Chapter 38: The Zhou Family

The woman answered, "I heard the government has requisitioned some hotels and stadiums, converted underground shelters, and is even using the temporary cabin hospitals from a few years back. They’re all being used as temporary housing for the displaced residents. People can stay there until their complexes are repaired and they can move out."

Crystal Lynch nodded. ’The country won’t abandon its people. As long as we have the government, there’s hope.’

Melody Summers, however, quietly pulled Crystal Lynch aside. "Crystal," she said, "it’s getting hotter and hotter, and droughts are starting to appear in various places. I’m afraid there’s going to be a water shortage. You should stock up on some bottled water at home."

Crystal Lynch thought for a moment and nodded seriously. She had complete trust in Melody Summers now. To her, Melody was like a master chess player, able to predict every development and make the perfect move each time.

Melody Summers added another reminder, "When you move the water, try not to make a big scene. Don’t let anyone know you’re stocking up. It’s best to bring it up in batches using the elevator at night when no one’s around. And don’t pile all the water in one room. You live in a high-rise; the floor might not handle the weight. Spread the bottles out flat on the floor, putting some in every room."

Crystal Lynch listened intently and replied, "Okay, tonight I’ll have my brother go to the bottling plant and bring a truckload of water home to store."

"Melody, thank you so much for the warning. You were the one who reminded me to buy generators last time, too. At first, my brother and my dad didn’t think we needed them, but I insisted. Then I made them buy a ton of gasoline and diesel."

"Now my dad and brother are so glad they listened to me. It’s a good thing we bought everything, since it’s almost impossible to find that stuff now. We only spent ten thousand for both generators back then, and now they’re selling for a million apiece!"

Crystal Lynch’s family spent their days at the supermarket, only using electricity when they returned home at night. With the fuel they had stockpiled, they had enough to last their family for a year or two.

Melody Summers smiled. "Don’t mention it. In times like these, we have to help each other out."

*

Melody Summers stayed with Winnie Summers at the supermarket for a while. It wasn’t until the sun began to set and the temperature outside had dropped that she finally left Crystal Mart to head home.

Just as she stepped out of the supermarket, Melody Summers received a call from an unknown number.

After a moment’s hesitation, she answered. "Hello."

"Melody, it’s Mom."

It was Elaine Hughes again.

Melody Summers had gotten annoyed and blocked everyone from the Lancaster Family. She never thought Elaine Hughes would use a new number to call her.

Melody Summers asked coldly, "What is it?"

"Melody, Sylvia is getting engaged in a little over a month. After the engagement, she’ll be moving out of the Lancaster house. Your father and I hope you’ll move back home," Elaine Hughes said, her voice cautious on the other end of the line.

Elaine Hughes planned to coax Melody Summers home first. As for the official family introduction banquet, that could wait until Melody was back home and had some time to bond with the family.

’She hoped Melody Summers would understand their difficult position.’

Melody Summers thought to herself, ’Looks like without me in the picture this time, Sylvia Lancaster and Ethan Sutton are finally getting engaged.’

’But what does that have to do with me? Haven’t I been clear enough with my rejections?’

Melody Summers said coldly, "What does her engagement have to do with me?"

"Melody, don’t be so willful. It’s scorching hot, you can’t buy any fresh produce at the market, and there are rolling blackouts. You must be miserable, right? If you come back to the Lancaster home, you can enjoy air conditioning 24/7. We have fresh fruits and vegetables, and you can eat whatever you want." Elaine Hughes’s tone was laced with temptation, like an angler dangling bait. "Can that adoptive mother of yours provide you with such a good life?"

Melody Summers almost laughed. This whole routine was just too familiar. In her past life, after she returned to the Lancaster Family, Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster and Simon Lancaster had done the exact same thing, using a mix of hints and direct statements.

Back then, Simon Lancaster would often lecture her condescendingly, "If it weren’t for the Lancaster Family, you wouldn’t be sitting in a villa with air conditioning. Therefore, you ought to sacrifice for the family. No matter how Ethan Sutton treats you, you must try your best to please him and win his heart. That’s the only way you can repay the Lancasters."

In her last life, she truly had been homeless with nowhere to go.

But this life...

’Air conditioning? I have it every day.’

’Fresh fruits and vegetables? I have as much as I want.’

"I couldn’t care less about what the Lancaster Family has to offer. You can keep it all for yourself. Don’t call me again." After saying her piece, Melody Summers hung up, her face devoid of expression.

On the other end of the line, Elaine Hughes stared at her phone in disbelief. ’Melody Summers actually rejected her?!’

It wasn’t as if Elaine Hughes was unaware of what life was like out there. Residential areas city-wide were experiencing rolling blackouts, and news reports constantly mentioned people in high-rise apartments suffering from heatstroke. Hospitals were overflowing with patients, making it impossible to even get an appointment, and clinics had sold out of traditional heatstroke remedies.

For Melody Summers to still refuse to come home under these circumstances was simply inconceivable to Elaine Hughes. ’She must have been brainwashed by that adoptive mother of hers.’

Elaine Hughes had recently sent someone to investigate and found out that Melody Summers’s adoptive mother was a divorcée.

Elaine Hughes thought, ’A woman who can’t even hold on to her own man... how could she possibly have the means to give Melody Summers a good life?’

’And yet, Melody is completely under her spell.’

At this thought, Elaine Hughes couldn’t suppress the resentment welling up inside her. She resented Winnie Summers for ruining Melody. ’If Melody had grown up by my side, she would have been as smart and sensible as Sylvia, not like this... always breaking her own mother’s heart.’

*

After hanging up, Melody Summers immediately blocked Elaine Hughes’s new number. She was thoroughly disgusted. In her past life, she had done everything to please Elaine Hughes, who had only given her the cold shoulder. This life, she was keeping her distance from the Lancasters, and suddenly they were all over her.

Melody Summers grumbled internally all the way home. Right at her front door, she ran into Sophie Thorne, who was just about to ring the doorbell for the Summers’s residence.

"Melody, you’re back just in time!" Sophie Thorne greeted her happily upon seeing her return.

"Thank you for reminding us to prepare early. Solar panels, generators, gasoline, and diesel are all so hard to buy now. It’s a good thing we were prepared." Sophie Thorne was holding a box filled with a neat arrangement of fresh fruits and vegetables. "This is a little something to thank you. We’re neighbors now, so let’s be good neighbors."

Melody Summers looked at the fresh produce in the box. A crate like this was something money couldn’t buy on the market right now. For Melody, however, her main worry was figuring out what to do with the fruits and vegetables piling up in her dimensional space.

Regardless, Melody Summers was grateful for Sophie Thorne’s kindness. She accepted the box with a smile. "You really shouldn’t have. Please, come in."

Sophie Thorne shook her head. "My boyfriend, Ronan Rhodes, his family is in the indoor agriculture business, so this is really nothing. I have to run, so I won’t come in now, but I’ll come visit you again soon, Melody."

With that, Sophie Thorne took her leave.

Melody Summers, however, stood frozen on the spot. When Sophie Thorne had mentioned her boyfriend’s surname was Rhodes, it hadn’t registered. It was only after Sophie mentioned indoor agriculture that she finally connected the name Ronan Rhodes with Rhodes.

The Rhodes business was rooted in agriculture. They held numerous patents for technologies like indoor cultivation and integrated aquaponics, and they operated large-scale planting and breeding bases, along with several indoor farms.

In her previous life, the handful of companies in the indoor agriculture sector, the Rhodes Family included, were the primary suppliers of fruits, vegetables, and meat for the wealthy.

In the early days, before the Lancaster Family went bankrupt and was liquidated, they could still afford the fruits, vegetables, grains, and meat from the Rhodes Family. Seeing the prices of those products, the Lancasters realized the immense profit margins involved.

So, the Lancaster Family also wanted a piece of the indoor agriculture pie and attempted to cozy up to the Rhodes Family.

Robert Lancaster and Simon Lancaster paid a personal visit to Rhodes, but to their surprise, they were completely ignored.

This left Robert Lancaster and Simon Lancaster furious. They cursed the Rhodes Family, calling them arrogant and saying that if they continued to act so high and mighty, they were bound to fail spectacularly sooner or later.

But not only did the Rhodes Family not fail, they thrived, becoming more successful than ever.

Faced with the prolonged, abnormal climate, the government knew that continuing on this path would lead to total crop failure and a famine that would starve countless people. So, the state began to heavily support domestic agricultural enterprises, providing land, funding, and energy, assisting with infrastructure, and dispatching experts to collaborate. Rhodes was one of their key partners.

Moreover, the Rhodes Family was different from families like the Lancasters and the Suttons. The Rhodeses had a powerful background and rock-solid connections.

She recalled from her past life that the person in charge of The Metropolis Residences’ reconstruction zone was a member of the Rhodes Family—likely one of Ronan Rhodes’s elders. The family had pooled their strengths to drive the reconstruction efforts, and Rhodes’s indoor agriculture business played a critical role in the rebuilding of Anworth.