The Iron Tide of the Steam Dynasty

Lin Yuan's hand paused.

Just for a moment.

Then he raised the cleaning hammer and brought it down.

The first blow flattened the bird's head.

The second broke its wings.

The third smashed its whole body into a pile of scrap metal.

The old man's wail didn't sound human. It sounded like a beast. He struggled desperately against the men holding him down, coal dust smeared across his face, tears streaming down and carving furrows through it.

"Take him away," Lin Yuan said.

He kicked the scraps of metal aside and headed out.

At the door, he heard the old man shout from behind him, "You were a child once too! Didn't you ever dream when you were a kid?"

Lin Yuan didn't look back.

The alley was just as dark as ever. He walked at the front, with the old man's cries and the team members' shouts behind him. After a dozen or so steps, the cries faded, swallowed by the night's silence.

The white light of the lamps illuminated the road ahead, the shacks on either side, and the children rummaging through piles of coal cinders.

The child was seven or eight, thin as a stick, bent over as he dug through a heap of trash. He unearthed a length of discarded steam pipe, about half a meter long. It no longer carried steam, but it was still a pipe. He held it up and pointed it at the sky, making "bang, bang" sounds with his mouth.

Lin Yuan stopped.