Chapter 795 --795

Chapter 795: Chapter-795

But apparently, the neighborhood aunties weren’t quite done dissecting Heena’s domestic life just yet.

"And that physician! Living under your roof with his old hag of a mother," Auntie Guo huffed, waving a hand as if swatting away a bad smell. "Heavens above, girl, what kind of head-of-household willingly traps herself with a mother-in-law right out of the gate? Do you have any idea how troublesome that is?"

Another older woman squatting nearby immediately nodded in fervent agreement. "Exactly! I’ve never seen anyone volunteer to take care of both her man and his mother. You aren’t building a family, you’re just adopting two massive headaches into your life!"

Heena, who was quietly trying to mind her own business and survive the morning trip to the communal fields, couldn’t help but interject.

"Madam Lin is actually a decent person," Heena pointed out smoothly.

The moment the words left her mouth, the aunties stopped and stared at her as if she had just announced the sky was green.

"A decent person?!" one of them exclaimed, completely scandalized. "Heavens, that woman is a literal bitch!"

Heena blinked, her eyes widening a fraction. Whoa. That was an incredibly aggressive vocabulary word to drop before breakfast.

Before Heena could even process the sudden hostility, another woman jumped eagerly into the fray. "You’re defending Madam Lin? Oh, please! I ran into her yesterday. I politely asked her if she wanted to come with us to relieve ourselves in the fields, and that old bat gave me such a venomous glare! Honestly, you would think I had just asked to sleep with her son!"

"Exactly!" Auntie Guo chimed in. "And speaking of the son, he is living in your house even though the two of you aren’t officially married yet. What kind of respectable man does that? I don’t care how pretty his face is, there is something fundamentally wrong with this arrangement!"

Heena stared at the dirt. She was done. She was so, fundamentally done.

She had finished her morning business, and if she stayed in this field for another three minutes, these women were probably going to dig up her ancestors’ graves just to find someone else to insult. She forced a polite, entirely hollow smile and nodded. "Ah. Yes. Of course."

Unfortunately, the aunties took her silence as an open invitation to escalate.

"Don’t give us that look! I genuinely don’t understand how you can tolerate that mother-and-son pair," Auntie Guo lectured. "Fine, the physician is handsome, but my nephew is even better-looking! You should meet him!"

"Please! My son-in-law’s brother is gorgeous, and he knows how to sew!" another countered. "With the kind of silver you are throwing around at the hardware stalls, you should have your pick of the market!"

"I really don’t earn that much," Heena deflected dryly.

The women immediately scoffed in unison.

"Come on, Lu girl! We aren’t fools. We saw the heavy iron you bought, and you just secured a two-story storefront. Do you think we are blind?"

Another auntie shook her head dramatically, adjusting her shawl. "Honestly, with your foundation, even a blind donkey could find more husbands than you! When I was your age, I already had two men in my courtyard!"

Heena nearly choked on her own breath.

Wait a minute. Weren’t these the exact same women who, just last night, had been viciously mocking the Lu Matriarch for taking multiple husbands and keeping concubines? And now they were proudly bragging about how many men they hoarded in their youth?

Oh my god, Heena realized, her brain short-circuiting. So modesty and loyalty are sacred virtues when you want to criticize someone else, but maintaining a massive harem is a badge of honor if you actually have the money to afford it?

The societal rules of this matriarchal dimension were giving her absolute whiplash.

Heena finally stood up, firmly dusting off her dark cotton robes. "I’m done. I am heading back."

"What? Already?" Auntie Guo protested, looking genuinely disappointed. "Come on, sit back down! We haven’t even finished talking about the tailor’s scandal!"

Heena smiled at them with the strained, absolute patience of a descending saint.

Sit down? Here? In a communal latrine field that smelled like raw ammonia and damp earth? She was willing to endure neighborhood gossip to build her local intelligence network, but she wasn’t desperate enough to spend another second breathing in this stench.

"Another time, Aunties. I have a shop to open."

Without waiting for their protests, Heena turned on her heel and walked away. Behind her, the women immediately seamlessly transitioned into fiercely debating the tailor’s marital issues. Heena didn’t even look back.

The morning air was crisp as Heena navigated the dirt roads back to the East Market, but the moment her two-story apothecary came into view, her footsteps slowed.

Something was wrong.

There was a small cluster of unfamiliar men gathered aggressively in front of her newly secured wooden doors. It was never a good sign when strangers loitered outside your territory, especially when you hadn’t invited them.

Frowning, Heena quickened her pace. But as she drew close enough to see exactly what was happening, the mild annoyance in her chest instantly crystallized into cold, absolute fury.

There were four women standing outside her shop. Three of them were heavy-set, unfamiliar thugs, but the fourth she recognized instantly. It was the sneering, arrogant servant from the Lu family estate—the exact same woman she had encountered near her original shop just days ago.

And right now, she was standing on her threshold, ordering the thugs to hurl Madam Lin’s meager belongings out into the street.

"Move faster! What are you standing around for?!" the Lu servant barked, kicking a woven basket of dried medicinal roots down the front steps. "Just throw all this garbage out into the dirt!"

Madam Lin stood helplessly beside the doorway, her frail shoulders trembling as she watched the thugs tear through her careful packing. She looked completely overwhelmed, entirely at a loss for what to do. She was an elderly woman; there was absolutely no way she could physically stop four aggressive men who had violently barged into the property.

"Wait! Stop it, you can’t just do this!" Madam Lin shouted, her voice cracking as she lunged forward to grab a falling ceramic jar.

"Move aside, you crazy old hag!" one of the thugs snapped, roughly shoving her shoulder. "This building belongs to the Lu family! It has nothing to do with you!"

Madam Lin stumbled back, her face draining of color. She had never imagined that anyone would dare assault her inside the walls of her own new home.

Laughing cruelly, the Lu servant reached for the heavy wooden front door, fully intending to slam it shut directly in the old woman’s face and lock her out of the apothecary.

THUD!

A heavy wooden wash-bucket sailed out of nowhere, spinning violently through the air before smashing directly into the doorframe, inches from the servant’s hand. It shattered on impact, sending wooden shrapnel and iron bands clattering across the floorboards.

"Who the hell is touching my door?"

The explosive noise startled everyone in the street.

The Lu servant violently jerked backward, clutching his hand to his chest. SHe spun around, her face twisting into an ugly sneer, fully prepared to curse the life out of whoever had just thrown the bucket.