Chapter 799 --799

Chapter 799: Chapter-799

Looking at the fierce, unwavering determination on Ren’s delicate face, Heena didn’t feel a single flutter in her chest. She wasn’t moved. She didn’t feel the sudden, overwhelming warmth of a tragic heroine finally finding a loyal companion in a cruel world.

Instead, a single, highly cynical thought echoed in the dead center of her mind: What the hell does he actually want?

Heena was not a newly birthed rookie who would jump for joy just because a pretty man swore his allegiance in a dusty room. She didn’t believe in free meals, and she absolutely did not believe in free loyalty.

Normally, if a man truly wanted to stay out of pure, selfless devotion, he would have tried to gently coax his mother into agreeing first, playing the role of the dutiful, peacemaking son. But Ren hadn’t even looked at Madam Lin. He had made this bold, unilateral decision on his own, staring Heena down with calculated intensity.

Behind her stoic expression, Heena’s mind rapidly broke down the variables.

Why stay? she thought, watching him pick up the shattered pieces of the wooden bucket. I gave them an out. I gave them the cosmetic formula. They could survive.

Then, the brutal reality of the matriarchal social hierarchy clicked into place.

Ren wasn’t making a romantic sacrifice; he was making a desperate, cornered survival play. He had been living under the roof of an unmarried, violently disgraced woman for days. In the eyes of the capital’s strict, suffocating society, his purity and reputation were completely, irreparably ruined. If he and his mother walked out that door now, no respectable woman would ever marry him. He would be branded as damaged goods, a used cast-off. In the more conservative districts, men with ruined reputations could be publicly flogged, sold to the pleasure boats, or even drowned in pig cages for bringing shame to their families.

Furthermore, Heena had a massive pile of government silver, a massive storefront, and she knew how to fight. Ren wasn’t stupid. He knew they had hooked a very dangerous, but very wealthy, fish. Sticking with the Black Lotus boss was his only viable option for a secure future.

Ah, Heena realized, her internal paranoia settling back into a comfortable, familiar rhythm. It’s just a transactional hostage situation based on societal laws. That, I can trust.

Having successfully rationalized away any trace of genuine emotional bonding, Heena let out a heavy sigh. The sudden, intense atmosphere in the room was giving her a headache.

"Take care of the house," Heena said abruptly, turning on her heel and grabbing her black cloak from the peg. "I am going out."

Ren paused, the birch broom halting in his hands. He looked up, entirely confused by the sudden shift in her demeanor. "Going out? But didn’t we just secure everything we needed from the hardware alley yesterday?"

"No, I am going to buy some specific things for the shop," Heena deflected quickly, throwing the cloak over her shoulders. She grabbed for the first mundane excuse her brain could supply. "And... the vegetables. The vegetables seem fresh today. I will buy some."

Ren blinked, his dark eyes squinting in genuine perplexity. "But... the market vegetables are always fresh in the morning. That is how the market works."

Heena mentally cursed herself. Her mouth had slipped because she was too busy psychoanalyzing his marriage prospects.

She rigidly controlled her expression, tightening the strings of her cloak with entirely unnecessary force. "I mean, I want to go see what specific good vegetables are out there today. I will bring them back."

Ren frowned, looking toward the kitchen where the remnants of last night’s massive feast still sat. "But you haven’t even had breakfast yet. I can warm up the rice—"

"It’s fine," Heena interrupted flatly, her hand already gripping the edge of the shattered front door. "I will eat outside."

Without waiting for him to point out another logical flaw in her escape plan, Heena squeezed through the broken doorway and practically bolted into the crisp morning air, leaving a very confused physician and his terrified mother standing in the dust.

As Heena stepped out into the morning light, the atmosphere in the street was noticeably different. Mothers hurriedly grabbed their children by the collars, pulling them behind wooden carts or inside doorways. After witnessing her casually cripple a massive Lu family enforcer, the neighborhood’s respect had officially crossed the line into healthy terror.

But not everyone was easily intimidated.

Auntie Guo, completely unbothered by the morning’s violence, was leaning casually against a wooden post. She was vigorously chewing on a fresh neem twig—the bitter, fibrous stick used by commoners to scrub their teeth.

Seeing Heena approach, Auntie Guo reached into the pocket of her coarse vest, pulled out a fresh neem stick, and held it out without a word.

Heena didn’t hesitate. She took the twig, popped one end into her mouth, and expertly bit down. With a sharp tug of her teeth, she stripped the bitter green bark away, spitting it into the dirt before gnawing the raw wood into a fibrous, bristly brush. She casually started scrubbing her teeth as she walked up to the older woman.

"Where are you running off to so early, child?" Auntie Guo asked around her own stick, entirely unfazed by the terrifying aura Heena had projected just twenty minutes ago.

"Just going to the market for a walk," Heena mumbled, the sharp, medicinal bitterness of the neem flooding her mouth. "Need to clear my head. Make my mood a bit better."

Auntie Guo gave a sympathetic nod, glancing at the shattered remains of the apothecary’s lock. "Ah. The market. Do you want me to come with you? Or I can just sit out here and keep an eye on your doors so no more rabid dogs wander in."

"No, no, it’s okay. I just need a walk," Heena smiled around the twig. "Thank you, Grandma—uh, Aunt! Auntie Guo. Sorry."

Auntie Guo leveled a flat, dangerous look at her. She pulled the stick from her mouth and pointed it directly at Heena’s chest. "Call me grandma again, Lu girl, and I will actually kill you."

Heena let out a genuine, raspy laugh, offering a quick wave of apology before turning and jogging off toward the bustling center of the East Market.

Auntie Guo stood by the post, chewing her neem stick as she watched the tall woman in the black cloak disappear into the morning crowd. She smiled faintly, shaking her head in sheer bewilderment.

She simply could not understand this girl. Was she even truly noble? High-born daughters were supposed to wash their mouths with warm salt water and expensive mint paste provided by their servants. They were supposed to faint at the sight of violence and speak in veiled poetry. Yet here was the exiled Lu heiress, brutally snapping wrists one minute and perfectly peeling a commoner’s neem twig the next, acting more like a hardened street-sweeper than a delicate aristocrat.

"Did you see her eyes?" a hushed, venomous whisper drifted over from the tea stall. "She is completely deranged. I told you, there is bad blood in that family—"

"A total maniac. If she stays here, she’ll bring the city guards down on all of us!" another woman hissed, clutching her shopping basket.

Auntie Guo’s fond smile vanished instantly.