I crawled out of the mire, and became the wolf they fear most!
I used to be one of the 900 million young people living in county towns. Crammed into a rundown old street, I watched the world on my phone and earned barely enough to fill the gaps between my teeth, yet still had to feed the algorithm that sucked me dry. Then my child's cries woke me up: this little county town was a prison where people were slowly trapped to death.
Dragging my wife and child into that colossal city of over a hundred million people, I learned what despair really meant. Skyscrapers in the central district pierced the clouds, while we lived like cockroaches in the shadows on the outskirts. Filthy rental rooms, unending noise, and assembly lines that ground people into dust: this was where “outsiders” were supposed to stay.
But I refused to accept my lot. Why shouldn't my child stand atop the city and admire the view?
I learned to lick their shoe soles clean at banquets, use dirty tricks to pry open tightly shut doors, and sell my conscience by the pound. At last, when I squeezed into that glittering circle in the central district, I turned around and kicked away the ladder.
The people who once spat at me now kneel to light my cigarettes.
Because I'm more ruthless and more merciless than they are.
If this city is a jungle where the strong prey on the weak, then I've already sharpened my claws and fangs. Anyone who crawled out of the mire isn't afraid of getting covered in filthy blood again. What I want is to repay everything I've suffered, many times over.
