Chapter 593: Zhong Ming Teahouse

After leaving Sophie Thorne’s hospital room, Melody Summers took the lunchbox to Roman Rhodes’s room.

She’d been held up with Sophie for a while, and Melody worried that Winnie Summers and Roman might be hungry. But when she hurried into Roman’s room with the food, she found that her mother wasn’t there. The room was empty except for Roman himself.

Melody froze for a second. "...Officer Rhodes, where’s my mom?" she asked.

Roman Rhodes was looking down, flipping through a file. He looked up at the sound of her voice and replied, "She went to work. With everything that happened last night, she had to leave before dawn."

"Oh," Melody said. She placed the lunchbox on the table. "Have you had breakfast then? This is homemade. Want some?"

Roman didn’t stand on ceremony. He set the file aside, picked up the bowl and chopsticks, and started eating right away.

Melody sat down on the nearby sofa. Thinking about last night’s events, she asked curiously, "Officer Rhodes, what happened to those rebels? Have they been wiped out?"

Roman swallowed a mouthful of egg roll. "You guys don’t already know? It’s just like they’re saying online. That group of subversives was wiped out in one fell swoop last night."

In the internet age, news traveled incredibly fast. No matter how heavily censored the websites were, if you were determined to find information, you could even find live broadcasts from the battlegrounds.

Hearing this, Melody hesitated for a moment before asking, "Then... what about Sophie Thorne’s father? Didn’t they say he took a bunch of his illegitimate children and fled the country on a private jet?"

Roman nodded. "Mhm, that’s right. He did flee on a private jet."

Hearing Roman say that, Melody couldn’t help but frown, her expression turning grave.

’That bastard actually got away!’

Roman glanced at Melody’s face and couldn’t resist teasing her. "What’s with that look? What are you plotting now? Don’t tell me you’re planning on chasing him across the ocean?"

Melody didn’t say anything, because that was exactly what she was thinking.

She had promised to help Sophie Thorne get her revenge, and she hadn’t been joking.

The Odyssey Station had fully automated stealth fighter jets with alien technology available for exchange. One cost a billion. If Melody gritted her teeth, she could afford one. And with a jet, she could chase him abroad...

"Alright, stop with the wild ideas!" Seeing her expression, Roman knew she was cooking up some crazy scheme. He said, exasperated, "I’ll be honest with you—that Wendell Thorne isn’t getting away!"

"His plane was sabotaged long ago. Taking off is easy, but landing... that’s going to be difficult."

The relevant authorities had discovered long ago that Wendell Thorne was colluding with foreign powers and supplying the rebels. They had planted several informants around him.

As soon as they learned he was planning to flee the country, the informant closest to him immediately tampered with his private jet.

The moment Wendell Thorne boarded that private jet with his family in tow to escape, their fate—a fiery crash with no survivors—was sealed.

Not a single person on that plane would survive.

Hearing this, Melody finally let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, that’s good..."

It was good that he was dead.

’A man who set a fire to burn his own daughter to death, a man who colluded with foreign powers to throw his country into chaos... Dying ten thousand times wouldn’t be enough for him. What right did he have to take his illegitimate children and live a life of luxury abroad?’

’He deserved to die!’

Seeing her like this, Roman couldn’t help but sigh. He sounded like he had a headache. "You’re just a young woman. What goes on in that head of yours all day? Why are you always so drawn to dangerous places? Now you’re even thinking of going abroad. Who do you think you are, Captain America? A super-spy?"

"Alright, alright! Stop talking! I get it!" Melody cut Roman off, annoyed. She muttered, "Why are you sticking your nose in my business anyway? What gives you the right... Maybe my mom will break up with you in a couple of days..."

Still, speaking of "dangerous places"...

Melody’s head snapped up. She asked Roman, "Officer Rhodes, do you know about a place called The Serene Leaf Teahouse on Valerius Avenue?"

At her question, Roman froze, chopsticks halfway to his mouth. He looked up at her in astonishment, his voice rising. "You even went into The Serene Leaf Teahouse?!"

"...What do you mean, ’went into’? I was kidnapped!" Melody corrected him. "If they hadn’t kidnapped my sister and lured me there, how would an ordinary person like me even know about a place like that!"

Hearing this, Roman’s expression turned serious. He put down his bowl and chopsticks and asked with a frown, "Kidnapped? What happened?"

Melody sighed. Leaving out the part about the Pink Diamond Ring, she explained the whole story of her grudge with Zara Walsh and the events leading to her and Nina Summers’ kidnapping.

When Melody mentioned that she and Nina had been locked in a basement, Roman’s face grew dark. "That’s way too dangerous!" he said gravely. "Those people are desperados! If you knew it was a trap, why didn’t you just call the police? Why did you still go?!"

"Call the police? Dial 911?" Melody shrugged, a look of resignation on her face. "I could have dialed 911, sure. But can you guarantee that your department is completely airtight right now? That there are no leaks?"

Roman fell silent. That was something he couldn’t guarantee.

Anti-corruption and anti-gang operations were carried out every year, and every year they turned up something new. Collusion between the authorities and criminals couldn’t even be stamped out before the cataclysm, let alone now.

Seeing Roman’s silence, Melody continued, "The Crestview Hotel had protectors in high places, so why wouldn’t The Serene Leaf Teahouse? I heard the kidnappers say that many of their clients are people within the system!"

"If I had called 911 back then and waited for the dispatcher to report it up the chain, their backers could have been alerted at any point. One tip-off, and Nina would have been killed! Nina is my grandmother’s only granddaughter. I couldn’t take that risk!"

Melody’s words were logical and well-founded. Roman couldn’t refute them. He could only sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Then you could have told me directly. That’s still better than a young woman like you going in alone. You were just walking right into a trap! If something had happened to you, what would your mother do...?"

"Weren’t you on the east side of the city fighting rebels? There wasn’t enough time!" Melody cut him off impatiently. "Besides, what could happen to me? They were just a bunch of local thugs and low-lifes. What could they possibly do to me?"

If she hadn’t been concerned about the powerful forces behind them, Melody would have killed them all before she left.

Looking at Roman’s helpless expression, Melody asked in confusion, "The people at The Serene Leaf Teahouse have done all sorts of evil. I heard they have everything—gambling, prostitution, and drugs, not to mention human trafficking and illegal surgeries. Doesn’t the government do anything about them?"