Why it never ends

Chapter 944 Whale Man

Eucalyptus was blunt: "Where did you get the money?"

“…It’s my money!”

During the fight, neither of them noticed that a hunched figure was suddenly approaching them quickly. The school teacher was the first to react and sternly threatened them.

Eleven and Eucalyptus were both startled. They were stunned for a moment before they noticed that a ragged homeless man had rushed to within two or three steps of them.

"Get away from me, you hear me!" the teacher yelled in District 12's language, "I'm calling the police!"

Hearing the words "call the police", the homeless person trembled noticeably. She brushed aside her messy hair, and her cloudy eyes lingered on Eleven and Eucalyptus for a while. Only then did Eucalyptus suddenly realize that this strange-looking homeless person seemed to be an old lady...

The old man ran away quickly, and Qiqi suddenly covered her nose - the old man had a strong body odor.

Eucalyptus looked at the teacher: "What is that...?"

The teacher stuffed the wallet into Eucalyptus' backpack and said, "It must be a whale from the south. She saw the wallet in your hand and wanted to steal it."

"Whale man?"

"It's the local dialect of District 12, referring to homeless people, beggars, thieves, and robbers." The teacher replied, "There are more and more people like Emanlia recently... You all should be careful."

Eucalyptus looked back again, but the wanderer who was in her sight just now had disappeared. She shuddered unconsciously and whispered thank you to the teacher.

……

At night, Hesta and Rico arrived home exhausted at nearly eight o'clock. As soon as they entered the door, they became concerned about Eleven taking Kiki to skip classes - Eucalyptus had already sent Hesta everything that happened in the afternoon.

"So what on earth did you two do when you skipped class?" Hesta asked.

Eleven pouted and looked up, while Qiqi looked down at her toes. Neither of the two children answered.

"By the way, did you give them this money?" Eucalyptus took out Eleven's wallet. "The teacher at school told me today that it's best not to put too much money on children—"

"My money!" Eleven jumped up again.

Before Eleven could snatch the wallet, Hesta grabbed it first. There were coins in it, two roubles a rouble, and roughly estimated to be dozens of dollars, which was a huge sum of money for a child like Eleven Kiki.

"I never gave them any money." Hesta put away his wallet and turned to Eleven, "Where did the money come from?"

"It's mine anyway!" Eleven argued loudly, "Give it back to me!"

Hesta was silent for a while, and let Rico forcibly bring Eleven into the room, while he and Eucalyptus went to ask Kiki about the situation.

  At first, no matter what they asked, Qiqi remained silent, so Hesta talked about the conflict they had with others in the restaurant not long ago, and asked Qiqi if she considered Eleven as a good friend. Qiqi still didn't say anything, but just nodded. Hesta said again, how could you not think about Eleven's safety? If you run into trouble again when you go out, and there is no adult to support you, what will you two children do?

Qiqi sobbed for a while, and then slowly revealed the truth - the money was earned by Eleven, and he earned it in the past two weeks.

On the way to school one day, Eleven accidentally discovered several old houses that looked very dilapidated in a certain block. She silently wrote down the address, and then sneaked out of school during the playground time every afternoon and climbed into the yard of the people. Sure enough, things were as she expected - these old houses had been uninhabited for a long time, but the furniture in the house had been moved out, and there was nothing valuable. Eleven found a kitchen knife, pried up the floor, split it into thin firewood, and then pulled some reeds from the yard and tied the firewood into small bundles.

After completing these tasks, she knocked on doors on the street to sell firewood. There are many elderly people in District 12 who still have the habit of using stoves, so this kind of firewood is very popular.

A bundle of firewood cost fifty cents, and one Luobi had three bundles, so Eleven's pocket quickly became fatter.

"…So Eleven recruited you to join the group?"

"She said she couldn't do it alone and wanted me to help her." Qiqi murmured, "She was willing to give me some of the money she earned."

"When she skipped classes to do these things before, no teacher noticed anything was wrong?"

"She said she had observed that every afternoon on the playground, it was the teachers' shift change time. After the teacher finished the roll call, he would hand over the class," Qiqi said softly, "If we slip out at this time, the teacher who led us in front would have already left, and the teacher who came behind would have just handed over the class and would have a lot of things to do, so they wouldn't notice that there were fewer people in the class. Plus, the next roll call would be during the break, so as long as we get back before then, there would basically be no problem..."

Hesta and Eucalyptus held their foreheads at the same time.

……

Late at night, after the children had gone to bed, the three adults sat in the living room and talked about their day.

Rico and Hesta also looked very tired. In the past two weeks, they had traveled to all the cities and villages near Emangria. Tomorrow, Rico would take Hesta to a gathering place for homeless people. That place was a little far, so they might not be able to make it back tomorrow night.

When she heard the word "vagrant", Eucalyptus immediately thought of the old man she saw at the school gate this afternoon. She was about to talk about it, but Hesta suddenly said: "I learned a new word today, the dialect of District 12."

"Huh? What is it?"

"Whale man." Hesta said.

Yugali was startled.

"...It means dignitaries." Hesta said.

Eucalyptus frowned, thinking he had heard it wrongly: "What?"

"Think about it," Rico raised his hand to gesture, "sea monsters like whales may look clumsy, but they have amazing agility and strength in the water. Their tails can smash a small boat... The king of the water creatures, the Leviathan of the sea, corresponds to the nobles and emperors on land. Isn't that reasonable?"

"What's even more bizarre is that it has a completely opposite meaning," Hesta continued. "Whale meat can be eaten, and fat can be refined into oil, which can be used to produce textiles, soaps, pigments, paints, or lubricate machines; whale baleen can be used as a supporting material for clothing, spermaceti can be used to make the purest candles, and ambergris - this fecal stone formed in the intestines of whales - can even be used by humans. Its value was once comparable to gold... Almost everything on a whale can be eaten and squeezed... The same is true for 'whale people'."

Eucalyptus did not speak for a long time. She thought of the old man in the afternoon and those eyes. Suddenly, she felt that the man's shriveled body was like a ball of shriveled dregs that had been chewed and squeezed hard by this world and the entire huge social machine, and even the last bit of fat had been squeezed out.

This overly cruel imagination made her shudder again.