For the Lady's Wise Regression - Chapter 64

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 64
Time flowed like water……or rather, it didn’t.
Was this what people meant by living each day in fragments?
Nothing fractured the mind quite like devising a new venture.
How did everyone else manage to produce these schemes so effortlessly?
At least Pilgram had doubled the budget allocation, or the pace would have crawled far slower.
“Are these the only ones with comparable efficacy?”
Before beginning serious development, Vanessa had accompanied Ian to meet someone he wished to introduce—and there she found Karn, the Ruscliffe House apothecary, who had inadvertently drenched her in water quite thoroughly.
Or more precisely, he had soaked House Leonard’s marquis, standing behind her.
In her previous life, she’d seen him wearing spectacles—perhaps that was why he’d seemed so taciturn and meticulous. Yet without them, he resembled nothing so much as a drooping hamster.
A hamster, at that, heavy with water, its fur laden with the full weight of its saturation.
“Um…… Yes, well, for now…… But…… the idea itself is sound…… though mass production is difficult…… Even with maximum effort, I can only manage……”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m planning to present them to the Imperial Palace once they’re ready, so we’re only looking at selling a maximum of fifty per day anyway.”
“……Ah, my lady, how remiss of me not to greet you sooner…… I am Karn Ernbert, apothecary of Ruscliffe House…….”
So this was what people meant when they said listening to someone could make you drowsy.
Wondering if the man ever ate while he worked, Vanessa glanced around and spotted sandwich crusts piled high on a nearby table.
Ah, so he ate quite well while laboring away.
Yet listening to that voice alone, one might think Ian starved him through his tasks.
The way Karn himself had started to say “slave……” before catching himself suggested he identified with that particular predicament.
But Ernbert?
Vanessa tilted her head slightly upon hearing Karn’s family name.
“Are you from the northern Snowood Mountain Region?”
“Ah…… Yes, that is indeed my hometown…….”
The Snowood Mountain Region sat at the far north, yet were its people always this subdued?
She’d heard they were tenacious—setting their jaws and never letting go, possessed of a relentless nature that bordered on obsessive. Bluster aside, they were known for dogged persistence.
‘Though every region has its peculiarities.’
Vanessa smiled faintly, recalling the northern Duke Sharoze.
Even in the north—a realm distant from passion and idle gallantry—such mutations of character existed and ran wild. The Snowood Mountain Region would surely harbor no shortage of talkative souls.
“Good to meet you, Karn. My apologies for the late introduction. I’m Vanessa Ruscliffe.”
“……Yes, I understand this venture was conceived by yourself, my lady……?”
“That’s right. I plan to sell ‘pills’ formulated with effects as similar as possible to the original.”
“Are they to be swallowed whole……? Though if the medicinal portion is only the size of a thumbnail, surely one would taste bitterness…….”
“Exactly. That way it looks even more like medicine.”
“……?”
Seeing the confusion in Karn’s eyes, Vanessa elaborated.
“Right now, we need to sell this remedy to those who aren’t ill at all. It’s preventative in nature—taken before any ailment strikes. If such a medicine were sweet to taste, what would people think?”
“……But if the nutritive supplement you describe is bitter and astringent…… won’t people wonder why they should purchase and suffer through it? They might hesitate to reach for it…….”
“That’s why we present it to the Imperial Palace first.”
A nutritive supplement endorsed by the Imperial Palace. That alone would be worth pursuing.
Once the Imperial Seal is affixed, fifty per day becomes nothing—nobles will be demanding five hundred at a time.
Of course, in her previous life, no one had succeeded in obtaining the Imperial Seal.
Ian was the only one with genuine potential.
The Jeongjeong Flower’s purpose aligned so closely with matters of health that it surpassed other nobles’ ventures in relevance.
Yet given His Majesty’s exacting nature, he surely understood what power a single impression of his seal could wield.
So what was to be done?
Leverage connections and make it enticing through sheer effort.
“……This seems far from simple…….”
“It’s simple enough. Just make it well.”
By her calculations, the nutritive supplement crafted from the Jeongjeong Flower—the so-called Jinjeong Pill—would not produce immediate effects upon consumption.
In that case, time would be necessary before results manifested.
A fool rushes straight to the Emperor with his wares from the start.
The intention becomes too transparent.
One who openly distributes to those around the Emperor while conspicuously excluding His Majesty himself shouldn’t bother with business at all.
The Emperor is not a man moved by mere curiosity.
Then what stratagem would demonstrate true cunning?
The so-called “One Day Everything Seemed Somehow Different, Though I Can’t Quite Put My Finger on What, But It Looks Rather Good” gambit.
Vanessa intended to target her father, Duke Sharoze.
He spent more time with His Majesty than anyone else, meaning he’d notice any change in the Emperor fastest.
In her previous life, certain nobles had deliberately lavished gifts on servants, the Crown Prince, and Imperial Palace officials while pointedly excluding the Emperor—and without exception, their ventures had collapsed within months.
The reason? Obvious enough.
His Majesty was sharp-eyed, certainly, but his jealousy was no trivial matter either.
Better to ask him outright to stamp the Imperial Seal than to circle around it—at least then she wouldn’t fumble the basics.
But there was no worse way to handle him than roundabout flattery.
So Vanessa decided to take a different approach: she would win over her father.
And the timing was perfect, wasn’t it?
A daughter making a nutritional supplement with his health in mind, giving it to him alone as a trial.
True belief doesn’t come from words—it comes from seeing results with your own eyes.
If she packed it with every ingredient touted for fatigue recovery, at least one benefit would stick.
Brighter skin, maybe. Lighter dark circles.
Or perhaps no fatigue even after an all-nighter.
Hearing about an effect and seeing it firsthand carried entirely different weight.
Besides, her father had served as an advisor for so long that he’d built up a tolerance to most medicines.
If after taking this Jinjeong Pill for about a week, His Majesty noticed a change remarkable enough to catch his eye—
‘One hundred percent. He won’t be able to resist asking what I’m taking.’
A smile curved across Vanessa’s lips.
The Jeongjeong Flower was easier to come by than in the other five Great Houses, so there had always been plenty of fools poking at it like cats pawing at mice every year.
But now, even if they wanted to touch it, they wouldn’t dare.
The Imperial Seal was going to be stamped on it.
‘And even the Countess of House Leonard won’t be able to lay a careless hand on it.’
That wasn’t all.
They’d fall far behind in the race for a Dukedom.
Yes, Gardelmore’s heir lay dying in his sickbed, but the Gardelmore House excelled at shipbuilding, while the Cheliaco House had an eye for minerals that none could match and were masters of jewelry work.
The Parbian House was deep in the art of sculpture, so except for Ruscliffe, the only target House Leonard could realistically pursue was House Sharoze.
And so they had curried her favor.
With her marriage to Ian, that easy path had vanished, so what they’d target next was obvious.
They had their techniques, their jewelry skills, their sculpture mastery?
With nothing else, they’d been obsessively grasping at the Jeongjeong Flower even in her past life—the only thing they could touch.
And now a medicine made from the Jeongjeong Flower was getting the Imperial Seal stamped on it?
‘They’ll have headaches trying to rebuild their business from the foundation.’
And even if Gardelmore’s heir breathed his last tomorrow, they still had House Raiben by their side.
Tripping someone up by sticking out your foot, spilling wine on their clothes as if by accident—that was crude revenge.
True revenge was this: cutting off the roots entirely.
Let them taste, just once, the feeling of being blocked at every turn.
A medicine that even the Emperor takes.
With that title attached, it was a given that the Ruscliffe House would stand in an unrivaled position—at least in this life.
She had no intention of living like her past self, doing nothing but being someone’s wife, only to end in divorce.
She wanted to know, at the very least, what she was good at and what she wasn’t.
Since this venture bore her ideas, she’d demand a share of the equity before any divorce.
Once revenge was done, she’d have love affairs and spend money freely!
Well, she already had the wealth to say ‘just show up’ if she wanted to.
As long as House Leonard didn’t abandon their ambition for a Dukedom, it was certain Ian would soon be irritated.
She could ease his stress and maintain a reasonably helpful partnership between them as things stood…
‘Who knows?’
Maybe later she’d toss him a few crumbs.
Of course, she had no intention of giving up her share of this Jinjeong Pill venture.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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