Chapter 773 --773

Chapter 773: Chapter-773

Of course, the gossiping men of the East Market weren’t going to let her off the hook that easily. Having caught the scent of high-society drama, they were completely zeroed in.

The man in the emerald silk, clearly a seasoned veteran of courtyard gossip, leaned forward and rested his chin lightly on his fan. He looked at her with a blunt, conspiratorial gleam in his eye.

"Oh my, My Lady," he purred. "Let us be honest. To endure a public beating and get thrown into the slums... is it that you fell in love with someone secret? A forbidden romance, perhaps?"

Heena looked at him, letting a soft, amused breath escape her lips. She raised her hand to lightly cover the lower half of her face, feigning a polite, aristocratic modesty.

"Of course not, My Lord," Heena replied, her voice dropping into a smooth, teasing cadence. She let her dark eyes sweep over the small crowd of veiled men. "I simply haven’t found anyone nearly as good-looking as you gentlemen yet."

In any other context, a woman making that comment to a group of married men in a public shop would be considered crude, aggressive street harassment. But Heena didn’t leer, and she didn’t step into their personal space. She delivered the line with the effortless, untouchable charm of a wandering noble poet.

Rather than taking offense, the men instantly fluttered their fans, a wave of delighted, scandalous giggles rippling through the group.

"Oh my, is that so?" the lilac-robed youth gasped, his eyes curving into pleased crescents behind his veil.

"It is," Heena nodded, seamlessly steering the narrative exactly where she wanted it to go. Who in this district didn’t know the original Lu Heena had been beaten and disowned? If she didn’t rewrite the story right now, she would forever be known as the pathetic, cast-off garbage of the Lu estate. She needed these men to build her a brand-new cover.

"The truth is, I asked my mother to formally separate our family branch first," Heena explained, letting a weary, misunderstood shadow cross her face. "My brother-in-law kept introducing me to these stiff, wealthy men from the upper rings, trying to force a political match. I rejected every single one of them. You all know how traditional the Matriarch is—she was absolutely furious that I dared to ask for independence. So, she beat me to make an example of me, and then disowned me."

The men exchanged wide-eyed glances, completely enraptured. This was exactly how women in a traditional patriarchy gossiped at the market, and the men of this matriarchal empire were no different. They lived for the drama of the high estates.

"But why endure the beating?" one of the commoner husbands asked softly. "Why not just accept the wealthy match?"

"Because of the humiliation it would bring my future husband!" Heena declared, gesturing emphatically. She tapped into the most universal, relatable fear of every married man in the empire. "Listen, I absolutely refuse to be that kind of useless wife. Imagine my husband comes to me, smiling, wanting to buy a beautiful new jade hairpin for the autumn festival. Am I supposed to look him in the eye and say, ’Hold on, darling, I need to go beg my mother for an allowance so I can buy it for you’?"

A collective gasp echoed through the hardware shop.

Heena had struck absolute gold. In this society, men relied entirely on their wives for financial support. The absolute worst nightmare for a husband was being married to a powerless daughter who still had to beg her strict, stingy mother for every single copper coin.

"Oh, heavens, the indignity," the emerald-silk man shuddered, pressing his fan to his chest. "Having to ask a mother-in-law for hairpin money... I would rather wear wood."

"Exactly!" Heena agreed passionately. "That is exactly why I decided to be separated! I want to provide for my own household."

However, the emerald-silk man was sharp. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "But My Lady, if you wanted to establish your own household... why didn’t you negotiate for a shop deed or an estate? Why let them throw you out with nothing but the clothes on your back?"

It was the ultimate trap question. If she was so fiercely independent, leaving empty-handed just made her look stupid.

Up on the rafters, the System stopped laughing, suddenly tense. "Careful, Host. He caught the plot hole."

Heena didn’t miss a beat. She didn’t look flustered, nor did she look defensive. Instead, her expression smoothed out into a mask of deep, unshakeable sincerity. She looked the emerald-silk man dead in the eye.

"Because Lu family property belongs to the Lu Matriarch," Heena stated, her raspy voice turning incredibly soft, yet carrying an absolute, iron-clad conviction.

She let her gaze drift over the men, speaking as if she were making a vow to the heavens themselves.

"Actually... I want my future partner—no matter who he is—to have absolute peace of mind," Heena whispered. "I don’t care if he is a high-born noble, a commoner, a hired servant, or even a bought slave. When he becomes mine, I never, ever want anyone from high society to whisper behind his back that he is living off my mother’s charity. I never want him to hear that the bed he sleeps in or the silk he wears is ’Lu family property’ that he is merely borrowing."

The entire shop went dead silent. You could hear a pin drop on the wooden floorboards.

"I want everything he touches to be undeniably, exclusively mine," Heena finished, a fierce, protective fire burning in her dark eyes. "Because whatever I build with my own two hands... will be entirely his."

Checkmate.

The sheer, overwhelming romantic weight of that statement hit the crowd of sheltered, domestically-minded men like a physical shockwave.

To hear a notoriously cold, arrogant noblewoman declare that she would willingly build an empire from the mud just so her hypothetical husband—even a slave!—would never have to suffer the sneers of high society... it was devastating. It was the kind of dialogue written in the climax of famous opera plays.

The youth in lilac actually swayed on his feet, clutching his wooden rice paddle to his chest as if his heart might beat right out of his ribs. Even the sharp-tongued emerald-silk man was completely speechless, his fan slipping slightly in his grip as he stared at her in profound, starry-eyed awe.

Inside Heena’s mind, the System was slowly clapping. "I am horrified. I am disgusted. I am absolutely taking notes. You are a sociopath, Host."

"It’s called public relations," Heena replied coldly in her head.

With her legendary status as the East Market’s most tragic, fiercely devoted romantic now permanently cemented in the local gossip network, Heena offered the stunned crowd one final, elegant nod.

"Have a wonderful afternoon, gentlemen," Heena smiled warmly.

She turned, paid the blacksmith her remaining coppers, and stepped out into the bustling street. Behind her, she could already hear the frantic, explosive whispering of a dozen men preparing to spread the gospel of the Black Lotus to every corner of the capital.

She pulled her black wool cloak tight, checked the ropes securing her new heavy cast-iron woks to the hired handcart, and began the walk back to her dusty apothecary. It was time to cook.