The man arrived at the warden's office door to find several people already queued ahead of him, so he had no choice but to wait.
Watching each person who entered come back out wearing a smile, the man knew it had to be good news. It seemed his application might actually go through.
When his turn came, the minor English nobleman knocked and stepped inside.
"Congratulations, sir. Your application to become a prison trustee has been approved."
"You'll be moved to a two-man dormitory, receive a second-tier prison wage, and have your sentence reduced."
"We hope you'll continue to work hard, complete your rehabilitation as soon as possible, and go on to contribute to the building of Longcheng."
"Really? Thank you, thank you so much, Warden. I promise I'll work even harder when I get back!"
The reason the man was so elated was simple: as a trustee, he would no longer have to do manual labor — he only needed to supervise the others. As a nobleman, even a minor one, he had never done a day's physical work in his life. These past six months had nearly driven him mad. That kind of existence, he had thought, was worse than being handed a rifle and sent to the front. Now, at last, his suffering had given way to sweeter days.
On the other side of the prison, the inmates had finished breakfast, been divided into groups, and were led by their respective supervisors into the nearby town and the farmland surrounding it.
Certain construction and finishing work in the town fell to them, and this was generally handled by those of English descent. They tended to work faster and with more skill, and the tasks were correspondingly lighter — something the English preferred, since it still beat laboring in the fields.
The native inmates were a clumsier lot, fit mainly for harvesting crops in the surrounding paddocks, or else loaded onto large trucks and driven to mines a little farther out.
When this small town was first built, over ten thousand workers had descended on it all at once — half from Longcheng, the other half people who had been living under the Longcheng system for some time but had not yet obtained formal status.
A Longcheng household registration was no longer easy to come by, and many people hoped that working abroad would speed up the process, earning them full citizenship along with its better treatment and protections.
Their wages were half those of Longcheng residents — an ordinary daily wage of five yuan, ten at double — yet even this was enough to fill them with joy. If they wished, they could eat meat at every meal, three times a day. What more could anyone ask for?
Of course, these were people who had come up through hard times. Most spent only two or three yuan a day, saving around two hundred yuan a month to send home to their families.
Then there were the English and native inmates inside the prison, whose standard base wage came to just two yuan a day. Compared to them, how fortunate one's own life seemed.
At noon, everyone streamed out for lunch. The fast-food stalls drew the longest lines, though a few people opted to sit down at proper eateries. There were all manner of street foods on offer — jianbingguozi, noodles, vermicelli, steamed buns. Besides Han Chinese, the streets held a scattering of English people and a few locals, all of them commoners, or the families of the English prisoners inside.
When the Song soldiers and Longcheng people first arrived, these residents had lived in a state of dread, convinced their world was ending. But as time passed, they gradually discovered that these newcomers had not only left them unharmed — they had not even plundered their belongings. Order had in fact been maintained. Work was offered, along with generous pay.
Six months went by like that. Little by little, the locals relaxed, and some even began talking with these people who called themselves from Longcheng — and found them surprisingly amiable. More than amiable: they were more civilized, cleaner, and better mannered.
At a table outside a tea-and-drinks shop, three elegantly dressed women sat sipping fruit tea and chatting.
"They're here!"
A Song supervisor led a column of twenty men past — they had come to eat their midday meal. At the fast-food counter, each inmate's ration was limited to a two-vegetable meal costing fifty fen. They were prisoners, after all; there was no question of treating them too well. The gap between their lives and everyone else's had to be kept visible, so they would work diligently, reform earnestly, and strive to leave prison as soon as possible and live as ordinary people.
The three English women clutched their little bundles and rushed over. One ran to an English prisoner and pressed her parcel into his hands.
"Darling, eat this quickly — just look at you, you've lost so much weight."
"I'm fine, things aren't so bad here. Go home now, or the supervisor will start shouting."
Another wife found her own husband, bringing him not only good food but slipping a little money into his hand as well. Longcheng prisons restricted only one's physical freedom; there was still much one could purchase.
"My God, where is my Hans? Hans, where are you?"
One woman scanned the column several times over without finding her man, and began calling out in a panic.
The supervisor recognized the name — it was the fellow who had just been promoted. He caught the eye of another inmate who could manage a few words of Chinese and gave a nod.
The man understood, walked over to the woman, and said, "Stop calling. Your Hans has been promoted. He has the day off today — you can go visit him."
The woman blinked, and then her face broke into an expression of delighted surprise. She thanked him profusely, thrust the food she was carrying into his hands, and set off at a run toward the prison not far away.
Her poor Hans would no longer have to wear himself to the bone every single day. He was a nobleman — when had he ever had to endure such hardship?