Chapter 364: Ronggu Orphanage

Valar Bay.

On the leaves of Yujia Te Xila, five-colored radiance flowed.

Fu Luo La darted about among the leaves, looking left and right, extremely happy.

Gao De stood under the tree, watching Fu Luo La scurrying about, smiling without a word.

The batch of tree seeds he had brought back needed to be planted as soon as possible to accelerate the growth progress of Yujia Te Xila.

And the matter of planting trees had to be handled personally by Fu Luo La to be considered secure, so Gao De had brought her along to Valar Bay.

"Leaving already?" Finally, after the excitement had passed, Fu Luo La landed on Gao De's shoulder and said in a light, thin voice.

"Leaving already."

"Remember to come back, and remember the way."

"I'm coming back via teleportation, no need to remember the way," Gao De said "honestly."

Looking at the stammering little person, he smiled and stopped teasing her. "Don't worry, I remember. Before I come back, I will definitely take Lady Fu Luo La to look around over there."

"Lady Fu Luo La doesn't care about that." The little person was clearly already happy enough to flutter her wings, but she turned her head away, looked at Yujia Te Xila, put on a serious expression as if business was what mattered, and instructed solemnly: "That side is not like this side; there will be bad people. Mage, you must be careful over there and pay attention to safety."

"Many thanks for your concern, Lady Fu Luo La. I have remembered it."

"Then I must trouble Lady Fu Luo La to take care of things here."

"Lady Fu Luo La is very smart."

"That is so."

Gao De stopped delaying and opened the Astral Teleportation.

The five-colored radiance swirling on the Yujia Te Xila leaves gathered rapidly, and the abundant astral energy soon condensed into an Astral Gate.

This time, it was not just a matter of a random teleportation option.

On the return journey, Yujia Te Xila had marked his return coordinate point.

So he now had two choices: random teleportation or marked point teleportation.

Gao De's choice was naturally the latter.

Carrying the bulging large package on his back, Gao De stepped into the Astral Teleportation Gate, and the five-colored radiance instantly wrapped around his figure.

"Back."

After a flash of five-colored light, Gao De found himself back in the room at the Palm Tree Hotel.

After three days, he had returned to Lagos City.

Everything in the room was unchanged from when he left.

Gao De put down the package, walked to the corner of the room, and with a crisp, light sound of a metal buckle, the capybara bag was unfastened.

The moment the bag was opened, Tuanzi, who had been stifled in the capybara bag for three days, was like a compressed spring toy, immediately poking its head out excitedly to breathe fresh air.

With a slight movement of mana, Gao De cast 【Beast Link+】, establishing a mental link with Tuanzi to confirm whether any outsiders had visited or if any special situations had occurred during the three days he was away.

"Thank you for your hard work." After confirming everything was fine, Gao De opened the package and took out a piece of meat that was still frozen.

The translucent amber meat had tiny ice elemental crystals faintly visible between the muscle fibers.

This was the intercostal muscle of a third-rank earth-vein creature, the Frost-Maned Lizard. Not only was the texture excellent, but the blood energy and magic power contained within were also incomparably abundant.

Gao De condensed a small ball of flame at his fingertips to thaw the rock-hard piece of flesh.

Tuanzi watched the whole process, its front fins scratching in the air, its pink nose tip constantly inching forward, almost sticking to the meat.

Seeing its impatient look, Gao De accelerated the speed, completely thawed the meat, and handed it to Tuanzi's mouth.

The meat had only just reached its nose tip when Tuanzi suddenly opened its three-lobed mouth, bit the meat, easily tore through the translucent muscle tissue, and chewed rapidly, its cheeks bulging into hamster-like spheres.

When the last piece of meat was swallowed into its belly, a faint, imperceptible stream of light flashed across Tuanzi's body.

Although it was only a small piece of flesh, the high quality of the third rank still brought it a little change.

However, Tuanzi was still young, and the blood energy and magic power contained in this piece of flesh were already close to its limit of endurance; it needed a certain amount of time to digest and absorb it before it could be fed again.

A fatty is not made in one bite; such things cannot be rushed.

Clang—Clang—Clang—

Walking out of the room, the clock tower in the center of Lagos City struck exactly eight times, the sonorous and melodious bell ringing rhythmically, indicating it was eight o'clock in the morning.

In Lagos City, Gao De still had two major tasks unfinished.

One was the acquisition of the Harland Shipyard, and the second was to ferret out the mastermind behind the water beast expulsion mission to obtain higher merit.

Clearly, the former was more urgent.

And now, although Gao De was carrying fifty leaves of Enduring Zhenbing worth over 15,000 Jin Quehua coins, how to sell them for money was actually a problem.

However, Gao De had long since prepared a plan.

"First, go find Miss Anna. Three days without news, I reckon they must be anxious."

Aisha had left him an address: Haiyin Ronggu Yuan.

Although this was not a landmark building, it was at least a well-known name, so it was not hard to find.

Gao De left the hotel, and there were already many carriages on the street at the entrance soliciting customers.

He tidied his clothes, waved his hand, and called a carriage: "Go to Haiyin Ronggu Yuan."

"Alright, Mr.!" the coachman immediately responded loudly.

After getting into the carriage, the coachman focused on driving and did not say much.

These old coachmen were generally very sensible; whether they were talkative or not, they would not easily seek to chat with guests and disturb them.

However, Gao De took the initiative to talk to the coachman.

"What is the scale of this Haiyin Ronggu Yuan?" Gao De asked casually.

These carriage drivers drove around the city and could be considered local snakes; they should be very knowledgeable about the situation in Lagos City.

"Haiyin Ronggu Yuan, ah..."

The coachman drew out his tone, seemingly recalling relevant information quickly, and then replied: "In terms of scale, it should be able to rank in the top three among the orphanages in Lagos City. After all, it was established by the Chaoyuzhe Sect."

"Although the Chaoyuzhe Sect has now declined and can barely protect itself, even though they have now almost transferred all the sect's industries and the believers have scattered, they have still insisted on not closing down Haiyin Ronggu Yuan. They are kind-hearted people; it's a pity." As the coachman spoke, he gently waved his horse whip.

"You mean, Haiyin Ronggu Yuan is an asset of the Chaoyuzhe Sect?" Unexpectedly hearing this familiar name, Gao De couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.

"That's right."

"Was the Chaoyuzhe Sect a big sect in Lagos City before?"

When he met Doctor Danika in the Ma Ke Ke district before, Gao De had originally wanted to understand the specific situation regarding the Chaoyuzhe Sect, but the injured person happened to wake up at that time, so it was skipped.

Now that he encountered it again, his curiosity was naturally piqued.

The main reason for his curiosity was that Doctor Danika, as a nun of the Chaoyuzhe Sect, possessed a rare spell 【Healing】, which made him feel that this sect should not be simple.

"It could be considered one of the top big sects in Lagos City. They provided storm trajectories to fishermen for free, guided fishermen on when to go out to sea, and blessed fishermen with safety, so they had many believers."

Once the coachman opened his chatterbox, he couldn't stop, his voice carrying a bit of emotion. "Unfortunately, later the Spirit Marrow Fever broke out, and the fishermen, who were the main believers, changed jobs in large numbers to dig in mines, and the loss of believers was severe."

"However, the bishop at the time was exceptionally decisive. Seeing this situation, he invested a large amount of the sect's funds into Spirit Marrow-related industries."

"In the first few years, relying on the Spirit Marrow Fever, they could be said to have made a fortune. With the money earned from the dividends of the Spirit Marrow industry, they expanded a stained-glass auditorium, built guest rooms for believers, renovated the church clock tower, purchased gilded ritual vessels—in short, they constantly expanded and were prosperous for a time."

The coachman spoke vividly, as if those scenes were right before his eyes.

"Although the loss of believers was severe, the sect could be said to be flourishing and developing against the trend."

Hearing this, Gao De was silent for a moment.

He could actually guess what happened later.

"But as for what happened later, you should also know. Good times didn't last long. The bubble of the Spirit Marrow Fever was pricked. Without dividends, the sect, with its severe loss of believers, found it difficult to maintain daily expenses, and the various buildings expanded during the Spirit Marrow Fever became a huge burden by then."

Sure enough, as Gao De expected.

"For example, the expanded stained-glass auditorium and the renovated church clock tower require a large amount of Jin Quehua coins just for cleaning and maintenance every year."

"In the first few years, the Chaoyuzhe Sect could still barely support these expenses by selling ritual vessels and other items in the sect, but these items were always limited, and later there was nothing left to sell."

"Without money to maintain the sect's buildings, the already few believers were lost even more, and monks began to leave because the sect could not pay subsidies. In short, it was a vicious cycle."

"If I remember correctly, the current Chaoyuzhe Sect's industries, big and small, have basically been transferred out. Now there should only be one Haiyin Ronggu Yuan and one church left."

"To be honest, with the scale of Haiyin Ronggu Yuan, the daily expenses are not small. I see that in another period of time, I'm afraid they won't be able to maintain this orphanage either."

"Sigh, if they can't hold on, what will happen to those children in Haiyin Ronggu Yuan?" The coachman couldn't help but worry.

Creak!

Just then, the coachman pulled the reins hard and stopped the carriage.

"Mr., we've arrived."

Haiyin Ronggu Yuan was located in a commoner residential area on the east side of Lagos City. The outer wall was built of gray bricks and stones, and the surface of the bricks and stones was covered with mottled traces, appearing dilapidated and old.

The paint on the heavy gate had already peeled off.

Directly above the gate was a small spire, and many tiles on the spire were missing, revealing the wooden structure underneath.

Gao De paid the money and got off the carriage.

On a winter morning, the air was slightly cold.

In front of the gate of the orphanage, there were twenty or thirty children standing on the side of the road, their small faces frozen red.

Among them, two children were holding a donation box, which looked dilapidated, and most of the paint on it had peeled off.

The other children were holding individual tin cans.

Inside the tin cans were water and a small fish, and the small fish was swimming weakly in the shallow water.

There were also two children holding up signs, on which a line of words was written crookedly: "Please help us."

And Doctor Danika was standing among this group of children, wearing a simple gray robe.

She was leading the children to solicit donations from passing pedestrians. Those who kindly donated would receive a tin can and Doctor Danika's blessing.

Clearly, the donation situation was not optimistic.

Most of the pedestrians passed by in a hurry and did not stop, let alone take out the money in their pockets.

Click.

Gao De threw a silver dragon coin into the donation box, immediately winning uncontrollable exclamations from the children around.

"Thank you, big brother!" The little boy holding the donation box looked up at Gao De somewhat timidly and thanked him.

At this time, Doctor Danika had already noticed the movement here and walked over.

Upon seeing Gao De, Doctor Danika was slightly surprised at first, a glimmer of light flashed in her somewhat tired eyes, and then she immediately greeted him with a smile, stroking her chest with one hand and saluting: "Mr. Officer, to think I would meet you here."

"Doctor Danika," Gao De returned the salute, then pointed to the children around, "How long have these children not had a full meal?"

"It's been two or three months, I suppose." Doctor Danika felt somewhat ashamed.

"How could the situation be so bad?" Gao De was slightly shocked, knowing the situation of the orphanage was not optimistic, but he didn't expect they couldn't even get enough to eat.

"Ever since the bishop absconded with the sect's assets, the hearts of the sect members scattered all at once. Everyone divided up the remaining assets of the sect and went their separate ways. Only this orphanage remained, and there were only a few monks willing to stay in the sect." Doctor Danika sighed slightly, her eyes full of disappointment and anger.

"There are 132 children in the orphanage, and the daily food expenses are a significant expenditure, not to mention expenses such as fuel, house repairs, and facility maintenance."

"The children are growing, and they need to constantly add clothes and shoes. Expenses for daily necessities such as buying quilts and toiletries are also not to be underestimated... Sigh, money is needed everywhere."

"Although my medical skills and spells are still somewhat useful, and wealthy families in the city occasionally invite me to see patients and treat them, such things often only happen once every week or two, and the remuneration obtained is far from enough to cover the orphanage's expenses."

"So even though the orphanage's three meals a day have been changed to two, they can still only barely manage to be half-full each meal. There is really no other way, so I had to bring them out to solicit donations." Doctor Danika's gaze swept over those thin children, saying sadly.

Looking at these young, sallow faces, and listening to what Doctor Danika said, Gao De had an indescribable feeling in his heart.

In his previous life, in the country where he lived, hunger was a forbidden zone that all citizens absolutely could not tolerate.

The most vivid example is that if you go to the street to beg for money, perhaps no one will pay attention to you because everyone has been cheated too many times, but if you go to the street to beg for food, to put it exaggeratedly, they might even feed you until you burst.

"This should be enough for the children to have full meals for two days." Gao De thought for a moment, took out a Jin Quehua coin, and handed it to Doctor Danika.

Doctor Danika took the Jin Quehua coin, crossed her hands on her chest: "Mr. Officer, thank you for your kindness and alms. You will definitely receive the blessing and protection of the ocean..."

"Thank you, you are the truly kind one, the one who should receive the blessing and protection of the ocean."

"By the way, Mr. Officer, are you just passing by?" Doctor Danika asked.

It was quite strange for a Hai Shao Bing mage to appear here.

"No," Gao De remembered the main business and said seriously: "I am here to find someone."

"Find someone?"

"I am here to find Miss Aisha." This was the rendezvous signal Gao De had agreed upon with Aisha.

"So it is a guest of the young lady." Hearing this, Doctor Danika was slightly stunned, then looked at Gao De deeply, "Mr. Officer, please come with me."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 365 =====