Such a familiar scene nevertheless made Mo Fei frown now.
However little common sense he had, he knew that the most important thing for a newborn right now was breast milk, or failing that, formula. Only that could provide enough energy. Nothing but hot water-this...
Could easily lead to the child's early death.
Yet he could not blame Aiwen. In this era, cows and milk were precious commodities. He wanted them, but he had no money to get them right now...
Raised this way, the Tom before him would not necessarily die young, but it would be normal for him to be left with a constitutionally frail body.
But what could he do?
Aiwen also noticed the director's arrival. Just seeing his furrowed brow was enough to tell him what he was thinking.
A faint bitterness rose in his heart, too. From the start, he had known that this director, whose name was hard to pronounce, was cold on the outside but warm at heart.
The London they lived in had never been a kind or warm place. Cold and gloom were this city's defining tones.
Yet this man from elsewhere was a rare source of warmth here.
When he had first been sent here, he had worried, too. After all, even if an orphan like him, without any particular skills, was taken in, he would often be beaten, scolded, and treated as free labor. That was the reality of things.
But although Mo Fei had always been somewhat clumsy, the gentleness that radiated from deep within him had drawn Aiwen in as little else ever had.
Fortunately, those who came to this orphanage were either children who still retained kindness in their hearts or disabled little scoundrels with little ability to act... As for how those scoundrels had become disabled, there was no need to mention that again.
As the oldest child here, he had a duty to protect this home.
Yes, although he had only lived in this orphanage for a few years, he already regarded it as his home.
After going through so many awful things, Mo Fei had become a little more aloof, which had made Aiwen considerably happier. Yes, in this London, only those who were a little selfish had a chance to live well.
That was why he had been somewhat angry when he saw Mo Fei carry in a swaddled baby that night.
That man with his tough words and aching heart had ultimately given free rein to the kindness within him.
And now, wasn't he worrying about feeding the child again?
Mo Fei knew nothing of Aiwen's thoughts. He was considering how to improve the food here.
If it were just him, he could hold out for a while. But there were so many children here now. If they grew up hungry and malnourished all the time, even when they reached adulthood, wouldn't they only end up at the very bottom of society again?
At that thought, finding his first pot of gold became the most important matter at hand.
If he were a wizard, he might have far more ways to obtain money. The ordinary people here had never seen witchcraft. All it would take was a little intimidation, or an Unlocking Charm followed by sneaking into a house and taking the money he needed. That sort of thing had never been particularly difficult.
Unfortunately, he was now just an ordinary person without any particular abilities.
Even if he had a system, he had no idea what this so-called Sublimation System could actually do...
While he was fretting, he had no idea that Tom had also turned his eyes toward him.
Unlike ordinary babies of this age, who knew only eating and sleeping, he was a wizard infant. Although he did not yet have much capacity for thought, an instinctive drive to seek advantage and avoid harm still made him understand that the person not far away was someone who could determine his fate.
Without thinking, he spread his arms toward Mo Fei.
Such an action was clearly impossible for the cold, indifferent Voldemort,
And it brought home to him that there was no Voldemort here, only a Tom Riddle who had not been born very long ago.
Mo Fei took the child into his arms. "Aiwen, take the children to clear the standing water from the yard. The weather's bad, and it'll be even more trouble if it freezes. Also, check the walls for any problems and see whether they need reinforcing. Then have Lina make something to eat. Oh, and cook a little thin rice soup for Tom..."
Aiwen merely glanced at him, then went to arrange the work as instructed.
In the orphanage, the children had no right to play and make trouble as they pleased. Or rather, they had nearly been denied even the chance to survive from the very beginning.
They needed to work, too. Generally, they handled the orphanage's cleaning, cooking, and other such chores.
Once everyone else had left, Mo Fei looked at Tom in his arms.
Although he was a newborn baby, his gaze was extraordinarily penetrating, as if he could see into people's hearts. Within that tiny body lay mental power and perception far beyond those of ordinary people.
But unlike when he had taken the initiative to beckon Mo Fei over earlier, once in his arms, Tom showed neither dependence nor affection. Instead, there was a hint of inexplicable scrutiny in his gaze.
If Mo Fei had not known that babies at this stage had practically no eyesight to speak of, he really would have been frightened.
He watched for a long time, until Tom's tense body relaxed a little.
Tom still let out little whimpers.
He was hungry.
During infancy, all the organs needed to develop, so energy requirements were high. From last night until today, he had only drunk a little hot water over all that time. Of course, that was nowhere near enough.
Fortunately, as he cried, Lina came in carrying a bowl of freshly cooked rice soup.
It was called rice soup, but it was actually a mush made from rye. Mo Fei had forgotten that there was no rice here. The most common grains were things like rye and barley.
Still, Lina understood what he meant. After all, when some children had been newborns and there was no breast milk, they had also been fed rye cooked into mush when they needed to eat.
Seeing that the food had arrived, Mo Fei handed Tom to Lina to help feed him.
While eating, Voldemort was no different from an ordinary little child.
As for Mo Fei himself, he left the room and began to consider how to earn a living.
Things were different from before, after all. Now that he had a new-century mindset, he could hardly keep doing the hardest work while barely managing to feed even himself, as he had before...
After going downstairs, he took a piece of black bread as hard as a stone from the dining table, then put it into his mouth a little at a time and chewed, slowly increasing his sense of fullness this way.
One thing had to be said: this bread was sour and hard, as difficult to swallow as sawdust. Trying it for the first time, he felt as though his throat were going to be scraped raw.
Yet in his memories, food like this had been the most ordinary daily fare.
"No, I have to improve our living conditions, or..."
He had no desire to live like this until the day he died.
In the end, though, it all came back to money.
In the past, Mo Fei's orphanage had relied on a very limited source of income: Mo Fei himself.
After all, when Mo Fei was young, he had attended a school in London. It was only because his family's fortunes later declined that he had dropped out before graduating.
Thanks to his schooling, however, he had once worked as a clerk for a chamber of commerce.
Later, after founding the orphanage, he had been unable to continue his clerical job. Instead, he became the neighborhood's man of letters, taking on work drafting documents, mediating disputes, and acting as an intermediary.
However, the income from such work was often unstable, and demand was not particularly high.
He also secretly grew some inexpensive medicinal herbs in his little courtyard. Using the orphanage's name to reduce the risks, he sold them to nearby residents. Only by doing all these jobs together could he care for the children with relative stability.
Even then, he had been hard-pressed to make ends meet.
Now, with another little child, the pressure on him had grown further.
How to earn more money-and his hope that the children could receive a better education-both required financial support...