Chapter 764 --764

Chapter 764: Chapter-764

The familiar, bitter scent of boiling mugwort and raw alcohol filled Heena’s lungs as she slowly opened her eyes. She was back on the hard wooden examination table in the clinic’s back room, staring up at the water-stained ceiling beams.

Beside her, the System was anxiously pacing in mid-air, its digital tail tucked between its legs. Ren was hovering nervously at the edge of the table, holding a fresh ceramic bowl of sharp grain alcohol and a threaded bone needle, his pale face tight with worry.

Heena didn’t offer a witty remark. She didn’t roll her eyes or complain about the hard wood beneath her face. She was not in the mood at all.

Because, honestly, beneath the cold, aristocratic mask she had worn in that alley, she was scared as hell.

She wasn’t stupid. It didn’t matter whether it was her original modern world, an ancient empire, or some bizarre interdimensional novel setting. The moment you heard words like syndicate, triad, or mafia, the universal translation was always the same: things were about to get violently, irrevocably dangerous.

She had walked into that back alley fully knowing she would have to deal with dangerous people. She had expected street thugs, greedy gatekeepers, and maybe a few knife-wielding enforcers. She had been prepared to outsmart Three-Fingers Qiu with a mixture of bribery and chemical leverage.

But meeting that woman... Madam Hua.

That was entirely different.

The moment the Madam of the Crimson Lotus had stepped through that iron door, Heena had felt the crushing, suffocating pressure rolling off her. It wasn’t the loud, barking aggression of Mrs. Lynn or the crude bullying of the street thugs. It was the terrifyingly quiet, absolute certainty of an apex predator—a woman who could order a family entirely wiped from the earth without her smile slipping a fraction of an inch.

When Madam Hua had clamped her hand down on Heena’s torn shoulder, the silent message had been painstakingly clear. I own you now.

Lying on the table, Heena clenched her fists into the coarse linen sheets. Her heart was still beating an erratic, uncomfortable rhythm against her ribs.

This was not a game.

She couldn’t just rely on the original Lu Heena’s haughty reputation, a few clever bluffs, and sheer luck to keep her breathing. If she wanted to survive in this world, especially after willingly stepping into the jaws of the Black Alley syndicate, she needed to work a thousand times harder. No more messing around. No more assuming she could casually outwit everyone without building an absolute, impenetrable fortress of power around herself first.

"Miss Lu," Ren whispered, breaking through her dark thoughts. He stepped closer, his slender fingers trembling slightly as he held up the threaded needle. "The bleeding has slowed, but the heavy slap tore the binding loose. I need to re-stitch the tissue before the muscle—"

"No," Heena rasped, her voice flat and dry.

She turned her head, glancing at the needle and the sharp alcohol before calmly shaking her head. "No, thanks. I’m fine."

"You are not fine!" Ren protested, his professional medical panic briefly overriding his timid nature. "You fainted in the street! Your back is—"

"My back is exactly as it was this morning," Heena interrupted coldly, pushing herself up onto her elbows with a sharp, involuntary hiss of breath.

There hadn’t been any proper, deep surgical stitching to begin with. In this era, without modern medical staples, the brutal paddle wounds from the Lu family guards had simply been packed with thick black salve and left to form heavy, rigid scabs. Beneath the slap of Madam Hua’s heavy hand, those thick scabs had merely cracked and torn open again, spilling fresh blood. It hurt like pure, unadulterated hell—as if someone were pouring hot coals down her spine—but it wasn’t fatal.

Pain was a secondary concern right now. Survival was the only priority.

Heena gritted her teeth, swinging her legs over the edge of the examination table and planting her bare feet firmly onto the floorboards.

Old Lady Lin, who had been sitting at the small table in the corner obsessively counting the two hundred taels of silver in the leather satchel, snapped her head up.

"What do you think you are doing?!" the old woman barked, standing up so fast her stool scraped loudly against the floor. "Get back on that plank! Do you want to bleed to death on my floor?!"

"I can’t stay in this clinic forever," Heena said, her voice steadying as the cold, calculating steel returned to her eyes. She gripped the edge of the table to steady her swaying balance. "I need to go back."

Ren looked at her in absolute bewilderment. "Go back? Go back where? To the Lu estate?!"

"To my place," Heena corrected sharply. "To the apothecary shop in the East Market. The one you currently hold the mortgage deed for."

Old Lady Lin frowned deeply, clutching the silver satchel to her chest. "Are you out of your mind? It is the middle of the night! That shop is an abandoned, dusty ruin filled with cobwebs and rotting floorboards! You can barely stand up without sweating, let alone sweep a floor!"

"Which is exactly why you are coming with me," Heena stated calmly.

Both mother and son froze.

Heena turned her sharp gaze toward Old Lady Lin. "Mother Lin. We had a contract. Fifty silver taels by tomorrow night, or you take my shop. The silver is currently sitting in your arms."

Old Lady Lin instinctively hugged the leather satchel tighter against her chest, her weathered eyes narrowing. "So? You want to pay off the mortgage and kick us to the curb? Fine! Take your fifty taels out of the chest and go sleep in a freezing, empty building!"

"Don’t be stupid. I am not paying off the mortgage," Heena said smoothly, ignoring the sudden, furious flush on the old woman’s face. "I am hiring you."

Heena gestured toward the apothecary cabinets lining the walls of the clinic.

"I have a two-story building in the most expensive commercial sector of the capital, but it is currently filled with broken furniture and dust," Heena laid out the facts with ruthless, calculating precision. "I also have a seven-day deadline to deliver ten jars of Fallen Cloud and five bottles of Winter Moon to a woman who will skin us alive if we are late. I cannot lift a stone pestle right now, and I cannot chop firewood. I need hands."

She pointed a pale finger at the heavy iron plaque bearing the Crimson Lotus crest, currently resting on the side table.

"You and Ren know the distillation process, and you know the herbal ratios," Heena continued. "Pack up your medical supplies, your ceramic stills, and your clothes. We are moving operations to the East Market tonight. In exchange for your labor, that iron plaque goes on the front door, meaning Mrs. Lynn and the Timber Guild will never dare touch your son again. And out of the two hundred taels we made tonight, I am giving you a twenty percent equity stake in the cosmetic line. Forty taels are yours to keep right now, and you get two out of every ten copper coins we make going forward."

The absolute silence that followed was deafening.