Chapter 791 --791

Chapter 791: Chapter-791

She stopped and cast a glance back at the pitch-black silhouette of her two-story apothecary.

Her fingers twitched with the urge to work. She badly wanted to start setting up the storefront. She needed to build the wooden shelves for her stationery, arrange the display counters, and organize the grocery bins so she could finally open her cover business.

But she ruthlessly forced herself to turn away.

Doing manual labor in the dead of night with nothing but a single, sputtering tallow candle was a fool’s errand. One slip of a hammer or a carving knife in the dark, and she could easily slice open her hand. In a primitive era without proper medicine, a stupid, preventable infection would cripple her. She would have to wait a day or two to start the physical decorating. Her absolute first priority tomorrow morning was obvious: she needed to budget for a proper set of ceramic oil lamps and a massive jug of slow-burning lamp oil just to make the building functional.

As she was mentally calculating the market rate for refined plant oil, a soft, excited murmur broke the quiet of the street.

"Oh my, look, isn’t that her?"

Heena paused, pulling her black cloak a little tighter. A few yards down the lane, bathed in the silver moonlight, a small group of neighborhood men were sitting on the low wooden benches outside a closed tea stall, taking in the cool night breeze. Even in the dim light, she recognized the modest, high-collared robes and the soft pastel veils of the local husbands.

It seemed her public relations campaign at the hardware shop had worked faster than she anticipated.

Instead of shrinking away in fear or whispering vicious insults about the disgraced, violent Lu daughter, the men immediately perked up. One of them, holding a small bamboo fan, waved enthusiastically.

"My Lady! Over here!" the man called out in a hushed, conspiratorial whisper, clearly trying not to wake the sleeping households around them. "Are you taking a night stroll? Come, come sit with us for a moment! We were just talking about your magnificent kitchen wares!"

Heena suppressed a deeply tired sigh, instantly forcing her spine to straighten. The exhaustion radiating from her healing back begged her to ignore them and go to sleep, but the ruthless syndicate boss inside her knew an opportunity when she saw one. The East Market gossip network was officially open for business, and she couldn’t afford to clock out just yet.

Plastering a perfectly polite, faintly weary smile on her face, Heena adjusted her cloak and walked toward the chattering men.

"Did you hear about the butcher’s eldest daughter? She lost half a month’s wages at the dice tables yesterday. Her poor husband has been weeping in their courtyard since noon!"

"Serves him right for marrying a meat-cleaver brute," an older man draped in a faded plum veil gossiped, waving his bamboo fan dismissively. "I told my nephew, marry a scribe or a scholar! They might be boring, but at least they don’t gamble away the grocery money."

"Oh, you men fuss over nothing," an older, broad-shouldered woman grunted. She was a retired street-sweeper, sitting on an overturned barrel and puffing lazily on a thin bamboo pipe. "A few lost coppers is nothing. The real scandal is the price of winter cabbage! Old Gao tried to charge me five copper coins for a wilted head this morning. I nearly shoved it down his throat."

"That is because the transport carts from the south were delayed by mudslides," another elderly man chimed in, adjusting his modest gray shawl. "But speaking of scandals... I heard the most astonishing thing from the hardware apprentices today. About the Lu family’s exiled daughter."

"The one who was beaten half to death?" the pipe-smoking woman asked, raising a bushy eyebrow.

"Yes, but you don’t know the half of it!" the plum-veiled man leaned in, his voice dropping into a breathless, dramatic whisper. "They say she wasn’t thrown out for being useless. They say she chose exile! She refused to marry a high-ranking noble because she couldn’t bear the thought of her future husband having to beg her cruel mother for pocket money. She literally walked out of a golden estate just so her future man wouldn’t suffer!"

A collective, dramatic gasp rippled through the small gathering of elders just as Heena’s boots stepped into the dim, yellow pool of light cast by the tea stall’s lantern.

The gossiping chatter cut off instantly. The group of older men and women turned their heads, staring wide-eyed at the tall, imposing figure in the black cloak.

Heena didn’t miss a beat. She offered a tired, polite bow of her head, slipping effortlessly into the persona of a misunderstood, weary romantic.

"Good evening, elders," Heena said, her raspy voice perfectly calm. "I hope my sudden arrival didn’t interrupt your conversation."

"Not at all, not at all, My Lady!" the plum-veiled man hurriedly insisted, patting the empty spot on the wooden bench beside him. "Please, sit! We were just talking about you, actually. We saw the handcart delivering those massive iron woks to your apothecary earlier. Setting up a new kitchen all by yourself... it must be exhausting work for a young woman."

Heena took a seat on the edge of the wooden bench, letting out a heavy, perfectly timed sigh.

"It is," Heena admitted, rubbing the back of her neck as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders. "But a household must have a strong foundation. If the kitchen is bare, how can the home be warm?"

The older men exchanged deeply moved, starry-eyed glances.

"My nephew works at the textile boutique," the elderly man in the gray shawl leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with insatiable curiosity. "He said you bought the finest dark silks today, but paid in pure government silver. Is it true what they are saying in the market? That you abandoned the Lu family wealth purely to build an independent fortune for your future husband?"

The pipe-smoking woman let out a low whistle. "Abandoning an upper-ring inheritance for a hypothetical man? You have a hard skull, girl."

"Some things are worth more than an inheritance," Heena replied smoothly, looking out at the moonlit street. She pitched her voice to sound noble, fiercely protective, and just a little bit heartbroken. "If I stayed in that estate, my partner would have been nothing but a gilded bird in my mother’s cage. Out here, in the East Market, it may be dusty and cold... but whatever silver I bleed for will belong entirely to my own household. No one will ever look down on the man who marries me."

A soft, emotional sniffle came from the plum-veiled man. He dabbed at the corner of his eye with a silk handkerchief.

"Heavens above," he whispered to the others. "She is exactly like the tragic heroes in the opera."

"You are a good egg, Lu girl," the older woman nodded approvingly, tapping her pipe against her boot. "The high nobility are a nest of vipers anyway. You are better off here with us common folk. What are you planning to open in that big dusty shop of yours?"