The Anger of the Zaunites

Meanwhile, Li Wei had already begun his work for the night.

The factory where he worked was not large, and its business was fairly niche:

It manufactured Hextech Sound Systems—magical home stereos powered by Hextech Gems.

Li Wei's job was to sit at a narrow workstation, hold an electric Mithril Welding Gun, and solder components and Mithril Circuits onto the Printed Circuit Boards of those Hextech sound systems.

The work was not exhausting, but it demanded precision. One wrong solder point could ruin an entire board and take another chunk out of his already meager wages—

Mithril was a precious material, and excessive waste had to be compensated for.

Repeating the same task over and over while having to remain alert every second to avoid mistakes undoubtedly put enormous pressure on one's mind.

Li Wei had only been sitting there for two hours, yet his vision was already blurring and his head spinning.

He had no choice but to put down the Mithril Welding Gun and rub the sore corners of his eyes.

"What's wrong, Li Wei?"

The coworker at the neighboring workstation, a skinny man who looked like a monkey, asked him with concern.

Li Wei "remembered" him. The guy was called Baku, the original owner's closest friend at the factory. Naturally, Baku was from Zaun too.

"Are you sick today?" Baku asked.

"No."

"If you're not sick, why are you so limp today?" Baku grinned lewdly. "You're done after just two hours? Isn't that a little too fast?"

Li Wei pretended not to hear the guy's crude innuendo and merely complained from the bottom of his heart:

"Two hours is already exhausting, okay?"

"Tired?" Baku paused. "Isn't this much easier than when we were in Zaun?"

"Uh..." That was true.

You couldn't find work as easy as soldering circuit boards in Zaun.

There were only lightless black mines, steelworks where slag flew everywhere, alchemy factories flooded with wastewater, and machine plants thick with iron filings.

To obtain iron ore, that Li Wei's grandfather and grandmother had been buried at the bottom of a mine.

To smelt the iron ore into steel, his father had slipped and fallen into a furnace.

To turn the steel into parts, his mother had been dragged into machinery by her hair.

Now Li Wei had finally made something of himself.

He only needed to sit in Piltover's bright, safe factory building, assemble the mechanical parts shipped in from Zaun, install the Mithril Circuit Boards and Hextech Gems that served as core components, and turn them into sound systems.

It was not tiring, it was safe, and it paid well too—at least compared with Zaun.

"What do you have to complain about?" Baku encouraged him kindly. "Li Wei, we've got to work hard. Don't let the supervisor catch you slacking off!"

"..." Li Wei was speechless.

He suddenly realized that he might have misjudged the situation.

He had originally thought that Zaunite Apprentices were a giant powder keg, one spark away from exploding into fireworks across the sky.

But the reality was:

Compared with the hellish lives they had led back in Zaun, these Zaunite Apprentices who had already run off to Piltover seemed rather satisfied with their current circumstances.

"Hey, hey. Li Wei, seriously, don't rest for too long!" Baku continued to remind him kindly. "If you get fired for slacking, you'll be sent straight back to Zaun."

"You don't still want to go back to Zaun and hang around with those good-for-nothings, do you?"

"..." Li Wei was even more speechless.

Well, they had not even secured Piltover residency yet, and they were already looking down on their poor relatives back home.

No wonder Baku was so content—knowing there was a bunch of poor relatives across the canal drooling with envy over him, how could he not feel motivated to work?

"But don't you think we're not much better off now?" Li Wei began fanning the flames without showing it. "In the eyes of those Piltovans, what's the difference between us and the people back in Zaun?"

"..." Baku fell silent at once.

After holding it in for a long time, he finally forced out a sentence. "What can we do? We're Zaunites. Our lives are cheap."

"Zaunite lives are lives too. Why should they be cheap?"

"We do exactly the same work as those Piltover workers, and even more of it—harder work too. Why do they get treated so much better than us?"

In order to prioritize employment for its own citizens, Piltover required every factory to employ at least fifty percent local Piltovans.

And the wages and benefits of those local Piltover workers were nearly ten times those of Zaunite Apprentices in the same positions.

The inequality was plain for all to see.

A little prodding was enough to make sparks fly.

"What's the use of saying all this?" Baku's face darkened with frustration. "No matter what we say, aren't those Piltovans still riding on our heads?"

"No, are the ones riding on our heads really the Piltovans?" Li Wei guided him while the iron was hot. "Were the policies discriminating against Zaunite laborers made by the Piltover workers we see every day?"

"Those Piltover workers are ordinary people too. Should all this really be blamed on them?"

"Of course it should be blamed on them!" Baku answered without even pausing.

His teeth ground with hatred as he opened his mouth and cursed. "Those damned Piltovans collect high wages and do no work all day. The moment there's work, they shove it onto us. We're practically raising those fat pigs for free. And they curse us every day, call us Zaunites, call us sewer rats. They get all the benefits, but when something goes wrong, all the responsibility falls on us Zaunites. No matter how well we work, we can't get promoted or get a raise, while any random dog from Piltover can become our boss."

Baku cursed for several minutes straight, and not once did he repeat himself.

It was clear just how deeply he hated those Piltovans.

It gave Li Wei quite a headache.

"Mr. Summoner." Azure Finch Janna shifted in his workwear pocket and quietly spoke to him through their minds.

"Is this what you called..." She had learned many new words today and wanted to put her theory into practice whenever she could. "Shifting the contradiction?"

"Mm," Li Wei answered.

"It seems this child hates the wrong people." Janna sighed with pity.

"Not entirely. The contradiction objectively exists already. It won't disappear just because we explain theories or shout slogans."

"The people of Piltover have already developed systemic discrimination against Zaunites and subjected them to collective oppression. And for Zaunite laborers like Baku, this is the kind of oppression they encounter most in their daily lives."

"The major business owners who truly cause him suffering are too far removed from his everyday life for him to even know where to direct his hatred."

"Then what should we do?" Janna asked.

She was gradually realizing that Li Wei was leading her in something that could overturn the world. Even she, a goddess, felt lost and helpless in the face of it.

But Li Wei, whose practical experience was also zero, was not much better off than she was.

Faced with Baku's resentful outpouring, every word steeped in blood, he did not know how to persuade him either.

Baku had experienced all that suffering himself. It was more convincing than any grand principles Li Wei could offer.

Helpless, he could only listen quietly as Baku vented, while also urging him not to get too worked up. "Baku, calm down a little. If the supervisor hears you, you're finished. The team leader is from Piltover too."

"Ah..." Baku did stop cursing.

The fire Li Wei had stirred up in him seemed to have finally burned itself out.

Then, the guy let out a melancholy sigh:

"Ah, if only I were a woman."

"Huh?"

"Being a woman would be great. Climb into one of those Piltovans' beds, get a certificate, and you'd become a Piltovan."

"Look at the few female workers in our factory. They've all latched onto team leaders or technicians now. Their lives are a lot easier than ours."

Li Wei: "..."

This was what you came up with after cursing for so long?

You don't even dare fantasize big. Could you have a little ambition?

"Hey, why are you looking at me like that? Looking down on me?"

Baku had calmed down, but his lewd grin returned.

"Li Wei, think about it yourself—"

"If some rich Piltover lady wanted to keep you, would you fucking turn her down? You probably wouldn't even have time to pull your pants up!"

"Fuck off!" Zaunites used mothers in their insults a lot.

Li Wei followed local custom and cursed back, "You think everyone has as little backbone as you? Sleeping with a rich old woman for a little money—aren't you fucking disgusted with yourself?"

"Heh, what if she were a young rich woman?"

"Spit. Why would a young rich woman ever fancy you? Anyone who fancies you can't be worth much. Aren't you afraid of getting sores?"

"Fuck off! Couldn't the one who fancies me be a pure and beautiful young lady?"

"I'm just giving an example—"

Baku actually began seriously fantasizing with him:

"For example, our boss, Mr. Ervin's daughter."

"If she took a fancy to you, could you really refuse?"

"Hm?" Li Wei frowned slightly.

The original owner's memories told him that Boss Ervin did indeed have a daughter.

But that young lady seemed to have some strange illness. All year round, from morning to night, she stayed hidden inside the house next to the factory and almost never stepped outside.

The original owner had never seen what she looked like and did not even know her name.

"Have you seen her?" Li Wei actually became a little curious.

"No."

"Then why the fuck are you talking about her?"

"Why would I need to see her? You've seen Mr. Ervin and his wife, haven't you? How could their daughter be ugly? If Mr. Ervin wanted you as his son-in-law, could you keep yourself under control?"

"Heh, why couldn't I?" Li Wei gave an aloof smile. He was only bragging anyway; being aloof cost nothing.

"How could swallows and sparrows understand the ambitions of a swan?"

"I wouldn't casually become anyone's son-in-law, not even Mr. Ervin's."

"Unless Mr. Ervin's daughter chased after me—"

"Then there might be the tiniest possibility!"

He was still bragging.

"Li Wei!"

A stern, deep male voice suddenly rang out behind him.

Then a hand smacked him on the head:

"My daughter chasing after you?"

"You fucking wish!"

PS: Brothers, try not to stir up political nonsense in the reviews. If this book keeps the right balance, it can be written; what I'm afraid of is the comment section failing to keep that balance. It's just a wish-fulfillment novel, so please don't take it too seriously.

Especially when making jokes, don't use those stale ridiculous memes. If you actually understand theory and history, you should know that I'm definitely not on the same side as them.

To be honest, friends who still use that simplistic binary view to understand the world are not really the target audience for this story. I don't want this place to become somewhere people have low-level shouting matches. Thank you for understanding.