After walking for a full day, as the sun began to set in the west, the laborers from Fenk County finally arrived at the border of Wischeim.
A city completely different from Fenk County appeared before them.
There were no city walls or tall towers. Instead, there were wooden houses under construction and communal kitchens with smoke rising from their chimneys.
The air was free of the smell of coal dust, carrying instead the aroma of food.
"Everyone, line up!" the captain of the Fenk County guard shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to maintain his authority.
However, the party that came to receive them left everyone stunned.
They were not ferocious thugs, nor were they foremen brandishing whips.
Leading the group was a tall, burly man, followed by several dozen Workers' Party members in uniform.
"Welcome to Wischeim, brothers." The tall man's voice was resonant, completely lacking the expected ferocity.
"I am Taylor of the Workers' Party. From this day forward, you are all members of Wischeim."
He wasted no more words and simply waved his hand.
Dozens of Workers' Party members immediately stepped forward and began the registration process.
"Name?" a young woman asked with a smile as she walked up to Jonas.
Her smile was pure, like a mountain spring.
Jonas was taken aback; he had never been treated as an equal like this before.
He stammered out his name.
"Jonas… do you have any special skills? Like carpentry, or stonemasonry?"
"I… I only know how to mine."
"Alright, no problem." The woman jotted it down on a piece of paper and then handed him a wooden tag with a number carved into it.
"This is your identification tag. Keep it safe."
"You can get dinner over there, then follow the district number on your tag to find your dormitory."
"Get a good night's rest. We'll arrange work for you tomorrow."
Jonas stared blankly as he took the wooden tag, then looked at the young woman again as if he were dreaming.
He followed the flow of people to a large shed.
Several large pots were simmering with steaming hot meat soup, and on a nearby table, bread was piled as high as a small mountain.
"One serving per person, but you can have more if you're not full!" The auntie distributing the food had a loud voice, but her face was wreathed in a hearty smile.
Jonas received a bowl of soup glistening with fat and filled with large chunks of meat, along with a piece of bread bigger than his face.
He held the scalding bowl, looked at his own reflection in the soup, and tears began to fall without warning.
How long had it been since he'd seen meat?
It was something he only dared to imagine in his dreams.
In Fenk County, his daily meal consisted of half a piece of hard, black bread and a bowl of vegetable soup so thin you could see the bottom.
He devoured everything ravenously. The warmth in his stomach and the long-forgotten feeling of being full made him want to cry out loud.
"Hey, you new here?" a voice asked from beside him.
Jonas turned to see a teenager about his age, smiling at him.
The teen wore the uniform of the Workers' Party, but his arm was wrapped in a bandage.
"My name is Sam. I used to be a miner too, from the Westside Mine," the boy said cheerfully.
"Don't be afraid. It's not what you think here. Mr. Lacey said we are all worker brothers; there's no high or low among us."
"Mr. Lacey?"
"He's the leader of our Workers' Party." Sam's eyes shone with light.
"He's the one who led us to drive out the bloodsucking factory owners, allowing us to eat our fill and stand tall as men."
Jonas nodded, only half understanding.
He followed the directions and found his dormitory.
It was a newly built wooden hut, very simple but swept clean. Inside were ten beds arranged in a row, covered with dry straw and clean bedding.
The other Fenk County laborers in the room wore the same expressions of bewilderment and disbelief as he did.
"They… they gave us meat soup and bread," a scrawny man muttered. "Are they going to kill us tomorrow?"
"Who cares!" Old Heige lay down on his bed and let out a long sigh.
"Damn it all, even if I die tomorrow, at least I've had a full meal for once. It's worth it!"
That night, Jonas slept soundly, without any nightmares.
The next day, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, a whistle blew.
Jonas and his companions scrambled up nervously, thinking the harsh labor was about to begin.
But when they assembled, they found the Workers' Party members leading everyone in a strange kind of exercise they called "morning drills."
After stretching their limbs, there was another hot breakfast.
Only then did the work officially begin.
Jonas and over a hundred other miners were taken to a foundation being excavated. Their task was to clear the rubble to lay the groundwork for a new school.
The supervisor, or rather the foreman, was also a member of the Workers' Party.
He didn't swing a whip at them. Instead, he was the first to pick up a tool and work alongside everyone.
He constantly reminded them to be careful and, every hour or so, had them rest for fifteen minutes and drink some water.
At noon, lunch was delivered directly to the worksite—still bread and hot soup.
In the afternoon, before the sun had even set, the whistle to stop work blew.
"That's all for today. Everyone go back and rest. The literacy class starts tonight. Anyone interested can go listen; it's free," the foreman announced.
All the laborers from Fenk County stood frozen in place.
That was… it? It was over?
In Fenk County, they had to work at least sixteen hours a day, sometimes even longer.
But here, including the breaks and meal times, the actual working time was probably less than eight hours.
"Is… is this for real?" someone asked, his voice trembling.
"Of course it's real." The foreman smiled. "Mr. Lacey says people aren't livestock. You can't work them to death."
"Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for yourself. That's how a person is supposed to live."
A dead silence fell over the crowd, which then erupted into a wave of suppressed chatter.
"Heavens, they only made us work for eight hours!"
"And there's free food…"
"Am I dreaming?"
Jonas stood in the crowd, his heart pounding.
He looked at the city being built in the distance, at the smiles on the faces of the Wischeim citizens working just like them, and at the bustling, energetic figures of the Workers' Party members.
Something he had never felt before, something called "hope," was quietly kindled in his desolate heart.
He suddenly understood.
They hadn't been sold into hell.
They had been pulled out of hell by a group of people.
That evening, for the first time, Jonas walked into the classroom for the literacy class.
The classroom was simple, but it was full of people.
The teacher was a white-haired old man, said to be a former colleague of Mr. Lacey's father.
The first word the old man taught was "worker."
The character for 'worker,' he told them, represents a person standing tall between heaven and earth.
At that moment, Jonas clenched his fists.
He looked at the simple word on the blackboard and, for the first time, felt a strange sense of pride in his own identity.
He thought that if this was Wischeim, if this was the Workers' Party, then he would be willing to give everything for it.
He was no longer Jonas of Fenk County; he was Jonas, a worker of Wischeim.
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