Around 6:00 in the morning, the world outside was as black as ink. Melody Summers was nudged awake in her sleep by a furry head.

She groggily opened her eyes and met the Leopard’s gaze, which shone like two small light bulbs in the darkness.

Melody Summers reached out from under the quilt and gently stroked the Leopard’s furry head, mumbling, "It’s you, Flora... Are you hungry...? Just wait, I’ll feed you when I get up in a bit..."

Melody Summers had let the Leopard out of her space to keep her company yesterday. It was probably because the scene she’d witnessed in that basement was too bizarre—the powerless freezer room filled with boxes of decaying human organs, the empty medical beds... The images replayed in her mind like a movie.

At the time, Melody Summers hadn’t felt scared in the basement, just heartbroken for those innocent people.

But the more Melody Summers thought about it over the past couple of days, the more terrifying the scene became.

And so, the night before last, she’d had another nightmare.

For the first time in a long while, she started dreaming about the events of her past life again.

She dreamed that in her past life, during the extreme cold, she had come down with a high fever. Water was scarce, so she had nothing to drink. The fever left her parched, her throat raw and painful, and she groaned in agony on her bed.

Then, Elaine Hughes knocked on her door, asking with a hint of complaint why she hadn’t made dinner yet. The whole family was hungry.

In her past life, Elaine Hughes had never lifted a finger. The other Lancasters were even more pampered and wouldn’t do a single chore. Melody Summers was the only one who handled all the housework.

Facing Elaine Hughes’s nagging, Melody Summers could only force her ailing body to the kitchen to cook for the Lancasters.

At that moment, she was trembling slightly from the high fever. Her hands were unsteady, and she accidentally dropped and shattered a plate.

Seeing this, Sylvia Lancaster burst into tears and asked, "Sister, do you have something against me? That plate you shattered was a gift I made for Mom and Dad in pottery class. How could you break it on purpose?"

Melody Summers hurriedly explained that it wasn’t on purpose, but not a single one of the Lancasters believed her.

While comforting Sylvia Lancaster, Elaine Hughes looked at Melody Summers with a gaze full of disappointment. "I’ve said it before. Sylvia is innocent in the matter of you two being switched at birth; she’s a victim too. Why must you always target her like this? You disappoint me so much. I truly wonder... is a malicious child like you really my daughter?"

Simon Lancaster also stared coldly at Melody Summers, his tone harsh. "Get on your knees and apologize to Sylvia!"

In the dream, Melody Summers continued to plead weakly, "I have a fever! My hands were shaking, I couldn’t hold the plate steady! I didn’t break it on purpose, and I didn’t know she made it!"

Upon hearing this, Silas Lancaster looked at Melody Summers with utter disgust. "You can’t even hold a plate steady? You’re useless. Why did someone like you have to come back and disturb our lives?"

Robert Lancaster, the head of the family, tried to smooth things over. "Alright, don’t just stand there. Sylvia gets angry just looking at you. You should get back to cooking."

Watching Melody Summers silently pick up the ingredients and resume cooking, Robert Lancaster added, "Melody, you’re the one who stole everything from Sylvia in the first place. You should be thinking about how to compensate her, not targeting her. Understand?"

Melody Summers couldn’t remember how she had responded in the dream. She only recalled the scene suddenly shifting, and she was being drugged by Robert Lancaster and Elaine Hughes and sent to Hector Hayes’s bed.

In the dream, she tried to fight back, but as soon as she pulled out a razor blade, the Lancasters, who had suddenly appeared in the room for some reason, pinned her down by her arms and legs.

Robert Lancaster and Elaine Hughes held down her arms, one on each side, while Simon Lancaster and Silas Lancaster grabbed her ankles.

They stared at Melody Summers with loathing, chattering incessantly about how much she had disappointed them. They even ordered her, "If you still consider us your family, then don’t resist!"

Sylvia Lancaster stood in the room, flanked by Flynn Adler and Ethan Sutton. She snuggled against the two men, looking down at Melody Summers with contempt.

Seeing Hector Hayes approach her with a lecherous grin, Melody Summers, in her despair, found a sudden burst of strength and broke free from the Lancasters’ grasp.

Then, Melody Summers grabbed the knife from the bedside table, killed Hector Hayes first, and then hacked Ethan Sutton and Flynn Adler to death.

Then she turned to the Lancasters.

Before the Lancasters’ terrified eyes, Melody Summers hacked down the two Lancaster brothers and Sylvia Lancaster, one by one, as if splitting melons with a cleaver.

Then, ignoring Robert Lancaster and Elaine Hughes’s desperate pleas, she brought the knife down on their heads.

Finally, everyone in the room lay dead in a pool of blood.

When she woke up, Melody Summers was drenched in sweat.

The dream had been utterly bizarre and grotesque. Melody Summers lay in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling as she took a long time to process it.

She hadn’t had these nightmares for a long time. The Lancasters, along with the memories of her past life, had long been bundled up and swept into the trash. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Looking back on her past life now, she couldn’t understand why she had swallowed her anger and suffered in silence back then.

Perhaps it was because she had lost the family she depended on in that first mudslide. In her past life, she would often wonder if she could have saved them if she hadn’t left Mount Anworth that day.

She was constantly enveloped in immense guilt and sorrow, like a person on the verge of drowning, and the Lancasters were like a piece of driftwood.

She had treated the Lancasters as substitutes for her own family, desperately trying to be good to them, desperately trying to make up for the regret of not being able to save her real family...

After waking up from the nightmare yesterday, Melody Summers had let both the Leopard and Albus out of the space, letting them sleep in the room with her for company.

With the two felines, one large and one small, in the room, Melody Summers felt much more at ease and slept soundly last night.

Melody Summers stretched, sat up in bed, and gave the Leopard’s furry head a vigorous rub.

The Leopard was large to begin with, and after being well-fed and watered in the Arcadian Space for some time, it had thrived. It ate meat when hungry, drank from the Arcadian Stream when thirsty, and could run wild on the endless grassy plains, climb trees, and tease birds in the forest. It was so happy and healthy that its cheeks had visibly filled out.

The Leopard was also very satisfied with its current life. It nuzzled against Melody Summers’s body, acting cute.

When it came into Melody Summers’s soft, fragrant room yesterday, it was like discovering a new world. It had rolled contentedly on the soft carpet.

’I love my current life so much! Compared to this, the life I led on the second basement level of the Crestview Hotel was absolute misery!’

Melody Summers pushed the Leopard away, got up, and quickly washed up. She then put the Leopard back into the Arcadian Space and took out a large piece of beef liver to feed it.

Watching the Leopard gorge itself contentedly, Melody Summers left the space and went downstairs, carrying Albus in her arms.

While they were eating breakfast, her grandma complained, "It’s been almost three months, and Grace still hasn’t come home. I wonder if she’s eating and sleeping well at the factory. And Colin, too. He’s been gone for days at a time, transporting supplies all over. Who knows when he’ll finally be done."

Grace Sutton had been working overtime at the factory for the past few days, eating and sleeping there. Colin Summers also frequently took on supply transport missions, which involved long-haul trucking that often kept him away from home for several days in a row.

Melody Summers sipped her hot pumpkin porridge and comforted her grandma, "Grandma, don’t worry. Uncle and Auntie will be home soon!"

’At the beginning of next month, a three-month-long snowfall is going to start,’ Melody Summers thought. ’The government will definitely have all the cold-weather supplies distributed before then.’

Just as the family finished their meal, the villa’s doorbell rang. Officer Roman Rhodes was at the door.