"Then if you do anything dangerous, you must tell me next time."

His words are concise and to the point; he never likes to beat around the bush.

Sun Miao'er nodded and replied, "I promise you, Master."

This is a promise between the two of them, to support each other and walk together to realize their shared beliefs.

A rat darted across the ground, gnawing on the torn hemp rope. As soon as Sun Miao'er made a sound under her feet, the rat was frightened and ran away, disappearing into the clutter.

The way the rat fled in panic really resembled the Jin couple.

Sun Miao'er sneered, "The Jin family is really poor. Even the rats are so hungry they have to gnaw on straw ropes."

"This awful place should no longer be a place for poor girls to suffer."

She touched the cold marks, as if she could see those desperate girls.

When they left the mud-brick house, they discovered that even the candles inside had gone out.

"They ran away?" Sun Miao'er asked.

Fu Yuchi raised an eyebrow. "They didn't run very far."

As expected, the two intercepted the Jin couple by the river after leaving the Jin family's residence.

Sun Miao'er blocked Jin Laotou's way, "How heartless of you! You don't even plan to keep your son's body?"

Old Man Jin's eyes flashed with a fierce light, and he retorted, "We two wanted to catch some fish by the river to take back!"

"Catching fish? Catching fish requires your personal belongings?" Sun Miao'er said, reaching out to pull the bundle off Granny Jin's back.

The items in the bundle immediately scattered all over the floor; they were all old, faded silver ornaments, which were probably the last valuable things left in their house.

Granny Jin squatted on the ground like a madwoman, pulling the silver ornaments into her bosom. Her words were incoherent, but one could vaguely hear her saying, "It's all his fault! He forced me to do these things! He said if I didn't do them, he'd send me back to the brothel..."

Old Man Jin's expression changed drastically. "Fine, I've treated you well all these years, and sure enough, when disaster strikes, everyone flies away. Dare you say you didn't marry me in the first place just to escape that hellhole?"

"What a terrible place! Is this place any better than that place?" Granny Jin argued with him, only wanting to protect her last possessions.

Sun Miao'er crossed her arms and watched the show. "I didn't come to watch you two argue. If you want to run away, there's nothing I can do about it."

She shrugged, rubbed her chin, and thought for a while before picking up the bundled burlap from the ground and tearing it into strips.

Old Man Jin took off running, but before he could take two steps, he was subdued by Fu Yuchi.

Sun Miao'er tied his hands with a strip of cloth, found a tree nearby, and tied Old Man Jin to it. "Tell me," she said, "if the villagers of Dahuai Village see you tied up here, will they try to save you or not?"

Old Man Jin dared not utter a word. Any further words he could say would be futile. This girl in front of him was far more cunning than he was.

Even if she begged for mercy, it would probably be useless, and besides, she was no match for the man beside her.

He could only let her tie him up.

"Let me tell you, they all hate you to the core and wish you would be torn to pieces. I've thought about it, and I've decided not to hand you over to the authorities."

A sharp glint flashed in Sun Miao'er's eyes. "This tree is good. It's very close to where the villagers live. If they see you tomorrow, they will naturally deal with you. I reckon you'll be sitting in the Pingnan City jail before your thugs even arrive."

"Are you still going to run?" She looked down and glanced at Granny Jin.

Granny Jin was so frightened that she trembled and dared not speak. After a while, she inexplicably stretched out her hands and let Sun Miao'er tie her up on her own.

Old Man Jin screamed like a madman, "Didn't you want to know where your mother is? I'll tell you, your mother died a long time ago, she drowned in this river! Hahahaha!"

The more he said this, the more convinced Sun Miao'er became that Song Shi was not dead, and that Old Man Jin was just desperate and wanted to kill himself before he died.

"Dead? Then tell me! I'll keep searching. I don't believe my mother is dead, but your son is utterly and completely dead!"

She ignored them, tied them up, and swaggered away.

After dealing with the Jin couple, it was already broad daylight when they returned to the Wei family home.

Sun Miao'er lay with her head against the bed. The past day and night had been truly thrilling, but it was worth it.

The master resolved her inner conflict, and she confirmed that her mother was indeed still alive. As long as she persisted in her search, or rather, found the person named Feiyu, she would be able to obtain clues.

She thought about many things, and soon after her head hit the pillow, she became sleepy. When she woke up, it was almost noon.

She was woken up by Wang Xueru, and after listening to Wang Xueru talking to her coat outside for quite a while, she asked, "Has Xueru arrived?"

"Miao'er is awake!" Wang Xueru pushed open the door and came in, looking very anxious.

As soon as she saw Sun Miao'er, she started nagging, "Where did you go yesterday? Did you go out to play behind my back? You promised to do serious things for me!"

Sun Miao'er looked at her, both amused and exasperated, and quickly denied it, "My dear Miss Wang, where could I have gone? I was just researching the birthday gift for the Prefect's wife for you. Look at the bruises under my eyes. If it weren't for you, I could have slept so much more!"

"You're just good at making people happy!" Wang Xueru said, feigning anger. "I don't care, you have to take me to the workshop today!"

"Alright, alright, let's go to the workshop."

When they arrived outside the workshop, Sun Miao'er noticed that the workers all had happy expressions on their faces.

"Have you heard? That scoundrel surnamed Jin was dealt with last night, and he was tied up under the big locust tree at the village entrance this morning!"

"Is that really true? Who can handle him?"

"Of course he's a capable person. He's done so many bad things over the years, maybe even God couldn't stand it anymore!"

Sun Miao'er stepped forward, wanting to find out some information, and deliberately asked, "What happened next? What happened after that?"

The spinning girl laughed and said, "I heard that the villagers first gave him a good beating, then took thick hemp ropes from home and tied them both up. They then asked the village's young scholar to write a confession, and were preparing to send them to the yamen!"

"From now on, our Dahuai Village will be much more peaceful!"

Sun Miao'er felt genuinely happy to be able to do something good for the villagers of Dahuai Village.

The most appropriate course of action is to leave such a villain to the villagers to deal with themselves.

Walking into the dye house at the back, Master Chen was leading people to burn mulberry wood ash. But Sun Miao'er clearly remembered that Master Chen had looked down on her trick just the other day.

Are you so eager to start learning today?

She didn't go up to tease them, but just glanced into the dye vat and saw that it was indeed done according to her instructions.

Since there's a ready-made dye vat here, there's no need to find another place. We can borrow a spot here for Zhe Kui to test the color.