Why it never ends

Chapter 947 Brand

The children here all recognized Lico, and several girls came to her with their friends, asking her for gifts. Lico clapped her hands and said that she forgot to bring it today and she would come again in two days.

The girls were not disappointed. They all touched Rico's clothes with a smile, and then ran to continue playing their own games elsewhere. When they passed by each other for a few moments, Hesta saw raised black marks on the foreheads of some older children. She stared at the forehead of one of them, and the child was a little shy, so he immediately let down some more bangs to cover his forehead.

Hesta originally thought that it was a tattoo like the name on Rico's face, but when she followed Rico to the center of the gathering place, she saw that many people had the same mark on their foreheads. Looking closely, the patterns on different people seemed to vary.

"What do they have painted on their heads?"

Li Ge didn't hear clearly: "What?"

"I saw several people with black marks on their heads - is that a tattoo? Or something?"

"Well, that is..." Rico lowered her voice and was about to answer when suddenly a girl with a mark on her forehead passed by them. She immediately stopped talking and greeted the girl with a smile.

"Are you familiar with them?" Hesta asked, "It seems that many people here know you."

"I had a friend who often came over," Li Ge replied, "so I became familiar with him."

"What are you doing here?"

"I come here regularly to deliver medicines," Rico answered. "Occasionally, if I encounter someone who is seriously ill, I help drive them to the nearby church hospital."

Hesta stopped walking and suddenly saw a sign at her feet with a black number 150 written on it on the round sign.

Hesta kicked the bottom of the sign. "What the hell is this?"

"That's the distance reminder," Li Ge also took a look, "This place is 150 meters away from the official gathering area - they can't leave here without permission, which means they can't go to the area beyond meters without permission."

"…What will happen if I leave?"

"If the police find out, they might arrest people directly." Li Ge said, "It will be very troublesome anyway."

After walking more than a hundred meters, Hesta saw the actual edge of the gathering place. Someone had used red stone bricks to draw a boundary on the bare ground. Within the red line were the simple sheds of these people. The running people here raised dust on the ground, making it gray everywhere. Many waterproof tents were painted with graffiti, but the colors had long since faded.

Hesta and Rico were invited to sit in a wooden shed, and someone poured them tea. Although Rico took the cup, he still whispered to Hesta not to drink or touch the food.

Hesta did as she was told without a word. She held the cup and chatted with the other shack dwellers. The child beside her kept staring at the snacks in front of her and swallowed his saliva.

The woman in front of him spoke calmly in a language that Hesta could not understand. Rico could not fully understand what she said, but tried his best to translate some of it for Hesta - she was roughly talking about how her husband died of black water disease, and the same fate had befallen her daughter, but the child had been sent to a mission hospital last week, and she had not received any news yet.

Blackwater disease is one of the fatal complications caused by malaria. When patients with malaria find themselves excreting black urine, they know that the god of death has opened the door to their bedside - black urine means kidney failure, which means that hemoglobin has entered the urine after hemolysis caused by malarial parasites. In this area with scarce medical resources, this means death.

"I can help you check it out." Rico said, "Do you have anything you want to bring or anything you want to convey?"

The woman kept looking into Rico's eyes and shook her head woodenly. "I shouldn't have let anyone move his body," the woman muttered incoherently, "All those who had blackwater disease died soon after being moved, but I still had a chance, so I let them move, and now it's my daughter's turn... I shouldn't have let them take her away, but..."

Suddenly someone outside called her name. The woman whispered goodbye to Rico, got up and left.

"What did she say her daughter was ill with?" Hesta asked.

"It's also blackwater disease," Rico answered, as if he was worried that Hesta wouldn't understand the word, and added, "It's malaria."

“Can the church hospital cure it?”

"We have saved a few," Rico replied, "They are now trying a steroid treatment, which works for some people... By the way, Eleven and the others--"

“We came here after we were fully vaccinated.”

"Yeah." Rico nodded, "That's good."

Another young girl came in, and Hesta saw that she also had a black mark on her head. The girl squatted beside Hesta, pointed at the snacks on the table, and whispered to her if she could have some. Hesta pushed the plate to her. The girl took two thick biscuits and left quickly.

"You didn't finish what you were saying just now," Hesta looked at Rico, "What are those things painted on their foreheads?"

"It's a combination of patterns," Rico replied, "a certification mark of the 12th District Government, plus some noble family crests - they have already completed the formalities and are going to work in the manor. I guess it's because of the recent malaria epidemic in this area, so no one came to pick them up. The child just now should be from Trion's family," Rico whispered, "His family crest is the easiest to recognize, it's two connected Ts... What's wrong with you?"

Hesta's expression was still frozen on his face: "...Is it a real mark? Not painted on?"

Rico just remained silent.

……

Rico took Hesta to chat with many people in the gathering place. At first, people were a little reserved, but by the evening, many people were able to talk freely in front of Hesta. Many of them could speak fluent Third District language. If there hadn't been a war in the south, they might not have lived here at all.

"Have you seen those people?" Hesta asked. She pondered over the words "rebels", "revolutionaries" and "guerrillas" for a while, and finally said, "Those...who are fighting."

Everyone suddenly fell silent, and Rico quickly asked another question to keep the conversation going.

At night, Hesta and Rico went back to the car to rest: "Did I ask a stupid question tonight?"

"Which one do you mean?"

"...More than one?" Hesta frowned. "I shouldn't ask them about anything related to the rebels, right?"