be treated like that!"

She started giggling as she was saying that. It seemed like she had lost her mind. She went to sit on the couch like she owned the place.

"This is my property! Do you want to see whose name is on the deed?"

My mom was the one who bought this place. Naturally, her name was on the deed. My mom was very hardworking when she was young.

She also had an affinity for business and was able to build her own clothing company.

My dad was just a customs officer on the payroll. He could never afford to buy property in this neighborhood.

"Stop acting so smug. Gifts and property given to a mistress can be taken back through a lawsuit."

Jinny lost it when she heard me say that. She picked up an opal trinket on the coffee table and threw it toward me.

She was so weak that she couldn't throw it. It fell from her grasp and smashed into bits on the floor.

An idea came to me as I looked at the broken trinket.

"Don't do it! All of these are things I painstakingly picked out at an antique market. I also picked the opal up myself by a river. Come at me if you want, but don't touch my rocks!"

When Jinny heard what I said, she was immediately motivated. She smashed all the opals on the shelf to bits.

"What are you all standing around for? Smash it all! You already chickened out when I asked you to beat her up. Are you still too scared to break some stuff?" Jinny yelled.

The people she brought with her immediately joined her in breaking stuff.

They caused a ruckus, and after a while, broken pieces of opal were scattered on the floor.

"We've smashed everything. You're just a brazen person who leeches off men. You spent my husband's money on this rubbish."

Jinny felt good. It was like she finally got one over me.

What she didn't know was that she was always the party at fault in the relationship. She was not the rightful partner of the man like she thought she was.