Why it never ends

Chapter 1060 Initiative

Bo Heng just laughed a few times and whispered: "She is still young..."

"What does this have to do with youth? The reserve of Mercury Needle has been started since the age of eleven—"

"Her situation is different from your mercury needle." Bo Heng interrupted Zoe, "It's hard to compare them together."

Zoe's brows furrowed even more tightly, and her voice became more angry: "Why can't you——"

Victoria's big hand suddenly patted Zoe's left shoulder and pulled her to the right.

"They must know their own situation better," Victoria said softly, "Let's not worry about it."

Zoe gestured with her hands: "I think——"

"Let's talk about it when we get back." Victoria lowered her voice again. "Let's talk about it when we get back."

She turned around and waved to Hesta: "We're going back too!"

Only Hesta and Boheng were left on the entire gentle slope.

Bo Heng glanced at Hesta and suddenly felt inexplicably guilty. He didn't know how to continue the conversation. After thinking for a long time, he had to bite the bullet and said, "The mountain people are enthusiastic, which sometimes makes people feel abrupt, but she definitely has no ill intentions..."

"I know," Hesta looked at Boheng and said teasingly, "I just suddenly remembered that when we were in the monastery, we washed and hung our own clothes."

Bo Heng's face turned red for a while: "Ah... that's, that's because..."

"Because of what?"

"There is a division of labor." Bo Heng whispered, "In fact, I told them to let me do these things by myself, but..."

Bo Heng responded to Hesta's words insincerely, but there were other questions circling in his mind - did Hesta mind the girl hanging clothes for him? Why did her two friends leave early?

He glanced at Hesta's face very lightly, trying to discern whether she intended to join in this farce of girls competing for their beloved. He had not expected this before, after all, Hesta did not have many qualities to be a good wife. But if she really showed some jealousy and concern at this time, Boheng would not be surprised, and even be happy to see it happen - it was common for old friends who had not seen each other for many years to have a little ripple in their hearts when they met again.

"It's nice here," Hesta continued walking forward, "The people and the atmosphere here... are all nice. Everyone who lives here seems to be very comfortable and full of faith..."

"Indeed." Bo Heng said softly, "I often feel strength from them."

"I can see that they all trust and respect you," Hesta said, "What exactly do you do here? A teacher and also a combat leader?"

"Yes." Bo Heng nodded. "We are not very big. We have always been suppressed by the Liberal Party of District 12. We have to move to another place almost every seven or eight months. Because we refuse to join them, we have to endure their harassment from time to time."

"Why are they so hostile to you?"

"It's a matter of faith." Bo Heng said, "After all, strictly speaking, we are not considered a native religion of District 12—" "Buddhists shouldn't do spring hunting, right?"

Bo Heng glanced sideways: "Ah, they told you about the spring hunt."

"Hmm," Hesta said, "it sounds like some kind of sacrifice..."

"Yes, it's a sacrifice." Bo Heng nodded. "Every year at the turn of winter and spring, there will be a large-scale hunting activity here, mainly participated by women. It's called hunting, but it's more like a performance - performing for the mountain gods they admire, hoping to please the gods and bring a good harvest next year. But I don't know what happened this year. It's almost summer and we haven't received the signal for spring hunting. Some old people are anxious and hard to appease..."

"Doesn't this conflict with your doctrines and rules?" Hesta looked at him, "Why don't you stop this?"

Bo Heng smiled, let out a sigh and blinked quickly.

"Is it difficult to stop it?" Hesta asked again.

"It's not a matter of whether it's easy to stop or not. In fact, this was my teacher's idea."

"Your teacher," Hesta said softly, "is this the 'Aji' you mentioned before."

"Yes, it was him," Bo Heng frowned slightly, carefully choosing his words, "In the beginning, we also banned spring hunting for a few years. Not only spring hunting, but also some other sacrificial customs. There are many gods in the Twelve Districts. Almost every mountain and every sea has a local myth. For the residents here, some customs are almost equivalent to their life principles... Aji did a lot of work, and everyone believed in him, and slowly integrated some customs into the lives of our current followers."

Hesta fell into deep thought for a long time, then asked, "What do you think?"

"What are you looking at, this initiative?"

"Ah."

"At first I also thought it was unnecessary," Boheng's language became fluent again when talking about his teacher, "but then one spring, I went to Emmanlia for work and met an old nun there... I suddenly understood why the teacher did this - you should have seen that there are many churches in Emmanlia, and for these believers, after death, people either go to hell to suffer or go to heaven to receive the gospel. There is no concept of reincarnation in their scriptures...

"But that year, the nun's brother died. On the seventh day after his death, the nun secretly ran to the street corner and burned paper money for his brother - because according to local customs, people will stay in the underworld for seven days after death before being reborn into the world. At that critical juncture, if the deceased has money to arrange for the funeral, he or she will have a chance to be reborn into a good family in the next life, so money must be burned for the deceased on this day.

"I recognized that nun. I've known her for several years. She's one of the most devout believers I've ever met," Bo Heng said softly. "So when I saw her in plain clothes, performing a ritual for her brother on the street corner, I was very shocked. I walked over to greet her. I even suspected that I had recognized the wrong person, but... it was definitely her."

Hesta half-lowered his eyes: "...and then?"

"I asked her what she was doing. She looked very flustered and didn't even dare to look me in the eye. She stammered that her brother had passed away and today was the day he passed away. Her brother had never had a family in his life and now had no other relatives in the world, so she came to take care of everything for him.

"I asked again - actually I shouldn't have asked - I asked her, what do you think the world after death is like? Is the underworld controlled by a group of extremely evil, pleasure-seeking demons, or by a group of conscientious ghost officials?

"She was startled by my question. Her lips were trembling. After a long time, she looked at me and whispered, 'No matter what the afterlife is like, we can't let him go empty-handed.'"