Why it never ends

Chapter 1134 Call

Si Lei cast a glance towards Hesta, and then looked at the children further away. In the middle of the second-floor building was a crystal corridor with sixteen huge crystal chandeliers hanging high up, and below were children studying or playing.

"Are you in a hurry?" Si Lei asked, "If you're not in a hurry, can I go over and take a look?"

"Let's go."

Some children were playing with complex building blocks, some were writing and drawing, and some were reading... Si Lei had some impression of those teaching utensils, which she had seen in some kindergartens or primary schools that practiced the concept of special education. The two teachers kept moving between the children to help them.

Kiki was the first to notice Hesta, and she immediately patted the back of Eleven's hand beside her. However, before she could open her mouth to explain, Eleven hit her back.

Qiqi rubbed the back of her hand that was hurt, and looked at her friend beside her with some grievance: Eleven was concentrating on playing a puzzle at the moment, and it seemed that he was completely immersed in it and refused to be disturbed by anyone.

Qiqi looked around, finally stood up and ran towards Hesta.

"Jane," she greeted Hesta.

Qiqi was not used to calling Hesta by her name directly, even though she was still calling the big girl "Sister Xiaohe" in her heart. However, Hesta had already agreed with everyone to call each other by their names, so she had to give up this name which she felt was more intimate.

"Good morning." Hesta said softly, "Come here, this is Officer Si Lei - Oh, have you seen him? Eleven should have seen him."

Qiqi looked at Si Lei. She had some impression of this short aunt. On the night of the fire, she heard Si Lei speaking District 14 dialect to Lu Qizhen, so she also tentatively greeted Si Lei in her mother tongue.

"Hello," Si Lei immediately responded with a smile and extended his hand to Qiqi, "Nice to meet you."

Qiqi immediately held the adult's hand.

At almost the same time, Hesta and Si Lei heard some unfriendly sneers from the children not far away. They looked in the direction of the sound, and the children who were laughing had already looked away. They tacitly covered for each other, and even turned their bodies slightly to avoid accidentally making contact with Hesta's eyes.

Si Lei retracted his gaze and looked at Qiqi again: "...Are you living well here?"

Qiqi nodded immediately.

"Jane--!" Eleven's voice suddenly pierced the entire corridor. She finally noticed the appearance of Hesta. Under the gaze of everyone, Eleven quickly rushed towards Hesta and jumped on her in an extremely exaggerated manner. Hesta caught her very easily and put her on the ground.

This scene made many children look slightly envious.

"Why didn't you call me?" Eleven shouted at Qiqi, "It's too much to just run over here by yourself!"

“…I shouted.”

"Where did you shout?"

"Don't quarrel." Hesta said, "Qiqi said she shouted, so she must have shouted. Were you busy with your own things and didn't hear it?"

Eleven tilted his head and thought for a while: "It's possible...how did you get here?"

"I'll show Officer Slay around," Hesta said. "She—"

"Hello, Auntie!" Eleven opened his arms and hugged Si Lei tightly, then turned back to look at Hesta, "Are you free tonight? I have something to show you!"

"Okay."

Si Lei's eyes fell on Qiqi. This seemingly introverted child seemed a little too well-behaved, and the inexplicable laughter just now also made Si Lei feel a little uneasy. She was about to go up and ask what was going on, when Santa hurried over and said to Hesta, "You have a call! It seems urgent!" Hesta made an OK gesture, found a room nearby that was connected to the same telephone line, and said to Si Lei, "Wait for me here for a while," and Si Lei readily agreed.

After Hesta left, Eleven immediately returned to his puzzle project. Si Lei also walked to Qiqi's side again and half squatted down: "What are you doing?"

"I'm copying a book." Qiqi said, "It's the picture book I read yesterday."

"Can you show it to Auntie?"

"Okay." Qiqi smiled and took Si Lei's hand to the low table next to them. The two teachers saw Si Lei and greeted him when their eyes made contact. Si Lei also nodded in greeting.

Qiqi sat back on her little stool, and Si Lei sat on the floor beside her. She looked at what Qiqi was copying - a poem from a children's picture book. The book was written in the third language, and the child might be using it to learn the language.

The book looked very thick. Si Lei took it in his hand and asked again, "Can I turn to the front page?"

"Sure." Qiqi was a little embarrassed. On the one hand, she felt that Si Lei was being over-the-top by always asking for her consent, but on the other hand, she really liked what this aunt did.

Si Lei began to turn the pages. She flipped through the little girl's notebook with some curiosity. Sure enough, there were many daily expressions in it, such as "Where is the bathroom?", "What kind of flower is this?", "I don't like eating basil" and so on, and occasionally there were some poetic sentences next to them - most of them were also picked from other books.

Suddenly, Si Lei read a sentence that was inconsistent with all the excerpts: When we are in difficult situations, we can still help each other. This is the starting point of our civilization.

Si Lei pointed at it and looked at the child beside him: "...Which book did you see this in?"

"I didn't read it in a book," Qiqi said. "I heard Xiaohe and Qizhen chatting the night before last. Xiaohe said that she read a book on anthropology when she was a child. She doesn't remember anything else but this sentence."

Qiqi raised her head: "I wrote it down too."

Si Lei let out a sigh.

"That's a very reasonable statement. Auntie should write it down, too."

……

In the room, Hesta answered the phone: "Hello?"

"How have you been lately, Jane?" A completely unfamiliar male voice sounded, and there seemed to be a subtle electric noise in the voice.

"who are you?"

"Haha, guess what."

Normally, Hesta would choose to hang up the phone. However, even though the voice was so strange, its rhythm and the way it spoke made Hesta feel subtly familiar.

Hesta stood there, trying to recall while slowly tightening his grip on the receiver.

"I guess you've been doing well recently," the voice said, "at least very well. You've done a lot of things you wanted to do, some of which were bold and adventurous, some of which were smart and clever, and could even be called wise. But I have a question for you, Jane..."

The voice paused for a moment.

"Today, on your farm, are you still angry?

"You still hold on to your Spear of Wrath?"