As they entered the banquet hall, quite a few people took the initiative to greet Sophie Thorne. Melody Summers listened quietly from the side; they were all asking Sophie about her fiancé Ronan Rhodes’s family business in indoor agriculture and livestock.

’The rich really do have a keen sense of smell,’ Melody thought. ’They’re much better than ordinary people at sniffing out the next big thing. It seems all these wealthy heirs want to get a piece of the pie by probing for information.’

Melody took in the banquet hall as she listened.

Electricity prices were astronomical now. Ordinary people only turned on their air conditioners for a short while when the heat became unbearable, and they couldn’t bear to turn on the lights at night. Many people had even unplugged their routers and TV boxes just to save that tiny bit of standby power.

Many of the poor couldn’t even afford their electricity bills. They had no choice but to default, and the power grid would restrict them to the lowest usage tier. Plenty of people had collapsed from heatstroke after their quota ran out.

But here in this banquet hall, the central air was running, brilliant chandeliers cast a bright glow, and the exquisitely arranged tables held delicate vases filled with fresh, tender flowers. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Melody picked up a glass of fruit wine from a tray and quietly slipped through the hall, stopping by the door to look out at the villa’s back garden.

In this scorching weather, not a single sprout could survive in the fields. Yet the backyard of Zane Simmons’s villa was filled with all kinds of flowers and plants, looking as beautiful as a vibrant oil painting under the moonlight and ambient lighting. Melody stared at the garden, lost in thought, feeling as if this place and the world outside were two different realities.

As Melody was spacing out, a young man who looked about eighteen or nineteen approached her. "Are you here alone, miss? Could I get to know you?"

Melody turned to look at him. He had a delicate, handsome, baby face, with honey-colored eyes framed by thick lashes that made him look vaguely like he had mixed heritage.

Seeing Melody look his way, the baby-faced young man blinked and offered her a friendly smile.

Melody, however, suddenly clenched the wine glass in her hand. She knew this person!

In her last life, when Melody had just returned to the Lancaster family, Elaine Hughes had also taken her to a few banquets. At those events, Melody was frequently bullied and tormented by Silas and Sylvia Lancaster’s friends.

The young man before her was one of Silas Lancaster’s friends. His name was Hugh Hayes, and his sister, Clara Hayes, was friends with Sylvia Lancaster.

The first time Hugh Hayes met Melody in her past life, he tricked her into going to the backyard and pushed her into the swimming pool. It caused Melody to catch a cold and run a fever for days.

Afterward, thanks to Silas and Sylvia Lancaster’s false testimony, Elaine Hughes and Robert Lancaster both believed Melody had slipped and fallen in on her own. No matter how she tried to explain, it was useless.

Emboldened by his initial success, Hugh secretly drugged Melody’s drink at another party. He even called over several strange men to drag her into a room to film her. Melody only managed to escape by jumping from the third floor.

She reported it to the police afterward, but the incident was covered up by the combined efforts of the Lancaster and Hayes families.

As memories of her past life flooded back, a fire ignited in Melody’s heart. She looked at Hugh Hayes coldly and answered, "No, you can’t."

Hugh was taken aback. He hadn’t expected her to reject him so decisively. After all, very few women ever turned down his advances.

But he didn’t get angry. He kept smiling and said, "But you’re so beautiful, miss. I just want to be your friend." Hugh’s baby face was a picture of harmless, innocent sincerity.

Looking at his smile, Melody felt a sudden, inexplicable chill. He had smiled just like that in her last life, right before pushing her into the pool.

"But you’re ugly, so we can’t be friends," Melody said before turning and striding away toward the villa’s back garden. She was afraid if she stayed any longer, she wouldn’t be able to resist splashing the fruit wine in her hand all over his face.

Hugh froze, the smile on his face slowly vanishing as a trace of sinister cruelty flickered in his honey-colored eyes.

"What’s wrong with you?" Silas Lancaster walked over, looking at Hugh standing there by himself, and asked with some confusion.

Silas Lancaster and Hugh Hayes weren’t part of Zane Simmons’s circle, and they hadn’t been invited to this gathering. However, a friend of Zane’s knew Hugh’s older brother, Raymond Hayes, and had invited him. Raymond couldn’t make it, but Silas and Hugh were so bored at home that they decided to tag along and crash the party.

A cold smirk played on Hugh’s lips. He silently watched Melody’s retreating back, nonchalantly swirling the wine in his glass. "It’s nothing," he replied. "Just ran into a worthless bitch who doesn’t know her place."

Hugh had initially approached Melody because he saw she was dressed plainly but was also very beautiful. He figured she was a social climber looking for a sugar daddy at the party. He never expected her to dare to disrespect him like that.

If he didn’t have to give Zane Simmons face and couldn’t cause a scene, he would have had someone teach that ignorant bitch a harsh lesson on the spot!

Silas followed Hugh’s gaze toward the backyard, only to see someone completely unexpected—

Melody Summers!

Silas froze for a second. When he recovered, a surge of rage shot to his head. Without a second thought, he stormed over and confronted her.

"What are you doing here?! Why are you here!?"

Melody frowned at the sound of his voice. It was all too familiar. She didn’t even want to turn her head.

’Running into two damn pests in a row has really soured my mood. I knew I shouldn’t have come.’

Silas Lancaster frowned at Melody. He couldn’t figure out why she would be here!

Silas asked probingly, "Melody Summers, you talk a big game about not wanting to come back to the Lancaster family, but are you out here swindling people using your status as a Lancaster daughter?!"

Melody turned to face him and replied with a cold laugh, "A Lancaster daughter? What a jinxed title. How shameless are you people to keep trying to brand me with it? Why is your family so desperate to latch onto me? The Lancasters are about to go bankrupt. Don’t let your family’s bad luck rub off on me!"

The scorn in Melody’s eyes stung Silas. He gritted his teeth. "Then how did you get in here? Is a party like this somewhere a country bumpkin like you can be?!"

"Or could it be..." Silas squinted, carefully sizing Melody up. He stared at her beautiful face and said with disdain, "Or could it be... you’re living the good life now by hooking up with men? Did your sugar daddy bring you in?"

Believing he had discovered the truth, Silas cursed angrily, "Melody Summers, I can’t believe you’ve fallen this far. You’d rather sell your body than come back to the Lancaster family? You’re a joke!"

It wasn’t that Silas wanted Melody to return to the Lancaster family, but he knew that Elaine Hughes had recently gone to Melody’s school specifically to find her, only to leave without getting her current address.

And Sylvia Lancaster was sad that Melody wouldn’t attend her wedding, and had secretly cried to him about it.

Silas had kept a mental record of Elaine and Sylvia’s pain. He planned to settle the score with Melody, item by item. He had been frustrated that he couldn’t find her, but now, unexpectedly, here she was.

Melody let out a cold laugh and retorted, "Mr. Lancaster, you seem to be an expert on the subject. Is it because your whole family is in the business, so you assume everyone else is, too?"

Melody mimicked Silas’s disdainful expression and clicked her tongue twice. "TSK TSK. Now, Mr. Lancaster, that’s not right. You can’t just assume everyone in the world is like that just because your family is in that profession. Do you really love projecting so much?"

Silas flew into a rage. He roared at Melody in disbelief, "How can you talk like that?! Do you have any idea how many places Mom went to look for you? Do you know how sad Sylvia was that you refused to attend her wedding?"

Melody knew perfectly well that Sylvia wanted her at the wedding just to flaunt her love with Ethan Sutton, and Elaine wanted her home simply because she couldn’t stand being defied.

Melody gave Silas a mocking smile. "I get it now. Your family is just as pathetic as you are, all of you desperate to cling to me."

Enraged, Silas reached out to grab Melody’s hair—

Melody had already pulled the taser from her dress pocket, ready to give Silas another electrifying lesson.

But before she could make a move, two people suddenly ran over and stood in front of Silas.

"What’s going on, Mr. Lancaster? Why are you bullying a young lady here?"

"That’s right, Mr. Lancaster. Let’s talk things out. You’re a grown man, why are you about to get physical with a girl?"

The two men were impeccably dressed and carried themselves with an air of sophistication. They were clearly young masters from wealthy families.

Melody sighed internally. ’These two are really cramping my style.’ Her experiences from her past life taught her that Silas Lancaster was not someone you could reason with. He operated on his own twisted logic, which allowed him to commit evil acts against innocent people while believing he was in the right. With someone like that, you could only beat him into submission.

Silas looked at Melody’s cold, mocking face, and the fury surged to his head. He snapped at the two men in front of him, "This woman is my family’s illegitimate daughter! She’s disrespecting my parents, so of course I can teach her a lesson! This is our family business, what’s it to you!?"