Chapter 237: Chapter 237: Preparing the Safehouse

Melody Summers remembered from her past life that the deepest snowdrifts in downtown Anworth had been several meters thick, reaching as high as the third or fourth floor. The Summers family’s villa would also be buried by the blizzard.

Melody Summers decided to move her family out of the villa before the snow started.

Her initial plan was to move her family into a hotel, but she was shocked to discover that starting next month, several luxury hotels, including the Nimbus Hotel, had suspended all reservations.

It seemed that high-ranking officials and the wealthy had gotten word in advance about the coming blizzard and had already snatched up all the rooms.

Anworth, after all, was a first-tier city with thousands of households whose assets were in the hundreds of millions. In the face of such wealth and power, ordinary people stood no chance of getting a reservation.

Melody Summers stared at the pages marked "Fully Booked" and thought, ’Good thing I saw this coming and bought two high-floor apartments in the residential complex. Otherwise, this would have been a real problem.’

The two apartments Melody Summers bought were 1605 and 1606 in Building 4. She was already familiar with 1606, having lived there in her past life. Back then, Elaine Hughes and Robert Lancaster were still wealthy and hadn’t spared any expense on it, so its facilities were top-notch. The previous owner of 1605 had also been rich and had given it a similarly luxurious renovation.

Both apartments came fully furnished, complete with comprehensive water purification and climate control systems. The doors and windows had been reinforced right after she bought them, and anti-theft and surveillance systems had been installed.

Now, Melody Summers just needed to stock the apartments with all the supplies her family would need for the coming days.

Melody first walked into 1606 and inspected the room, then passed through a hidden connecting door into 1605. Just then, Albus leaped out of her storage space and landed in her arms.

Melody stroked Albus’s belly, studying the layout of the two apartments while silently calculating the amount of supplies she needed to store.

She couldn’t hoard too many supplies in these two apartments. After all, the floor’s load-bearing capacity was nothing compared to the villa’s basement.

The tragic sight of an owner in Building 4 who had smashed through their balcony floor by hoarding too many supplies was still fresh in her mind. Melody had no intention of repeating that mistake. She had to be meticulous, make rational use of the floor’s load capacity, and calculate every single item down to the last detail.

Melody decided to set up the bedrooms first. Between the two apartments, there were five bedrooms in total. Since the couple, Grace Sutton and Colin Summers, always shared a room, the remaining four were just enough for everyone else. Each person could have their own room, ensuring they all had their own private space.

All five bedrooms were already furnished with beds, cabinets, and other furniture, so Melody didn’t need to acquire anything else.

She put away some unnecessary trinkets and decorations, temporarily storing them in her dimensional space to free up more storage room.

She stuffed the desk drawers and storage cabinets in each bedroom with common medicines and daily necessities like heat packs, toilet paper, wet wipes, and skincare products.

After filling the desks and cabinets, she opened the wardrobes and filled them with the cold-weather clothing she had previously hoarded.

Thermal underwear, down jackets, cotton-padded coats...

As well as furs, scarves, and gloves...

Her family would just need to bring some personal changes of clothes with them.

Finally, she laid a heating blanket on each bed and added several thick cotton quilts and woolen blankets. It would be incredibly cozy to snuggle under the covers when the weather turned cold.

After setting up the cabinets and beds, she took out the fan heaters, oil-filled radiators, and radiant heaters she had bought earlier from her dimensional space. If the air conditioners failed to work in the extreme cold, these devices would serve as a backup.

Just as she was about to leave, Melody suddenly recalled some news stories she had read about fires caused by people forgetting to turn off their electric blankets. She went back and placed a few fire extinguishers in each bedroom.

With the bedrooms arranged, that left the two studies and the fitness room in 1605.

Melody didn’t plan on clearing out the fitness room. During the blizzard, no one would be able to go outside, so having a gym for the family to exercise in would be a good thing.

As for the two studies, Melody planned to use them primarily for hoarding other essential supplies.

Melody moved all the furniture and decorations from the studies into her dimensional space. Then, she took out numerous storage racks and arranged them in the rooms.

’The load-bearing capacity of a residential building is about 200 kilograms per square meter,’ Melody thought. ’I have to keep the weight within that limit while I’m stocking up.’

The first thing to hoard was energy. Melody remembered from her past life that during the deep freeze, the government’s heating was intermittent. Due to energy shortages, the government later began rationing electricity.

She first moved two generators into the room, followed by a dozen or so barrels of gasoline and diesel. From her previous experience, Melody knew this fuel would be consumed quickly; this amount probably wouldn’t last until the end of the blizzard.

However, considering the floor’s weight limit, this was all she could place for now. If it wasn’t enough later, she would have to secretly replenish it without her family knowing.

She had bought a lot of outdoor equipment from a supply store before, including some coal-burning stoves. Melody placed the stoves in a corner and took out a portion of the coal she had mined from the Arcadian Mines, piling it up nearby.

Back when they lived on Mount Anworth, every household in the village used coal for heating. People would gather around the stove, roasting sweet potatoes on top while they chatted, passing one cold, snowy day after another.

With energy taken care of, Melody turned her attention to the water supply. The national water supply was already being rationed daily. During the deep freeze, the pipes would freeze solid. The only option then would be water delivered by trucks, with each household having to collect their share with buckets.

In her past life, Melody was still living at the Lancaster Villa during the deep freeze. The Lancasters had some spare cash at the time and could afford to buy a massive tank of water for an exorbitant price. But using a large water tank wasn’t practical in a residential complex, so she had to find her own solution.

Melody took out the bottled water she had previously hoarded from her dimensional space. She lined the floors of the two studies with cases of water, placing them along the base of the walls. To avoid exceeding the weight limit, she put some of it in the living room as well.

After arranging the water resources, it was time to consider food.

Melody took out some basic staples like grains, oil, rice, and flour, as well as high-calorie snacks like chocolate, sandwich cookies, and various nuts. Carefully calculating the weight, she took out a bit of everything and filled the empty storage racks.

After setting up the two studies, Melody moved on to the kitchen.

The two apartments came with two kitchens. Since they were both high-end renovations, both kitchens were equipped with a full set of cookware and appliances.

Melody stood in the kitchen of 1606, looked around, and murmured, "In my past life, I cooked in here for about a year..."

Not that she ever got to eat any of it, of course.

Melody had previously hired contractors to modify the plumbing in both kitchens, connecting a medium-sized water tank to each. When filled, the tanks were just within the floor’s 200-kilogram load capacity.

Melody filled the empty tanks with water from the Arcadian Stream. These two tanks of water would be used for cooking and washing dishes; if used sparingly, they would last for some time.

Then, she took out instant foods, dehydrated vegetables, and various seasonings from her dimensional space, cramming the kitchen cabinets full.

With food and clothing sorted, the remaining problems to solve were personal hygiene and waste.

When she’d had the apartments modified, she’d had medium-sized water tanks installed in all the bathrooms at her request.

Tanks of this size definitely couldn’t support daily showers for several months. Fortunately, the human body barely sweats in dry, cold conditions, so daily bathing wouldn’t be necessary. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Melody filled the bathroom tanks to provide enough water for the whole family to flush toilets and wash up. She planned to secretly refill them from time to time when her family wasn’t looking.

Finally, Melody partitioned off an area in the living room where she had previously asked the contractors to install grow lights.

She brought out some styrofoam boxes and placed them under the lights. These could be used to grow vegetables. Although the planting area wasn’t as large as the vegetable patch in the villa’s yard, it would be enough to feed her family.

It was worth noting that there were also two large fish tanks in the living room of 1605, likely left by the previous owner for keeping ornamental fish. Melody filled the tanks with water from the Arcadian Stream; she could raise fish in them later.

And so, Melody spent the entire afternoon working in the two apartments, finally managing to cram them full of supplies while staying within the floor’s load-bearing limit.

Looking at the fruits of her afternoon’s labor, Melody let out a long sigh of relief. ’These supplies should be enough to last my family until the snow stops,’ she thought.

She still had plenty of things in her dimensional space. If they ran short of anything later, she could always replenish it when her family wasn’t looking.

Just as Melody, holding Albus, was about to lie down on the soft bed for a quick rest, her phone rang.

Melody took out her phone and looked at the screen. It was Sylvia Lancaster!

Melody was confused. ’Didn’t Sylvia Lancaster get injured in a fall? Why is she calling me?’

The moment Melody answered, Sylvia Lancaster’s arrogant voice came through the line. "Melody Summers, I’m in the hospital. The food here is terrible, I can’t stomach it. Make some chicken soup and bring it to me now!"

Listening to the voice on the other end, Melody’s face was a mask of utter confusion.

’Has Sylvia Lancaster lost her mind?’