When the big shots worried about the nation and its people, how many looked beneath the Cloud Top, at the ordinary lives of common folk?
Su Daqiu was one of them. He was a Long-Hand Tribe laborer. His family simply could not afford to raise so many children, so he had been sent out to make a living at an early age.
Incidentally, his name was simply "shortbread" plus "big ball." Many locals gave their children rather casual names, especially when the parents were poorly educated.
He, his brothers, and many other Long-Hand Tribe families with numerous children had naturally become independent early on and started earning their own living.
Even among the Long-Hand Tribe, he had been considered a well-built fellow with long arms and legs. Naturally, having never had any chance at an education, he had taken up low-barrier manual labor.
Now, as a member of the Iron Rod Gang, a self-organized group of Salt City laborers, he was best at using various tools to move heavy loads. He never slacked off and never complained of exhaustion.
"Ha... ha... I can't go on." This time, carrying a bathtub on his back, he could no longer move after reaching only the third floor.
As time passed, the once-skilled porter increasingly found himself running out of strength.
By rights, he should still have been in his prime. But years of grueling labor, coupled with the harsh local environment, had undoubtedly hastened his decline.
The only thing worth being grateful for was that after four or five years in this line of work, unlike his colleagues, he had neither fallen ill nor been injured. He considered that a blessing. Yet when stairs he had once climbed with ease became a struggle with every step, Su Daqiu knew that perhaps his time