Chapter 141

The moment she asked, all the girls in the room started crying. Indeed, their homes weren't here, and they had all been abducted and sold.

Of course, the kidnappers had taken a fancy to all of them.

After confirming the fact that they had been abducted, Miss Chu's suspicions of Huang E's strange behavior were immediately reduced. Perhaps it was because she was in a state of panic after the disaster. The two of them had been placed together by the kidnappers. The man had always been naked, and the two of them were together … Perhaps the two of them really had some secrets, and that was only natural. It wasn't easy for a girl to maintain a clean reputation, so she had to be more forgiving when it came to covering up for others.

Therefore, when Chu Suzhen led the girls out of the room, even though she felt that Shi Chuan and Huang E's conversation in the courtyard were very sneaky. For example, when Huang E appeared, she tried her best to avoid them and deliberately kept a distance from them … Chu Suzhen pretended not to see it.

The tragic scene in the courtyard immediately caused the girls to vomit. Seeing that they were vomiting even more than she had before, Miss Chu's mood improved a little. She shouted, "Shi … Langjun, take care of these girls who have woken up. I'll go wake up the rest of the children."

Shi Chuan nodded. Before he could say anything, Huang E quickly interrupted, "Sister Chu, don't worry. I'll bring them to the main room. You can go ahead and do what you need to do."

Miss Chu led the servants into another room. When she entered the room, she thought of the girls who had just woken up. When they saw the scene in the courtyard, they were just as frightened as she was. As for Huang E, why was she so calm all this time? Miss Chu couldn't help but mutter inwardly, "At such a young age, she's like a demon! Such a tragic scene, even the man in the yamen was shaken to his core when he saw it. Yet, she can calmly talk to people by the door. I wonder what kind of family can raise such a Daji? "

After walking through a few rooms, the abducted girls had all woken up. Miss Chu walked into the last room. Every time she walked out of the room and returned to the courtyard, Miss Chu would always feel fear and nausea from the tragic scene in the garden. She couldn't help but feel her legs go weak, and she couldn't help but want to escape the courtyard. However, she was still rushing about to save those women who had fainted.

While she was rushing from room to room, Shi Chuan was very dedicated to his duty. It was unknown where he found a red-tasseled spear, but he stood guard in the courtyard with it.

What was even more miraculous was that even the yamen was unwilling to step into the courtyard with the excuse of settling down their companions. However, Huang E didn't seem to care about the corpses strewn all over the ground or the thick stench of blood. She kept holding Shi Chuan's free left hand and chatted with him.

The conversation between the two was intermittent. When she saw someone in the courtyard, Huang E would warily stop talking and smile at the person who came over. Shi Chuan was dressed in a daze, so his reaction was always half a beat slower. Miss Chu didn't care about this at all. She only wanted to wake up all the girls as soon as possible and … escape the courtyard.

The servant went to fetch water again. While waiting for the cold water, Miss Chu anxiously paced back and forth in the room. Occasionally, she heard a few words floating over. It was Shi Chuan's voice. "The (lie) you made up sounds like …"

Miss Chu hurriedly stopped, but she couldn't hear the voice anymore. After hesitating for a moment, she walked to the window and looked out through the crack.

This Daoist temple was rich, so the windows were pasted with silk gauze instead of paper. The silk gauze couldn't be pierced, so Miss Chu could only look out through the crack. She saw the two people in the courtyard opening and closing their mouths, but she couldn't hear a single sound.

Miss Chu recalled — as one of the most talented women in Haizhou City, she had read many miscellaneous books. She also knew a little about the rumors surrounding the Drum Gallery and the Echo Wall. After a moment's consideration, she began to slowly retrace the path she had taken. When she reached a certain spot in the room, another sentence floated into her ears. It was Huang E's voice. "… Only by saying this can …"

Miss Chu moved her body slightly. Her ears only moved a few centimeters before she couldn't hear anything again.

Miss Chu stood in her original spot, moving her ears left and right as she adjusted her posture. After a short pause, the young lady's voice reached her ears again. The voice was very soft, as if someone was whispering into her ear. "… You promised. You promised to take care of me … The heavens sent you to save me. You can't leave me behind … I prayed to the gods and Buddhas countless times behind your back. I never expected that there would be a god three feet above your head. You really came, and all the kidnappers suffered retribution …"

At this moment, the voice suddenly stopped. Miss Chu hurriedly walked to the door and saw a servant carrying a bucket over.

There were three girls lying in the last room. Miss Chu appeared absent-minded as she worked. Thankfully, after a long period of practice, she was already familiar with the task. By the time she mechanically woke up the three girls and led them to the courtyard, Shi Dalang had already disappeared. At the entrance of the central room, Huang E was holding a girl's hand. They sat on the threshold and chatted. That girl was the youngest of the abducted girls. She was the seven-year-old girl that Chu Suzhen had once carried.

Without waiting for Miss Chu to ask, Huang E immediately explained, "Shi Dalang went to take a bath. The blood on his body has formed scabs. He feels uncomfortable all over and smells bad. I got him to quickly change into new clothes."

As soon as he finished speaking, Shi Cheng, who was wearing a very ill-fitting and comical outfit, rushed out with a ledger in his hand. "I found it, I found it. This is their ledger. All the abducted girls are recorded in the ledger. We can check according to the ledger."

After a short pause, Shi Dalang said regretfully, "Unfortunately, it's all recorded in code. We need to decipher it."

Miss Chu's eyes lit up. "Really? That's great. Let me take a look."

Huang E waved at Shi Dalang. "Dalang, you're wearing the wrong clothes. Squat down and I'll straighten them for you."

Shi Dalang walked over meekly and squatted down to let Huang E straighten his clothes. He raised his other hand high and handed the account book to Miss Chu.

Miss Chu took a look and saw that it was filled with words that she could not understand. For example, this line said, "Ren Shen Yi Mao Bing Wu Wu Chen Huainan Dong Huang Zhou Yang Luo Huang Er …"

"What does this mean?"

"The time, location, the person who handled the abduction, the number of abducted girls, the amount of money paid to the person who handled the abduction, the location of the rendezvous point along the way, and how much was spent — these are all the things recorded in the account book. You can deduce all of this with just a little deduction. Then, you can check the dates and locations of the girls' disappearance. You can immediately find out where their hometowns are."

Miss Chu heaved a sigh of relief. "This is great. We can help these children find their loved ones."

The reason why Chu Suzhen was so happy was that most people in this day and age did not have any knowledge of geography. In this era, maps were a military secret of the country. Not to mention commoners, even officials would not have access to maps unless they reached a certain level of administrative rank.

To commoners, it was already pretty good for them to know the name of their hometowns and the famous county cities nearby. And the names of their parents were taboo for their children. As juniors, not only were they not allowed to say the name for life, they even had to leave a stroke when writing the same word during the imperial examinations as a form of respect for filial piety.

When the abducted girls were rescued, Miss Chu had interrogated them one by one. Indeed, most of the girls could not say their father's name. The youngest girl, who was about seven or eight years old, did not even know her surname. All she knew was that she was called Huan Niang.

Now, with this account book, even if the abducted girls could not say the name of their hometown or the street where their parents lived, it was possible to deduce the location of their abduction based on the dates of their disappearance.

Chu Suzhen counted and looked up in surprise. "Eighteen. There are eighteen girls recorded here, but there are nineteen children in the yard. What's going on? There's one missing — no, two. Shi Dalang, your name isn't in the book either?!"