My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode : 131

Chapter: 261

Lyra herself was a whirlwind of practical efficiency, moving between stations, her sharp eyes identifying bottlenecks before they could form. She had designed a color-coded tagging system for the earthenware jars of cooling soft soap, ensuring that each batch’s properties and scent infusion levels were clearly marked. She had also streamlined the process for cleaning the vats between batches, a messy, time-consuming task that she had reduced by half with a clever system of heated water jets and scraping tools.

And at the heart of it all was Jasmin. The once-timid butcher girl was now Forewoman Jasmin, her quiet voice carrying an authority that was instantly, respectfully, obeyed by the diligent Martha and Pia. She moved with a confidence born of competence, her deep, intuitive understanding of the process—from the feel of the tallow to the exact moment the soap reached trace—making her an invaluable asset, the practical hand that translated Lloyd’s vision into tangible reality.

Today was a momentous day. After weeks of small-scale tests, refinements, and one memorable incident involving a batch of lavender-infused soap that had turned a rather alarming shade of purple and smelled faintly of burnt toast (a Borin-special), they were ready. The first large, stable, and, according to Alaric’s rigorous testing, chemically perfect batch of the liquid soap—or rather, the creamy, pumpable soft soap that was its precursor—was finally complete.

“It is done, my lord,” Alaric announced, his voice holding a rare, almost breathless, note of triumph as he presented a small sample in a glass beaker. The substance within was a smooth, pearlescent, pale cream, thick but flowing, carrying the clean, invigorating scent of pure, distilled rosemary. “The pH is perfectly neutral. The saponification is complete. The viscosity is stable. It is… flawless.”

Lloyd, Mei Jing, Jasmin, and the three alchemists gathered around the massive cooling cauldron, a sense of shared, nervous excitement filling the air. This was it. The culmination of all their hard work.

“The dispensers,” Lloyd said, his voice quiet but resonant. At his signal, two of the estate guards, under Ken’s supervision, carried in a large, velvet-lined wooden crate. The lid was lifted, revealing the first run of the finished dispenser bottles from Master Valerius’s workshop.

A collective gasp went through the small group. They had seen Lloyd’s sketches, Lyra’s technical drawings. But the finished product… it was breathtaking. The warm, rich grain of the polished oak bodies seemed to glow in the light of the manufactory, a perfect organic counterpoint to the cool, precise, almost jewel-like gleam of the bronze pump mechanisms, which had been coated in Lyra’s alchemical sealant to a hard, silvery sheen. They were objects of undeniable beauty, exuding an aura of elegance and innovation.

Even Borin was momentarily silenced, his usual boisterous energy replaced by a look of genuine awe. “By the seven simmering stills,” he breathed. “They’re… beautiful.”

“They are a statement, Borin,” Mei Jing corrected softly, her own dark eyes shining with a merchant’s appreciative avarice. She picked one up, her slender fingers tracing the seamless join between wood and metal. “They state that the owner values not just function, but form. Not just cleanliness, but art. This,” she held it aloft, “is our weapon.”

Under Lyra’s exacting supervision, the team carefully began the process of filling the dispensers, using a specially designed funnel to transfer the creamy elixir from the large jars into the oak bodies, each one then sealed and polished.

As the first dozen finished dispensers stood in a gleaming, elegant row, a tangible symbol of their success, the conversation inevitably turned to the next, most crucial, phase.

“The product is ready. The packaging is perfect,” Mei Jing stated, her tone shifting from appreciative awe to crisp, professional strategy. “Now, we must launch. We must introduce Aura to the world. And the nature of that introduction will define its entire future.”

“We could set up a stall in the high-end merchants’ quarter,” Alaric suggested cautiously. “A respectable location, good foot traffic from the nobility and wealthy guilds…”

“A stall?” Borin snorted, his experimental nature extending, apparently, to marketing. “Too small! Too timid! We should announce it from the steps of the Grand Hall! A public proclamation! Give away free samples! Let the people experience the revolution firsthand!”

“And instantly devalue the brand by making it seem common, cheap, and available to everyone,” Mei Jing retorted, her voice sharp as a shard of glass, instantly quashing Borin’s populist enthusiasm. “No. Your instincts are wrong. Both of you.” Her gaze turned to Lloyd, a silent question in her eyes.

Chapter: 262

Lloyd had been listening, a slow, predatory smile forming on his lips. He had been waiting for this moment, drawing on a lifetime of observing how the truly elite, the one-percenters of Earth, operated. He knew that the most powerful marketing tool wasn’t availability; it was a lack thereof.

“Mei Jing is right,” he said, his voice calm, confident, drawing the attention of the entire team. “A market stall is for selling vegetables. A public proclamation is for declaring war or announcing a new tax. Aura is neither. Aura is not a product to be sold. It is a status to be acquired.”

He began to pace, his mind alive with the audacious, high-risk strategy he had been formulating. “We will not sell it to the public. Not at first. We will not make it available in any shop, at any price. We will make it… unobtainable.”

He saw the confusion on their faces, even on Mei Jing’s, though hers was tinged with intrigued curiosity.

“We will not have a launch,” Lloyd declared, a dramatic flair entering his voice. “We will have… an unveiling. An exclusive event. An experience.” He turned to Mei Jing, his eyes gleaming with the thrill of the plan. “You will draft fifty invitations, Mei Jing. On the finest vellum, with the most elegant calligraphy. They will not be addressed to noble houses, but to individuals. To the fifty most influential, most powerful, and, most importantly,” he grinned, “most notoriously gossipy noblewomen in the entire capital.”

He continued, his vision sharp and clear. “The Duchess Milody. The wife of the Master of the Merchant’s Guild. The ancient, terrifyingly influential Dowager Countess who hasn't approved of anything since the last ice age. The flighty young Baroness who sets the fashion trends for the entire season. That group.”

“The invitation will be cryptic,” he instructed. “It will speak of a ‘private unveiling of a new secret to Ferrum refinement’. It will hint at an exclusive experience, a revelation in personal luxury. And it will state, in no uncertain terms, that attendance is by personal, non-transferable invitation only.”

He looked around at his stunned team. “We will create a velvet rope. We will make them feel as if they are being invited into the most exclusive, most secret club in the entire Duchy. The desire to attend, simply to see what it is, to be one of the chosen few, will be immense. The desire not to be the one left out… will be even greater.”

“And at this event,” he concluded, his gaze locking with Mei Jing’s, a shared, audacious understanding passing between them, “we will not sell them soap. We will gift it to them. A single, perfect dispenser for each attendee. We will tell them the story of Aura. We will let them experience its luxury. And then… we will send them back into the high society of the capital, armed with a new, exclusive status symbol that no one else can acquire.”

He smiled, a slow, predatory smile. “We will not create customers, my friends. We will create evangelists. Fifty of them. And we will let their boasting, their pride, and the burning, all-consuming envy of those who were not invited, do our marketing for us. We will not launch a product; we will launch a legend.”

The audacity of the plan hung in the air. It was high-risk. It was arrogant. It was a gamble that could either make them the talk of the kingdom or the laughingstock of the nobility.

Mei Jing was the first to break the stunned silence. A slow, brilliant, almost terrifying smile spread across her face. “My lord,” she breathed, her voice filled with a reverence that was absolute. “That is not just a marketing plan. That is a masterpiece of psychological warfare. I will draft the invitations immediately.”

The velvet rope was about to be drawn. And the stampede, they hoped, was about to begin.

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The invitations were a work of art in themselves. Crafted by Mei Jing’s own hand on the thickest, creamiest vellum the Ducal scribes could provide, the calligraphy was a masterpiece of elegant, flowing script. The ink, a deep, custom-blended indigo, was infused with a trace amount of silver dust, making the words shimmer almost imperceptibly in the light. The Aura logo, the elegant swirl, was embossed at the top, a subtle, mysterious symbol. The wax seal that secured the scroll was not the roaring lion of House Ferrum, but a plain, unmarked disc of deep blue wax, adding to the air of secrecy and exclusivity.

The wording was a masterclass in understated, tantalizing hype: