Chapter 800 --800

Chapter 800: Chapter-800

She turned her head, fixing the small circle of gossiping women with a furious, withering glare. She spat a splinter of neem wood onto the dirt and marched straight toward them.

"Cannot you hags shut your mouths for one single morning?" Auntie Guo barked, her booming voice echoing down the street. "Just shitting out of your mouths everywhere! If you want to spew shit so badly, go do it in the latrine fields where it belongs!"

The gossiping women jumped, clutching their chests in profound shock.

"You—!" one of the women gasped, her face flushing bright red with indignation. "How dare you speak to us like—"

Auntie Guo didn’t retreat an inch. She planted her feet firmly in the dirt, slapped both hands aggressively onto her hips, and leaned forward.

"What ’you’, huh?!" Auntie Guo roared, aggressively jutting her chin out. "What ’you’?! Say it! Say it to my face, I dare you!"

"Let it be," one of the women hissed, nervously yanking her friend by the sleeve. "It’s Madam Guo. If you argue with her, she’ll just stand here screaming until noon. Let’s go."

The gossips turned and scurried away, abandoning their tea to escape the older woman’s wrath. Auntie Guo glared at their retreating backs, spitting another splinter of neem wood into the dirt with profound disgust.

"Peasants," she grunted, planting her hands back on her hips. "Only know how to talk big when the target’s out of earshot."

Meanwhile, Heena was strolling through the bustling center of the East Market, the bitter neem twig still clamped firmly between her teeth. She blended right in; it wasn’t a shocking sight at all. Half the working class in the capital walked the morning streets chewing on twigs or loudly rinsing their mouths before starting their shifts.

The morning stalls were just finishing their setups. Baskets were overflowing with crisp, dew-covered produce and fresh cuts of meat. But as Heena looked at the price tags, she quickly realized a fatal flaw in her impulsive escape plan: the morning market tax.

Buying this early meant getting the absolute best quality, but it also meant paying a premium. More importantly, trying to aggressively haggle with a merchant for their very first sale of the day was considered a massive taboo. It "broke the market" and brought bad luck to the stall. No vendor would tolerate her usual cutthroat bargaining right now.

Still, she was already here, and she figured she might as well browse.

As she wandered past a modest household goods stall, her dark eyes locked onto her absolute holy grail.

Mosquito repellent.

Heena firmly believed that burning dried mustard husks in a clay pot was the most cost-effective method for smoking out a large building, but after last night’s degrading bloodbath, she desperately needed an immediate, guaranteed backup for her own peace of mind. What if the mustard husk didn’t work? She wasn’t willing to risk another night as an all-you-can-eat buffet.

In this era, the repellent didn’t come in neat little green coils or plastic shrink-wrap. They were handmade, looking exactly like thick, oversized incense sticks. A dark, pungent herbal paste had been rolled heavily around a thin wooden core and left to dry in the sun.

Heena pulled the neem twig from her mouth and pointed at the pile. "How much for these?"

"Thirty pieces for two copper coins, My Lady!" the female vendor replied cheerfully.

Heena mentally calculated the rate. Two coppers for a month’s worth of uninterrupted sleep? It was a fantastic bargain, no haggling required.

"Pack thirty pieces for me," Heena said, digging into her coin pouch. "Are they effective?"

"Oh, they work like an absolute charm!" the vendor boasted proudly, quickly counting out the dark sticks. "My husband ground the paste and rolled them by hand just last night. Burn one of these, and the bugs will drop dead before they even reach your bed."

Heena smiled, a wave of genuine relief washing over her. "Good. Give them to me."

She handed over the two copper coins. The vendor deftly stacked the thirty sticks, placed them in the center of a large, dried brown broadleaf, and folded it into a neat, eco-friendly packet tied with a bit of twine. Heena tucked the rustic leaf bundle securely into her robe, already anticipating the glorious, highly toxic revenge she was going to unleash on the apothecary’s mosquito population tonight.

Heena had absolutely no intention of doing anything today other than strolling through the market, securing her toxic mosquito coils, and returning to her shop. She had zero plans for drama, and certainly no desire to cross paths with the upper rings.

But as she stood near a bustling fruit vendor’s stall, the chaotic, overlapping noise of the morning market suddenly dampened.

A heavy, lacquered carriage was making its way down the center of the dirt road. It was drawn by two massive, armored horses, and the polished side panels were emblazoned with the unmistakable, arrogant crest of the Lu family. The crowd instinctively parted, pressing themselves against the wooden stalls to give the nobility a wide berth.

In this matriarchal empire, enclosed carriages were heavily utilized by the highborn, but they were predominantly occupied by men. Shielded from the crude gaze of the public, the aristocratic husbands and concubines traveled behind thick silk curtains.

This specific carriage, Heena knew from the gold-tasseled trim, belonged to the eldest son-in-law of the Lu family. The very man the original Lu Heena had supposedly lusted after, resulting in her brutal beating, the destruction of her reputation, and her permanent exile.

Heena narrowed her eyes. The infuriating memory-block of the original host meant the brother-in-law’s face was nothing but a smear of gray fog in her mind. She couldn’t picture him if her life depended on it.

As the carriage rattled over the uneven ground, passing directly in front of the fruit stall, a sudden, sharp gust of morning wind caught the edge of the heavy silk window curtain. It whipped backward, exposing the interior for a fraction of a second.

A man was sitting inside, dressed in immaculate silver-threaded robes. A sheer, pale veil covered the lower half of his face, but his eyes were fully exposed.

Blue.

They were a startling, icy, piercing blue.

Heena’s breath completely hitched. The neem twig snapped in half between her teeth.

It wasn’t a spark of romantic recognition, nor was it a lingering emotion from the original host. It was a violent, blaring alarm bell rooted deep in her own soul—the survival instincts of a veteran transmigrator who had survived countless bloodbaths across dimensions. She had seen those exact eyes before. Not in this world, not in this body, but in a past life where the stakes were infinitely higher and infinitely deadlier.

For the first time since waking up in this matriarchal empire, a raw, uncontrollable urge seized her. She had to know who this man was. She had to confirm exactly what was hiding behind that veil.

Spitting the broken neem twig into the dirt, Heena completely abandoned her casual stroll. She didn’t follow the carriage down the open street—that would be too obvious for the Lu family guards. Instead, she spun on her heel and darted into a narrow, shadowed alleyway running parallel to the main avenue.