The Strongest Man’s Fake Wife Wants to Live Chapter 38

“Sold out?”

Pesha had expected the gemstones to become popular, but she hadn’t imagined they would become this popular, and her face was colored with bewilderment.

“Orders are flooding in from all over the capital under the name ‘Pollyanna Necklace,’ and the play has sparked interest not only among noblewomen in high society but also among middle-class ladies.”

She was so surprised that she was momentarily speechless, but only for a moment.

She couldn’t help but be delighted that her plan had been a tremendous success.

The servant who delivered the report nodded vigorously as he caught his breath.

“Enormous orders are pouring in from the capital. People are already making a fuss about the supply running short.”

Pesha hurriedly made a decision.

“Quickly, gather more craftsmen! Right now, we need to gather as many people as possible!”

At her command, the servants rushed out, and soon twenty of the finest jewelers in the territory gathered before Pesha. Having been summoned so suddenly, they all wore distinctly bewildered expressions.

The oldest jeweler stepped forward and cautiously asked,

“My lady, may I ask why you suddenly summoned all of us?”

Pesha immediately opened the warehouse door and gestured inside.

“Look at this.”

Inside the warehouse were mountains of rough beryl stones in a variety of colors. The jewelers’ eyes widened in surprise.

“Aren’t these the scraps left over after sorting out the emeralds?”

Pesha smiled and nodded.

“That’s right. And now they’re going to become a source of income for our territory.”

“A source of income for the territory? These?”

“The various-colored ‘scraps’ you mentioned have become incredibly popular in the capital. If we don’t move quickly, we might lose the market, so we need to begin processing them immediately.”

The jeweler’s eyes widened when he saw the order forms she showed him.

“So many ‘scraps’…….”

Pesha answered with a smile.

“The future of the territory is in your hands. Please do your best.”

From that day on, the jewelers’ workshops remained lit day and night.

The sound of hammers, the scraping of grindstones, and the careful work of polishing never ceased.

Seated at their respective workbenches, the craftsmen concentrated on their fingertips, devoting themselves to slowly cutting and polishing the rough stones that had been mined from the earth.

Pesha visited the site every day to inspect their work.

The finely polished beryl contained shades of pink, pale green, sky blue, and clear, transparent light.

No one calls them emerald byproducts anymore.

“This one is really lovely. Shall we make it again in the design Rosa Hardy wore during her performance?”

At Pesha’s words, the jewelers nodded.

The designs she had conceived and proposed had already become a topic of conversation among the nobles of the capital, and unprecedented numbers of orders were actually pouring in.

The completed gemstones were carefully placed into boxes and sent to the capital.

Demand among the capital’s nobles was explosive.

The beryl mentioned in the column, in particular, caused a craze among those desperate to get their hands on it, and once the trend caught fire, it showed no sign of dying down.

“So they’ve all sold out.”

Pesha looked up from the report she had received and turned toward Jane.

Jane looked somewhat displeased.

“Yes, my lady. The merchant guild alliance in the capital has already placed additional orders, and the prices have risen by more than one and a half times compared to the beginning.”

The sales were on an entirely different level from the profits earned through Seedroka.

It was truly an astonishing amount of income.

 

***

 

When this news reached Owen, he came to Pesha’s laboratory looking dazed.

“What on earth is happening in the territory?”

Seeing his somewhat dumbfounded expression, Pesha smiled brightly and spoke casually.

“You shouldn’t be surprised already.”

The start of the business had gone extremely smoothly.

If there were no major problems, they could generate even greater sales and expand into new areas.

“There’s more to be surprised about?”

“I’m planning to spend most of the sales revenue on purchasing purification herbs. I wanted to ask for your understanding.”

At the word understanding, Owen’s brow furrowed slightly.

“Why do you need my understanding? That is entirely your private property.”

“No. That’s not true. The beryl is an asset of Swapro, after all. All I did was package the gemstones that already existed and introduce them to the world.”

Owen fell silent for a moment at Pesha’s resolute expression.

‘Good, good. This is exactly what I wanted.’

He didn’t know whether it was shock, gratitude, or appreciation, but he wanted him to feel it. A lot more of it.

When he thought that the debt she was erasing today would one day save his life, he didn’t feel the slightest regret over the money before him.

“Is there really a reason to purchase that much?”

At his question, Pesha answered firmly.

“If we densely plant purification herbs beneath the shrubs, the contaminated land will be purified. If we can accomplish that, we’ll be able to generate even more profit in the long term.”

At that, Jane, who was standing behind Owen, cautiously joined the conversation.

“You mean the purification herb called Wibus, right?”

“That’s right.”

He had seemed like a complete fool after nearly falling for Tompkins’s market manipulation, but apparently, he had more common sense than she thought.

‘But why is he grinning like that? What kind of objection is he about to make now?’

Suppressing her displeasure at the thought of wanting to pinch his mouth shut, Pesha put on an innocent expression as though she knew nothing, and Jane shrugged.

“Good grief, I thought it was something else. It’s not as though we haven’t tried planting them ourselves. But they had very little effect. I’m worried that spending that much money on it might end up being a waste.”

Pesha had to make an effort not to look down on Jane, who was throwing cold water on her with a mocking tone.

‘Innocent eyes. Innocent eyes.’

Pretending to be a devoted lady of the household so that her cunning scheme, with its future reward in mind, would not be exposed, she opened her mouth.

“I’m planning to overwhelm it with sheer quantity.”

“Quantity? Are you planning to gather enough tiny grains to make a mountain?”

“Why couldn’t I?”

Rebecca, who had been listening to the conversation, raised her hand and asked,

“Then shall I gather the soldiers again?”

“No. Have the soldiers continue planting the trees. There are other people who will plant the Wibus.”

At that moment, Owen, who had been staring intently at the report on the beryl sales with a serious expression, spoke.

“My lady, isn’t it too reckless to spend all the profits on herbs? With that amount of money, you could start a much more certain business.”

“That may be true. But I think the territory’s long-term foundation is more important than short-term profits. The attempts at purification have to continue without stopping.”

Her eyes shone intelligently as she spoke as properly and admirably as though she had stepped straight out of a textbook.

Pesha could only hope that she looked like someone filled with determination for the sake of the greater good.

‘The territory has to recover first if I’m going to survive, too!’

Since she couldn’t possibly say that out loud, Pesha merely maintained a solemn and serious expression.

Watching her, Owen swallowed dryly.

When did it start?

Even if Pesha was a spy sent to represent the Emperor’s will, even if some hidden intention lay behind everything she did, he no longer cared.

He had once thought that as long as he could keep Pesha by his side, nothing else mattered. Yet she was not only adapting to the territory in a way Owen had never anticipated, but was going even further and developing it.

Pesha watched Owen, who seemed unable to find the words to say and remained silent, and emphasized her point once more.

“All the money we’ve earned came from the territory. If the territory itself isn’t healthy, this prosperity won’t last long either. Only if the territory itself comes back to life can we continue to grow in the long term.”

Of course, not everything she said was a lie.

She wanted these gemstones to be more than just tools for creating wealth. She wanted them to become an opportunity to revive the land where people lived and bring about real change in their lives.

If she was going to achieve her goal anyway, wouldn’t it be better if everyone benefited?

‘What’s good for everyone is good, right?’