Chapter 103: Is it better to be a slave?
Zelie called out Janna's name.
The bluebird flapped its wings slightly, as if to show its goodwill to her in a human way.
"Oh? You recognize Janna?" The man glanced and saw the Walkman hanging on her waist: "It seems that you have the volume of "Janna's Thoughts", right?"
"Yeah." Zeli nodded.
"Have you heard it?" The man took the initiative to talk enthusiastically.
"I have heard of it." Zeli replied.
"What do you think?" The man asked her what she thought of the class, just like a teacher checking homework.
"I..." Zeli answered honestly: "I just find it quite boring."
The man was silent for a while.
Then he muttered to himself: "It seems that I have to find a way to design a set of theoretical teaching materials that are easier to understand for children..."
Zeli couldn't understand what he was saying either.
She doesn't really want to talk to strangers now, she just wants to talk to the acquaintance uncle at the snack stand about her troubles.
But the lovely bluebird attracted her instinctively.
But the uncle at the snack stand was very vigilant in protecting Zeli, reminding her: "Don't talk to this man, he's a Piltover guy!"
"Why do you say that?" The man was slightly stunned.
He was clearly wearing the most ordinary Zaun work clothes, so how did he unknowingly become isolated from the masses?
"Few people in Zaun keep pets." replied the uncle at the snack stand.
The animals I raise are mice, beetles, small magic frogs, etc.
Pets like the bluebird are too precious and the people of Zaun cannot keep them alive.
“No wonder…” The man realized belatedly: “I was wondering why everyone was looking at me with strange eyes.”
"What are you doing in Zaun as a Piltover guy?" the uncle at the snack stand asked again vigilantly.
"I'm not from Piltover. My name is Levi, and I'm a Zaun who returned from Piltover." Levi introduced himself.
"Zauans from Piltover?"
Well, this is even more annoying.
Most of the Zaun people who moved to Piltover looked down on their poor relatives in their hometown.
The people of Zaun naturally hate these honorific Piltover people who claim to be superior.
"Tsk! Why are you coming back after you ran over there? What's the matter? You failed to flatter the Piltover guys at the canal and got chased back by the law enforcer?" The uncle at the snack stand sneered.
"Haha, that's about right." Levi explained ambiguously.
In fact, he had no other purpose in returning to Zuan this time except to conduct an on-site investigation in Zuan.
Although the Leader had already sent out an investigation team in the past month to prepare for the future and managed to conduct a sufficiently detailed grassroots investigation of Zaun, their hometown to which they were about to return.
But Levi was not content with just sitting in his office and reading investigative reports.
And "he" had been away from Zaun for more than two years. He had to come and see for himself what Zaun was like now.
"In short, it's not easy to survive in Piltover. If you want to gain a foothold, you have to go back to Zaun."
"Zuan is a vast world with a lot to offer!"
“Ha.” The uncle at the snack stand sneered, “We’ve already returned to Zuan, there’s still a lot of room for us to do!”
"Why are all of you guys who came back from Piltover like this? You couldn't stand staying here anymore and were driven back, yet you still want to pretend after you come back."
"I think you'd better shut up and eat your frog!"
As he said this, he rinsed the "Ten Thousand People's Bowl" in the turbid water tank with a cold face, grabbed a few large pieces of sticky devil's claw frog meat with his unwashed hands, mixed it with a handful of spices that had been marinated for many years, and handed it to Levi in a wet bowl.
Levi didn't hesitate, he took it and ate it.
It tastes quite delicious.
There weren't any chopsticks, knives or forks available at the stall, so you just had to eat with your hands.
"Okay, at least I'm still a Zuan."
The uncle at the snack stand looked at him with a slightly calmer look.
Then he ignored Levi and turned around with a smile on his face, looking at the little girl Zeli:
"Zeli, why do you look so bad today?"
"Are you sick?"
"No..." Zeli lay on the snack stand with a listless look, and her green-haired twin ponytails drooped down.
"Here's what happened." She recounted Chuck's experience in a haggard and weak tone.
After hearing this story, everyone...
There was no reaction.
Whether it's the uncle at the snack stand or Levi who has the memories of the original owner, everyone is used to this kind of thing.
Only the bluebird lowered its head slightly, silently feeling sad for this tragic story.
"Uncle." Zeli pouted and asked the uncle at the snack stand: "What do you think I should do? Should I try to go to the Golask Industries factory and rescue Chuck?"
"What?!" The uncle at the snack stand was shocked.
He knew that Zeli could do magic, but he also knew how capable Zeli was now.
If she goes to Renata to rescue people, doesn't that mean she is taking her entire family to die?
"No, absolutely not!"
The uncle at the snack stand strongly objected at first, but then quickly reacted and changed his words to target the stubborn Zeli:
"Zeli, actually...you really don't have to worry about Chuck."
"I'm not worried about him?" Zelie's eyes widened: "Chuck is going to be a slave!"
"What's wrong with being a slave?"
The uncle at the snack stand actually answered like this.
His expression was natural and his tone was firm, and he didn't seem to be speaking in a sarcastic way at all.
"Those are slaves..." Zeli was shocked and puzzled: "Can being a slave be a good thing?"
Levi, who was standing by, also silently put down the frog meat in his hand, and asked subtly, "Uncle, have you ever been a slave?"
"Well... no." If he had been a slave, how could he appear here freely now?
"Then have you seen what life is like for Zaun slaves?" Levi asked again.
“Ahem…no.” Slave laborers were usually kept tightly locked up in factories, so how could he have the chance to see them?
"Then why do you still say Chuck will be fine!" Zeli couldn't help but ask.
"Well..." The uncle at the snack stand also had a reason: "Just think about it and you will know——"
"If you work in a factory normally, you have to work more than ten hours a day. You don't have enough food or warm clothes, and you don't earn much money. You are also bullied and beaten by the factory foreman every day..."
"As a slave laborer, could life be worse than this?"
The factory in Zaun is a meat grinder in pure old English style from the 19th century.
Compared to the lives of workers in Zaun, there is no place in Runeterra where life is bad.
"But this doesn't mean that slaves live better than workers," Li Weibang Zeli questioned: "They sell their blood and sweat just like ordinary workers, but they don't even have the most basic personal freedom."
"Don't you think they will only live worse than ordinary workers?"
"That's not necessarily true!" The uncle at the snack stand explained his opinion seriously: "Slaves are different from workers."
“Slaves were the property of their owners, while workers were merely employees.”
"If a worker dies from exhaustion, you can just hire another one, but if a slave dies, the slave owner's property is gone... Just think about it, who wouldn't feel sorry for their property?"
At first glance, this makes sense.
Ozawa Rei was stunned by what she said.
The snack stand owner quickly continued, "I think those slave owners would feed their slaves and give them clothes no matter what. If the slaves were sick, the owners might even treat them."
"Otherwise, the slaves would starve to death or die of disease, wouldn't they be at a loss?"
As the story goes, slavery is almost being described as a welfare society with free food, accommodation and free medical care.
Being a free worker in Zaun sounds worse than being a slave.
The more Zeli listened, the more confused she felt, and she unknowingly began to believe that her friend Chuck was going to live a good life as a slave.
"But..." Levi suddenly asked: "Since workers are more useful than slaves——"
"Then why are there bonded laborers in Piltover and slave laborers in Zaun, and why are business owners still happily restoring slavery in disguise?"
"This..." The uncle at the snack stand was speechless.
"Of course it's because it's more profitable to use slave labor!" Levi said in a resounding voice, "You think slaves are property, so the masters will feel sorry for their property."
"But slaves are just consumables. As long as they can create profits that exceed their value, slave owners can consume them without scruples—"
"Would you be so distressed that you wouldn't light a cigarette just because the matches are your property?"
"No, as long as they are useful, no matter how many matches there are, you will burn them all!"
The uncle at the snack stand was left speechless.
He wanted to say something else, but Levi suddenly turned to look at Zeli:
"Little girl, you have read the book 'A Brief Account of Janna's Thoughts', right?"
"Yeah." Zeli nodded hesitantly.
"Remember the part about the history of the two cities and the first industrial revolution?"
"Remember a little..." Zeli was confused and didn't know what he was going to say.
"Then I'll give you some additional historical data." Levi said: "There is a saying in the academic circles of Piltover now, and the general meaning is similar to the view of this uncle-"
"They said that the slaves in the colonial plantations actually lived better than the workers. So the slave owners who were engaged in colonial business were actually good people in the context of that era."
Piltover later abolished slavery.
But those big families who once opened plantations and worked as slave owners in the colonies still exist in Piltover.
They are still an important part of Piltover's high society.
So it is easy to imagine why there is such a trend in the historical community to overturn the verdicts on slave owners.
"But actually..."
"You all greatly underestimate the 'business acumen' of the slave owners."
"So I thought slave owners would feel sorry for their property, but the fact is:"
"200 to 300 years ago, colonial slave owners used torture and quantitative assessment to increase the efficiency of slaves picking cotton by hand by 400% in just 30 years, even catching up with the growth of machine efficiency in the same period. This allowed Piltover to complete the first industrial revolution."
Human work efficiency can even be improved to keep up with machines.
So in this case...
"Do you still think that the life of slaves is any better than that of free people? Especially... the slaves in Zaun!"
Li Wei solemnly took out a booklet from his arms.
That was the grassroots investigation report of the Wind Leader Association on Zaun:
"I can tell you right now how these alchemy barons use slaves to achieve a 'high cost-effectiveness' far superior to that of workers."
