At Melody Summers’s words, Cameron Summers’s eyes lit up, his voice jumping an octave in excitement. "Really?!"

The initial joy passed, and Cameron started to feel awkward. He was genuinely embarrassed to be borrowing money from his own niece.

He rubbed his hands together awkwardly and kept promising, "My dear niece, I’ll treat this as a loan! The moment I’m making money again, I’ll pay you back with interest, I swear!"

Melody Summers nodded. "Okay."

In truth, her third uncle had been very good to Melody before he started gambling online.

When they were kids, Nina Summers had brought a comic book with her on a trip back to their hometown. Melody was at the age where she was dying to read such things, but Nina refused to let her even look at it.

Her third uncle had seen Melody’s envy and bought her a whole set of comic books, telling her gently, "Our little Melody should have everything the other little girls have. When your uncle makes more money, I’ll buy our little Melody even more toys and pretty dresses!"

Back then, the look of pure affection on her uncle’s face as he watched her had filled Melody’s heart with warmth.

Every time she remembered this, Melody was filled with a deep sense of melancholy. ’If only he hadn’t gotten hooked on gambling,’ she’d think. ’How wonderful that would have been...’

But time couldn’t be turned back, and what was done was done.

Now, even though she was wary of him, Melody was still willing to offer this small bit of help. She couldn’t just stand by and watch her uncle’s family of three freeze to death.

Melody sighed to herself, then pulled out her phone to message Tate.

[Tate, are you back at the Residences? Some relatives of mine need to rent an apartment here. I don’t want to rent out 1603 or 1604, so could you please check if there are any other vacant units available?]

Tate replied almost instantly.

[Of course, Miss Summers! I’m on my way!]

About ten minutes later, Tate arrived at the door.

After getting the full picture, Tate thought for a moment. "There’s a vacant apartment in this building, unit 1101 on the 11th floor. Would that work?"

Melody nodded. "That’s perfect. Could you please take my uncle and his family over to sign the contract?"

’The 11th floor is a good spot,’ she thought. ’Close enough to keep an eye on them, but not so close that they’d be dropping by every day.’ It was the perfect place for her uncle’s family.

Her uncle’s family was thrilled. They immediately stood up, grabbed their luggage, and prepared to leave with Tate.

Seeing only two pieces of luggage, Tate hesitated. "Excuse me, is this all you have? We don’t have any fully furnished units available right now. The apartment on the 11th floor has no furniture, no bedding, and no heating equipment. You’ll need to acquire all those things yourselves..."

Her uncle scratched his head, looking troubled. "We did have more luggage, but we had to abandon three pieces on the way here. Our bedding and a space heater were in those bags..."

The three of them had come over on a government disaster relief vehicle. Its capacity was limited, so they weren’t allowed to bring much luggage to begin with—two pieces per adult and one for a minor. Their family of three had five pieces in total.

But when the vehicle dropped them off in the city, they discovered the buses weren’t running.

It was a three or four-kilometer walk from the drop-off point to The Metropolis Residences, so they had to make the journey on foot.

It was freezing outside, with heavy wind and snow. Halfway there, they were too exhausted to go on and had no choice but to abandon three of their bags. Otherwise, they feared they would all freeze to death before they arrived.

Seeing their plight, Melody spoke up. "It’s all right, Uncle. Why don’t you go with Tate and get checked in first? Once that’s done, you’ll be eligible to receive supplies from the complex, like free down jackets and other things."

"And don’t worry about bedding and heating equipment. We have extras here. We’ll bring them over to you in a little while!"

Cameron scratched his head, looking embarrassed. "Is that really okay? That stuff is so expensive now. If you give it to us, will you have enough for yourselves?"

He instinctively glanced toward his mother.

But she just grimaced and looked away, not saying a word.

A wave of disappointment washed over Cameron. He knew his mother still hadn’t forgiven him. It was his own fault for being such a bastard back in the day.

Seeing how tense the situation was, Grace Sutton quickly stepped in to smooth things over. "We have plenty, we have plenty, don’t you worry," she said to Cameron. "When your older brother gets back, we’ll help bring it all over to you!"

Cameron finally relaxed. He thanked everyone again before leaving with his wife and son, following Tate.

They had just left apartment 1606 when Cameron’s phone rang.

Cameron pulled out his phone and saw the call was from Caleb.

He answered, and Caleb’s voice immediately came through the phone. "Hey, Cameron, how’s it going? Did you get to Mom’s place? You won’t believe this, but for some reason, my mother-in-law’s landlord just suddenly canceled her lease!"

"The place my mother-in-law moved into is just a concrete shell! The floors aren’t even tiled, and the utilities aren’t fully hooked up. How is anyone supposed to live there? You need to talk to Mom and our older brother and get them to free up an apartment for her and her family!"

Cameron replied, "Caleb, stop. Mom has no obligation to find a place for your mother-in-law. Besides, there really aren’t any spare rooms here. Even I’m not staying at Mom’s. I’m renting an unfurnished place in the complex, same as your mother-in-law."

Caleb sounded surprised. "What did you just say?" he asked, incredulous. "You got kicked out, too?! How could Mom and our brother be so heartless?"

In Caleb’s eyes, his younger brother Cameron had always been the family favorite. Why else would they have helped him pay off his loans time and time again?

Cameron corrected him. "I wasn’t ’kicked out,’ Caleb. The family is already doing everything they can to help me. Mom and our brother have no obligation to clean up our messes."

The unspoken message was clear: Your mother-in-law is your problem. Mom and their brother had no obligation to help you suck up to her.

Caleb understood the subtext and almost laughed in disbelief. He gritted his teeth. "Oh, really, Cameron? You’ve got some nerve saying that to me. You think I haven’t been cleaning up your messes all these years? When did you ever ask for money that I didn’t give it to you? How dare you say that to me now? Where the hell do you get the nerve?"

Cameron sighed. Facing his brother’s fury over the phone, he said earnestly, "Caleb, I know you’ve helped me a lot over the years, and I’ve always been grateful. I’ll pay back the money I borrowed from you, little by little. But I don’t want to put Mom in a difficult position. I can’t help your mother-in-law... I’m sorry."

Caleb couldn’t stop himself from spewing a few curses. "So what’s your game now, Cameron?" he demanded. "Are you just going to burn this bridge? You think you can just kick me to the curb now that you have Mom and our brother helping you out?"

"I’m telling you, you’d better get some supplies from Mom and take them to my mother-in-law. If you don’t, don’t blame me when I say I don’t have a brother anymore!"

Cameron was silent for a moment. "Caleb, I’m sorry about this, but I really can’t help you plot against Mom. I know you’ve always resented her for not giving you a better start in life, but she’s never done anything to wrong you."

"To send you to college, almost everyone’s salary in the family went to you. Mom always favored you. You should really think about it. Haven’t you gone too far? Is this really how you should be treating your family?"

Before Caleb had a chance to argue, Cameron hung up the phone.

...