Chapter 74 - Severely Outnumbered
Benton had a leisurely breakfast in the inn the next morning. His first task of the day was to find an orphanage. With the understanding that he wanted to donate food, the innkeeper had given Benton directions to one, and he didn’t want to arrive there too early and disrupt whatever their normal routine was.
When he finally made it to the place, it was even worse than he had feared. Kids were running around everywhere. A quick count of those outside yielded twenty-three kids mostly old enough to be scanned—in the F range across the board—and there had to be more in the rickety two-story building. And every one of them he saw was thin, too thin.
He asked one of the kids who ran the place and was told he needed to talk to Mistress Gong.
“Is she the only adult here?” Benton said.
The kid shrugged. “Some of the older ones of us help out.”
Yikes. Some of his friends back on Earth had ended up with three kids, and they’d felt outnumbered even with having two adults. Caring for so many by herself must be a nightmare for Mistress Gong.
The kid agreed to lead him through the house in return for a copper bit, and Benton passed at least a dozen or more kids from toddlers ranging up to maybe eight or ten years old using the bedrooms as playgrounds.
“Mistress Gong! Mistress Gong!” the kid yelled. “We have a visitor.”
Benton heard her mutter “What now?” before she appeared from a doorway. Ragged was the only way to describe her. She was in at least her late fifties and her filthy, tattered dress was askew. There was a baby in her arms and a toddler clinging to her right leg, so she had effected a staggered walk to drag the child along with her.
Yikes.
She showed no emotion at seeing a cultivator in her orphanage. Actually, she showed no reaction at all, simply staring at him silently.
“Greetings, Esteemed Mistress Gong,” Benton said. “I heard you were doing good work here taking care of orphans and hoped to make a donation.”