[Something in Ren's expression shifts subtly at that, in a way that's difficult to read. Sounds a lot like the kind of thing he's been known to call "taking a sick joke too far".]

Well, hopefully someone made an example of them right back. [Ren's tone is cheery enough, but there's...something deeper underlying it that hadn't been there before, though it disappears almost as soon as he says that, as if it had never been there in the first place.] Anyway, it sounds like they might have had the opposite effect than they wanted if things have been quieter between the cities since then, right?