Zoe Kane looked up, a little surprised. "Your third brother?"

"Yeah," Caleb Summers nodded, his brow furrowed slightly. "My third brother is the most good-for-nothing of us five siblings, especially after he got hooked on gambling..."

Caleb Summers’s younger brother, Cameron Summers, was the third child in the family and the older brother of Winnie and Maeve.

Unlike his siblings, Cameron Summers had gotten hooked on gambling years ago, and it had spiraled out of control.

The family had already paid off his gambling debts several times. He always promised he’d quit, but he never kept his word.

Eventually, left with no other choice, Colin and the others threw him out of the house, declaring that the Summers family had disowned him and would no longer be responsible for his gambling debts.

After that, Cameron seemed to clean up his act. He got a job at a factory, got married, and even had a kid.

He later brought his wife and child back home, and seeing this, the family welcomed him back, agreeing to give him one more chance. But it wasn’t long before they discovered he had started gambling again, and he was thrown out once more...

After being kicked out again, he didn’t dare contact the family. However, he would occasionally ask his second brother, Caleb, for money to tide him over.

Caleb didn’t want to deal with him either, but he was afraid Cameron would show up at his work and cause a scene. Since he only ever asked for a few hundred for food, Caleb would just give it to him, treating it like he was shooing away a beggar.

"After the disaster, he asked me for Mom’s new address several times. At first, I was worried he’d cause trouble for the family, so I never told him."

"I just called him and gave him the address for The Metropolis Residences..."

Caleb thought to himself, ’Once Cameron gets there, Mom and my older brother won’t be able to just ignore him.’

’This way, not only can I cause them some trouble and get some payback for my mother-in-law, but with Cameron there, he can also keep an eye on things for her side. Killing two birds with one stone!’

At that thought, Caleb patted Zoe Kane’s shoulder reassuringly. "Don’t worry," he comforted her. "With my brother there, he’ll definitely help look out for your mother!"

******

Meanwhile, after leaving the Summers’ apartment, Zella Kane and Mrs. Kane, though frustrated, decided to go to 1505 to buy a bed.

The weather was growing colder by the day, and the ground was bone-chilling. A single, flimsy tent was no defense against the cold that seeped up from below.

If they slept on the floor again tonight, the two children would surely be woken by the cold.

Zella Kane and her boyfriend, Forrest Archer, went to 1505. After they knocked, they introduced themselves to Mrs. Vance as the new neighbors from 1604 and explained the reason for their visit.

When Mrs. Vance heard they wanted to buy her bed, she beamed and nodded enthusiastically.

She had been planning to haul those two beds to the black market, but they were too heavy, and she hadn’t figured out how to manage it.

Now that a buyer had come to her, she quickly invited the pair into the bedroom.

Mrs. Vance pointed to the large bed in the spare bedroom and said with a grin, "This bed’s barely been used since I bought it. It’s practically brand new... Oh, right, how many people are in your family? This is a two-meter-wide bed; two adults and a child could sleep on it with room to spare!"

Zella Kane answered, "There are five of us in total. Three adults and two children."

Mrs. Vance said, "Oh, I see... I also have a one-and-a-half-meter bed in my other guest room. You could push the two beds together, and all five of you would fit with no problem."

Zella Kane sighed. ’I guess this will have to do,’ she thought.

So she looked up at Mrs. Vance and said, "I’ll take both beds. Can you cut us a deal?"

Mrs. Vance was inwardly delighted and nodded quickly. "No problem! I can even help you carry them upstairs in a bit! ...By the way, how did you know I had spare beds I wanted to sell?"

Mrs. Vance thought, ’I don’t remember telling anyone about this. How on earth did they find out?’

Zella Kane swept her long hair back and replied, "We heard from the people in 1606."

It dawned on Mrs. Vance. ’Miss Summers is such a wonderful person!’ she thought. ’I only mentioned in passing that I wanted to sell my two spare beds, I can’t believe she actually remembered!’

Mrs. Vance decided that as soon as she got the money for the beds, she would buy some rice and bring it over to Melody Summers!

Since Melody Summers had sent them, Mrs. Vance couldn’t bring herself to name a high price.

The two beds had originally cost over 4,000 combined. Even though they were secondhand, they were practically new. And with how much the currency had depreciated since the disaster, she could have gotten at least 6,000 for them on the black market. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

’But since Melody Summers sent the buyer,’ Mrs. Vance thought, ’selling them for the original price would be fair enough...’

But before Mrs. Vance could say a word, Zella Kane continued, "Those people in 1606 aren’t very nice... You have no idea. Our families are related by marriage, you see. The apartment we’re renting now has no furniture, so we just asked them for a little help, to let us use a few of their rooms. Can you believe they just flat-out refused!"

Hearing this, the smile on Mrs. Vance’s face slowly vanished.

Zella Kane didn’t notice the change in Mrs. Vance’s expression. As if venting, she went on, completely absorbed in her own story. "You tell me, how can people be so heartless? My sister just turned thirty, and their son is over forty!"

"We didn’t make a fuss about their son’s age, and we didn’t complain when they didn’t have a wedding or offer a betrothal gift. We still let my sister marry into their family."

"Now that we’re in trouble, all we asked was to borrow a place to stay for a little while. We were hoping they’d help, but I never expected them to be so completely unfeeling!"

After Zella Kane finished, Mrs. Vance silently pulled her hand away. She lowered her gaze and said, "...That’s another family’s business. It’s not my place to comment..."

But how could Mrs. Vance not understand? She’d lived a long life; she was as savvy as they come.

’This woman in front of me is one of the Summers’ in-laws,’ she thought. ’She tried to leverage that connection to move into their home, and when they said no, she got desperate!’

’And all that talk about her sister being in her thirties while the man was in his forties, with no wedding or gifts... If she felt so wronged and cared so much about those things, yet was still so eager for the marriage to happen, it most likely meant the groom’s circumstances were far better than the bride’s!’

’Marriage is a transaction at its core. When the benefits of the union far outweigh the value of a wedding and gifts, those formalities suddenly don’t seem so important anymore.’

Mrs. Vance saw the situation with perfect clarity, and any positive feeling she might have had for the woman in front of her evaporated.

’No one was going to stand there and bad-mouth her benefactor to her face!’

When Zella Kane saw that Mrs. Vance wasn’t joining in to bash the Summers family, she tried to stir the pot again. "Did you know? I was at 1606 today, and I saw juice cans and apple peels in their trash! They must have a lot of supplies..."

"We’re in the middle of a disaster! Everyone is surviving on sand vine cakes, but they’re over there eating apples and drinking juice... To have all those supplies and not even think to help their neighbors... they’re so selfish! Don’t you agree?"

At this, Mrs. Vance had to suppress an eye-roll of epic proportions.

’Good heavens,’ she thought, ’this woman’s got more nerve than I do, and I’ve seen it all! The Summers family was kind enough to tell her she could buy a bed from me, and in return, she tries to stab them in the back!’

Mrs. Vance waved her hand impatiently. "Alright, that’s enough. I don’t know anything about other people’s business, and I’m not the type to gossip or meddle... Anyway, are you still buying these beds or not? It’s ten thousand for the pair. If you want them, you can pay now."

Zella Kane gasped. "Ten thousand?! That’s so expensive!"