Seeing Melody Summers approach, Officer Sean Pierce smiled and stood up to greet her. "Comrade Summers, what can I do for you?"

Officer Sean Pierce had a very good impression of Melody Summers. After all, the special medicine she had donated had been a godsend for the emergency response office.

Melody Summers told Officer Sean Pierce what she had encountered at the Oceanus Hotel.

After finishing her account, Melody Summers added, "Officer Pierce, the front desk staff told my uncle to his face that they can provide ’special services’ for certain customers. On top of that, there have been frequent robberies in the alley not far from the back of the hotel. I’m eighty percent sure there’s something fishy about that hotel."

Officer Pierce frowned in thought after listening. "We can’t determine if there’s truly a problem with the hotel based on differential pricing alone. As for these ’special services’... rest assured, I’ll report this to my superiors. The relevant departments will send people to investigate."

Melody Summers could only nod. She knew she didn’t have any concrete evidence, and these clues alone weren’t enough to prove anything.

But she felt she at least had to get the hotel on the police’s radar. That way, if anything happened in the future, they could respond in a timely manner.

’And then there’s Flynn Adler...’ Melody remembered that in her past life, Adler Enterprises had been colluding with foreign powers from the very beginning of the cataclysm. They had exploited government support and subsidies for desalination companies to embezzle and transfer state-owned assets, and had been investigated for it several times.

The only reason Melody knew about this was because Sylvia Lancaster had once come home and bragged about it to Robert Lancaster as if it were a point of pride. Sylvia had praised Flynn Adler for being so clever and acting so quickly, destroying the evidence right before the state investigation began and leaving the authorities to come up empty-handed.

Although Melody didn’t understand the intricacies of it all, she decided that as soon as she got back, she would write a flurry of anonymous tips to every relevant department, hoping to spur the government into investigating these matters ahead of time.

*

That evening, after the supermarket closed, Melody Summers, Winnie Summers, and Colin Summers walked home together, flanked by members of the neighborhood patrol, which gave them a great sense of security.

As they walked, they discussed how in the time since they had moved out of The Metropolis Residences, five more elderly people living alone on the upper floors of Buildings 3, 8, and 9 had died from the heat. By the time they were discovered, they had been dead for two days.

The seniors’ families were all out of town and couldn’t make it back, so they had entrusted the property management office with handling the final arrangements.

Then there were the two pregnant women in Buildings 7 and 4. With the public healthcare system paralyzed and private hospitals being unaffordable, they had no choice but to watch online tutorials and give birth at home on their own.

One of the women had a difficult delivery, resulting in the death of both mother and child. The other, despite a safe delivery, couldn’t afford the steep electricity bills, so she turned off the air conditioner at night. The newborn didn’t survive the high temperatures and passed away.

Melody Summers sighed. She knew from her past life that this heatwave would kill a great number of people, and she had steeled herself for it. But hearing about these tragedies happening one after another in the very complex where she used to live still made her heart ache. All she could do now was pray for time to pass more quickly.

When the three of them returned home, their grandmother, Miss Lowell, and their aunt had already prepared dinner.

Winnie Summers and Colin Summers were stunned to see the table laden with food. Winnie asked, "Mom, where did all these vegetables come from? Didn’t we empty the fridge before we left?"

Her grandmother, who was just bringing a dish of sautéed potatoes, eggplant, and peppers to the table, smiled and replied, "Oh, I was thinking we wouldn’t have any fresh vegetables for the next few days. We were even planning to rehydrate some of the dried ones from the pantry. But then, Thorne from next door unexpectedly brought over so many! We’ve put the hardier ones in the refrigerator—it’s packed to the brim. We also blanched and froze some things, like the green beans, and pickled a few jars of vegetables."

Her aunt chimed in with a smile, "This will be more than enough to last us until the vegetables in our garden are ready to harvest. And if worse comes to worst, we still have plenty of dried vegetables in the pantry! We definitely won’t be running out of greens."

Miss Lowell added with a smile, "He brought lots of fruit, too—so much, in fact, that we’ve already cooked down the more perishable ones into canned fruit preserves to make them last longer. We thought the fruit trees in the backyard were done for, but after we cooled the area with the air conditioner and gave them some water today, they’ve perked right up. Now we’ll have no shortage of fruit at all."

The meal was a feast of ten full dishes, with both vegetables and meat, including a plump young lamb that Melody had just butchered that day. The Summers family ate until they were stuffed.

Between cleaning the house, stocking her store, and shipping orders, Melody was completely exhausted. But now that she was finally back in her own home, she slept soundly and peacefully.

*

The items Melody had listed in the Arcadia Store a few days prior were almost completely sold out, and user reviews had started to trickle in.

"User xxx: Arcadia finally restocked! The prices are quite a bit higher, but the quality is impeccable. These grapes smell amazing!"

"User xxx: I honestly haven’t had such a fragrant mango in forever. The mangoes from Rhodes are just sweet and sour; they don’t have that rich mango aroma. Arcadia is still the gold standard."

"User xxx: This lamb isn’t gamey in the slightest; it even has a faint, milky fragrance. I was just about to reorder, how is it already out of stock?"

"User xxx: My employer yelled at me for not managing to buy any lamb, but thankfully I got the offal. I was all prepared for the hassle of cleaning it, but it arrived already perfectly prepped. You guys did such a clean job—not a speck of anything left. Thank you."

"User xxx: Is there really no hope for more wild mushrooms? My employer’s family mentions them every single day. If you get them back in stock, they’re willing to pay up to 500,000 per portion." 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

’Wild mushrooms?’ Melody paused. She decided to go to The Arcadian Woods another day and see if there were enough to stock a new batch.

After scrolling through the reviews, Melody went to check the residents’ group chat for The Metropolis Residences.

"7-408 Gone with the Wind: That wriggly white bug is on my window again. It bites, doesn’t it?"

"6-501 Suzy: They do. I’m on a lower floor and one crawled onto our window. My kid was being naughty and tried to grab it to play with and got bitten."

"5-1107 Azure: Aren’t those things poisonous? I remember hearing the Desert Vines are highly toxic. Is your kid okay?"

"6-501 Suzy: They’re a little bit toxic, but it seems to be okay. The area around the bite looked pretty scary, all black and blue, right after it happened, but my kid didn’t say it hurt, and it went away after a little while."

"Property Management Center: To all residents, the white bugs that have been spotted around the complex have hatched from eggs within the Desert Vines. Experts have named them Sandvine Worms. The flesh of the Sandvine Worm is non-toxic and edible. Its protein content is eight times that of beef, and it can be captured and processed as a dietary protein supplement.

Sandvine Worms have teeth in their mouthparts, so please take care not to be bitten when attempting to capture them. We advise against trying to capture worms that are on the Desert Vines. If you must do so, please use proper tools. The complex is currently experiencing a shortage of the specific antidote, so anyone injured by Desert Vine thorns will be responsible for their own consequences."

"5-1706 Adian: Um... could you please not remind us that sand vine cakes are made from bug larvae? My boyfriend is terrified of bugs, and he has to overcome a massive psychological hurdle just to eat them. Now that you’ve mentioned it, he’s run off to vomit again."

"4-1209 Fishing: To be honest, I used to be afraid of bugs, too. But during this apocalypse, I’ve realized they’re just beautiful, beautiful protein!"

"2-1908 Coco: Right now, it looks like these worms are the only source of protein I have access to. Forget real meat; you can’t even find meat-flavored starch sausages on the market anymore."

"3-1007 Kiki, Mom of Two: Last night, my Buddy and I went out in the dark with a cell phone for light and caught 10 of them. You can grab them easily with chopsticks. We were originally planning to keep them in a jar for the kids to play with, but as soon as we heard you could eat them, we immediately pan-fried them. The meaty aroma was incredible, and my two kids polished off all 10 in one sitting. [Image] [Image]"

"4-1209 Fishing: I’m going to go catch some after sunset! Not now, though. It’s way too hot."

"..."

Many people were already coming to accept the Sandvine Worms. After all, they were a rare source of protein.

Melody put down her phone and went with Albus into The Arcadian Woods to dig for some wild mushrooms.

She hadn’t harvested any for some time, and after a period of recuperation, The Arcadian Woods was experiencing another mushroom boom.

Having learned from last time, Melody had read up on the subject and acquired some professional knowledge. Now, after each harvest, she was careful to cover the soil to maintain the mycelium, hoping to make her harvests sustainable.

Melody priced this new batch of wild mushrooms at 450,000 per portion. She had observed that The Arcadian Space was the sole source for this particular variety.

In addition to the wild mushrooms, Melody also harvested some honeycombs and processed them into several hundred jars of honey, which she priced at 100,000 per jar.

Back at the auction in The Nimbus Hotel, Melody had witnessed wealthy individuals casually dropping tens or even hundreds of millions on jewelry and art. It was clear these people were fabulously rich, so she no longer held back when setting her prices.

Both the wild mushrooms and the honey were snapped up the moment they were listed. Many customers bought 10 or 20 portions at a time. Melody and Albus rolled up their sleeves and began shipping, preparing to hit their ten "small goals."