Brand new cotton quilts were laid out before the children.

There were also brand new sets of clothing—not thin single layers of cloth, but winter garments padded with cotton that looked very substantial.

They would definitely be warm to wear.

Those dozens of children all had shining eyes, wishing they could step forward and touch them.

But without Yun Chu’s permission, they didn’t dare move.

Yun Chu bent down slightly and looked at her young daughter. “Changsheng, distribute these tokens to them.”

Many small wooden tokens with numbers carved on them were placed in a basket. She handed the basket to Chu Changsheng.

The little girl took the basket and curiously picked up a token to look at it, but didn’t dare walk over to distribute them to the other children.

Yun Chu said very patiently, “Without these tokens, the children here won’t be able to receive bedding and clothes. Dear Changsheng, can you help Mother distribute these to them?”

The little girl looked up with her watery big eyes and thought for a moment before understanding what Yun Chu meant.

She raised her head and looked at the dozens of children before her. Those children all gazed at her expectantly.

She was somewhat frightened, and her small feet involuntarily drew back.

Yun Chu’s palm gently patted her lower back, invisibly giving her strength.

Tingxue held her hand. “This servant will go with you.”

With someone accompanying her, the little girl became a bit braver. She carefully walked up to the first child, took out a token from the basket, and handed it to the boy.

The boy received it with both hands. Not knowing how to address this beautiful, radiant little girl, he said quietly, “Thank you.”

This was Chu Changsheng’s first contact with strangers.

She was very frightened in her heart, clutching Tingxue’s hand tightly.

But after hearing that “thank you,” her hand slowly relaxed.

She suddenly discovered that talking with people she didn’t know wasn’t so frightening after all.

She immediately walked up to the second person and picked up a token to hand over.

The second boy also said, “Thank you.”

Chu Changsheng’s lips pressed together.

Yun Chu could vaguely make out that this was an embarrassed smile.

She couldn’t help smiling as well.

She spoke up, “Children who have received tokens, come here to collect your things, then find your bed position according to your token number…”

The children lined up one by one to receive clothes and bedding.

Very thick winter quilts—some three or four-year-old children simply couldn’t lift them at all. Fortunately, there were workers to help carry them.

The older children couldn’t help but untie the binding strings on the quilts and reach inside to feel. So soft, so comfortable, so warm—these were real cotton quilts!

Those children couldn’t help pulling out some cotton to look at, only to discover that their dirty hands had blackened the snow-white cotton. They immediately felt distressed.

There were also clothes—two sets of thick cotton winter garments. Just holding them in their arms, they could feel how substantial they were. This winter, they would never be cold again.

“Good, everyone follow me to the dormitories in the side rooms.” Yun Qin led the large group of children to the side rooms. “Boys on the east side, girls on the west side…”

The children found their beds very smoothly according to the directional signs.

Six beds were placed in each room, arranged in two rows of three. After the quilts were laid out on the beds—one for padding, one for covering—they looked especially warm.

Yun Qin said with a smile, “Everyone wash your hands first, then put on your clothes, and we’ll go to the great hall to eat.”

The children quickly lined up to wash their hands. When they put their hands into the basins, every one of them was stunned.

It was actually warm water.

You must know that these orphans normally drank cold water. For washing hands or bathing, they would just rinse off in the river. Warm water was too rare.

Coming here, they could actually use warm water to wash these dirty hands.

Seeing the basin of water turn black, they all felt somewhat pained—warm water was truly too hard to come by.

After washing their hands, the children put on the clothes. They actually were reluctant to wear them, but fearing they would be stolen by others if left here, they wrapped themselves in as many layers as possible.

They followed Yun Qin to the great hall for meals.

Earlier when they were receiving bedding, the tips of their noses had already caught the smell of meat. Now walking in, that fragrance rushed straight to the crown of their heads. Some of the smaller children kept drooling, then slurping it back, absolutely salivating with desire.

Chu Changsheng stood at the front with Yun Chu, distributing food to the children.

Yun Chu was responsible for ladling porridge, Yun Qin for serving vegetables, Chen Defu for scooping soup, and the little girl placed a boiled egg in each person’s bowl.

The dozen or so workers hired by the Hall of Compassion for Orphans were responsible for maintaining order and looking after the smaller children…

The children received their food and sat at the tables, each of them not coming back to their senses for quite a while.

Because they worried the children wouldn’t adapt, the first day’s staple food was thin porridge with meat slices in it, plus a bowl of radish and bone soup, a stir-fried pumpkin dish, and an egg.

“There’s meat—there’s actually real meat, so much meat, it smells so good!”

“Such a big bowl of porridge would have lasted me three days before. This is wonderful!”

“I’ll save this egg to eat later when I’m hungry…”

The children had truly been hungry for far too long. Each of them devoured their food like a whirlwind, eating the large bowl of meat porridge clean down to the last grain.

Yun Chu and her young daughter also sat to the side eating the same food.

Changsheng’s appetite had always been very small, about the same as a cat’s. Each time she would eat two bites and refuse to eat more.

But today, Yun Chu noticed that the little girl had actually eaten a third of such a large bowl of porridge and drunk an entire bowl of radish and bone soup. Of course, she still hadn’t eaten the most hated pumpkin. She had eaten the egg, though as usual, she didn’t like the yolk.

At this moment, a dirty hand reached over from the side—not intentionally dirty; the child had indeed washed, but simply couldn’t wash away the grime accumulated over many years.

“Are you not eating all this?”

An eight or nine-year-old boy pointed at the remaining porridge, pumpkin, and egg yolk, asking Chu Changsheng cautiously.

He didn’t dare look directly at the little girl, because this little girl was simply too clean. The skin on her face was so white it seemed to glow. Even one glance felt like a desecration.

Chu Changsheng truly wasn’t eating anymore. She slowly nodded.

But the boy wasn’t looking at her, so he didn’t know at all that she had already given her answer. Thinking she had refused to give him this food, he could only disappointedly withdraw his hand.

At this moment.

Chu Changsheng grabbed his hand.

“I, I…”

The little girl was a bit anxious. When anxious, she had even more trouble speaking.

She looked at Yun Chu as if seeking help. Yun Chu smiled and stroked her head, letting her speak for herself.

Chu Changsheng could only try hard to speak herself. “I, I’m not eating anymore. For, for you.”

That boy happily took all the food from the table into his own hands immediately.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t eaten his fill.

Rather, years of hunger made it impossible for him to watch such clean food be thrown away.

He wolfed it down, sending all the food into his mouth.

Even when he truly couldn’t eat anymore, he used water to wash it down. Only when the food entered his stomach did he feel at ease.

Yun Chu looked at the other children around them.

Several three or four-year-old children were licking their bowls. Even a single grain of rice—they would pick it up and eat it.

She thought of her own daily life. Three meals a day, over a dozen dishes were brought out. When she finished eating, they were removed.

Were the leftover foods eaten by the servants, or directly thrown away? She had never seemed to care.

At this moment, Yun Chu’s emotions were very complicated.