Chapter 260: Little Tiger

Chapter 260: Chapter 260: Little Tiger

After leaving the school, Jiang Fan ignored the people gathered at the gate.

He got straight into his car and headed for the welfare institute.

He had already arranged the visit, so when Jiang Fan arrived at the welfare institute, someone was already waiting for him at the entrance.

"You must be Mr. Jiang Fan?"

"I’m the director of this welfare institute. My name is Ye Liu."

A middle-aged man with a careworn face greeted him with a smile.

"Mr. Ye, please, just call me Jiang Fan."

"We already spoke on the phone. Shall we go see the children now?"

"Okay."

The two of them walked into the welfare institute together. Although it was slightly larger than the Grand Welfare Institute, its facilities were clearly much older.

Much of the equipment looked like it was from the sixties or seventies.

They were either barely functional or had long since broken down.

"We have a little over forty children here at the institute."

"We’ve seen a particular increase in the last couple of years. It’s all from irresponsible young couples who have a child on impulse but can’t afford to raise it, so they just abandon them at our doorstep."

Ye Liu couldn’t help but sigh as he said this.

Jiang Fan’s brow furrowed upon hearing this.

"Are most of them young children, around preschool or kindergarten age?"

Jiang Fan asked.

"Twenty-five of them are. Of the rest, ten are elementary school age, and five are in middle school."

Jiang Fan followed Ye Liu into the institute, where he saw children playing and laughing. Though their clothes were clean, the patches on them were glaringly obvious.

Seeing a stranger, Jiang Fan, approach, they all stopped what they were doing and stared at him with curious eyes.

"Hey, little ones, would you like to go to school? You could play with other kids, and there will be all sorts of toys, brand-new books, and bright classrooms."

Jiang Fan took a deep breath, suppressing the sorrow in his heart and forcing a smile.

You couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. The youngest among them were just over two years old, having only recently learned to walk, while the slightly older ones were only four or five.

If Ye Liu hadn’t taken them in and opened this welfare institute, the only fate awaiting them would have been death.

"School! I want to go to kindergarten!"

"I want to go to kindergarten, too!"

"Daddy already promised he’d let me go."

"Daddy promised me, too! He said there’s lots of yummy food in kindergarten."

"Daddy said kindergarten has lots and lots of toys!"

...

The children all looked incredibly excited, each one repeating the promises Ye Liu had made to them.

This just went to show how much they truly wanted to go to school.

"Mr. Ye, I’ll get straight to the point. We’ll take all these children to Hidden Dragon Academy."

"They’ll have new dorms, new clothes—everything will be new."

"For now, we can only take the little ones. It will take some time to get the elementary and middle school divisions set up."

"We don’t have all the faculty and textbooks ready yet."

Jiang Fan felt he had seen enough.

"Okay... That’s wonderful."

"But the fees..."

"Do you think you could lower them a bit?"

Ye Liu asked, looking troubled.

"I want these children to grow up to be successful, healthy, and safe."

"I want them to be able to get an education."

"But..."

"Don’t worry, Mr. Ye. Our school will cover all their future expenses. You won’t have to pay a thing."

Jiang Fan’s reply was firm and direct.

"This..."

"But the pressure on your school... What do you need me to do? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Ye Liu was thirty-two, but his worries and hard work made him look closer to forty-two.

All he felt for Jiang Fan now was gratitude, endless gratitude.

"If you’re willing, you could come to the school and help look after them. We’re sometimes short on staff."

"But rest assured, we’ll pay you a proper salary, of course."

"Okay."

Normally, Ye Liu would have needed to investigate such an offer more thoroughly. It wasn’t the first time someone had approached him with a similar proposition, but most had turned out to be scammers.

But for some reason, he felt an inexplicable sense of trust toward Jiang Fan.

"Alright then, Mr. Ye. That’s settled for now. I’ll have the school send a bus to pick them up shortly."

"As for the other fifteen children, though, I’m afraid you’ll have to look after them for a while longer."

"Our campus is just too far from where they’re currently attending school."

Jiang Fan said, choosing his words carefully.

It was the best solution he could come up with at the moment.

"Okay."

Ye Liu agreed without a moment’s hesitation.

After giving Ye Liu his number, Jiang Fan called Li Qian’Er and asked her to send a school bus. He only left after everything was arranged.

Without pausing to rest, he rushed to the next welfare institute.

Yang City might not be big, but there were still many welfare institutes, large and small, in the surrounding areas.

He visited six small welfare institutes in a row, each with about forty to fifty children.

He personally negotiated the future arrangements for the children with each institute’s director.

His resolve to establish the elementary, middle, and high school divisions as quickly as possible grew even stronger.

By evening, Jiang Fan had visited a total of eleven small welfare institutes.

For now, this matter was settled.

He didn’t visit any of the larger welfare institutes. He knew better than anyone that they didn’t lack for government support and subsidies.

Nor did they lack for donations from kind-hearted people.

They could get by just fine on their own, whereas these smaller institutes were in a constant state of struggling to make ends meet.

After returning to the school, Jiang Fan wolfed down his meal.

As he ate, he told Jun Yue and the old director everything he had seen and heard that day.

"Conditions are so much better now than when we started. The channels for donation are much more widely known, too."

The old director remarked with a sigh.

When she and the others had started their welfare institute, it had taken immense determination. Donations from kind souls and support from the government were pitifully scarce, so they had to rely mostly on themselves.

"Yeah. All we can do now is help them as much as we can."

Jiang Fan slowed his frantic eating and added his agreement.

"By the way, did Mr. Li say anything to Qian’Er today?"

"He seemed particularly concerned about her business."