Dominic instinctively stepped back from me, his voice wavering. "What the heck are you talking about? I'm doing this for the sake of our future!"

A wry smile tugged at my lips. "For our future, huh? Let's call the police, then."

The moment the words left my mouth, sirens grew louder outside. Dominic's eyes widened in disbelief. He was so flustered that cold sweat instantly broke out across his body.

"You called the police? Are you out of your mind?" he hissed.

I ignored him and went outside to meet the officers. Thankfully, I had been cautious enough. The moment I sensed something was wrong, I had already called the police before entering the house.

"Who made the report?"

"I did," I replied. "Someone here has been poisoned, and I suspect attempted murder."

Before I could even say more, Dominic hurried over to the officers with a forced smile.

"It's a misunderstanding! Yeah, just a misunderstanding! My wife's talking nonsense. Nobody's been poisoned—I can assure you of that, officers."

The second he finished speaking, Sarah suddenly let out a shrill scream from inside the house. "Gosh, it's killing me! My head feels like it's about to be split open!"

Hearing that, the officers shoved Dominic aside and rushed into the room.

At that moment, Sarah was coughing up blood, her eyes bloodshot. Even her lips and skin had turned a dark bluish-black—classic signs of poisoning.

The police didn't dare waste another second and immediately moved to take her to the hospital.

Sarah resisted weakly, waving her hand. "I'm fine, officer… Even though Hazel fed me poisonous mushrooms, I'm willing to forgive her… So long as she apologizes… We can let this go…"

In an instant, every pair of eyes turned toward me. I raised a brow and pointed at Sarah, who looked half-dead on the bed.

"Officer, do you really think the words of someone who's been poisoned are reliable? If I really poisoned her, why would I call the police?"

Sarah painfully opened and closed her mouth, her breathing growing weaker. She pointed a trembling finger at me before her arm dropped limply to the side.

Dominic instantly panicked. "Sarah! Sarah, hang in there!"

The officers immediately realized something was seriously wrong. They started emergency first aid on the spot and called for an ambulance.

On the way to the hospital, Dominic grabbed my wrist forcefully and lowered his voice in warning. "You've blown this whole thing up, Hazel. It's not too late to turn back now. Apologize to Sarah, and she'll forgive you! You don't want to waste the best years of your life behind bars, do you?"

I yanked my hand free in disgust. "Maybe you should spend more time worrying about Sarah instead. She looks like she's about to die! Also, I'm more than willing to cooperate with the investigation. But if it turns out that someone else poisoned her…"

All I could say was that things were about to get pretty interesting if everything was exactly as I suspected.

"Officer!"

Dominic cut me off nervously. Guardedly, he stepped in front of me, his voice firm and resolute. "I want to report a crime! The person responsible for poisoning Sarah is my wife, Hazel. I have proof."

The officer scrutinized Dominic's expression, clearly suspicious. "Let's stabilize the patient first. Then, we'll talk about everything else after we get to the hospital."

Dominic nodded, then flashed me a smug smile, as if he had things under control. I quietly clenched my fists, barely suppressing the excitement bubbling inside me.

Soon, we arrived at the hospital.

Just as Sarah was about to be wheeled into the emergency room, she suddenly regained consciousness. Her voice was hoarse, but she used the last bit of her strength to accuse me in front of the police.

"Hazel, why did you feed me mushrooms, knowing they were poisonous? I trusted you! So why did you do this to me?"

I looked puzzled. "But based on the timing, my mushrooms were only supposed to mature today. When exactly did I ever give you any?"

"Look at you, still trying to argue your way out of this!"

Dominic charged forward furiously. "I saw you handing Sarah a whole bag of them this morning! I saw it with my eyes! Officers, she tried to murder Sarah! You should arrest her immediately!"

On the hospital bed, Sarah struggled to breathe. "Hazel, I can understand you're jealous of my friendship with Dom, and I know you've always secretly made things difficult for me.

"But I never thought you'd be bold enough to try to kill me! Officers, you mustn't… let her go. She grew an entire crop of poisonous mushrooms… She's a… murderer…"

Her voice grew weaker until finally, she closed her eyes.

Dominic licked his lips and rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Officer, I can prove that my wife has wanted Sarah dead for a long time!"

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone and opened his photo gallery. "I kept all the texts she sent me."

Inside was a screenshot of our chat history. I had asked him why he was always so close to Sarah.

He had casually replied, "We grew up together. We're childhood friends. Can you stop being so paranoid? If there was anything between us, you wouldn't even be here."

"Gosh. Women are so troublesome. If you can't stand her that much, get rid of her yourself!"

Beneath that was a nodding emoji sent from my phone, except he was the one who sent it. This whole thing had been his setup since the very beginning!

"This proves that she has a motive. Right, officer?"

The officer said nothing, but the look he gave me was full of suspicion.

Then, Dominic frantically searched through his phone again. "Officer, this is proof that she was growing poisonous mushrooms! She's a monster! Not only was she trying to kill Sarah, but she was also going to poison innocent civilians, too!"

The so-called evidence was an audio recording.

"Honey, are you insane? Are you seriously going to grow poisonous mushrooms? You know it's illegal, right?"

"Well, they're cheap and very profitable! Besides, it'll be fine as long as they don't eat too much."

"No! I can't allow you to do this!"

When the recording ended, Dominic's eyes were already red with emotion. "You guys heard it yourselves. I tried everything to stop her back then, but she just wouldn't listen! I didn't expect her to be this bold and reckless!"

That heavily edited recording shattered the very last trace of pity I felt toward them.

I turned to the officer calmly. "They keep insisting that those mushrooms belonged to me and that I delivered them this morning. But I wasn't home then. I was at the greenhouse."

"You did that on purpose! You were trying to create an alibi!" Dominic seethed, pointing at me furiously. "You went back to the greenhouse after delivering the mushrooms!"

I laughed. "Sorry, but all the mushrooms in the greenhouse were burned down yesterday. Forget 30 pounds of them, I didn't even have an ounce left. And before the fire, I'd reported everything to management. I have witnesses who can verify that. However…"

I paused and pulled out the uneaten fried mushroom I had secretly kept in my pocket earlier. "I've seen this mushroom in a greenhouse before, but not mine. It came from another greenhouse owned by someone else in our family."