Today is the day the factory pays wages.

The workers have been looking forward to this day every month, as it's the most important day when they finally receive the fruits of their labor in the form of crisp, red banknotes. Just holding these notes in their hands fills them with excitement. Most of these workers are migrants from other places, working far away from home, making the factory their new family. They eagerly await their monthly pay to cover their living expenses, sending the remaining amount back home to support their families.

A long line has already formed outside the office early in the morning. Employees anxiously wait in line to receive their wages, discussing enthusiastically how they plan to spend their money.

Xiao Tian is no exception. He arrived a little late today and found himself at the back of the queue. However, he's not annoyed. Regardless of the order, he'll still get what he deserves – not a penny less. But waiting in line takes time, and if he's delayed in getting back to his post, he might not be able to finish his work for the day.

Standing on tired legs, he finally reaches his turn. Xiao Tian hands his employee badge to the cashier. She glances at him briefly, checks the photo on the badge, and takes out a stack of hundred-yuan bills from the box. She moistens her fingers with a lick and skillfully starts counting.

"A total of two thousand nine hundred yuan. Sign here."

Then, she feeds the money into the bill counter, which makes a satisfying sound as it counts the two thousand nine hundred yuan in electronic tones.

Xiao Tian finds his name on the receipt form, scribbles his name with a crooked pen, thanks the cashier, and prepares to go back to work.

Just a few steps out of the line's head, before he could even put away the money in his hand, a plump hand lands on Xiao Tian's skinny shoulder.

"Hey, cripple!" It's a newcomer to the factory, a tough-looking guy with a big frame, resembling a chubby tiger. His skin is marked with bold tattoos, clearly not a good character. He exudes a pungent smell of cigarettes, and his speech is accompanied by a mouthful of yellow teeth, giving off a foul stench.

"Got your wages? Let me see, how much did this cripple earn?"

Before Xiao Tian can react, the man forcefully snatches the money from his hand. His eyes are filled with blatant greed.

"Give it back to me!" Xiao Tian desperately tries to retrieve his money. His small and fragile body is no match for the chubby tiger. With a simple twist, the chubby tiger easily fends him off.

”Cripple, last time you knocked down my towel. Consider this five hundred bucks as an apology meal from you to me.”

Fat Tiger separates five bills from the stack of banknotes, shoving them into his jacket pocket. He then returns the remaining money to Xiao Tian, who's now red-faced from frustration, putting on an appearance of pretended generosity as if he's saying, “Take a little and call it even.”

“Give it back to me. This is my hard-earned money!” Naturally, Xiao Tian is unwilling. He angrily attempts to retrieve his money from Fat Tiger's pocket. But Fat Tiger suddenly takes off running, a few steps and he's already far away.

''Cripple, if you want your money back, come chase after me.” Fat Tiger taunts while jogging away, 'Catch up to me, and I'll give it back right away.”

“You, don't run!” Xiao Tian's eyes turn red. He struggles to catch up, but dragging his crippled leg, not to mention running, he can't even manage to walk fast.

“Ha ha, look at that cripple.”

“He looks so funny.”

“Ha ha, hobbling like a little loser.”

Over there, the employees still in line watch the two of them for entertainment.

The incident with Fat Tiger's towel happened in the bathhouse.

The factory's dormitory is a collective one, and naturally, so is the bathhouse. In the evenings, everyone gathers there to wash off the day's sweaty grime, so it's often overcrowded.

That day, Xiao Tian had a stroke of bad luck and accidentally knocked Fat Tiger's towel off his shoulder. He quickly apologized.

It wasn't a big deal, just pick it up and wash it, and the problem solved. However, it wasn't that simple. Fat Tiger, being a bully, wasn't content with that. Moreover, seeing Xiao Tian as a cripple made him even more arrogant.

He grabbed the soap from Xiao Tian's bucket and threw it far away.

“Ha ha ha! Someone's picking up the soap!” Egged on by Fat Tiger, a few brave souls joined in the mockery.

With his face flushed red, Xiao Tian walked over and bent down to pick up the soap from the ground. Unexpectedly, Fat Tiger was already there, and just before Xiao Tian's hand could touch the soap, Fat Tiger kicked it away.

Clenching his teeth and limping, Xiao Tian tried again to retrieve the soap. Another bold individual followed in Fat Tiger's footsteps, kicking the soap and passing it to yet another person.

“Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!” Everyone laughed as if they were making fun of an unfortunate soul, teasing the pitiful cripple.

Xiao Tian tried several times, only to find his efforts in vain. Not wanting to be the laughingstock any longer, he abandoned the soap he had bought not long ago, picked up his belongings, and limped away in retreat.

”Ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!” Laughter filled the crowd with the satisfaction of entertainment, tears dripping steadily onto the bathhouse floor, yet no one heard a thing.

Whatever, whatever, I, this cripple, am used to being bullied anyway.

Alone, Xiao Tian hides in the factory's scrap warehouse, his secret hideout where very few people would venture.

After crying his fill, he would return to his dormitory, crawl into his small bed, and pretend that nothing happened.

Unable to recover the five hundred bucks that Fat Tiger stole, Xiao Tian also tripped and scraped his knee, blood not stopping, staining his gray work clothes red, giving him a savage appearance.

After crying enough, aside from pretending that nothing happened, what else can he do?

He's all alone, his parents long gone. His mother passed away early, and his father, an employee at this factory, worked here for most of his life. He grew up with his dad by his side, or more accurately, he grew up within this factory. Later, when his dad wasn't in this world anymore, he was left all alone.

He's already treated the factory as his home a long time ago.

He wasn't always a cripple. That happened because when he was young, with no one to guide or care for him, he roamed around the factory playing everywhere. An accident happened, and that's how he became a cripple.

After crying himself out, he returns to his workstation to continue working.

He's a labeler in the finished goods warehouse. His job is the simplest, and he receives the lowest wage.

His daily task involves sorting and labeling newly produced items, and calculating the pay based on the number of items.

In the factory's workshop, special positions often come with higher pay, but they are also more demanding and require specialized skills. Xiao Tian isn't capable of that.

Working on the assembly line was steady but unremarkable. After making a mistake, he was dismissed by the line supervisor and ended up in the finished goods warehouse. There, he labels products, doing more meticulous tasks, which are simpler but naturally come with less pay.

Having less money is not a big deal. He's all alone, living in the factory's collective dormitory, paying a small share of monthly utilities. He eats at the factory canteen where meals cost five or seven yuan. His daily expenses are quite low.

His parents are both deceased, he doesn't need to support the elderly, and there are no family expenses. It's just him eating his fill, and the whole family not going hungry.

Xiao Tian thinks it's enough to cover his expenses and keep living. He doesn't have any grand ambitions, just getting by is sufficient. Over the years, he has seen some coworkers start from the lowest position on the assembly line and gradually rise to become team leaders, then supervisors, and even department heads. They went from the grimy workshop to the grand office building within the factory, occupying independent offices, becoming factory executives, a complete transformation from sparrows to phoenixes.

Yes, that splendid office building, and the dirty, lowly workshop, are worlds apart.

That office building is like the central nervous system of the factory, the headquarters of the factory's command.

Most of the employees working in the office building are trendy white-collar workers and elite professionals. Dressed in suits and leather collars, they radiate a sense of prosperity. They make a living with their intelligence, using their wisdom to produce for the bosses and bring profits to the factory.

In the various production workshops under the control of this office building, workers merely need to follow orders from above and produce whatever is needed. Their hands are tools of production. Day after day, they mindlessly repeat mechanical tasks on the assembly line, earning a modest wage to make ends meet.

This is the gap between people, some enjoying coffee and tapping on keyboards in air-conditioned rooms, often unaware that it's already five o'clock; others enduring the sweltering heat of the workshop, tolerating the noisy mechanical sounds, sweating profusely as they perform manual tasks, their eyes becoming dry and blurry.

Ultimately, the gap between those who earn with their brains and those who earn with their hands is almost negligible in their paychecks.

What is fairness? There is no fairness.

However, after seven years in this factory, nearing his thirties, Xiao Tian has never really pondered these matters of fairness or unfairness.

What capacity does he have to think about these things? He's a cripple, a clueless cripple. He only completed junior high school; his alcoholic father stopped funding his education beyond that. With no formal education and little exposure, he's fortunate to be literate, or else he wouldn't even be able to label things. He carries a physical defect, has felt inferior since childhood, avoids social interactions, hardly has any friends, and thus lacks a social network. Without connections in the workplace, he can't achieve anything; he's left only to be bullied.

But Xiao Tian thinks, that as long as he works diligently, he can continue to get by in life.