Mo Fei had originally planned to keep telling the story as it was, but on second thought, preaching those lofty principles would mean little at a time like this, so he decisively chose to adapt it.
"After the snake woke up, it didn't bite the man. Instead, it crawled out along his arm and appeared before him of its own accord. 'You saved me. I'll repay you. What do you wish for...?'"
"The man was startled to hear the snake speak, but then he thought, had he struck it lucky? Had he met one of those spirits from myths that tested people? So, without worrying about anything else, he made his wish. 'I want a warm house and more food than I can eat!'"
"After the man finished speaking, the snake nodded and agreed outright. A few days later, a butler found the man and told him he was the last heir of a noble family and would inherit its title. After that, he would have more food than he could eat and a warm house..."
"As for the snake, after accompanying the man to the manor, it disappeared not long afterward..."
At this point, stars actually filled the children's eyes. They no longer feared snakes; instead, they were full of anticipation toward them. "Then can we make wishes to snakes too? We want the orphanage to be a little better..."
"Yeah!"
"Me too!"
The children excitedly began discussing the wishes they wanted to make.
But Mo Fei interrupted them and continued instead. "Things were already very good at this point, but the tramp, who had become a baron, was no longer satisfied. He wanted more, so he sent people to search under all sorts of bridges for frozen snakes..."
"And he really did find another one. This time, he put the snake inside his coat again... But..."
"This snake was an ordinary venomous snake. After waking up, it bit the man in the chest, and he was poisoned to death on the spot..."
This ending stunned all the children. Their mouths hung open, as though they could not accept it at all.
Mo Fei concluded, "There might be wish-granting spirits among snakes, but if you can't tell them apart and save a venomous snake, you'll lose your life. So, when you encounter snakes in the future, you still need to be careful. If you can't identify them, just stay farther away. Understood?"
"Yes, understood!"
The children stood up and answered together.
By the time the story was over, the children had finished eating too. Next came the dishes, and the commotion caused by the snake seemed to have died down.
Aiwen understood one thing very well: the children were still young and often lacked judgment. Every bit of instruction needed careful consideration and guidance from several angles.
Young as they were, they could still cause trouble if one was careless.
And the Mo Orphanage could not withstand any major upheavals.
After clearing away the dishes, Mo Fei continued assigning work to the children. He still put Jimmy in charge of looking after Tom, but this time, he gave Jimmy a few extra instructions.
"Jimmy, if anything strange happens around you, come and tell me. Understood?"
"Yes, I understand, Director!"
After giving Jimmy those instructions, he continued leading the boys in outdoor labor, while the girls worked indoors.
Breaking ground and tending the cows-these tasks seemed trivial, but they were all important.
Once the repetitive work was done, he gathered all the children around him.
He motioned for everyone to sit down. "Children, I have something to announce!"
His solemn manner was completely different from how he had been while telling the story, and the sensible children grew serious too.
Had the orphanage gone bankrupt? Were they going to be sent away?
For a moment, many of the older children began to feel uneasy.
Aiwen seemed to have anticipated something. He looked thoughtfully at the little bread remaining in the kitchen.
"Starting today, we'll have a new job-selling bread, the kind you ate today. What do you think we should charge? And how should we sell it?"
The moment Mo Fei asked these questions, the children erupted with excitement.
This feeling of being valued was unfamiliar to them. Before, they had all been orphans no one paid attention to, always existing like leftover scraps. Now, they seemed to have become adults who could make decisions.
Several children immediately began offering suggestions in excitement.
"I think bread this delicious should sell for three pounds. That way, we can buy lots of nice things, and maybe even some meat..."
This was a little glutton who began drooling as he spoke.
There were also more rational children, who suggested, "Director, I think we should sell it for two and a half pounds. Though that's a bit expensive, we could still make a lot of money. We could buy some seeds to keep planting, then keep the cycle going..."
Several of the children offered very good suggestions.
But in asking this time, Mo Fei mainly wanted Lina's opinion. She had seen the bread sold in bakeries, so her suggestions would be more useful as a reference.
Lina did not disappoint him.
As the big sister here, she first barked, "Hmph! Quiet! Listen to me!"
At her rebuke, the children, who had been chattering noisily over one another, fell silent, though they still looked at Lina expectantly, waiting for her suggestion.
Lina did not put on airs either. After a brief pause, she continued, "If the bread the Director makes were sold in a bakery, selling it for three pounds would be no problem at all. In London, plenty of people would be willing to pay that much for it... But."
The children, who had been happy to hear the first part, grew uneasy at that turn and did not dare speak.
One timid little girl even stuffed her hand into her mouth.
"This isn't a bakery. It's an orphanage. We don't have bright display windows or a spacious kitchen, and we certainly aren't on one of London's clean streets..."
"Our orphanage is on the outskirts of London. The people here are all poor people from the bottom rungs of society. They won't be willing to spend three pounds on bread. With that money, they might prefer to buy two or three dry, hard, sour loaves of black bread..."
Lina pointed straight to the heart of the problem. Though she was still a child herself, at this moment, she had already seen its essence completely.
Though the children could not have articulated such a rational analysis themselves, they had no trouble understanding it.
They were a little disappointed.
Mo Fei, however, was not discouraged. Instead, his eyes brightened further.
"Then, little Lina, what do you think would be a suitable price for our bread...?"
This time, Lina sank into thought. She was not very good at mental arithmetic, so she could only work out the costs slowly, bit by bit, then keep calculating. Finally, she managed to give an answer. "Around two pounds, probably. At that price, we could make money, and with a steady trickle over time, the final income would be pretty good too..."
She was not as decisive this time.
Mo Fei began repeatedly calculating the costs in his head. The price he arrived at was about the same as the child's. At that price, they would barely cover costs and earn a certain return, but the return would be very low.
That would leave them as nothing more than free labor, working hard with no returns.
Moreover, there was another point she was still too young to understand.
If they really sold it for two pounds, their advantage in quality and price would quickly win them many admirers, but they would also become a thorn in many people's sides.
Those people's two-pound bread had neither such quality ingredients nor such good flavor, which would indirectly arouse their resentment.
In that case, this business would be very dangerous.
He was the only adult in the orphanage, and right now, he had no ability to protect himself at all, so this plan was unsuitable.
Still, Mo Fei clapped encouragingly. "Very well said, Lina..."
Then he changed tack. "But I've still decided to set the final price at two and a half pounds. The purpose of doing this is..."
Seeing that Lina wanted to say something, he immediately began explaining.
"As you said, this bread has a sufficiently distinctive flavor, and it tastes very appealing too. At this price, with orphans going out to sell it as well, two and a half pounds is acceptable..."
Yes, Mo Fei did not fully spell out the logic of commercial competition.
Instead, he offered another point they could accept.
That was to use their status as orphans to win a measure of sympathy and thereby obtain a more reasonable price.
The children, for their part, had no objection at all to going out and playing on people's pity.
Children from orphanages going out to earn money was also a common practice in London at the time. Newsboys and shoeshine boys were all the same...
Going out to sell bread now was merely another way of doing it.
Lina soon accepted this approach too. For bread of this quality, even if they used sympathy to sell it at this price, the buyers would still be getting a tremendous bargain.