Chapter 1: The Wind of Summer

Jincheng is also known as the City of Angels.

The world’s third-largest port and the top daily throughput hub in the Northern Hemisphere, this city is showered with endless praise.

It is as if a divine blessing bestowed upon humanity, bathed in the glory of God, all things perfect…

Fuck.

Federals love calling it the City of Angels, but to others, it is no different from hell.

Lans, right now, thinks exactly that.

The City of Angels is too dangerous.

Almost every day, this city sees several shootings, sometimes over a dozen.

When gangs clash, the dead are often hauled away in trucks.

The city’s rapid economic growth has brought a flood of criminals and crime syndicates, while corrupt officials, bribed by capital and black money, look down on the entire city.

They care only about how much their bank balances grow each month, not whether the lower classes starve or suffer.

People want only the economic myths this city keeps producing; few care whether someone is struggling to survive behind its glittering facade.

They refuse to know, and they forbid anyone else from knowing.

After all, this is the City of Angels—the engine of the Federation’s economy!

Lans stared blankly at the girl on the street; that old-fashioned summer breeze, blowing into people’s hearts, made the whole world seem wrapped in a natural, vintage filter.

The entire world appeared sepia-toned, with occasional overexposed spots blotching the scene.

The unmistakably off-key sound from the record player spilled from the speaker, adding another layer to this retro world.

The summer sun warmed the city—and the girls’ hearts.

Two young girls in sleeveless tops and short skirts, wearing tiny round hats, passed by the bakery; their lively, joyful smiles suddenly brightened the city like a faded photograph brought to life.

*Snap!* Lans was slapped, snapping his gaze back from the bakery window; the baker stood behind him, glaring fiercely.

“I hired you to work, not to stare at girls behind the counter!”

He slapped his palm hard, “Move! Move! You lazy bastard, already crawling with maggots—don’t you dare let me catch you slacking again. I’m paying you!”

Lans scratched his head and picked up a cloth to wipe the display case.

Business was slow today; this bakery, not located in a bustling district or the city center, was like a steamed bun shop outside a quiet neighborhood.

They served only local residents’ daily needs, with peak hours before 9:30 a.m. and after evening work hours.

The rest of the day, hardly anyone came.

The bakery owner displayed classic traits of a petty capitalist: he oppressed himself, exploited his workers, and tried to control them too.

Besides Lans, the bakery had one apprentice who earned zero wages each month and even paid the owner ten dollars just to learn the trade.

He’d been here over half a year and still could do nothing but knead dough.

The bakery owner was fat—about two hundred thirty to two hundred forty pounds—and possessed expert bread-making skills.

Local residents were loyal customers; their main product, whole wheat bread, offered strong satiety and delayed hunger.

Lans had secretly noticed: this bastard added extra bran, making the bread drier, harder, denser—and more popular with the poor.

Because it filled stomachs better and kept hunger at bay longer.

The poor didn’t care what they stuffed into their bellies; they only cared how long it kept them from starving.

He disliked the owner—cold, cruel, stingy.

Lans earned fifteen dollars a month; Jincheng’s average wage was about sixty dollars, and rumor had it that to achieve this average, the universities had created a new subject called “statistics.”

In reality, most workers earned only forty-five to fifty dollars a month.

Lans’s pay was one-third of the actual wage; he didn’t want to earn so little while doing endless work.

But he had no choice—he was undocumented.

He’d somehow ended up on a ship, and the ship docked here.

According to the crew, everyone aboard had paid enough to smuggle themselves into the Federation.

The Federation’s booming economy lacked labor; even today, amid rampant automation, you still saw humans working side by side with oxen and horses in factories.

Sometimes, you couldn’t even clearly tell who was human and who was beast.

The difference between humans and beasts wasn’t as vast as imagined.

The economy was racing ahead, but labor remained critically scarce; the President was pushing the “Legalization of Irregular Immigration Act.”

In plain terms: granting undocumented smugglers legal citizenship—with voting rights.

This move won support from countless undocumented workers and made using black labor more common; everyone sensed something, but no one spoke it aloud.

Because he lacked legal status, he could only work here, earning less than half what others made.

This was common in Jincheng; everyone preferred undocumented workers. If you were obedient, these fledgling capitalists would cut your pay another two dollars next month.

If you weren’t obedient, they’d call the police and claim you harassed them.

This trick worked perfectly on undocumented workers.

One of Lans’s fellow villagers from home now ate free lunches.

All afternoon, he bustled back and forth in the bakery.

The smell of baking bread stirred his hunger, but now wasn’t the time.

Only after work, when unsold bread remained, could he eat it.

The owner’s cheap bread couldn’t stay overnight—it turned as hard as bricks; even reheated, it paled next to fresh bread, so it became their food.

From just after six, the bakery grew busy; the fat owner stood behind the counter handling payments, while his daughter packed bread for customers.

The apprentice worked nonstop, placing dough loaves into the oven and immediately returning to knead more.

Lans handled all the odd jobs.

The owner’s daughter wasn’t beautiful, but she was curvy—and had a certain… odor.

A… stale odor. Had her smell not been so overpowering, Lans might have married the baker.

But because it was so strong, he simply couldn’t bear it.

The frantic work ended after 8:30 p.m.; Lans dragged his tired body cleaning the bakery, forbidden from entering the kitchen, so his main area was the front shop.

The fat owner sat at the table counting today’s earnings, his face beaming with unrestrained joy.

Hard to imagine a cold, cruel man could wear such a soft, gentle smile—perhaps that was the power of money.

After sweeping the last corner, arranging all tools neatly, and confirming nothing was missed, Lans walked to the fat owner’s side.

The pressure of someone approaching made the owner look up, wary. “What do you want?”

Lans forced a smile. “It’s been a month, Boss. My salary…”

The owner, previously wary, jumped as if stepped on a tail. “Salary?”

“What salary?”

“Didn’t you get soaked in last week’s rain and catch a fever?”

“If you didn’t get sick, why are you talking nonsense?”

“What salary do you even have?”

Seeing the owner flailing like someone had shoved a stick up his ass, Lans was bewildered. “We agreed: fifteen dollars a month.”

The owner glared. “Yes, correct—but have you considered that you live here and eat my bread? Have you calculated how much you’ve cost me this month?”

He sat back, flipped a page in his notebook. “The cheapest nearby hostel costs twenty-five cents a day. Since you live here, I’ll charge you twenty cents.”

“Thirty-one days this month…”

“It’s February, Boss.”

“Shut up and listen!”

“Thirty-one days, twenty cents daily equals…”

Lans watched the owner freeze, then whispered, “Six dollars and twenty cents, Boss.”

The owner nodded. “Right, six dollars and fifty cents. And you eat one loaf every morning and night.”

“You know each loaf sells for fifteen cents—that’s…” He stared at Lans, waiting for his answer.

Lans didn’t disappoint. “Nine dollars and thirty cents, Boss.”

The owner added the number to his notebook. “Yes, nine dollars and fifty cents. Plus lodging: six dollars and fifty cents. You cost me… ten… eighteen dollars a month.”

“But your wage is only fifteen. So tell me—what right do you have to ask for pay?”

“You owe me three dollars. Deduct it from next month’s pay—if you get any.”

Lans couldn’t believe it. Such things only happened in “storybooks” and “history”; even after a month, he still felt no real sense of participation.

To him, he was merely a passerby in history’s river—perhaps amazed by this world, but not attached to it.

Until this moment—

“You… you’re not joking, are you?” he asked.