Chapter 730 --730

Chapter 730: Chapter-730

"I need three strong backs," Heena stated, her tone carrying an unquestionable, commanding authority that completely contradicted her battered appearance. "And I need buckets, scrub brushes, and lye soap. You are going to clear every piece of rotting wood, shattered ceramic, and dead weed from that shop over there." She pointed a pale finger at the ruined apothecary. "Everything that is structurally compromised gets hauled to the alley. Everything else gets scrubbed until the floorboards shine. Do it before the sun sets, and I will pay you two hundred copper coins each."

The laborers stared at her in stunned silence. Two hundred coppers for a single day of cleaning was an astronomical wage.

"We’ll do it right now, boss!" the lead woman barked, instantly jumping up and kicking her companions into motion.

Within ten minutes, the ruined apothecary was a hive of chaotic, aggressive activity. The hired women tore into the grime with terrifying efficiency, hauling out splintered wood and scrubbing the thick layers of ancient dust from the remaining intact shelves.

Heena didn’t join them. Her ribs were still securely bound, but she knew better than to push her physical limits by hauling water buckets. Instead, she dragged a relatively clean wooden stool out onto the street, sat down under the broken awning, and began the grueling task of cataloging the inventory.

She had the laborers carry out handfuls of the mysterious jars and sacks, lining them up on a wooden plank in front of her.

"Host, what are you doing?" the System asked, hovering nervously over a jar of dried, blackened roots. "If you don’t know what these are, how are you going to price them?"

"I am not going to price them as medicine," Heena murmured, uncorking a ceramic jar and taking a cautious sniff.

A sharp, familiar aroma hit the back of her throat. It wasn’t an obscure, mystical healing herb. It was star anise.

She quickly opened the next jar. Cinnamon bark. The next sack? Dried ginger and Szechuan peppercorns.

A slow, brilliant realization began to spread across Heena’s face. The original host’s father had been a commoner, a man who had likely started this business selling everyday culinary necessities before trying to branch out into the more lucrative, but highly complex, medicinal trade. Half of this ruined shop wasn’t filled with obscure poisons; it was filled with high-grade, raw spices.

"System," Heena said, her dark eyes gleaming with a sudden, predatory light. "Think about the brother-in-law. Su Jin. Think about the men in this society. What do they value above absolutely everything else, even more than their own lives?"

The golden lion cub tilted its head, processing the cultural data of the matriarchal world. "Uh... their reputation? Their purity? Looking pretty enough to secure a wealthy wife?"

"Exactly," Heena smirked, running her fingers over a piece of dried cinnamon bark. "They are entirely obsessed with beauty, status, and vanity. They wear sheer silks, they paint their faces, and they weep to get their way. They are practically climbing over each other in the inner courtyards to maintain the favor of their wives."

She gestured to the rows of dusty jars.

"Selling medical herbs is a liability," Heena explained, her mind already calculating the profit margins. "If a physician makes a mistake, they get executed. But selling vanity? Selling luxury? That is a monopoly waiting to happen. We are not going to be an apothecary. We are going to take these raw spices, oils, and dried flowers, and we are going to synthesize high-end cosmetics, perfumes, and bath infusions. We will sell the illusion of unrivaled beauty to every insecure, scheming man in this capital."

The System’s blue eyes went wide. "Host... that is brilliant. The profit margins on luxury cosmetics are astronomically higher than basic medicine! But... do you know how to make perfume?"

"I know how to extract chemical compounds from organic matter to create paralyzing toxins," Heena replied smoothly, a chilling, absolute confidence rolling off her. "Boiling some jasmine and cloves into a fragrant oil will be child’s play."

By the time the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of violet and gold, the laborers had finished. The shop was entirely transformed. The rotting debris was gone, the air smelled faintly of lye and fresh water instead of decay, and the surviving wooden shelves were completely scrubbed clean.

Heena paid the women their promised coppers, her total funds now slightly diminished but well-spent.

She stood alone in the center of her empty, clean shop. The mountain of unidentified, potentially toxic medical herbs had been securely boxed up and shoved into the back storage room, leaving only the usable culinary spices, dried flowers, and raw oils beautifully displayed on the front shelves.

It was a blank canvas.

"So," the System chirped, floating around the pristine room. "We have a clean shop, we have a business model, and we have enough raw materials to start experimenting with fragrances. What is the first step of the grand Black Lotus cosmetic empire?"

"First," Heena said, leaning against the clean wooden counter, her gaze fixed on the darkening street outside. "We need a signature product. Something so intoxicating that the wealthy men of the inner courts will physically fight each other to buy it. And second..."

She reached into her tunic, her fingers brushing against the three remaining silver coins.

"I need to pay a visit to a certain underground information broker in the pleasure district," Heena finished, a terrifying smile completely overtaking her features. "If I am going to sell vanity to the Lu family, I need to know exactly what kind of scent makes my dear sister, Lu Mei, lose her mind."

Heena tapped her pale finger rhythmically against the clean wooden counter, her mind whirring through a dozen different tactical approaches.

She had centuries of accumulated experience across countless lifetimes. She knew exactly how underground networks operated, how to spot a shadow broker in a crowded tavern, and how to extract information without leaving a trail. She had the lethal instincts of a predator and the calculating mind of a scholar.

But there was one incredibly glaring, undeniable flaw in her current master plan.

She had absolutely no idea how to get to the pleasure district.

The original host’s memories were completely useless in this regard. The timid girl had barely known the layout of her own family’s garden, let alone the winding, illicit underbelly of the capital’s red-light district. If Heena stepped out into the dark streets right now, relying purely on guesswork, she would just end up lost in another maze of unlit, dead-end alleyways.

"Host," the System pointed out cautiously, reading her silence. "We don’t actually know the way. And I don’t have a localized satellite map for this dimension. If you get lost again tonight, you might actually drop dead from exhaustion."

"I know," Heena murmured, letting out a long, measured breath.

But as the panic of the previous night tried to creep back in, it was immediately crushed by a wave of cold, pragmatic relief. Things were fundamentally different tonight. She wasn’t bleeding out in the mud anymore. She had a roof over her head, securely locked doors, and a safe, clean space to call her own.

More importantly, she had capital.