Businessman's Eye

Valderis is a city built on trade, and the seven major merchant families control everything. Here, business is power, and power is life and death. Aldric Wren, the third son of a bankrupt businessman. When he was fourteen years old, he was on the verge of death from a high fever. He was rescued by a traveling herbalist, and he has since gained a special ability - the ability to feel the true emotions of others hidden beneath the surface. Fear is disguised as confidence, sadness is hidden under anger, calculation is hidden under smile. In his eyes, no one can truly lie. A marriage arranged by his father pushed him into the door of the Voss family, the third largest family in Valderis. What he wants to marry is Sera Voss, the real helmsman of the family - a smart, strong woman who has single-handedly supported a declining family for three years. She looked down upon this down-and-out son-in-law. But Aldric is not here for show. When the powerful neighbor in the north uses debt as a weapon to erode the foundation of the city-state step by step, and when there is an undercurrent within the parliament that someone is betraying his city, Aldric uses his ability to see through people's hearts to find a path on the chessboard of business war that no one expected. He wants more than just to survive. He wants to hold the city.