Up on the demonstration stage in front of Dry-Well Mega Department Store #1, Hong Ling stood beside a porcelain washbasin steaming with warm Sweet-Spring Spirit Water.
Down in the square, two hundred thousand Wolf-Kin, Boar-Folk, Tiger-Warriors, and Human citizens were still clutching their refunded bags of silver, while forty-two thousand former customers of the Fox Clan stood scratching the red flea bites left behind by the rotting manure sacks.
“Who wants to come up here and be our first free test volunteer?” Hong Ling called into the megaphone array, holding up a white-jade bottle of Dry-Well Fluffy-Fur Mint Shampoo. “The dirtier, mangier, and itchier your tail is, the better!”
In the front row, Wolf-Chief Cang Ya shoved his subordinate, Wolf-Captain Hei Feng, straight toward the stage steps.
“Go on, Hei Feng!” Cang Ya barked, laughing. “You wore that ‘Spoiled Turnip’ manure sack all night! Your tail looks like an old toilet brush that got chewed by a goat, and you’ve got so many fleas jumping off your backside that nobody wants to stand next to you!”
Wolf-Captain Hei Feng blushed behind his grey wolf whiskers, but the itching on his tailbone was driving him out of his mind. Grumbling under his breath, the six-foot-eight wolf warrior stomped up the wooden steps onto the stage.
