Part 1 · Chapters
Those Trampled Underfoot
Long before he had strength, he had learned to step forward.
Some insults need no whip. A pair of clean boots and a street accustomed to bowing its head are enough to remind everyone whose dignity the city protects, and whose it grinds into the coal dust.
The next day, students from the upper city arrived in the Ash District.
They wore uniforms patterned with flames, their boots polished bright enough to reflect a face. At their head was Yan Tuo, wearing a short scarlet cloak. A young blazing fire wolf lay across his shoulder. Its breath scattered golden sparks, and workers pressed back against the walls wherever it passed.
Yan Tuo had come to choose obsidian coal for a new weapon.
Xiao Jin sorted the best coal into three piles. Before he could speak, Yan Tuo suddenly kicked over a wooden crate. Coal rolled all over the street. One lump struck Xiao Hui's foot.
“Coal from the Ash District is just as filthy as its people,” Yan Tuo said.
His companions laughed.
Xiao Jin crouched and began putting the coal back into the crate, piece by piece. “If you're not buying, leave.”
Yan Tuo tilted his head slightly, as if discovering for the first time that people in the coal dust had voices. He walked up to Xiao Jin, deliberately stepped on a lump of coal, then lifted his blackened boot.
“Clean it.”
Xiao Jin stayed where he was. His palms ached from carrying coal, but his fingers slowly curled into fists.
“On your knees,” Yan Tuo added.
The foreman caught Xiao Jin's clothes from behind, gripping so tightly that his fingers turned white.
“Don't cause trouble,” he said under his breath. “I don't care if you take a beating. Just don't cost us the upper city's business.”
Xiao Jin looked at the coal beneath Yan Tuo's boot.
If he knelt, this would soon be over.
But he also saw Xiao Hui shrinking beside him, and smaller children hiding behind the coal crates. If that boot found someone willing to kneel today, it would look for someone else tomorrow.
“You dirtied your own boot,” Xiao Jin said.
The fire wolf leaped from Yan Tuo's shoulder and swelled rapidly in a blaze of flame. In an instant, the dog-sized cub stood taller than Xiao Jin's waist. Its claws burned black marks into the paving stones.
“Then let me teach you where ashes belong.”
The wolf lunged. Xiao Jin dodged sideways, but the heat still scorched his sleeve. The alley was too narrow, and children who had not escaped were behind him. He could not keep dodging.
He snatched up a shovel and held it across himself. The wolf bit through the wooden handle at once. Its next charge struck his chest and sent him flying, his back slamming hard into a wall of coal.
“Say that people from the Ash District are born inferior,” Yan Tuo ordered.
Xiao Jin spat out the blood in his mouth and got up.
The fire wolf knocked him down again.
“Say it.”
Xiao Jin reached out and pushed a trembling child behind him. He tried to study the wolf's footwork, but pain kept darkening his sight. On the third attack, its claws tore open his shoulder. By the fourth, he could barely stand.
Yan Tuo planted a boot on his face and pressed him into the coal dust. Rough grains scraped his cheekbone. In that cold darkness, Xiao Jin could still hear the children's hurried, muffled crying behind him.
“Admit it, and I'll stop.”
Coal powder filled his nostrils. Every breath tasted of rusty blood. Xiao Jin heard the workers' stifled breathing, the children's helpless sobs, and his own heart beating more heavily each time, as if the whole street's silence were crushing the small flame inside his chest.
One lie would spare him a few more kicks. No one would blame him for saying it. That was what made those words so easy, and so frightening.
But once he said them, Yan Tuo would make someone else kneel tomorrow. The day after, the foreman would withhold more wages. And everyone standing there watching would believe even more firmly that silence was the only way to survive.
Xiao Jin twisted his head, bit the edge of Yan Tuo's boot, and forced his face an inch out from under its sole.
“You can stand on me,” he gasped, “but that doesn't put you above me.”
Yan Tuo's smile vanished. He lifted his foot to kick again, but a guard's horn sounded in the distance. Unwilling to be caught by the patrol, the students finally called back the wolf.
Before leaving, Yan Tuo bent down. “The Heroes' Academy is holding open trials next month. If you dare show your face, I'll let all of Flame City see just how worthless you are.”
The laughter drained from the street. Only the wind remained, sweeping layer after layer of coal dust over their shoes.
Xiao Hui ran over first, unsure whether to support Xiao Jin's injured shoulder or his arm. But Xiao Jin planted a palm against the wall and pushed himself upright, inch by inch. Then he crouched and returned the scattered coal to the crate. It did not look like an attempt to act tough. It was more as if he were telling everyone that Yan Tuo could hurt him, but could not decide how he would leave.
“Aren't you angry?” Xiao Hui asked.
“I am.”
“Then why don't you say you'll get revenge?”
Xiao Jin put away the last piece of coal. “Because I'm going to sign up. Not get revenge.”
He looked toward the upper city. Above the smoke, the spires of the Heroes' Academy burned like a golden sword driven into the sky.
“I'll show them that people at the very bottom can stand up on their own.”
The entry form was still badly crumpled, its corners stained with blood from his palms. As Xiao Jin slowly smoothed it flat, it was as though he were pressing a new path forward into a life others had trampled out of shape.