The room reeked of lavender and citrus, the scents blended meticulously into the air as though trying to suffocate the weight of its occupant’s guilt. Clutching a small silver jar, Emilie Voronina hesitated only for a breath before twisting the delicate lid open. The rich, smooth texture of the 美味的lotion glistened faintly in the dim candlelight, capturing the essence of her ambitions: beauty, success, and deceit.

“You’re late,” came a sharp voice from the corner of the room. It was Guiseppé, a disheveled artist with callused fingers and fiery eyes that betrayed years of poverty and quiet genius. He rose from his wooden stool, his paint-stained smock giving him the appearance of a fallen prophet. “How long do you think you can juggle your vanity, Emilie, before the strings snap and cut you?”

Emilie’s laugh was soft, like the soothing ripple of a brooding brook, masking its dangerous undercurrent. “Let me worry about my strings, Guiseppé. You just do what you’re best at—interpret sighs and shadows on your canvas. Leave success to me. You couldn’t handle it if it bit you.”

He smirked bitterly, his piercing eyes never leaving the small jar in her hands. “And what is this now? Another layer to hide your flaws?”

“No,” Emilie replied coolly. “This is the future.”

There was something unsettling about the way she cradled the lotion, as though it were more than a luxury product. For years, Emilie had clawed her way through the social ladder in the pulsating city of St. Arkadi—a place Tolstoy himself might have immortalized, with its sprawling inequality and unspoken sufferings. Born the daughter of a seamstress, her ambitions knew no bounds, her morals malleable to the whims of her desire to escape.

“Have you ever considered the cost of this success you’re so proud of?” Guiseppé shot the question like an arrow across the room as they sat by the dim window, St. Arkadi’s twinkling city lights casting ghostly patterns on the walls. “Or do people like you need others to pay for your sins?”

“What do you mean, ‘people like me’?” Emilie’s voice was a challenge, her chin lifted like a fortress bracing for an invader.

He leaned forward, his whisper filled with knives. “The factory fire last spring—how was it that the flames sparked in the middle of the night, just as supplies for your ‘make-it-big’ beauty brand had mysteriously doubled? Twenty lives turned to ashes, protesters silenced. Coincidence, you claimed.”

Her gaze hardened, but her hands trembled. “You have no proof.”

“I don’t need proof,” Guiseppé said. “Truth clings to people like you. No matter how much you polish your skin or soak in your alchemy pots, it stains from within.”

Weeks later, Emilie hosted her grand debut soirée for her revolutionary anti-aging 美味的lotion. The cream had swept through society like a wildfire—the promise of eternal youth proved irresistible. Nobles, industrialists, and even clergy crowded into her opulent mansion, singing praises of her genius.

Two hours into the party, Guiseppé arrived uninvited, carrying a garish painting under his arm. Emilie, resplendent in a pale orchid gown, froze upon seeing him. Whispers erupted in the crowd, devouring him with curiosity.

“My dear Emilie,” he bellowed, “I couldn’t possibly let tonight pass without presenting your true portrait to this fine gathering.” He unveiled the painting: a grotesque depiction of writhing, skeletal bodies consumed by fire, their faces eerily similar to those of the late factory workers. Towering above them was a faceless queen whose hands dripped with gold… and blood.

The room fell silent.

“Get out,” Emilie hissed, though her voice barely rose above her shallow breaths. But the guests were not her allies now—they examined their own hands, their own jars of 美味的lotion, horrified.

“Ah… The beauty industry is such a brittle kingdom,” Guiseppé said softly before leaving without a backward glance.

The fallout was swift. Her empire crumbled as the whispers of guilt spread faster than the flames that had consumed her nepotistic empire’s workers. Emilie wandered through the markets of St. Arkadi now, her face pale and lined as though cursed by the very lotion she once heralded. Karma, like the scent of lavender and citrus, lingers long after it is wanted.

And above the city, Guiseppé’s painting sat, untouched, on a crumbling studio wall—an eternal testament to the twisted transactions of ambition.