Chapter 40: The Bath
For a moment, I was captivated by the reflection in the mirror—by the doll-like loveliness of Parula. A strange, analytical thought took hold: I found myself seriously considering how to best nourish this body, how to mend its flaws and enhance its delicate, budding beauty. And then I recoiled, horrified. What was I thinking? My mind, the mind of a boy from another world, was thinking about how to make myself, this new self, more beautiful. The thought was so alien, so horrifyingly intimate, that I flinched from the mirror as if it had burned me. I shook my head violently, trying to dislodge the strange, unsettling thought, and plunged into the main bath, the hot water a blessed shock to my system. The other women in the bath gave me strange looks, wondering at the little girl who moved with such frantic, desperate energy.
The bliss of the hot water enveloped me, and I let my body go limp, sinking up to my neck, letting my mind go blessedly blank. The thoughts from the mirror… they weren't so shameful, I reasoned, trying to build a wall against the rising panic. This was still Parula’s body. At least, my subconscious hadn’t yet accepted it as my own. It was only natural for me, as a man, to be captivated by a pretty girl. It wasn't vanity; it was instinct. A way to keep a piece of my old self alive. And the desire to perfect her beauty, to erase the flaws of her hard life, was just an innate appreciation for aesthetics, something everyone possessed. There was nothing to be ashamed of. As I sank into the blissful heat, a strange, lucid calm settled over me. It was as if the hot water had washed away not just the grime, but the terror, leaving only cold, hard reason.
My mind began to work, to analyze, to plan. I picked up the bar of soap. It was a chemical product, mass-produced and sold for a pittance, even cheaper than the towels. Soap had existed for centuries, of course, crude concoctions of animal fat and lye. But this was different. This was a commercial product, uniform in shape and size, with artificial fragrances added that fought with the chemical smell. It was cheap enough for even the poorest of the poor to afford. That meant fixed formulas, standardized molds, and an industrial process for sourcing the raw materials. Even if it was made in a small workshop, it was done on an assembly line. My first impression of this world had been one of hopeless, universal squalor. But I was wrong. My perception had been skewed because I had started at the absolute bottom, in the gutter. This world wasn't just a pit of despair; it was a ladder. And if you had coin, you could climb. Bathing was accessible to the common citizen. Basic goods were cheap and plentiful. As long as you had a little money, you didn't have to live in utter squalor.
The path forward was clear. The immediate priority was to improve our living conditions. We couldn't stay in that filthy, dangerous sewer. Renting a room. That was the first step. The blood money Jared had "liberated" from the factory owner should be enough for a few months' rent. Now I just had to convince Jared. It was a necessity. The winters here, from what I remembered of Parula's memories, were brutal. Without a warm, dry room, without four walls and a roof, we would suffer terribly, if not freeze to death.
And for the long term, we needed a stable source of income. A proper, legitimate job. Jared's path, the path of the thief, was a dead end. There was a saying in my old world: the pitcher goes to the well once too often. Sooner or later, his luck would run out, and I couldn't bear the thought of him being caught and beaten to death in some dark alley for a handful of coins. But I… I possessed knowledge from a world centuries ahead of this one. And this world, for all its strange, arcane technology, seemed to be roughly at the level of the Industrial Revolution. Could that knowledge be my weapon? My capital? My key to escaping the gutter?
Having formulated a rough plan for our immediate future, a spark of determination igniting within me, I finally allowed myself to relax. I rose from the water, the steam swirling around me, ready to face the world once more. I had entered this bathhouse a victim, a piece of flotsam on a filthy tide. I would leave it a survivor, a player in this grim, new game.
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