That extra notification alone made it clear that the change in Aiwen's attitude was not so simple.
But after that single notification, the idiotic system said nothing more. What about the changes? The Belief Points? There was not a single hint... If he could get his hands on the system, he really wanted to give it a good beating.
For now, Mo Fei could only suppress his curiosity and continue soothing Aiwen.
After looking through his old memories, he knew that all the children in the orphanage had their own problems. Survival was one thing; their psychological state was another.
Although he had never been a child psychologist, the educational short videos he had watched had still taught him a great deal.
The child before him actually had a very simple psychological problem: a sense of insecurity.
As a child who had been forced into fights, taken to the police station, and even imprisoned because his father stole, his experiences were difficult for outsiders to imagine, but they must have been awful.
Mo Fei's presence back then had given him a place to settle down, and now Mo Fei had helped him plan his future.
Those two gestures that touched his heart had finally made him open up completely.
Just as the system had shown, he might now have come to see Mo Fei as his most important family member, perhaps as a father, and begun to depend on him.
Such feelings would not actually have been a good thing in other orphanages. In Europe at this time, that sort of weakness could very well lead to even more tragic consequences.
Fortunately, Mo Fei was not someone from this era. His moral values were sufficiently noble even by the standards of later generations, and he had received a Chinese education that placed the greatest respect on individual lives.
So this dependence might bring better results in the future.
From that day onward, as far as Mo Fei could see, Aiwen merely became a little more cheerful. Nothing else seemed to have changed.
But in the eyes of the other orphans, the change in their big brother Aiwen was much more obvious.
As the leader among the orphans, he was now not merely close to the orphanage, but beginning to grow close to the director. That closeness, rooted in how he perceived their roles, was what surprised the children.
After sensing his trust in Director Mo Fei, the other children also began to pry open a crack deep in their hearts that led toward the light.
This time, however, Mo Fei did not pay too much attention. Everything would have to wait until it appeared on the panel next month.
Right now, his attention was on his new Belief Point and which new skill he should choose to improve.
Saving the Belief Point to improve his cooking was the stupidest approach. Failing to fully snowball his advantages was not something a competent gamer should do.
And so he began considering his next choice.
He had previously thought about making farming or livestock raising his second upgrade.
Now that he had a few dairy cows, he still hoped to tap into them as an endless gold mine rather than merely use their milk as a nutritional supplement. He could not afford such extravagance yet.
His plan to make bread with milk and sell it was already taking shape, and after several experiments, he had made good progress.
The old dough starter itself also gave the fermentation a more distinctive aroma, which added a pleasant quality to the bread's flavor and texture. Of course, there were other benefits too, but those would have to be studied later.
Mo Fei still preferred steamed buns made with old dough starter. That soft yet chewy texture was what had nearly brought him to tears.
Of course, he was not the only one. The children in the orphanage all loved that distinctive texture too.
After all, compared with the black bread that was difficult to swallow, these steamed buns were already an unparalleled delicacy.
Mo Fei was not collecting much milk at present. A small portion went toward supplementing Tom's nutrition, while another portion was used to make experimental products. In the end, whether they succeeded or failed, the children ate them all, indirectly supplementing their nutrition.
And if he could improve his livestock-raising ability, perhaps the cows' milk production would increase to some extent. That would be even better.
Milk itself was a good commodity.
Farming was even easier to understand.
Although they could not openly cultivate large amounts of land, the backyard was still large enough to grow a certain quantity of crops. Keeping them fed and clothed would not be a problem.
He simply was not particularly skilled in that area.
Still, with his Chinese soul, he ought to have some talent for it.
Of course, there was another point to consider: he knew little about livestock raising and barely even qualified as uninitiated, whereas he had at least reached the introductory level in farming.
How to choose under these circumstances was what had Mo Fei torn.
Then he reconsidered. The core of his current skills should be cooking, so he ought to build around that core.
Although livestock raising seemed capable of increasing the cows' milk production, it covered more than just dairy cows. Would such an overly broad choice really help his cooking improve?
Farming was somewhat more practical. Not only could he grow wheat to provide ample support for his future cooking experiments, but he could also grow the herbs and spices he needed, broadening his future options.
Of course, most importantly, it was already winter. The ground was cold and hard, and there was not much feed for the cows. At a time like this, increasing milk production would be troublesome even if he wanted to.
Farming was different. He could use this time to improve the soil first, then put it to use when spring arrived. The timing lined up perfectly.
And so the scales in his heart began to tip toward farming without his realizing it.
Taking into account the grass seeds he had asked for when buying the cows, he gritted his teeth and chose the upgrade outright.
[Farming (introductory) → Farming (beginner)] [Belief Points: 1 → 0]
As the Belief Point vanished, Mo Fei felt a flood of memories of things he had seen in the past, along with techniques he had learned from short videos, flash wildly through his mind.
Perhaps thanks to the talent in his soul, the improvement he gained in farming was much greater than his previous improvement in cooking.
Many techniques he had previously understood only vaguely now seemed to contain mistakes and omissions.
He also gained many new ideas about farming.
He now had a sufficiently clear understanding of how to plan the plots and what work should be done at what times.
It was as though he had suddenly become an experienced farmer with ten years of growing crops behind him, and he developed an entirely new plan for using the orphanage's land.
And so the children in the orphanage once again noticed a change in Mo Fei.
Much like after his cooking improved, he began to immerse himself in that miraculous feeling, unable to pull himself away.
This time, the children were not idle either.
Working the land was clearly not something one person could accomplish. Mo Fei simply called on everyone who could help to get to work together.
Reclaiming land on the outskirts of London was no easy task.
The stones in the soil and the excessively damp earth both greatly hindered cultivation. Combined with the weather, everything became an obstacle that made their progress painfully slow.
The method available to them now was to dig drainage ditches and then raise some of the plots so that water would not readily accumulate in the soil.
As for the stones, the small ones could only be picked out and discarded. There was nothing they could do about the large ones for now except avoid them as much as possible.
And so the exceptionally grueling work began. Whenever his hoe struck the ground, the jolt nearly made Mo Fei's head ache.
The children had never done this sort of work before, and after just a few attempts, small blisters readily formed on their hands.
Mo Fei was actually no different. His body seemed to have developed muscle memory, but he had never put it into practice, after all, and all sorts of minor injuries kept occurring as he worked.
When the children were injured, Mo Fei had them rest for a while.
He himself, however, lanced his blood blisters at night, wrapped them in gauze, and carried on.
Before long, the children began to want to give up. They did not know what the point of doing this was, so they lost patience as well.
But one person was still following in his footsteps: Aiwen. He did not understand the point of the director's actions either, but remembering what had been said before-that this effort was for their future-he gritted his teeth and persevered.
Finally, on the last day of the month, the land was at last ready.