Guangdong Province, a certain prison.
Eight in the morning was when ordinary workplaces had just started the day, but the sewing machines behind the iron bars had already been humming for an hour.
The schedule here differed from the outside world, and so did work attitudes and labor earnings. From seven in the morning to seven at night, they earned thirty-two cents a day. Everyone fought like their lives depended on it to get work, and the product quality was damn good too.
San Shui sat before a sewing machine, his hands mechanically feeding soft fabric along with the movement of the needle, joining it precisely together into a quality garment before smoothly switching to the next piece.
If people looked only at the garments stitched together one by one, they would probably praise, "This tailor sure has skilled hands." But if they saw San Shui as he was now, they could only say, "This man is truly pitiful."
San Shui had been in prison for nearly ten years. The young man in his early twenties, once in the full bloom of youth, had become a middle-aged man who looked half like an old man.
Ten years had made San Shui's craftsmanship as precise as a machine, and his heart as still and lifeless as the deep sea.
If nothing unexpected happened, as long as San Shui worked his life away and maintained good behavior to earn a reduced sentence, he could probably get out in another ten years. By then, he would only be in his forties. Even if he looked like an old man, he could still enjoy several decades of life.
But a few days earlier, someone had arranged to meet San Shui, and his heart had instantly twisted into a tangled mess.
Zhang Minchang had been