The two exams that afternoon hardly posed a challenge for Elara.
As soon as the papers were handed out, she scanned the questions once and started writing.
Her pen moved steadily across the page, barely pausing.
Around her, the other students were still frowning over calculations while she had already reached the last page.
She gave the final problem only a brief glance before writing down her answer.
In less than an hour, Elara capped her pen.
“Sir, I’m turning it in.”
The proctor looked up, checked the time, and his brows pulled together a little.
“You’re handing it in now?”
“Yeah.”
Elara placed the paper on the podium, turned around, and walked out.
Whispers immediately spread through the classroom.
“She didn’t just give up because she couldn’t solve it, did she?”
“Turning it in this early?
She must’ve stopped trying.”
“Rosalind doesn’t even seem done yet.”
Elara didn’t slow down.
To her, the whispers were nothing more than background noise, easy to ignore.
When she stepped out of the academic building, warm afternoon sunlight met her.
She narrowed her eyes slightly, pulled out her phone, and checked the time.
She still had time to spare.
Enough to stop by Grandwell Apothecary.
Grandwell Apothecary sat on one of the busiest commercial streets in the capital.
Its storefront was understated, but anyone familiar with the medical world knew its reputation.
Even its ordinary stock included medicines most people struggled to find elsewhere.
Its rare medicinal ingredients were harder still to obtain; even people with money could not simply walk in and buy them.
The moment Elara reached the entrance, she heard a familiar voice.
“What are you doing here?”
She looked up and saw Broderick standing on the steps with an expensive-looking medicine box in hand.
He paused when he saw her, then gave her a mocking smile.
“What, now that you’ve been kicked out of the Weston family, you finally regret it?”
Elara gave him a flat glance, calm and unreadable, and said nothing.
But Broderick clearly took her silence as proof he was right.
He deliberately raised the medicine box.
“Come back to beg us?
Don’t bother.
The Weston family isn’t taking you back.”
His gaze shifted toward the doors of Grandwell Apothecary.
“And besides, this isn’t some place you can just stroll into whenever you want.”
“Not just anyone gets preferred-client status here.
The Westons are among the pharmacy’s preferred clients.”
The smugness in his voice was impossible to miss; he clearly wanted everyone around them to hear it.
“You’re not a Weston anymore.
What makes you think they’ll even let you through the door?”
Elara saw no point in explaining herself.
Her gaze fell to the medicine box in Broderick’s hand.
One glance was enough to make her frown.
“This medicine can’t be given to Alexander.”
Broderick’s expression darkened.
“What are you trying to pull this time?”
Elara’s voice stayed flat, almost lazy.
“These herbs clash with each other.
With his condition right now, he shouldn’t be taking them.”
“Heh.”
Broderick let out a cold laugh.
“You seriously think I’d believe you?”
“Rosalind specifically told me to come get this medicine.
She said once Alexander takes it, he’ll recover soon enough.”
“She’s not like you.”
Broderick stared at Elara, his tone turning nastier by the second.
“She isn’t vicious like you.
She would never try to poison Alexander.”
Elara listened without reacting.
She had no interest in arguing.
After a moment, she gave him a simple answer.
“Your call.”
Broderick froze for a second, clearly not expecting that answer.
“You—”
He was just about to blow up when Elara had already stepped around him and walked straight into the pharmacy.
Broderick flushed with anger.
“Elara!
Stop right there!”
“Do you even know what kind of place this is?
If you make trouble in there, don’t expect the Weston family to clean it up for you.”
Elara acted like she hadn’t heard a thing and kept walking deeper inside.
The farther she went, the more irritated Broderick became.
Convinced she was about to cause trouble the Westons would be expected to fix, he gritted his teeth and followed her.
A staff member who had been sorting medicinal herbs in the lobby looked up.
The moment he recognized Elara, his face brightened with immediate recognition.
“Boss!”
The call rang across the lobby, silencing everyone nearby.
Broderick stopped short.
He stopped in his tracks.
For a second, he thought he had misheard.
Boss?
Who?
Elara?
By then, the staff member was already hurrying over.
“Boss, what brings you here today?”
“That latest batch of herbs has all been moved into storage.”
“The accounts are sorted too.
We were just waiting for you to check them.”
Elara gave a small nod.
“Mm.”
Elara looked completely at ease, as though nothing about the exchange was unusual.
Behind her, Broderick stood rigid, struggling to process what he had heard.
What had that staff member just called her?
Boss?
Why?
Broderick stared at Elara.
“No way…”
The words slipped out of him before he could stop them.
The owner of Grandwell Apothecary…
how could that possibly be Elara?
The same Elara they had all dismissed?
The one the Weston family had written off as useless?
The fake heiress they had thrown out without a second thought?
Elara turned around and met Broderick’s stunned stare head-on.
Her expression held no trace of triumph.
“Anything else?”
Broderick opened his mouth, then shut it again.
“You…
who are you, exactly?”
Elara’s tone stayed light, almost indifferent.
“Weren’t you always so sure you knew me?
Why act clueless now?”
Color drained from Broderick’s face as his own words came back to him.
“The Weston family’s VIP…”
“You’re not qualified to come in…”
Remembering those words only made the humiliation worse.
But Elara couldn’t be bothered wasting another glance on him.
She turned to the employee.
“Cancel the Weston family’s preferred-client status.”
The employee was clearly taken aback for a moment, then quickly nodded.
“Yes, boss.”
“Wait!”
Broderick finally snapped back to reality.
“On what grounds?”
His voice jumped an octave, full of disbelief.
“What gives you the right to cancel the Weston family’s status here?”
Elara turned around slowly, one brow lifting just a little.
“What gives me the right?”
Her voice stayed cool and level, almost icy in its calm.
“Because I own the place.
If I revoke it, it’s revoked.
Is that a problem?”
The lobby fell completely silent.
Broderick flushed so hard with anger and embarrassment that the color climbed to his ears.
He opened his mouth to argue, but no words came.
Elara gave him no chance to argue.
“Bring me the ledger.”
An employee quickly brought her a thick ledger.
Elara flipped through page after page of transactions: premium medicine, rare medicinal materials, private medical services, and more.
There were even medications Grandwell reserved exclusively for its highest-tier clients.
The value of what the Weston family had received over the years was staggering.
The employee lowered his voice.
“The Westons have been top-tier clients for years.
The total value on their account is…”
He paused, then said with difficulty, “Over three hundred million.”
The color drained from Broderick’s face bit by bit.
Three hundred million?
How had he never known?
Elara closed the ledger with a soft snap.
She weighed it in her hand for a second, then passed it to him.
“As for the old bills, I won’t go after you for them.”
“Consider it settled.”
She paused, her gaze turning cool.
“But if you come for medicine again from now on, pay first.
We’re not related anymore, after all.”
Broderick’s jaw tightened.
Humiliation burned through him.
And this time, there was no way to talk his way around it.
Worst of all, he had no argument to make.
Because the woman standing in front of him really did own Grandwell Apothecary.
He used to think that once Elara left the Weston family, she’d have nothing.
Now he understood how wrong he had been.
Without the Westons, Elara was doing more than fine.
If anything, her resources seemed to dwarf theirs.
“Elara, just how much have you been hiding from us?”
Broderick’s voice trembled.
Elara only gave him a faint smile.
“More than you ever bothered to find out.”
After saying that, she turned around without another glance.
“See him out.”
Broderick’s expression darkened.
A staff member immediately stepped forward.
“Mr.
Weston, this way, please.”
“…”
Broderick clenched his fists until the tendons stood out on the backs of his hands, but in the end he had no choice but to leave.
When he stepped out of Grandwell Apothecary, he turned back and looked once more.
Elara stood behind the counter, calm and composed, while the staff moved around her with unmistakable respect.
For the first time, he understood exactly what the Weston family had done—
They had thought they were throwing out a burden.
Instead, they had driven away someone the Weston family could not afford to offend—and they had done it with their own hands.
…
Not long after Broderick left,
another black sedan stopped outside.
The car door opened, and several men in formal suits walked in.
The man leading them looked grave, a file in hand.
“Excuse me, has Nexo-7 arrived?”
An employee nodded.
“It has, but today’s medicine isn’t for sale.”
The man frowned.
“We’re from the Whitmore family.”
The employee remained composed.
“I know.
That’s why we still need the owner’s approval.”
The moment those words landed, Elara walked out from inside.
“Give it to them.”
Her gaze dropped onto the box of medicine.
Nexo-7.
It was the newest drug she had developed, still in the experimental stage.
The laboratory data was promising, but its effects in a human patient had yet to be confirmed.
Now, unexpectedly, she had a chance to find out.
The employee handed her the box.
“Boss, this is the last dose.”
Elara took it, her fingers brushing the edge of the case as a thoughtful look crossed her face.
“I’ll deliver it myself.”
The Whitmore family man was clearly stunned.
“You?”
Elara nodded.
“Mm.”
She looked down at the Nexo-7 in her hand, a slight smile tugging at her lips.
She wanted to see Adrian Whitmore for herself—the man none of the capital’s leading hospitals had been able to help.
What exactly was wrong with him, and why had every treatment failed?
Perhaps Adrian would become the first real test of what Nexo-7 could do in a patient.
The prospect intrigued her.
One way or another,
this meeting promised to be interesting.