"Ah Yi, big brother! You’ve come back so early today!" A little girl of about five or six years old said with a giggle.
"Ah Yi, brother, let me take that for you!" A young man with glasses bent over and took the bag from Ah Yi’s hand, glancing at An Yiqing a few times unintentionally.
After dealing with a bunch of younger brothers and sisters, Ah Yi brought An Yiqing inside the house.
The main room had a long table with neatly stacked thirty-some plastic stools around it. On one side, an antique big-headed TV set was placed on the TV cabinet, and on the same wall, hung an old wall-mounted electric fan.
In this vast room, that was all the furniture there was.
"Miss, please have a seat. It’s a bit simple here, don’t mind it," Ah Yi said as he moved a clean plastic stool in front of An Yiqing.
An Yiqing, without a word, slowly sat down.
"Are these all the children at the orphanage?" An Yiqing, who had counted when she entered, keenly noticed there were only a dozen or so people.
"No. These are just some of the younger ones. The brothers and sisters over seventeen are either at school or out working. They haven’t come back at this time. Wait until around five o’clock, and it will get lively here," instructed Ah Yi, who asked Ah Si to boil a kettle of water and then had the boys sit down.
An Yiqing nodded, took a sip of the warm water in her hands without the slightest disdain.
"How many siblings do you have that are over eighteen?"
Ah Yi was taken aback by An Yiqing’s question, he thought for a moment, "Including me, there should be twelve."
"How many males and females?"
"Ahem! All males!" Ah Yi coughed lightly, "Miss, you must find it strange, right? Actually, Mother Huang was quite helpless after adopting us. All were boys at an age that could eat a lot. Those were Mother Huang’s poorest years, but later, the situation improved a lot, and more girls were adopted into our big family, adding a bit more color."
An Yiqing smiled faintly, a glimmer of light twinkling in the depths of her eyes.
"Take me to see Director Huang; maybe I can find a way to cure her," said An Yiqing, putting down her cup and standing up.
Ah Yi and the others didn’t completely dismiss her words, in their hearts, they always hoped for a miracle to happen.
This was a simple bedroom, where the furnishings were so sparse they could be described as bare. A desk for work, a lamp, a single bed, and a chair. This was Huang Fen’s home for over twenty years.
Right now, on the single bed, lay a woman with half-gray hair, her eyes tightly shut. From her exposed face, one could tell she had lost almost all her flesh. Perhaps due to years of overexertion, although only in her forties, her hair was half-gray like that of someone in their fifties.
This was the director of the orphanage, Huang Fen.
Looking at this woman, An Yiqing felt a surge of emotion, a sense of admiration welling up within her. If not for Huang Fen, these children might be in a juvenile detention center, or they might have already vanished from this world. She gave them a home, a hope.
Perhaps because she had been an orphan since childhood, An Yiqing felt an indescribable sense of closeness to Huang Fen.
She moved a chair over and sat by the bed. With light hands and gentle movements, she pulled Huang Fen’s wrist out from under the covers.
Ah Yi, Ah Si, and the others stood carefully behind her, trying to breathe as lightly as possible, their hands tightly clasped, anxiously awaiting An Yiqing’s verdict.