Early this morning, the Summers family received some good news—the repair work on the Summers Villa was complete!

The renovation team Ronan Rhodes had contacted was incredibly professional. Apparently, they used to work abroad, often building underground shelters for wealthy clients in the West. With their extensive experience in security, they not only repaired the villa but also helped improve many of its details.

The electric fence around the villa’s perimeter, which had been cut, was replaced, and an additional alarm system was installed.

All the security cameras inside and outside the villa that had been smashed were reinstalled as well. Those poor cameras had been through so much; this was already their third installation.

The French doors on the second-floor terrace had been replaced with brand-new, bank-grade bulletproof glass. The enthusiastic renovation team even helped sweep up every last shard of broken glass from inside.

The walls in the main hall, originally blackened by heavy smoke, had been repainted and were now pristine.

All the furniture destroyed in the fire had also been replaced. The designer had excellent taste; their aesthetic sense was on point. The new furnishings looked even better than what they had before the fire.

The burnt smell that had once permeated the main hall had faded to a whisper. Melody found some incense she had bought previously and lit a burner. A woody fragrance, with light notes of fruit and flowers, wafted through the living room, masking the last traces of the fire.

The family was extremely satisfied with the results. After thanking Sophie Thorne, Melody moved her family back from the Thorne residence.

After unpacking their bags, Grandma sank into the soft sofa and remarked, "This new sofa is even more comfortable than the old one. It must have cost a fortune, don’t you think?"

Melody Summers replied, "I have no idea. The Rhodes family covered all the renovation costs."

Melody had intended to settle the bill with the renovators, but the foreman told her the Rhodes family had already paid.

Melody immediately contacted Ronan Rhodes and Sophie Thorne to pay them back, but they adamantly refused to accept the money.

Melody could only make a mental note of the debt, resolving to repay the favor whenever she got the chance.

Just then, Colin Summers, who had been away for several days, returned home.

The moment he stepped inside, he strode into the living room and asked anxiously, "They said there was a terrorist attack in the community! Are you all okay?!"

Only then did he realize—the decor in the villa’s main hall was completely different!

Seeing this, a bewildered Colin Summers said, "What... What happened?! Why is all the furniture new? Where’s the old sofa?"

With a sense of resignation, Melody and the others had no choice but to recount the events of the past few days to Colin from beginning to end.

Colin slapped his thigh as he listened, his voice thick with regret and self-reproach. "If I’d known, I never would have left! I can’t believe something like this happened! Thank God you’re all safe..."

Then, as if remembering something, he frowned. "I know that guard who tipped them off. He was always the biggest troublemaker, always slacking off on his patrols. I never would have thought he was such a rotten person!"

Colin continued to vent his indignation. He deeply regretted leaving to help transport supplies. If anything had happened to his family, he didn’t know how he could have gone on living.

But Melody suddenly asked, "Uncle, what were you transporting this time?"

Hearing the question, Colin replied, "A shipment of cold-weather supplies. They were produced by factories here in the city, and we were responsible for delivering them to several neighboring cities."

The province places a high value on industrial development, and Anworth itself has several industrial parks.

This time, Colin’s group had transported the cold-weather supplies from Anworth’s factories to other cities. They also brought back a large amount of raw materials from other provinces to be sent back to the factories for rush production.

Melody nodded. ’The top brass must have predicted the extreme cold and snow that’s coming,’ she thought. ’They’re already starting to deploy cold-weather supplies and equipment ahead of time.’

After Melody changed the subject, they sat and chatted in the living room for a while longer.

They then rearranged some of the living room furniture to suit the two elders’ habits. Before long, it was dinnertime, and Winnie Summers returned.

For the past few days, Winnie had been busy conducting door-to-door surveys, going from one house to the next for visits and registration. She looked completely exhausted.

You never know what’s going on until you look. Who knew there could be so many strange incidents!

During dinner, Winnie began to tell the others about the things she’d seen during her surveys that day.

"You have no idea how awful the man of the house was! He controlled all the family’s supplies, only feeding his son his fill each day while his daughter and wife regularly went hungry. The day before yesterday, his daughter was starving and tried to steal some food, so he locked her in the storage room for two whole days!"

"When the Emergency Response Office team arrived today, the little girl was on the brink of death in that storage room. It was a close call!"

"The Emergency Response Office members gave the man a severe warning right then and there. They told him they would be making random follow-up visits, and if they caught him doing it again, he would be immediately expelled from The Metropolis Residences!"

Hearing this, Grandma frowned and shook her head. "That black-hearted bastard. Treating his wife and daughter like that... he’d better sleep with one eye open! It wouldn’t be surprising if his wife and daughter stabbed him to death one of these days."

"Don’t say that, Grandma—someone actually was stabbed to death!" Winnie said quickly. "There’s a resident over in Building 8... a young woman came to stay with her older sister, and her brother-in-law took the opportunity to force himself on her! When the older sister found out, she grabbed a knife and went after him!"

"But the sister didn’t succeed at first. The man kicked the knife out of her hand, pinned her to the floor, and started beating her."

"In a panic, while the man was distracted, the younger sister grabbed the knife and stabbed him in the neck, over and over! After he collapsed, the older sister, fearing he wasn’t dead, snatched the knife from her and lunged forward to stab him a few more times."

"After killing him, the sisters were terrified. They used a kitchen cleaver to dismember the body, packed the parts into two large suitcases, and dragged them to the back hill under the cover of darkness to dig a hole and bury him."

"When the Emergency Response Office team arrived at their door, the sisters were in a panic, stammering as they spoke."

"When they couldn’t explain where the man was, the team sensed something was wrong. They forced their way inside to investigate and found the main hall covered in dried, black bloodstains."

"Because water has been so scarce since the disasters began, they didn’t have enough to clean up the blood. They couldn’t bear to waste what little they had on it, so the stains were just left all over the living room."

"And it wasn’t just the living room. They had dismembered him in the bathroom, so it was also covered in patches of black, clotted blood."

Winnie shook her head and continued, "Luckily, there was a security camera in the living room. It recorded footage of the man assaulting the younger sister and the ensuing fight. Otherwise, the sisters would have had a hard time explaining what happened..."

With the recording as evidence, the police ruled that the two sisters acted in self-defense.

Colin clicked his tongue in disbelief. "That guy was a real animal, going after his wife’s younger sister like that. Still... those two sisters are tough, living in a house covered in blood like that..."

Grandma sighed. "What choice do they have but to live in a bloody house? In this day and age, where else could they possibly go?"

Melody also shook her head as she listened. ’For that man to be enforcing the law of the jungle in his own home, especially at a time like this... he got what he deserved,’ she thought.

Putting down her chopsticks, Melody asked Winnie, "Mom, do you have to do more of those home surveys tomorrow?"