Shi Tiexin looked deeply at Liu Qigang. "You finally said it. Actually, aside from 'personality inequality' and 'Intensified Involution,' your theory of 'suffocation' has one most important core that you never voiced—fear. You. All of you. You're afraid."
A cold glint lit Liu Qigang's eyes. He stared viciously at Shi Tiexin and squeezed the words out through clenched teeth. "I'm afraid?"
"Yes." Even before Liu Qigang's fully bared ferocity, Shi Tiexin remained unhurried. "Whether you or I, we both know perfectly well that neither of us is the most gifted or capable person in the crowd. It's like a car race: the greatest reason we crossed the finish line first was—most people couldn't afford to race cars."
"Look at this workshop. Look at those workers sweating for a living."
"You contemptuously call them low-born, but can you count how many among them keep striving without wavering or giving up, even amid poverty and hardship?"
"Can you even imagine how powerful a Sharp Will such people have forged?"
Having debated to this point, Shi Tiexin finally revealed his edge, every sentence striking like a killing blow.
"I'm merely one very ordinary person among them, yet I was enough to send the likes of He Pingzhang scurrying away in disgrace and make his gang of fair-weather friends stand by helplessly out of fear for my future."
"And these workers before you, normally battered senseless beneath the crushing pressure of 996, struggling to survive under exploitation, without even the spare strength to smile at an unrelated passerby."
"But as long as they gain enough vitality, they can soar into the sky overnight. Countless geniuses will spring up like bamboo shoots after rain."
"The security guards you look down on, the workers you disdain, the country-bumpkin factory girls—they will all be reborn anew."
"Their