“I’m a little interested,” replied Jiang Yao. “It seems to be the quickest way to earn money…”
Before she could finish her sentence, she noticed a group of children over at Changkang Group’s relief site, with Lu Yuqing standing among their midst distributing drinking water while two fire-fighting soldiers watched from the side.
Seeing this, Jiang Yao immediately ran toward the children, totally ignoring Lu Xingzhi.
Lu Xingzhi looked at his now-empty hand and shoved it into his pocket. He felt slight annoyance when he saw Jiang Yao stooping down to talk to the children.
She seemed to have an affinity for children.
For example, Lin Wei from the platoon. She could spend an entire afternoon telling stories to him.
Next would be Huang Chenchen. Even now, Jiang Yao would sometimes mutter the little girl’s name.
She liked them very much even though they were not her kids. What would happen to his place in the family after she had her own?
Suddenly, having Jiang Yao giving birth to their child right after her graduation seemed like a bad idea.
There was not much opportunity for them to spend time together with her studying in Nanjiang City. After her graduation though, she was supposed to move to Jin City. Finally having the opportunity to be in each other’s vicinity, would he want to face the probability of his wife neglecting him and instead focusing her attention on their baby.
When the time came, he would be older than he was now, and slowly edging away from his physical prime. What if she did not want his aging body anymore?
Lu Xingzhi rubbed his nose and realized that he should probably stop overthinking, in case it became a troublesome matter.
Jiang Yao, on the other hand, did not know that just by abruptly leaving him behind, he would overthink. She looked at the children and saw them wearing thin rags, with timidness in their eyes, and the cheapest polyester slippers sold on the market on their feet, although those were in bad condition.
“These children were originally from the Rong County orphanage. The flood destroyed the already dilapidated orphanage and injured many social workers. No one else could care for these kids that was why they were brought here by the fire-fighting soldiers.”
Lu Yuqing gently caressed the head of a little boy, who was holding a thin and filthy kitten in his hands, while she spoke to Jiang Yao.
“Are these kids sleeping in the tent now?” Jiang Yao felt sorry for the orphans, losing their parents at a very young age and now losing their home, the orphanage in a flood.
“For now.” The soldiers nodded. “These kids will be separated in a few days’ time, being sent to various orphanages around the region. Rong County needs time to return to normalcy, so they will have to go to whichever orphanages available. With the flood happening, the number of children losing their parents skyrocketed.”
“Sis, I will be separated from my friend soon.” The little boy with the kitten tugged on Jiang Yao’s hand. Perhaps he was afraid of dirtying her clothes, he just lightly pinched her sleeve with the tip of his fingers. “Will people bully us? We want to stay together. We made a promise to go to school and build a future together. We want to give back to our teachers! But they are injured now, we don’t want to leave, we want to stay with them!”