Why it never ends

Chapter 2 The Future
Hesta grunted out of the cage.

Bo Heng took out a very old tin lunch box, which contained cold potatoes, shredded cheese and some gray-brown mushroom slices.

Facing the moonlight, Hesta scooped out the fungus flakes with a spoon for a closer look.

"Is this the boletus?"

Bo Heng nodded, "I stole some butter and fried it."

Hesta was very hungry, she gulped food into her mouth, and Boheng handed over an old kettle, "Slow down."

While the girl was eating, Boheng took out a roll of softly folded newspaper from his trouser leg.Some of the ink had been rubbed off from the folds of the newspaper, exposing the raw edges of the paper fibers.

The boy carefully unfolded the newspaper and read it carefully under the moonlight.

Hesta is used to this scene.

During the four years in the monastery, she was always locked up by Sister Gerding, and every time Bo Heng would bring some food to visit her like this, and sit by the side to make newspaper clippings.

"How do you know that boletus can be eaten?" Hesta looked at Boheng who was reading the newspaper, "Did you read it from the newspaper?"

"No, it was taught to me by an uncle before."

"Before you came here?"

"Yes... I have been living with him in the wasteland before."

While answering, Boheng carefully cut out an article on tofu cubes from the newspaper. He carried milky white medical tape with him, and skillfully pasted the piece of paper on his notebook.

This book is Boheng's treasure. He found a piece of moisture-proof asbestos cloth from nowhere, and wrapped it in the cloth and hid it under the floor of the confinement room when it was not in use.

Sister Gerding has very strict control over the children's reading materials in the orphanage. Except for a batch of theological stories that she has personally reviewed, the only daily reading materials that children can come into contact with are some fairy tale picture books with very simple stories—even these There are also missing pages in the picture book, because Sister Golding believes that some of these stories are unrealistic fantasies of pagans, which will cast a shadow on the pure hearts of children and make them more likely to be chelated. erosion.

The entire orphanage only subscribes to one newspaper, which will be sent to the office of the dean and Sister Gerding every day, and they will put the newspaper in the storage room after reading it.

And it was from there that Bo Heng secretly read.

In order to avoid being discovered by the nuns, he only takes old newspapers that are three months old at a time. These newspapers are often bundled into a circle and piled up in the corner, and government recycling personnel will come to collect them every six months.Nobody checks the newspaper inside for missing pages.

As before, Hesta ate everything that Boheng brought. She was still holding Boheng's old lunch box, feeling a little lost.

"Are you full?" Boheng asked.

"Ah."

"Well, Jane," Bo Heng raised his head, "Listen to me, you did make a mistake in today's matter, although it wasn't for the reason Miss Gerding said."

Hesta tilted her head.

Bo Heng said softly: "Maybe you didn't have a choice when you were in Duanming Lane before, but now that we have the conditions to eat artificially raised animal meat, it's best not to touch wild animals."

"...but that squirrel just died, so it's still fresh, isn't it?"

"No." Bo Heng made a cross with his hands, "These animals living in the wild are very likely to carry some pathogenic bacteria, parasites or viruses-it has nothing to do with how long they have been dead. Remember?"

Hesta was thoughtful.

Boheng lowered his head to make his newspaper clippings again, "I think Fulasang must have misread it. Vultures are scavengers, and generally they don't actively attack living animals."

Hesta was a little puzzled, "If it wasn't for the vulture, where did the holes in the squirrel come from?"

"Maybe some other bird of prey..."

Hesta looked at Boheng, "Did that uncle who lived with you teach you this too?"

"Oh, no, I read this from the newspaper." Boheng said with a smile, "Some people have contracted chelation from eating raw meat, so now all places where humans live are strictly forbidden to eat raw meat."

"So this is ah……"

"However, I mainly read newspapers to collect information about the [-]th District. Every time I see a report about the [-]th District, I cut it out."

Fourteen Districts.

Hesta is no stranger to this name, and she looked at Boheng curiously, "The "Mountains Under the Storm" that you secretly borrowed from the dean earlier, is it the story of the fourteenth district?"

"Yes, but the place where the story happened is not where I want to go. The fourteenth district is very big, it is currently the largest of the sixteen major districts in the world, and there are many, many livable places there."

"Why does Boheng want to go there?"

"Because that may be my hometown." Boheng replied, "'Boheng' is the name of a typical person from District [-], Heng is the first name, and Bo is a very old surname... Maybe my home is It's over there, so I want to go back there and have a look."

Having said that, Boheng suddenly patted his head, "That's right! Jane, I saw a story that might be related to you a few days ago."

Boheng smiled and lowered his head. He flicked up his newspaper clippings until he stopped on a certain page and pushed the notebook in front of Hesta.

"Do you know why the dean chose the surname 'Hesta' for you back then?"

Hesta was silent for a moment, then shook her head.

"Because you have red hair, and you have red hair like fire, and there is a nomadic tribe in the north of the fourteenth district, called the Hesta tribe - according to legend, the women of the Hesta tribe all have red hair like you ——Their totem is an eagle, and they have been hunting for a living in the wilderness in the north of the fourteenth district...Look at this, this report is specifically about the Hesta tribe."

Hesta glanced at Boheng's newspaper clippings, not very interested, but immediately, she found that there were many handwritings of Boheng in the blank space of the book.

"So you're still writing a diary in this book?" Hesta murmured.

"Ah, don't read those!" Boheng hurriedly covered the words, "I want you to read the stories about the Hesta tribe—"

"That story is wrong," Hesta said softly, "The totem of the Hesta people is not an eagle, but a horse."

"horse?"

"Well." Hesta nodded, "Although eagles are indeed very important to the Hesta people—in the legend of the Hesta people, their ancestors were the incarnation of a condor, so they think that eagles are guardians. God. But some people always confuse this with the totem, and their totem is the sweat horse—the kind that the Hestas use to ride across the steppe."

Boheng was slightly startled: "Where did you hear these stories?"

Hesta hugged her calf with one hand, and gently pulled up the broken hair beside her ear with the other hand.

"For a while, there were people in Duanming Alley who paid a high price for red hair, especially red hair like red flames. So at that time, everyone asked for news about the Hesta people."

Short Ming Lane, where Hesta used to live.Boheng heard people say that it was a slum located in the wilderness, where a group of thieves, assassins, black market merchants lived, and some wanderers with ambiguous identities who were temporarily unable to enter the country formally.

Boheng quickly picked up the pen and wrote down the details.

For a moment, the only sound in the confinement room was the rustle of pen rubbing against paper.

Hesta re-covered the tin-iron lunch box and put it back beside Boheng, "Boheng went to District [-], what do you want to do?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet." Boheng said softly, "I should go to the towns where people with the Bo surname gather first, and then... it doesn't have to be a livable place. There are not many haunts, I want to go back to the wasteland to live for a while, only the life on the wasteland will be free forever... Where is Jane? Do you have any plans for the future?"

"Yes." Hesta nodded.

"What do you want to do?"

"I'm going to find someone, someone who is very, very important to me—"

Before Hesta finished speaking, the door of the confinement room was pushed open from the outside unexpectedly, Hesta's voice stopped abruptly, and the two looked up at the same time.

Pale moonlight fell through the crack of the door, casting a slender black shadow on the ground.

—That's Sister Gertin.

(End of this chapter)