Why it never ends

Hesta straightened up slowly.

The sound of the piano continues, like water gurgling by.

She stood in front of the piano, staring into those strange gray-blue eyes.

After a moment, Hesta exited the room without saying a word, just as silently as when she sneaked in.

……

At nearly ten o'clock at night, Hesta returned to the boarding community.

When you open the door, the living room is dark, but the corridor lights on the first and second floors are on. No one is in the living room at the moment, but you can vaguely hear TV and conversations coming from different rooms.

With a little light, Hesta saw a few more pairs of shoes in the entrance. Among them were two small light purple leather shoes with sequined wings. They were very cute. One of them was thrown at the door, and the other fell on the edge of the shoe cabinet. Hesta picked them up and placed them on the empty space of the shoe rack.

The size of this pair of shoes is very small, smaller than Eleven's feet.

When passing by the living room, Hesta noticed a pair of chopsticks on the table, with a note pressed under the hill-shaped chopstick holder.She looked closer and found a message written in the third area:

If you haven't had dinner yet, you can go to the refrigerator and get the red lunch box. The microwave is next to the refrigerator.

Not signed.

The handwriting on the note was smooth and elegant, and it was obvious that he was quite familiar with this language.

Hesta looked around and soon saw the refrigerator and microwave on the wall near the dining table. She opened the refrigerator according to the instructions in the note, and sure enough she saw a red lunch box with food inside.

There is also a small bowl of blueberries placed next to the lunch box, with a note written in District [-] language on it: If you want to eat, you can help yourself.

Hesta was a little surprised.

She put the lunch box in the microwave and stood beside it holding the blueberry bowl to eat.A little girl's scream suddenly came from a room upstairs. The scream quickly turned into laughter, and then triggered a series of footsteps.

Hesta looked up and saw that the sound came from the room on the second floor by the stairs.

The microwave was turned on, and Hesta sat down at the dining table with her lunch box. She didn't turn on the light, and ate quickly in the dim light.She was very surprised by this meal. She couldn't name the dishes in the lunch box. She could only taste that there was chicken, pork, and two kinds of green leafy vegetables - although they were taken out of the refrigerator and reheated. But very delicious.

Facing the empty lunch box, Hesta wondered who the person who left the note was.

Maybe it’s Yuqing. Although she doesn’t speak District [-] language, the letters of Common Language and District [-] Language are both derived from Classical. Even if she doesn’t speak well, it won’t affect her writing;

It may also be the "pregnant sister" mentioned by Ding Jiali yesterday. He said that his sister took his niece back home to live after becoming pregnant.The extra pairs of shoes at the entrance must be theirs.

Hesta felt a little sleepy. She took the bowl and started looking for the kitchen. She planned to wash the dishes and then take a shower and go to bed.She walked around on the first floor for a long time, and finally found a closed wooden door. There was a faint sound of washing behind the wooden door.

Hesta knocked on the door, and the sound of water behind the door suddenly stopped.

The wooden door opened, and the white light behind the door shone through the cracks in the door. A familiar face appeared—it was the woman who was rescued from the window sill by Hesta yesterday afternoon.

The woman looked to be in her early fifties, maybe older. She was wearing rubber gloves on her hands, and the clothes in front of her were splashed with water.There were not many wrinkles on her cheeks, but there were heavy spots around her eyes. The swollen lower eye sockets made her look very tired, and she seemed about to cry at any moment.

Seeing Hesta, the woman looked a little embarrassed.The two looked at each other, not knowing what to say for a moment.

However, when the woman saw the fruit bowl and empty lunch box in Hesta's arms, she immediately laughed and said, "Give it to me, I'll do it."

"No, I'll do it myself." Hesta said quickly, "Thank you for preparing dinner for me."

"You are a guest, as you should be."

The woman still wanted to take the lunch box in Hesta's arms, but Hesta stubbornly turned sideways and refused to give her anything. She smiled and had to take a step back to make way for the pool.

Turning on the faucet, Hesta suddenly realized that they had just been talking in District [-] dialect.

"...Was the note outside left by you?"

"Correct."

"Your handwriting is so beautiful..." Hesta whispered, "What do you do?" The woman laughed again, "I used to be a teaching assistant in the school for a while, and I helped teach the third district. lingua franca and lingua franca.”

"Are you a teacher?"

"So..." the woman held up the cabinet beside her, "I've been away from school for a long time."

"But you're still teaching?"

The woman was a little surprised, "How do you know?"

"Yesterday Yuqing told me that you had to go out to class during the day."

When she mentioned yesterday, the woman's expression became a little shy again. She found a rag and wiped the black oil stain on the side of the stove that could not be wiped off.

"I'm not talking about teaching. Now I occasionally help some friends' children with language classes, and sometimes I also teach children piano..."

"That means you're still teaching," Hestad said. "You can also play the piano. That's awesome."

The woman immediately shook her head.

"What's your name?"

"My husband's surname is Ding."

"Well, I know, so what do you call it?"

The woman was stunned for a moment, "Do you want to ask me my name?"

The woman's reaction made Hesta hesitate. She suddenly remembered that in some regional cultures, calling an elder by his first name was a transgression and would make the person involved very angry.

"...Can I?" Hesta asked softly.

"My surname is Xu, and my name is Ruyi." The woman looked at Hesta with a smile, "Ganzhi Ruyi, have you heard of this idiom?"

Hesta shook her head - she just suddenly heard four unfamiliar syllables in a string of familiar languages.

"It's so sweet." Hesta repeated the word in a low voice, "What does it mean?"

"It's just...as sweet as sugar."

Hesta had finished washing the lunch box, and she turned off the faucet, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, no, it's almost done." Xu Ruyi's eyes flashed across the kitchen, "I'll do the rest myself, very quickly."

Hesta also looked at the kitchen, and she suddenly noticed that the oven was being preheated.

"It's so late, you still want to make something to eat?"

"It's all prepared for tomorrow. Tomorrow Lili will bring friends back for dinner." Xu Ruyi replied.

Hesta reacted for a while before she realized who "Li Li" was. When Xu Ruyi thought about the name, she pronounced it "Li Li", just like calling a child.

"Then you—"

Xu Ruyi suddenly looked at Hesta, "You don't need to use honorifics in every sentence, it's too polite."

"Okay, ma'am." Hesta wiped her hands, "I just want to say, if there's nothing else, I'll go back and rest."

"Will you come back so late tomorrow like you did today?"

"what happened?"

"If you can get home early, you can make it in time for dinner," Xu Ruyi said. "If you like to eat the food I cook, you can come back early."