When Ronan Rhodes told Sophie Thorne about all this, she was also quite shocked.

Sophie felt that not even this natural disaster was as insane as these people...

Seeing Melody Summers’ dumbfounded expression, Sophie Thorne gripped her hand back worriedly and cautioned, "You know, Ethan Sutton is the last of the Sutton family’s bloodline, after all. What happened to him was a huge blow to them..."

"Now that the main culprit, Raymond Hayes, is dead, the Suttons’ anger needs an outlet. Mrs. Sutton went to Rhodes and reported Simon Lancaster, which shows that the Suttons are putting the blame on the Lancaster family."

"Melody, you do have that connection with the Lancaster family, so I’m worried the Suttons might start holding a grudge against you over this. And now they’ve coincidentally moved in downstairs from you. You have to be careful!"

Looking at Sophie Thorne’s worried expression, Melody Summers slowly nodded as she processed the overwhelming amount of new information...

******

The Lancaster Villa.

It might have been because she’d caught a cold while searching for fever medicine for Simon Lancaster, or perhaps she’d simply exhausted herself from having to climb onto the roof to shovel snow these past few days.

In any case, Sylvia Lancaster had been running a high fever since last night.

Sylvia lay in bed, her eyes squeezed shut and her lips cracked. A low groan escaped her throat. "Mmm... Water..."

With no heating, Sylvia’s room was freezing. Even its only source of warmth—a hot water bottle—had long since lost its heat and turned cold.

Her body was burning up, her face flushed red, and beads of sweat trickled down her forehead from time to time. Despite being under a thick quilt, she was still shivering uncontrollably from the cold.

In her feverish agony, Sylvia’s muddled mind kept returning to one thought: ’If only I had Arcadia right now...’

’If I had Arcadia, I could drink from The Arcadian Stream. Even if the stream’s water couldn’t break the fever, it would at least ease the pain...’

Just as Sylvia was lost in her fantasy, the door to her room opened.

Hearing the sound, Sylvia turned her head with some difficulty and saw Elaine Hughes standing in the doorway, frowning.

Sylvia’s eyes lit up slightly at the sight of her. She opened her mouth and said in a hoarse voice, "Mom, can you get me a glass of water...?"

Sylvia felt as if her throat was on fire. She desperately needed water, but her body was so weak she didn’t have the strength to get out of bed.

She looked at Elaine with hopeful eyes, but Elaine ignored her.

Elaine strode to Sylvia’s bedside in a few steps and snapped, "What time do you think it is? Why are you still in bed? You didn’t make breakfast, and now you plan to skive off making lunch too? Get your ass to the kitchen and cook!"

Hearing this, Sylvia stared at Elaine in disbelief.

’Cook?!’

’I feel this awful, and Mom still wants me to cook?!’

Sylvia’s voice trembled as she asked, "Mom, I... COUGH, COUGH... I have a fever... I feel terrible all over. How can I possibly cook?"

Then, she looked at Elaine hopefully again, pleading, "Mom, please just get me a glass of water first... Let me have a sip. I... COUGH, COUGH... I’m so thirsty..."

By now, Sylvia’s eyes were brimming with tears, and her voice was so raspy it sounded like sandpaper.

In the past, seeing Sylvia like this would have broken Elaine Hughes’s heart.

But now, Elaine just stared at Sylvia with a cold gaze, as if looking at a complete stranger.

She said coldly, "I don’t care if you have a fever or not. As long as you’re still breathing, you get down there and cook! Let me tell you, the Lancaster family won’t feed a freeloader!"

Meeting Elaine’s icy gaze, Sylvia felt her heart drop with a THUD, as if it had plunged straight into a deep well.

She couldn’t help but scream in her heart: ’Why is this happening?’

’Elaine used to dote on me so much. Why is she so cold to me now?’

Sylvia fought back her tears and asked in a trembling voice, "Mom! Why? Why are you treating me like this...? I’m your favorite daughter..."

But before Sylvia could even finish, Elaine strode forward and slapped her hard across the face!

A sharp "SLAP!" echoed through the empty room.

Elaine shook her stinging palm and glared at Sylvia with hatred. "Shut up! You bitch! You are not my daughter. From the moment you seduced your older brother, you stopped being my daughter!"

Sylvia’s face stung from Elaine’s slap.

Her face was already flushed from the high fever, and now her cheek was so red it looked like it might bleed.

But what hurt more than her face was her heart.

Sylvia couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst into tears.

Elaine glared at Sylvia and continued to curse, "What are you crying for! Who are you putting on a show for! You little bitch born from a nanny! I heard your mother was a homewrecker, so it’s no wonder she’d give birth to a cheap piece of trash like you! Seducing your own brother!"

"If it weren’t for you, my son wouldn’t have been ruined like this! If it weren’t for you, my daughter wouldn’t have disowned me! This is all your fault!"

"You have a fever, is that it? Then why don’t you just die?! Go on and die right now!"

Elaine vented all her pent-up dissatisfaction on Sylvia, her hateful gaze making it seem like she wished she could slice Sylvia into a thousand pieces.

Meanwhile, Sylvia just stared blankly at Elaine, tears streaming down her face in silence.

She felt the last shred of hope in her heart shatter.

Elaine’s words were like knives, mangling her heart into a bloody pulp.

For most people, no pain is greater than that inflicted by one’s own mother.

It was like this: if someone else cut you with a knife, you could strike back to get revenge. If one cut wasn’t enough to vent your anger, you could strike back twice. If two cuts weren’t enough, you could strike three or four times.

But to be cut by your own mother’s hand... that felt like the sky itself was falling.

Sylvia murmured, "Then what does that make me...? I’m a child you raised with your own hands, too..."

Sylvia didn’t understand how Elaine could be so heartless, as if their mother-daughter bond of over twenty years had never existed.

Seeing her tear-streaked face, Elaine just snorted coldly and said irritably, "Crying, crying, that’s all you know how to do. Stop crying! Now hurry up and get downstairs to cook! Otherwise, the Lancaster family won’t keep you!"

With that, Elaine turned and stormed out.

Sylvia lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, letting snot and tears run freely down her face.

The pain in her heart had gone numb, leaving only an icy coldness.

She had completely given up on Elaine.

’Elaine kept saying that she seduced Simon Lancaster, but when it comes to feelings, it takes two to tango. Why did Elaine and Robert Lancaster only blame her and not Simon?’

’Simon was several years older than her. If anyone was doing any seducing, it should have been the older brother seducing his younger sister.’

’In Elaine’s eyes, the older Simon had somehow become the innocent boy... How ridiculous.’

Sylvia endlessly replayed the events of her past and present lives in her mind. Her brain ached from the fever, but her consciousness was crystal clear.

She thought about her past life. Even after she’d found Arcadia, she hadn’t abandoned the down-and-out Lancasters. She had used the very first money she earned from the water of the Arcadian Stream to buy supplies for Elaine.

She hadn’t wronged the Lancasters; the Lancasters had wronged her!

Since Elaine was heartless, she shouldn’t be blamed for disregarding their mother-daughter bond...

At this thought, Sylvia’s trembling hands took out her phone. Following the memories from her past life, she searched for and added Joanne White’s account.