Xu's Orphanage at the entrance.
Ever since it was established, it had followed Meng Jiu's suggestion and hung a signboard—Xu's Orphanage.
In recent days, the scale of Xu's Orphanage kept expanding, with more and more homeless orphans from Huadu City being rescued. There were nearly a hundred orphans in the orphanage now.
However, that also meant Xiao Lan's workload increased.
Even though she was tired, her heart was filled with joy because she could help more suffering orphans.
Still, Xu Hao had some people hire two female nannies, both in their forties. After all, not every young girl was as patient as Xiao Lan.
One of them was responsible for cooking and washing dishes, the other for doing laundry and tidying the beds, which eased Xiao Lan's workload quite a bit.
But today, the calm of the orphanage was shattered.
Just after Xiao Lan had lulled a child to sleep, she heard a loud shout from outside, "Xu's Orphanage? Today, this signboard will cease to exist!"
Xiao Lan was about to run outside when a little boy came running in, shouting, "Sister Xiao Lan, it's terrible! A bunch of bad guys are charging over!"
"Bad guys? Who dares to cause trouble here? That can't be right. Xiao Bao, did you see wrong?" Xiao Lan said, somewhat in disbelief.
Who didn't know that this place was under Xu Hao's protection?
Who would dare to create a disturbance here?
Wasn't that like seeking death?
But Xiao Bao shook his head incessantly, "No, there really are bad guys, a whole big group of them, and they said..."
Before Xiao Bao could finish, Xiao Lan heard a loud yell coming from outside, "You little brats inside, hurry up and open the door, or I'm smashing it down!"
Xiao Lan immediately shouted, "Don't open the door!"
As she spoke, she rushed out of the room and into the courtyard, where she saw over a hundred children screaming in panic, running about, some even knocking each other over.
Xiao Lan quickly called out, "Don't be afraid, everyone, I'm here, don't be scared, hide inside the houses."
Hearing Xiao Lan's words, the children ran towards the houses, but the slightly older boys did not run back inside. Instead, they stood by Xiao Lan.
Although they looked afraid, they still looked up and said, "Sister Xiao Lan, we can protect our orphanage too!"
Xiao Lan smiled, reassured, but still insisted, "You're too young. When you get a bit older, you can. Now be good and do as you're told, go back inside."
Seeing Xiao Lan's uncompromising gaze, they had no choice but to return to their houses. Although Xiao Lan was usually approachable, when she got angry, it was something many people couldn't handle, feared immensely, and besides, they were quite sensible by now, naturally not wanting to see Xiao Lan angry. Firstpublishedon*.
Plus, the houses weren't far from the entrance. They could always rush out.
Just as Xiao Lan finished speaking, another round of banging on the door came from outside, "Damn it! Open the door quickly, or I'll spare your lives, just smash this orphanage to pieces, otherwise, I'll kill you all!"
The voice of the muscular man shouting outside was terrifying, like a ghost's howl, frightening some of the children to tears.
Xiao Lan took a deep breath. Although she was scared herself, she knew she absolutely could not show fear, lest the spirit of these children completely collapse.
She shouted to the outside, "Who are you? Why are you attacking our orphanage for no reason? Our orphanage hasn't provoked you, has it?"
The muscular man outside the door laughed, "Hahaha! That's right, you haven't provoked us, but today we just want to smash your orphanage, what about it? You got a problem with that?"
Xiao Lan angrily said, "Don't you know that this orphanage is protected by Xu Hao? You dare to vandalize Xu Hao's orphanage?"
"Hmph! Xu Hao, that kid is probably already turned into mush by our Family Head!" the muscular man laughed loudly.
Hearing that they weren't afraid of Xu Hao, and even claimed to have beaten Xu Hao into mush, panic instantly surged in Xiao Lan's heart.
Had something happened at Xu Hao's place?
She quickly took out her mobile phone, ready to call Xu Hao to find out what was going on.
But before she could press the call button, she heard an enormous "Bang!"
Then, to the dumbfounded stares of all, the orphanage's main gate was blasted down from the outside!
The huge, heavy gate crashed onto the ground, dust flying everywhere, blinding many of the children's eyes.
Outside the gate, there was an enormous road roller. Clearly, the gate had been knocked down by this behemoth.
Xiao Lan, who was quite close to the gate, didn't even have time to react and was hit directly by it!
The older children immediately reacted, all running frantically towards where Xiao Lan was.
They understood that whoever was hit by that gate was likely dead!
But they still couldn't believe that Xiao Lan would be crushed to death!