After consulting Grandma Dalia, the children decided to visit the new resident's home in the town at nine o'clock in the morning.
"Knock knock knock~"
"Here they come—ah, hello!"
Upon opening the door, Luo Lin was startled to see so many children crowding her doorstep, but she quickly adjusted her expression, habitually putting on a smile and greeting the children.
The children sensed a certain aura from Luo Lin (perhaps a teacher's aura?), and the noisy little rascals quickly quieted down, politely greeting Luo Lin.
The girl immediately noticed Kiana Kaslana among the children, who seemed a bit uneasy about the suggestion of coming to play with Luo Lin but eventually followed along.
Now, the white-haired bundle shrank slightly under Luo Lin's gaze.
A slight curve formed at the corner of Luo Lin's mouth as she watched the dumbfounded strand of hair standing on top of little Kiana's head, suddenly wanting to reach out and touch it to see how it felt.
I wonder how it compares to Little Bianka's?
With that thought, Luo Lin suddenly realized that she seemed to have made contact with two important characters from Honkai Impact 3, albeit a bit early.
"Come in, it's cold standing at the door!"
Luo Lin stepped aside, leading the children into the house.
As they entered, warmth enveloped them, and the room was filled with easels, displaying various paintings, some seeming finished, while others were still in progress.
The table was cluttered with paint cans, and assorted color palettes were stacked on the side, with a slightly pungent smell of paint lingering in the air, prompting one of the children to sneeze loudly.
Slapping her forehead, Luo Lin said somewhat embarrassedly, "Oh dear, some of the paints have a strong odor. Let me open the window for some fresh air."
Although opening the window let in the cold breeze, the smell of paint dissipated significantly after a few minutes.
The children didn't seem to mind the little incident; they excitedly looked at the paintings on the easels, commenting on the contents inside—
"This one is Grandma Dalia's shop!"
"This one is the hill behind my house!"
"The alley where we often play hide and seek!"
The paintings depicted scenes familiar to the children of the town, and from their simple aesthetic perspective, the paintings were excellent.
In fact, even to someone knowledgeable about art, the basic skills in these paintings were all there, overall quite satisfactory.
To maintain her disguise as a painter, Luo Lin even spent a bit of crystal (not even half of her settlement reward, just a small amount) to purchase basic painting skills at the shop.
Luo Lin pretended to go to the kitchen for some snacks, but in reality, she took advantage of the cover to fetch a bunch of cookies from the system space. She came out carrying a basket of sandwich cookies, which she handed out to the children.
The children thanked her profusely, some of them eagerly devouring the cookies, praising how delicious they were, which prompted others to follow suit, quickly finishing the cookies stuffed into their hands and then eagerly eyeing the basket nearby.
"Eat up, you're in such a hurry... but don't touch my paintings with cookie crumbs on your hands."
Luo Lin sighed with a mix of amusement and exasperation, first warning them not to touch things recklessly. Then she took out some paper cups and poured each of them a bit of hot water from the kettle sitting by the fireplace.
The children relaxed, crowding onto the sofa in the living room, snatching snacks from the cookie basket.
Among them, Kiana was the most enthusiastic snatcher. After realizing that Luo Lin didn't mind the snacks, Kiana let loose, sweeping through the snacks like a ravenous beast.
The cookies visibly decreased in quantity, and the destination was clear: Kiana's stomach. But her tiny belly showed no signs of being full.
Seeing this, Luo Lin could only marvel at Kiana's immense appetite. Everyone in the Kaslana family seemed to have exceptional skills... She had to reach into the system warehouse again to fetch another basket of cookies, just barely satisfying the other children's demands.
Roasting by the warm fire and munching on delicious cookies, the children settled down. Perhaps it was because they were eating, but they didn't make much noise; they simply discussed their experiences with excitement.
"Sister, did you paint all these paintings?"
"Of course, how do you like them? Are they good?"
"They're great!"
"Sister, sister, what's this?"
Following the direction the child pointed, Luo Lin saw a scene on the canvas she had seen while teaching at the orphanage—Captain Ragna planting plants behind the orphanage. Under the sunlight, it emitted a golden glow.
"This... this is a beautiful scene I saw when I traveled to France before. The children there are just as lovely as you guys."
Although she initially found them a bit annoying, after spending some time with them, Luo Lin discovered that children still had their cute side.
"What's France?"
Another child asked.
Another child eagerly answered, "My dad told me it's a very, very faraway place!"
"Wow! Very, very faraway!"
For these children, the farthest place they had been to might be the big towns where their family members worked. The name France didn't mean much to them, but "very, very faraway" sounded more impressive.
So they began asking Luo Lin all sorts of imaginative questions about France, such as what the children there ate, whether France had as much snow as the town, and whether there were huge dogs like Uncle Jason's at home—based on their description, it sounded like a husky...
The girl patiently answered their questions, finding herself reminiscent of teaching at the orphanage.
"Alright, kids, is there anything else you want to ask?"
As Luo Lin answered their questions and painted on the canvas, when the children had asked almost everything, and their voices were getting hoarse and dry, having finished all the water in their cups and all the cookies on the table, the painting in her hand was also almost done.
She flipped the drawing board over to show the children.
It was a sketch drawn in pencil, depicting the scene of the children sitting on the sofa eating cookies—most prominently, Kiana sat in the front, grabbing a cookie in each hand, her mouth wide open in a big smile as she enjoyed herself.
Seeing this scene, Kiana's cheeks turned red in embarrassment. She wiped the cookie crumbs from the corner of her mouth and scratched her head awkwardly.
"Because... it's so delicious..."
"You little glutton, it's not like I won't give you any more in the future... Was it necessary to be so exaggerated?"
The children heard the implication in Luo Lin's words and felt a bit incredulous.
Luo Lin smiled and pinched the white-haired bundle's cheek, saying, "You're welcome to come to my place again in the future, just don't eat so much every time. My cookies are almost gone thanks to you little gluttons."
—This was indeed a perfect opportunity to interact with Kiana, and she wouldn't refuse it.