Joe's daughter, who had been listening from the side, couldn't help wiping away tears when she heard her elderly father talk about having no job and no source of income.
Here, the cultural gap between East and West surfaced again.
Back in the East, women working and achieving financial independence was the mainstream expectation.
But in the West, the number of housewives was astonishing—something almost unimaginable back home.
Not to mention the culture of a "liberal upbringing": even well-educated women, even graduates of top universities, often chose to become full-time housewives after marriage.
Men earning money, women running the household and raising children—here, that was considered completely natural.
Now this eighty-year-old man had gone out to rob a bank, while his perfectly healthy, able-bodied middle-aged daughter stayed home doing laundry and school runs. And yet… this was considered normal here. Bella had no grounds to criticize her.
She had no intention of diving into feminist debates—that was a bottomless pit. Instead, she focused on calming old Joe.
"Please calm down. Anger won't solve anything. We can use legal means. I'll consult a lawyer about the pension issue… For now, let's talk about how Bank of the West convinced you to buy those investment products."
The old man was eager to talk. He went on and on about how the bank staff sweet-talked him into buying their products, only for him to lose all his principal—and now they were demanding his house as repayment.
His voice trembled with outrage. Bella felt sick listening to it.
The steel factory and Stark Industries were simply stalling—dragging out the pension payments bit by bit.
The bank was even worse, drowning the old man in professional jargon until he was completely confused, then pushing him to sign investment contracts he didn't understand at all.
People here had no habit of saving money. Thirty percent of the population didn't even have a thousand dollars in savings. Joe's entire household lived off his pension—how much savings could he possibly have?
Hearing phrases like "zero risk," "high returns," "top-tier project," and "government incentives," how was an eighty-year-old man—already detached from the modern world—supposed to judge any of it?
Like many of his coworkers, Joe had mortgaged his home to buy financial products that even the bank employees themselves wouldn't touch.
...
Bella and Natasha left Joe's home with heavy sighs and went to visit Willie, the eighty-five-year-old next.
No one was home. After asking around, they learned that he had been hospitalized due to kidney failure and was now on a ventilator.
The last one, the eighty-one-year-old Earl, was talkative enough—but his girlfriend kept urging him on, so after ten minutes he excused himself and left.
"Eighty-one years old… and he has a girlfriend?!" Bella stared in disbelief as she watched a silver-haired woman—who looked at least seventy—sweetly holding Earl's hand.
Natasha held up three fingers and gave Bella a seriously, educate yourself look. "What's the big deal? Earl said every morning, he and his girlfriend go at it three times."
Bella looked at Earl again. The man could barely walk. Covering ten meters took him forever. He shuffled forward step by step, his legs barely lifting. And he could go three rounds every morning? She genuinely didn't get American seniors.
"You girls are such good people!"
"May God bless you."
"Good children—kind-hearted people like you are rare these days!"
Bella and Natasha visited seven or eight more households with similar stories. Everywhere they expressed willingness to help the elderly seek justice, they were met with waves of heartfelt gratitude.
These compliments meant nothing to Natasha—she just enjoyed hearing them.
But for Bella, they worked wonders.
Sincere praise instantly boosted her motivation.
Since praise could be harvested... Bella immediately adjusted her original plan.
At dusk, the two deliberately picked fights with two other groups of high school students who were also doing their social studies fieldwork.
Natasha's claim of "knowing a little karate" turned out to be completely legitimate. She was still within the limits of an ordinary person, but she had strength, agility, and frighteningly sharp combat instincts. With Bella's help, they "persuaded" the other students in just a few punches.
By the end of their first day of social investigation, they had acquired thirteen little followers.
Protests, marches, and lawsuits—these were the three major weapons of student activism here.
Natasha volunteered to organize the protests.
Bella used the tiny bit of influence she still had left from the Flight 180 incident to pursue legal channels on behalf of the laid-off steelworkers, trying to secure their future.
Even the most stubborn Texans had to admit that New Yorkers were unrivaled when it came to lawsuits. The lawyers she had met during the Flight 180 case were all from New York.
Bella contacted the law firm that had handled the Flight 180 crash. When the firm learned that she couldn't pay much in legal fees, they still warmly recommended a lawyer to her.
When Bella met the lawyer—named Jeri Hogarth—she felt she had been tricked.
The woman looked too young.
Black hair, business suit, high heels—professionally dressed, yes—but judging by appearances, she didn't seem much older than Bella herself.
No assistant. Her business card listed only "Attorney," not "Partner." Clearly, she had just graduated from law school.
Still, Jeri Hogarth accepted the case against the steel mill and Stark Industries over the suspended pensions.
However, when it came to the seniors losing everything through financial products, she hesitated.
"Miss Swan, I understand your intentions, but legally speaking, investment carries risk. There's no clear violation of the law here."
Bella wasn't a law student. With each state having different regulations, she had no idea what actually constituted illegality.
"Doesn't any of this count as fraud?" she asked.
Jeri smiled and shook her head. If anyone else had asked, she might have brushed it off, but looking at Bella's face, she patiently explained the distinction.
"If the signatory was mentally sound, not coerced, not misled, and not lied to, then the investment agreement is legally binding. Investment carries risk. The seniors losing their homes is tragic, and I sympathize, but as a lawyer, I wouldn't recommend spending too much effort on this line of argument."
Bella scratched her head. The lawyer had explained things clearly. She wasn't unreasonable—she could accept good advice.
Her original hope had been to completely shut down the investment angle. At that age, why were they still investing at all? But unfortunately, financial investment was mainstream here. She couldn't find a valid counterargument.
"Alright then. Let's focus on the pension payments. What's the next step?"
Jeri thought for a moment. "Do you know about class-action lawsuits? Try to find as many victims as possible and proceed through a class-action filing."