Because he had become much better off recently, Shen Ci bought more food and put more rice in the porridge, making it thicker. It was no longer as thin as before, so thin that you could see your reflection in it.

Shen Ci took out a clay pot, put some porridge in it, and sealed it. This was for Shen Chaomu.

He knew Shen Chaomu too well. She was so busy with three jobs every day that she had very little time to eat. She was reluctant to buy delicious food because it was too expensive. She just ate something to fill her stomach. For example, in the morning, in order to rush, she got up early and had no time to eat. She often drank water to fill her stomach before going to work at the wonton stall.

It is precisely because of this that Shen Chaomu often suffers from abdominal cramps.

Later, I saw a doctor, who said it was caused by my diet. From then on, whenever Shen Ci was around and cooked, he would leave a portion for Shen Chaomu.

Putting it in a ceramic pot can keep it warm, although the effect is average.

The little ones drank the porridge with satisfied looks in their eyes. The aroma of the porridge and the sound of swallowing lingered in the dilapidated temple.

They were hungry and ate quickly, but not voraciously.

Shen Ci filled another bowl, but instead of giving it to himself, he took out a little girl from a corner of the dilapidated temple.

She was a little girl about three or four years old, wearing clean and simple clothes. Her hair was tied into two round buns on both sides, like little buns, very cute.

The little girl was thin and small, but her face was as delicate as a piece of jade, and her eyes were big, like black grapes. But if you looked closely, you would find that her eyes were lifeless.

Perhaps because the little girl was too quiet, it was easy for people to ignore her.

Qing'er remembered that when she came in the morning, the little girl was also quiet and silent, holding a branch in her hand and drawing on the ground.

"This is Sister Mu's biological sister, named Little Grape." Shen Ci said, put the little girl down, picked up the porridge beside her, and began to feed her.

Qing'er looked at the little girl. He had heard from Chengzi and the others that Little Grape seemed to be not very smart. He didn't know when she became ill, but she was like this when Shen Chaomu brought her back.

She doesn't cry or laugh. She doesn't respond when others talk to her, and she won't talk to other people, even if that person is Shen Chaomu, who is closest to her and raised her since she was a child.

But she likes painting very much.

But they didn't have the conditions, and except for Shen Ci occasionally giving her a pen and paper, most of the time she just used a branch to draw on the ground.

"Did the doctor tell me what disease she has? Can it be cured?" Qing'er asked.

Here, while Shen Ci was talking to Qing'er, he scooped a spoonful of porridge and handed it to Little Grape's mouth.

Little Grape opened her mouth obediently and ate the porridge.

Shen Ci fed her mouthful after mouthful, and said, "The doctor can't explain it clearly, but what is certain is..." He paused, his tone a little sad, "Little Grape will never get better in this lifetime."

Shen Ci lowered his eyes, took a deep breath, and then fed Little Grape again. He cheered up a little and said, "But Sister Mu said she won't give up. She will work hard to make money and take Little Grape to see a better doctor. She believes that Little Grape will get better."

Qing'er drank the porridge in silence. In fact, they all knew that it would be very difficult for Xiao Pu Tao to get better.

After drinking the porridge, it was getting dark and the little ones all went to bed.

Little Grape also went to bed obediently and slept quietly. Her delicate face made her look like a little fairy.

Shen Ci and Qing'er sat outside, waiting for Shen Chaomu to come back.

"Does she always come back so late?" Qing'er asked. The "she" she was referring to was naturally Chen Chaomu.

"Well, since I met her, she has been busy every day, busy working, busy making money. If it weren't for the money she earned through hard work, I'm afraid countless people in the temple would have starved to death." Shen Ci looked up at the moon in the sky and said lightly.

Shen Chaomu is different from him.

Shen Ciyi attended classes outside the private school for two years, learned knowledge, and learned to write storybooks to make money. Even though he was cheated by Yang Han, he did make money.

But Shen Chaomu couldn't do that. It wasn't that she didn't have a talent for studying. On the contrary, Shen Ci felt that Shen Chaomu's talent for studying was far better than his, and she mastered everything very quickly.

But she didn't have time. She didn't have the time to stop and study. She had to keep making money to support the livelihood of everyone in the dilapidated temple.

Therefore, Shen Chaomu, who was originally more talented than him, could only do manual labor and could only earn more money by working harder and doing more work.

"Where are Chen Chaomu and Xiao Pu Tao's parents?" Qing'er hesitated for a long time before asking this question.

"I'm not sure either. Sister Mu and I lived together for six years. Back then, she was wandering around on her own. Later, she brought home two-year-old Grape and raised her for two years. I don't know where she got her from, and Sister Mu never talked about her family. She just said Grape was her biological sister."

Every child in the dilapidated temple has their own unique pain. What they can do, what they want to do, is not to explore, but to gather together for warmth.

Perhaps, only when so many people are together, only when they feel care and warmth from others, will they feel that they are not abandoned by this world and can live more tenaciously.

"What about you?" Qing'er opened her lips and asked with difficulty several times, "What do you think of your biological parents?"

Shen Ci was stunned for a few seconds. For Shen Ci, he still had memories of his adoptive parents, but he had no memories of his biological parents at all.

For six years, he had never mentioned his life experience in front of anyone except Chen Chaomu, but he did not reject it in front of Qing'er.

"I don't know who my biological parents are, and I have no memory of them. I heard from my adoptive parents that they bought me when I was a baby.

I was bought from a human trafficker. So I thought, my biological parents probably loved me, they never thought of abandoning me, it was just my bad luck that I was abducted by human traffickers.

Sometimes I wonder if they missed me or looked for me after I was kidnapped. But now I’m fourteen years old…”

He was abducted as a baby, but it has been fourteen years now.

Who would persevere in searching for a child who had been abducted for fourteen years?

He is just like Yuanyuan in his story, but he knows that he probably won't have parents like Yuanyuan, because it is too difficult to persist for more than ten years.

Shen Ci was reluctant to make it so difficult for them.

"It doesn't matter if they don't look for me. It doesn't matter if they have new children. As long as they can think of me occasionally, that's enough. I'm not greedy. Occasionally is enough."