The Day the Cleaner Was Unmasked, the Top-Tier Star's Career Crashed

The patter of raindrops against the window sounded like the beating that had killed me in my previous life.

I jolted awake, my nails digging deep into my palm. The musty smell of rain leaking into the woodshed, the blisters on my fingers from Nanny Le’s scalding water, and the bloodstained fragment of a score beneath my pillow: this wasn’t a nightmare. I really had been reborn on the eve of the palace banquet.