Chapter 735 --735

Chapter 735: Chapter-735

On the outside, Heena looked every inch the imperious, untouchable aristocrat ready to tear the intruders limb from limb. Inside, however, her nerves were pulled taut as a bowstring, a cold tremor running beneath her skin.

She had thrown this entire setup together in less than sixty seconds. The fresh dirt over the buried chicken was barely three feet away from her heels, and she knew that if even one sharp-eyed local looked past the smoke and noticed the disturbed soil, she was finished. She had no choice but to go on the absolute offensive. In this city, the divide between the nobility and the commoners was a massive chasm; even as a castaway, if she projected enough ruthless, high-born arrogance, these market vendors wouldn’t dare look too closely.

Wiping the streaming tears from her eyes, Old Zhao coughed violently into her fist and glared through the acrid, stinging haze. "What in the heavens are you doing in here?! Boiling poison?!"

Heena didn’t answer the question. Instead, she violently slammed her wooden stirring stick down against the edge of the clay pot, the sharp crack making the nearest neighbors flinch.

"What am I doing?!" Heena roared, her voice rough from the smoke but ringing with furious indignation. She pointed an accusing finger straight at the blackened, smoking mess in the pot. "Because of you idiots barging in here and breaking my concentration, my entire alchemical batch is completely destroyed! Are you people out of your minds?!"

She took a sharp, menacing step forward, forcing the coughing crowd to stumble back toward the threshold.

"You force your way onto private property, let a filthy beast track mud across my newly scrubbed floors, and ruin the heat control on my brazier!" Heena spat, her dark eyes sweeping mercilessly over their faces. "Thanks to your sudden disturbance, eight hundred copper coins’ worth of rare ingredients have just been burned to useless ash! Who is going to compensate me for this loss?! You?!" She jabbed her finger at the stout vegetable woman, then swung it toward Old Zhao. "Or you?! How dare you barge into my residence without my permission! Do you commoners not even possess the basic sense to wait until a door is answered?!"

"Whoa, Host," the System whispered in awe from the rafters. "Eight hundred coppers for a handful of rotten roots and stale chili? That is highway robbery."

The effect on the crowd was instantaneous. The aggressive, righteous energy of the mob evaporated into thin air, replaced by a wave of nervous guilt. Eight hundred coppers was nearly a full silver tael—a sum none of them wanted to be held liable for. They shifted uncomfortably on their feet, muttering amongst themselves that it was indeed improper to just walk into someone’s home uninvited.

"Wait a minute, don’t blame us!" a middle-aged man near the back piped up, his voice pitching high with anxiety as he pointed toward the whining hound outside. "It was the dog that barked at your door! That’s the only reason anyone came over here!"

"Oh, so a dog barks in the street, and that gives you the legal right to loot my shop?!" Heena countered coldly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Do you need me to summon the city patrol officers right now to drag every single one of you to the magistrate’s court for unlawful breaking and entering?!"

The mere mention of the city officers caused an immediate panic. Commoners avoided the magistrate’s court like the plague; once you stepped inside, you didn’t walk out without losing half your skin or all your savings.

"No, no, don’t call the officers!" the stout woman cried out, immediately throwing her hands up and pointing frantically at the poultry vendor. "Old Zhao made us come in here! She’s the one who pushed the door open! We didn’t come in on our own, we were just following her!"

"Yeah, that’s right!" the middle-aged man agreed rapidly, backing right out onto the porch. "It’s all Old Zhao’s fault! We have nothing to do with this!"

Old Zhao’s jaw dropped open in absolute, stunned betrayal. She whipped her head around to glare at her neighbors. How the hell had she made them come in?! She hadn’t invited a single soul—these nosy bastards had practically trampled her heels just to watch a good show, and now they were dumping an eight-hundred-copper debt entirely on her head!

Realizing she was suddenly standing alone on the hook, Old Zhao’s weathered face flushed dark red. She turned back to Heena, planting her feet stubbornly despite her watering eyes.

"My hound barked at your steps, and he never barks without a scent! That is why I came in!" Old Zhao barked back, trying to salvage her momentum. She narrowed her stinging eyes at Heena’s fiercely guarded posture. "Besides, if you haven’t done anything wrong and aren’t hiding anything in that back room... why are you shouting so loudly to drive us out?!"

Heena let out a cold, mocking scoff, looking at the burly woman as if she were an absolute lunatic.

"Ha? You mean to tell me that I am in the wrong here?" Heena sneered, tilting her chin up as she feigned complete, utter ignorance. "A pack of strangers breaks into my shop, ruins my livelihood, and choked my lungs with ruined smoke, and I’m supposed to offer you tea? What the hell even happened out there, huh? Why are you making such a lunatic ruckus on my doorstep in the first place?!"

Heena glared at the crowd through the stinging smoke, her voice dropping into a lethally cold register. "Speak. Tell me exactly whose priceless heirloom or imperial treasure was stolen that gave you the audacity to break into my residence without my permission?"

The nosy neighbors froze, glancing at one another in sudden, awkward silence.

Put like that, the reality of what they had just done hit them like a bucket of cold water. Nobody had stolen a chest of gold or a priceless diamond. They had literally just barged into someone’s private property over a barnyard bird.

More importantly, the initial thrill of gossip was rapidly giving way to deeply ingrained commoner caution. Yes, the rumors said this girl had been cast out of the Lu estate like trash. But as the old saying went, a fallen camel was still bigger than a horse. Who truly knew the whims of the wealthy aristocrats? If the Lu Matriarch had a change of heart next week and took this daughter back, or if this girl still had a single powerful acquaintance in the upper rings, every person standing in this doorway would be crushed like ants.

Nobody wanted to take the fall for offending a noble, discarded or not.

"Look at Old Zhao, miss! Go ask her!" the middle-aged man blurted out, pointing a trembling finger squarely at the burly vendor as he backed completely into the street. "It’s her chicken! Her chicken went missing, that’s what all this is about!"

Heena stared at Old Zhao for a beat, her dark eyes widening in theatrical, utter disbelief before she let out a sharp, biting scoff.

"A chicken?" Heena repeated, her voice dripping with pure, aristocratic ridicule. "A single chicken went missing, and you came kicking down my door?! Heavens above, I actually cannot believe this!"