Chapter 128 Children
In fact, even with Little Red Riding Hood's explanation, it was still difficult for Yu Sheng to understand and imagine the life in this orphanage and how it "operates" on a daily basis. He couldn't imagine what the children living here were thinking and doing every day, what specific duties the "council employees" sent here had, and how the "council" that ruled the entire border area viewed such a special orphanage.
Because in the final analysis, he didn't even understand how this huge "Boundary City" actually operated, nor did he understand the mysterious "Council". The only "official" he had ever come into contact with was the Secret Service, and the entire Secret Service was actually just a part of the Council.
There were too many things in the border area that seemed out of place to him, and the place where Little Red Riding Hood and her friends lived was just another addition to the many doubts in his mind.
Hu Li, who had been following them and had not spoken since they entered the door, suddenly asked, "Why doesn't the Secret Service or the Board of Directors set up a special department to 'take over' this entire orphanage?"
Little Red Riding Hood looked at the fox girl with some surprise.
Hu Li blinked his eyes and scratched his hair nervously: "Did I... say something wrong?"
"No... that's right," Little Red Riding Hood quickly regained her composure and shook her head. "It's normal for you to have such thoughts, but do you know how many groups or organizations similar to 'us' there are in the entire border area?"
Hu Li opened his mouth but no words came out.
“As I said before, most of the spirit world detectives and investigators ‘changed their jobs’ after being involved in foreign events, and the children of the ‘Fairy Tale’ organization were also influenced by the ‘foreign-fairy tale’. In essence, every child you will see here is a future or current spirit world detective. We are one of the hundreds of supernatural organizations in the border area, so many things must be handled in the way of supernatural organizations.
"Of course, the Secret Service once considered giving 'special care' to 'children' like us. That was a long time ago... Just like you said, they set up a 'special orphanage' that was completely supervised by the board and directly managed by the Secret Service, and brought all the children affected by fairy tales under centralized protection and guidance, with 'adults' taking care of everything, instead of us being self-governing like we are now. But then...something big happened."
Yu Sheng frowned slightly, and instantly seven or eight scripts of movies, TV series, thriller novels, and horror games popped up in his mind: "...the children were treated inhumanely, and then the 'fairy tale' got out of control?"
"No, quite the opposite," Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. "The Secret Service and the Board of Directors are not fools. They know that things like 'alien' don't follow any 'human rules' when it comes to taking lives. So according to the records, they did nothing wrong at the time - they took good care of the children and considered the situations of every child. Nothing inhumane happened, but they overlooked one thing."
Irene poked her head out from Hu Li's arms: "...did you overlook something?"
"'Fairy tales' don't like adults." Little Red Riding Hood said lightly.
Yu Sheng was thoughtful and felt as if he understood what the other party meant.
Hu Li also nodded slightly after thinking for a moment, as if he also understood the key point.
Irene also thought hard and raised her head: "No, what does it mean... How come you all seem to understand everything? What do you understand?"
No one paid any attention to her.
"The east building is in front of us," Little Red Riding Hood pointed at the building in front of her and introduced it to the students. "The main building of the orphanage consists of two buildings. The east building you see when you enter the gate is the main accommodation and activity area. The cafeteria and the 'classroom' for young children are also here. The one on the other side is the west building. There are some safe houses and treatment rooms inside. Sometimes the children's conditions are not stable, so they will go to the west building.
"There were originally two connecting passages between the two buildings, but later the underground passage had some problems and was locked. Now we can only go through the corridor on the upper floors. Of course, there are other regular entrances and exits in the west building.
"The open space over there is where the children usually play. We made the slides and swings by ourselves. We also dug the sand pit ourselves. We asked the Secret Service to send a truck to bring the sand in - we didn't ask for money. There was a little trouble at the time. The sand pit was too big and too deep. We originally planned to use only one truck, but later three trucks came in and almost couldn't fill it up. The Secret Service suspected that we were trying to cheat the sand and sell it...
"Do you see those trees over there? We also planted them ourselves. I was just ten years old at that time... The 'parent' who took me to plant trees at that time is no longer with us."
Yu Sheng listened quietly. From the corner of his eye, he saw several curious eyes coming out of the main door of the east building. Several half-grown children and a few younger children were crowded near the door frame, secretly looking at the "guests" who appeared in the orphanage, pointing and whispering from time to time, probably discussing or guessing about something.
Then a bigger girl came out from the back and shooed all the kids back.
"How many children are there here?" Yu Sheng asked curiously, "Um, I mean including you 'parents'."
"Seventy-six," said Little Red Riding Hood. "Isn't that less than you thought?"
"It's indeed... a little less than I expected."
"It's always this number, with only a few fluctuations," said Little Red Riding Hood, leading Yu Sheng into the main door of the East Building and heading towards the "Guest Room." "New ones come, old ones go. 'Fairy Tale' only accepts children who meet its requirements, and does not hesitate to eliminate old ones. So compared to our number, this facility actually seems a bit extravagant - many rooms above the fifth floor are empty, and most of the West Building is also empty.
"Of the seventy-six children, sixteen were 'parents', and about half of the remaining were between eight and fourteen years old, with the other half younger. Overall, about three quarters were girls and only a quarter were boys..."
"I noticed that most of the people I saw just now were girls," Yu Sheng nodded, and then he became curious, "Why?"
Little Red Riding Hood smiled: "Because princesses are always more likely to fall into crisis - the same is true for 'country girls' like 'Little Red Riding Hood'. You have to learn to analyze this place from the perspective of 'fairy tales'."
Yu Sheng seemed to be thinking about something.
Led by Little Red Riding Hood, he, Irene and Hu Li came to the reception room at the end of the corridor of the east building.
Yu Sheng noticed that there were several prying eyes at the door again, and some small figures were wandering around in the corridor outside. They were obviously curious about the new guests today, but did not dare to approach.
"I brought some gifts for the children," Yu Sheng picked up the biscuits and candies in his hand and nodded to Little Red Riding Hood, "Shall we let them share?"
"Thank you - you are very thoughtful," Little Red Riding Hood thanked him happily without any politeness, and waved to a half-grown child at the door, "Huihui, take these to the cafeteria first, and share them with everyone at dinner."
A girl called "Huihui" who looked about thirteen or fourteen years old immediately ran in happily. Then several children who looked about five or six years old also took the opportunity to sneak into the room and run around the table. Some of them shouted excitedly: "I want chocolate! I want golden ones!" "Do you have gummy bears?" "Thank you, uncle!" "Sister Huihui! Yaya stepped on my foot!"
There was also a pink and tender little one who suddenly came out from under the table, staring at Yu Sheng and Hu Li with big eyes, then raised his hand and pointed at Irene: "I want to hug this one too!"
Irene instantly spread her arms and bared her teeth: "I'm not a gift!"
The little one was stunned for a moment, and then burst into tears on the spot.
A group of human cubs suddenly scattered, squealing, running around on the ground, howling like ghosts and wolves - the same sound that Yu Sheng imagined in the morning when there was a room full of Irene.
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His whole body was numb at that time.
However, the chaos only lasted for a short while. Little Red Riding Hood immediately stood up and calmed down the little ones with just a few words. Then Huihui took over the group of kids with ease and coaxed them back to the corridor, closing the door by the way.
Yu Sheng stared in amazement at the scene that suddenly became chaotic and then calmed down. It took him a while to react. He turned his head and glanced at Little Red Riding Hood: "...You...are pretty good."
"You'll get used to it. The children here are actually very sensible. Although they may have some minor problems like normal children of this age, most of them can calm down faster than normal children. They are also better able to understand the instructions of older children and understand the need to abide by the rules," Little Red Riding Hood said with a faint smile, "Everyone has come through this."
For some reason, Yu Sheng felt even more uncomfortable after hearing this.
"Tell me about the 'fairy tale'," he shook his head and quickly changed the subject, "I mean the 'foreign land' - and the 'black forest' I saw, what is it about?"
"The Black Forest is the 'sub-body' of 'Fairy Tale', but before I explain its structure in detail, I want to talk to you about something more basic," Little Red Riding Hood said slowly. At this moment, Yu Sheng seemed to see the precocious, calm and steady "spiritual detective" he had seen when he first met her. "Let me confirm first - do you know how many types of 'foreign lands' there are?"
Yu Sheng thought about it and his expression became serious: "I don't know."
little Red Riding Hood:"……"
"I remember this is relatively early in the database," she looked at Yu Sheng with a subtle expression, "Didn't I tell you to take a look at this part of the knowledge as soon as possible?"
Yu Sheng was also a little embarrassed: "Isn't this a very busy couple of days?"
"What are you busy with? Is there any new arrangement with the Secret Service?"
Yu Sheng frowned and quickly went over in his mind what he had been doing in the past two days.
I reclaimed wasteland in a foreign land, planted vegetables, collected ash, raised chickens, petted raccoons at home, studied with Irene how to make Irene, and figured out how to make more Irenes with rebar and No. 42 cement...
I felt like the moment I said it, my dignity as an adult was gone.
"Yes, the Secret Service came to me to discuss the Dark Angel."
Yu Sheng had a serious face and didn't tell a single lie.
(End of this chapter)
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