Orphanage

Listening to Ye Lulu's clear yet foolish reply, then looking at her pretty face in the full bloom of youth,

Qian Mo fell silent for a moment, then could not help but sigh and ask,

"Lulu, can you tell me how Aunt Le taught you to seduce me?"

"Ah, that? Mom said—"

Halfway through her sentence, Ye Lulu suddenly realized what she had said. She hurriedly covered her little mouth, then gave an embarrassed smile.

"Little Qian Mo, you figured out I was hitting on you?"

Qian Mo rolled his eyes at that.

Combined with what Le Jia had said earlier, and the fact that Ye Lulu, a combat specialist, had switched careers to become a clerical worker, anyone with half a brain could tell she had ulterior motives.

Only Ye Lulu thought she had hidden it well.

"What do you think?"

Qian Mo asked helplessly. "So how exactly did Aunt teach you?"

Now that things had come to this, Ye Lulu knew there was no point hiding it anymore. A playful grin appeared on her face again as she briskly walked over to Qian Mo's side.

"My mom said boys like you were at the height of their vigor and the easiest to handle. As long as I treated you a little better and gave you some benefits, you wouldn't be able to restrain yourself and would take the initiative to accept me.

Mom said she got Dad that way back then."

Hearing the last part, Qian Mo's mouth twitched.

Born into a top-tier noble family, yet he had been conquered by such a second-rate trick for picking up handsome men. Ye Lulu's father really was a loser.

The two continued walking deeper into the commoners' district.

Along the way, Ye Lulu kept recounting Le Jia's glorious deeds.

She even frankly said that if Qian Mo "didn't know what was good for him," they could use some tougher methods. Le Jia had taken a liking to this son-in-law, after all, and Ye Lulu had to bring him home no matter what.

By this point, Qian Mo's face was covered in black lines.

He did not shy away from women, but he was deeply unwilling to accept this sort of forced relationship.

After thinking for a moment, Qian Mo said,

"Lulu, what do you think? Do you really like me?"

Ye Lulu thought about it, then replied with a playful smile,

"It's alright, I guess? Anyway, I find you easier on the eyes than the other clansmen."

Qian Mo shook his head inwardly at that.

She was already twenty-five and thoroughly understood matters between men and women.

But perhaps because she had been protected too well, Qian Mo could always see traces of those clear-eyed yet foolish college students in Ye Lulu.

When Qian Mo did not answer for a long while, Ye Lulu asked curiously in return,

"So, Little Qian Mo, what do you think?"

At that, Qian Mo stopped walking.

He rolled his eyes slightly again and finally lost his patience.

"More or less the same as you. I don't dislike you.

"And Lulu, I'm already fifteen. On Douluo Continent, that means I'm an adult—a man who can stand on his own.

"So stop calling me Little Qian Mo. Either call me Qian Mo directly, or address me by my position. Otherwise, don't blame me if I ignore you from now on."

Hearing the resolve in Qian Mo's words, Ye Lulu pouted unhappily.

Little Qian Mo was such an affectionate, adorable way to address him. Why would he not let her say it?~

But Ye Lulu was an adult after all, no longer a willful little girl. She could also tell that continuing to call Qian Mo that would truly upset him, so she changed the way she addressed him.

At last, Qian Mo felt more comfortable inside.

What kind of man had "little" attached to his name all day long?

It was not as though he was about to debut as the chief palace eunuch!

After more idle chatter, Qian Mo finally steered the topic back to the original question.

"Lulu, I'm honored that Aunt wants you to marry me.

"But marriage is a lifelong matter. Without enough love, it will only lead to a great deal of unhappiness.

"So, to keep yourself from regretting it later, you should think it over more carefully."

After hearing Qian Mo's advice, Ye Lulu blinked her bright eyes twice, and the smile on her face grew even wider.

Ye Lulu felt even more drawn to him.

Just as her mother had said, unlike the other clansmen who looked down on everyone, Qian Mo was someone who truly considered his other half, just like her father.

"Mm, alright.

"But you know I can't handle all that official work, so you'll have to help me with more of it."

Ye Lulu agreed with a grin, while also not forgetting to dump the extra trouble from this handsome-man-hunting trip onto Qian Mo, the person involved.

Qian Mo smiled helplessly at that.

But if such a small matter could offset the pressure Ye Lulu's family had helped him bear from all sides,

then Qian Mo felt he had made an enormous profit and did not feel the slightest bit displeased.

At that moment, Qian Mo finally arrived at the ultimate destination of this trip: the orphanage located in the commoners' district.

Aside from the few children initially rescued from the human traffickers,

only one hundred and twenty-three abducted children who were still alive had been tracked down through Earl Jack's Estate.

This filthy chain of transactions covered nearly half the province, and most of the victims were children from commoner and farming families.

In ancient times, commoners and farmers had no social resources to speak of. Naturally, even if they reported it to the authorities, no one would search for their children.

So although Qian Mo wanted to send them all back to their parents, he could not gather any useful information for finding their families, and some of the children were too young to remember where home was.

Thus, nearly half of the children ultimately remained in Qian Mo's care.

As a grown man with a mountain of official business to handle, Qian Mo naturally had no time to care for them himself, so he could only establish this orphanage here.

When he lightly knocked on the orphanage's iron gate, a middle-aged woman dressed in coarse linen poked her head out.

The moment she saw Qian Mo, the woman beamed and welcomed him inside.

Having been born in an orphanage in his previous life, Qian Mo deeply understood the darkness surrounding such places. So even though he had been very busy before,

he had still been extremely careful when selecting people to care for these children. He had even used Attunement to assess the character of those who came to apply.

In the end, Qian Mo selected five people: one cook and four women.

Qian Mo called the woman before him Sister Zhang.

She was the oldest among them, but because she had once been a junior manager at a restaurant and possessed some management experience, Qian Mo appointed her as the director.

Walking into the courtyard, one found an ordinary two-story compound covering roughly five hundred square meters.

Though the compound looked ordinary, it had everything it needed. Qian Mo firmly believed that good steel should be used on the blade's edge.

Thus, although the children in the orphanage were still tiny, the sickly pallor that had once covered their faces had long since faded from being well cared for.

And because children forgot things easily, they had already cast aside all their previous negative emotions. One by one, they laughed and played games in the courtyard.

Seeing this scene, Qian Mo smiled.

He suddenly felt that everything he had done before had been worth it.