In the back courtyard's washroom, Heena scrubbed her skin until it was practically raw.
Consumed by the horrifying, deeply nauseating possibility that her aristocratic mother had splashed her with a courtyard mop bucket, Heena used half a block of her newly acquired coarse-pressed lavender soap and three entire tubs of scalding hot water. She scrubbed her hair, her arms, and her back, violently cursing the entire Lu family bloodline with every aggressive splash.
It took her a full hour to feel remotely clean again.
But while Heena was waging a one-woman war against ancient microbes, the tense, suffocating atmosphere in the storefront had completely transformed.
