"You POISONED my husband with this deadly herb, and now you’re trying to act innocent! I should tie you in a pig cage and drown you in the river with my own hands if anything happens to my husband!"
Then she turned to Samuel, her voice becoming even more shrill.
"She has made YOUR FATHER into this terrible condition, and you’re STILL protecting this worthless bitch?! I’m telling you this one last ti—either you DIVORCE her imdiately, or I will call the ENTIRE community and the village elders, and we’ll let them judge what should be done to a woman who poisons her husband’s father!"
Hearing this ultimatum, Heena raised both her hands and said loudly, "WAIT! Just wait one mont!"
Hearing that interruption, Maya shouted back, "I’m NOT going to wait! The evidence is right—"
"Ah, SHUT UP for one second!" Heena snapped, her patience finally breaking.
The room went silent at her sharp tone.
Heena pointed at the plant on the floor and said with extre exasperation, "This is a TOMATO plant! You know—TOMATOES? The red vegetable-fruit that you eat in your food?"
Hearing that, the System—who’d been watching this whole ridiculous scene—appeared briefly beside Heena and whispered, "Host, technically they don’t eat pasta in this ti period or region—"
Hearing that unnecessary correction, Heena shot the System a look that could kill and said, "I AN in the curry! The tomato curry and the tomato olette that I made for breakfast last week! It’s from THIS!"
She gestured at the plant emphatically.
Hearing this explanation, everyone in the room paused and froze.
Even Samuel looked stunned.
Maya’s face literally went blank for a mont, all her dramatic crying stopping abruptly.
Then, after a long mont of shocked silence, Maya stumbled over her words and said defensively, "You—you’re LYING! You’re just trying to escape responsibility! You’re trying to confuse everyone so they don’t realize you poisoned him! That’s why you’re making up this story!"
Hearing that desperate accusation, Heena looked at her and almost said, "You old fool—"
But she caught herself, took a deep breath to calm down, and said in a tightly controlled voice:
"Mother-in-law. It is a tomato plant. Everyone in this entire region knows what a tomato plant looks like. Tomatoes are common food. We eat them regularly. How can you possibly confuse a tomato plant with poison?"
Maya, clearly panicking now as her plan fell apart, looked at the plant again and said stubbornly, "But there are no tomatoes ON this plant! So how can it be a tomato plant?! You’re clearly lying!"
Hearing that absolutely idiotic argunt, Heena looked at her and shot back with barely restrained fury:
"Because it’s a SEEDLING, you fool! It’s just a baby plant—a sapling that hasn’t grown to full size yet! Of course there are no tomatoes on it—it’s only a few weeks old! Are you completely insane or just deliberately stupid?!"
Samuel, sensing Heena’s rising anger, tapped her hand secretly under the sleeve of her robe, giving her a signal to stay calm and not completely lose control.
Heena felt the touch and took another deep breath, forcing herself to speak more civilly.
"Mother-in-law," she said in a strained but polite voice, "I have been growing so herbs and vegetables in the small garden plot near the servant’s quarters—with permission from the household, I might add. Tomatoes, herbs for cooking, so dicinal plants. All perfectly normal, legal, and harmless."
She gestured at the plant on the floor.
"This particular seedling was one I was cultivating to eventually transplant to a better location. It is, without any doubt whatsoever, a common tomato plant of the variety grown throughout this region."
She looked at Maya directly.
"If you don’t believe , we can call in the gardener, the cook, or literally anyone who has ever seen a tomato plant in their life, and they will confirm this."
Maya’s face was going through a remarkable series of expressions—shock, denial, anger, desperation, and finally, stubborn refusal to admit she was wrong.
"I—I don’t believe you! This could still be poison! Just because it LOOKS like a tomato plant doesn’t an—"
"Mother-in-law," Samuel interrupted, his voice calm but firm, "I have personally seen tomato plants many tis. This is definitely a tomato seedling."
He bent down, picked up the plant, and examined it closely.
"See these leaves? This distinctive sll when you crush the stem slightly? This is absolutely, unmistakably a tomato plant. There is no doubt whatsoever."
He looked at his stepmother seriously.
"So either you genuinely mistook a common vegetable plant for poison—which raises serious questions about your judgnt—or you deliberately created this false accusation knowing it was baseless, which is even worse."
Hearing her stepson’s words, Maya’s face went pale, then red, then pale again.
She was trapped.
If she admitted she genuinely thought it was poison, she looked incompetent and foolish.
If she admitted she knew it wasn’t poison, she was confessing to deliberately framing Heena with false evidence.
Either way, she’d lost.
At that mont, the old Master—who’d been lying "unconscious" this whole ti—apparently decided the plan had failed too badly to continue the charade.
He let out a small groan and slowly "ca to consciousness," his eyelids fluttering open dramatically.
"What... what happened?" he said weakly, his voice trembling. "Where am I? Why does everyone look so upset?"
’Oh, please,’ Heena thought with disgust. ’Your acting is terrible. At least commit to being unconscious for more than five minutes.’
Maya imdiately rushed to his side, grabbing his hand.
"Husband! You’re awake! Oh, thank heavens! I was so worried!"
She shot a quick, panicked look at Heena—a look that clearly said, ’Don’t you dare tell him what just happened.’
But Heena had no intention of letting this go so easily.
"Father-in-law," she said sweetly, "we’re so relieved you’ve recovered from your sudden collapse. Mother-in-law was just explaining to us how she found this tomato plant—" she gestured at it, "—and sohow beca convinced it was deadly poison that I had used to harm you."
The old Master’s eyes widened slightly—clearly this wasn’t how the plan was supposed to go.
"I... what? A tomato plant?" He tried to look confused. "But I thought—"
"You thought WHAT, exactly, Father?" Samuel asked, his voice deceptively mild but with an edge of steel underneath.
The old Master seed to realize he was about to implicate himself in the sche, so he quickly changed tactics.
"I don’t rember much," he said weakly. "Everything is so hazy. I must have fainted from... from overwork. Yes, too much stress from managing the business."
He looked at Maya with what was supposed to be loving concern but ca across as warning.
"My dear wife, you must have been mistaken about the plant. Your worry for probably clouded your judgnt."
Maya looked like she wanted to argue, wanted to insist she was right, but she could see she had no support.
Even the servants who’d been summoned to witness this dramatic scene were whispering to each other and looking at the tomato plant with confused expressions.
"That’s definitely a tomato seedling," one servant whispered to another.
"Why would the Mistress think that’s poison?"
(Oh yeah Now they can hire servants because literally after Heenana’s commotion last ti, the old master, in order to save his face, hired a bunch of servants. Well, calling them a bunch is just nonsense. There is a cook and a maid, kitchen maid, and the others you see, well, they are the servants of the nearby household who just co here to see the fun.)
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