Why it never ends

Chapter 1072 Life

Tiexi took a few deep breaths, then turned back to look at Pakat and said in the common language: "You see, this is what I find hard to understand. She is usually polite to others, but every time she comes to me, she changes her face, as if I robbed her money--"

"I understand the Common Language," Hesta said grimly.

Tiexi grinned, bit his tongue, and made a face at Pakat.

"Have something to drink," Tiexi said, "Can you drink tea?"

Tiexi stood up and walked to the wall cabinet in the open kitchen. He took down a square box that was stuffed full of things from a partition. Inside was a dozen long-mouthed hard cowhide bags. Each paper bag had a handwritten label on it and was sealed with a metal dovetail clip.

"I came to you to tell you—"

"Put the foxes in the iron cage over there," Tiexi said, "They are almost scared to death by you."

Hesta looked down at the little foxes in her arms. They were curled up and shivering. As soon as she put the two little guys at the mouth of the cage, they immediately crawled in and huddled together in the corner.

Hesta stood up again, and just as she turned around, she suddenly saw a familiar name on Tiexi's desk - Selected Poems of Elf III.

Hesta frowned and walked to the table. The shadow of the tree outside the window was cast on the table. Between the sunlight and the shadow, the woman on the cover was smiling, but her gaze at the reader made people feel sad.

"You asked me for a quarantine certificate, but I definitely don't have one." Tiexi, who was making tea, smiled and said, "But the risk is definitely not high. The mother of those foxes was raised by carpenter Parekh on the farm, and they gave birth to their cubs in his backyard. I guess the smell from the chicken coop was a bit strong a few days ago, so the mother fox was attracted here. At that time, Manon - the little girl who painted the wooden cabinet last time - happened to be on the second floor. When she saw it, she wanted to try her shotgun, but she killed it and realized it was not a wild fox."

Pakat continued, "Parik came to cause trouble, and Manon is too young to quarrel. It just so happened that Stella and Lai Lin went to the city together, and you Shuiyinzhens were not here... I asked someone to find Tiexi."

"In the end, we bought the three cubs born by the female fox for twenty robies each," Tiexi walked to Hesta with a cup of tea. "Kiki and Eleven happened to pass by and liked the two foxes very much, so I gave them to them - there are no vaccines ready, but I'm afraid Carter has asked someone to ask for them."

"Let's talk about it after the vaccination." Hesta took the teacup handed to him by Tiexi with one hand, "Until then, I'll leave these two foxes here with you."

Tiexi shrugged and looked at Hesta's other hand: "Oh, you also read Elf?"

"I haven't read much," Hesta said softly, "I saw this man's book in the south a few days ago."

"A talented poet," Tiexi said, "but it's a pity that he died early."

Hesta looked at Tiexi: "What happened? An accident or an illness?"

"It's... a disease, right?" Tiexi said, "She struggled with severe depression her entire life, and developed a serious eating disorder when she was approaching 30. She was nearly 1.7 meters tall, but she was said to weigh only 40 pounds when she died..."

"Kilogram?"

"Jin, he has an eating disorder." Tiexi said, "He throws up everything he eats, and feels guilty about everything he eats. In the end, he died from a minor infection."

Pakat sighed, "She's a very talented woman. It's a pity that we can't see her complete works now." "Why?" Hesta turned around, "Is she from before the Great Blackout?"

"Yes, but that's not the main reason." Tiexi said, "She didn't write a will, and after her death the copyright fell into the hands of her brother - the bad thing is that her brother is also a writer, just not as famous as his sister. As a result, after his sister died, he re-edited several of Alf's poetry collections, not only changing the order of the original poems, but also deleting and adding some of them."

Pakat nodded and added, "Some researchers on Alf have verified that the newly added poems may not be written by Alf, because the images in them lack Alf's style."

"That's fine, but the problem is that this person burned all of Alf's diaries and works from the three months before her death - he said it was to protect her sister's privacy and reputation." Tiexi said, "During that time, according to several of Alf's friends, she was writing almost all the time when she was awake. They copied some poems when they visited her, but Alf said she would not publish more works until she sorted them out... In the end, only those few poems were left."

"In the end, people like her brother lived off Alf's royalties for the rest of his life," Pakat said indignantly. "It's unbelievable that such a thing could happen in the civilized world."

Hesta drank the tea in the cup and picked up the poetry collection again: "What kind of people would like her poems?"

"What kind of person...how should I put it?" Tiexi looked back at Pakat, "someone who likes to read poetry?"

"It depends." Pacat said, "Different periods have different styles."

"for example?"

"When she was young, Alf was a radical reformer," Pacat said. "Because both of her parents were steel mill workers, she had already participated in the strike of workers in the southern part of the Third District while lying in her mother's arms before she could even walk. During that time, she wrote poems, manifestos, and paintings..."

Tiexi said: "Her only short story was written when she was seventeen. It was about some passionate letters she received when she was confused. The letters not only told all the problems that made her painful and annoyed, but also gave her very detailed suggestions, encouraging her to continue to pursue truly valuable careers - they were not far from success. In the end, she found out that these letters were sent by her when she was sixty, fifty, forty and thirty years old, so she completely unloaded the burden in her heart."

"What a pity." Pakat picked up the teacup again.

"If I were her friend, when she was sick, I would write letters to her pretending to be her 60-year-old self," Tiexi looked at Pakat, "I wonder if anyone did that at the time."

"Then why do people suffer from eating disorders?" Hesta asked.

"...I don't know." Tiexi curled his lips. "From the correspondence between her and her friends, the habit of repeated vomiting began when she was 24 years old. That was exactly the year when the party she supported won the election and split in the same year. Perhaps for a sensitive person like Elf, eating itself is an image."

"What image?"

"Why don't you take this book back and read it?" After saying that, Tiexi turned to Pakat and switched to the common language, whispering, "I feel like I'm talking to a cow..."

Hesta snapped the book shut. "I understand the Common Speech."

"Ah." Tiexi touched his forehead and smiled back, "Are you still thirsty? I'll give you some water."