To avoid arousing suspicion from the guards outside, Sun Miao'er could only speed up her work as much as possible.

However, the room was too simply furnished, with only a few cabinets and not a single vase. Ji Changru tried all the cabinets and shook his head helplessly at her.

Sun Miao'er was still not giving up. When she raised her leg, she accidentally kicked the oil bucket, and the oil bucket fell to the ground.

"What's going on inside?" the guard outside asked.

Sun Miao'er hurriedly replied, "Brother, it's too messy inside, there's a lot of clutter. Let me tidy it up first so we can move the goods in later."

"Did you hear that?" Sun Miao'er whispered to Ji Changru, "The sound of an oil drum falling over."

That's right, the sound of the oil drum hitting the bricks was much quieter than when it fell on ordinary stone ground.

Sun Miao'er circled the oil drum once, then moved it aside. "Unless..."

"Unless it's empty underneath!"

The two of them had the same idea and acted on it without hesitation.

Sun Miao'er squatted down and tapped the bricks on the ground with her index finger. Sure enough, four of them were empty.

She actually found it!

She took the short knife she always carried and used the thin blade to pry open the bricks; they were indeed loosened!

Four bricks were pried up, revealing a dark, secluded passage beneath. The four bricks formed an entrance just large enough for one person to pass through.

Sun Miao'er picked up a candle from the room and jumped into the tunnel. "I'll go down and take a look first."

A dark, damp, musty smell wafted over, making Sun Miao'er gasp for breath. After confirming that it was safe below, she waved to Ji Changru above.

Ji Changru jumped down. Because the secret passage was too crowded, it was impossible for two people to walk side by side. They could only walk one in front of the other.

Suddenly, a faint sound came from ahead.

Sun Miao'er suddenly stopped in her tracks. Could there be rats in the secret passage?

She reached out and held the candle forward, and to her surprise, she saw a person curled up on the ground!

By the dim light of the candle, Sun Miao'er widened her eyes and whispered, "Shuanzi!"

The group of children on the ground trembled in front of them. Seeing someone coming, they had nowhere to hide. They timidly raised their heads and looked at the people in front of them, "You, you mustn't come any closer, please! Waaah, please!"

"Don't be afraid, Shuanzi, I'm Sister Sun!" Sun Miao'er whispered to comfort him. She remembered Shuanzi; he was the child Xiaoman had called over to identify Wu Dali. He looked honest and kind.

This child is lucky; he managed to find an old, secret passage to hide in, and fortunately, he wasn't discovered by the bandits.

Shuanzi suddenly opened his eyes wider and rubbed them. "Sun, Sun Miao'er, Xiaoman's older sister!"

"Hmm!" Seeing that Shuanzi recognized her, Sun Miao'er breathed a sigh of relief. "Come here to your sister quickly!"

Shuanzi was just a child. When the bandits entered the village, he watched helplessly as his family members were all taken away. Because he was small and fast, he managed to escape.

Upon seeing someone he knew, Shuanzi could no longer contain his emotions and buried his face in Sun Miao'er's arms, bursting into tears. "Sister Sun, my parents have all been arrested! Please think of a way to save them! Grandma Sun is in there too! Waaah!"

"Don't be afraid, your sister is here. Your sister will help you think of a way." Sun Miao'er was afraid that Shuanzi's crying would disturb the guards above, so she tried her best to comfort him. "Don't cry, tell your sister what happened."

Shuanzi sobbed for a while, and then the crying gradually stopped. "A few days ago, someone came to the village and said he wanted to do business with Village Chief Li."

What kind of business do you do?

Shuanzi thought for a moment and said, "My parents said that the tenants' harvest was terrible this year, and the landlord refused to reduce our rent. We're almost at our wits' end. Then a couple of days ago, someone suddenly came to Village Chief Li and said he wanted to buy our grain at a high price. He asked the village chief to persuade everyone to sell their grain to him..."

As expected, it was Old Man Li's greed for petty gains that ruined the whole village; she knew things weren't that simple.

People like Village Chief Li are the easiest to control and the easiest to overcome.

"That man was willing to pay three times the price for the grain, and many villagers were tempted. Yesterday afternoon, he came to our village with a group of people, saying they would help him transport the grain. But after they finished collecting the grain, those people suddenly pulled out knives and turned into robbers!"

Everything was back in motion; it wasn't a robbery after all, but a meticulously planned and well-prepared attack.

That's why the grain on the oxcarts outside is neatly arranged, as if the villagers had obediently taken it out themselves.

Sun Miao'er had been puzzled as to what reason the bandit leader had used to so easily deceive all the villagers. He had simply exploited the villagers' weakness—the risk of having their land confiscated if they couldn't pay their rent.

“I often come to this area, and I know there’s a hole outside that I can crawl into. This afternoon, I ran to my doorstep and saw that my parents had been taken away. But there were their people everywhere in the village, so I had no choice but to hide here.”

Sun Miao'er stroked Shuanzi's head and said, "It's alright. I've already sent someone back to report to the authorities. I'll think of a solution first. You stay here and don't go anywhere until I come back."

After giving Shuanzi her instructions, Sun Miao'er climbed up from the entrance and put the four bricks back together exactly as they were.

Ji Changru fell silent for a long time before finally saying, "The people here have it tough too."

Sun Miao'er sighed and said, "Yes, this year's harvest is bad, and war is coming soon. Who knows when the enemy will reach us? Everyone just wants to earn more money so they can use it to escape when the time comes."

Ji Changru was pampered from a young age. Later, on a whim, he took his family's money and started a fabric business. Perhaps it was because he had been exposed to it since childhood, or perhaps it was because he was exceptionally talented, but he succeeded in doing it.

Yunmiao Manor's reputation was even greater than the shops run by his father's generation. Yingzhou was originally a place that produced cloth, and he seized the opportunity to monopolize the cloth in Yingzhou. All the cloth shops, large and small, were defeated by him.

He had never thought about what life was like for poor people until he followed Sun Miao'er to Fushui Village and met the child from earlier.

"Let's go up first. I need to see Tu Zhenshan before I can decide what to do next."

Sun Miao'er opened the door, and the guards outside were already snoring loudly, fast asleep against the wall.

By the time Ji Changru had finished unloading all the goods from the oxcart, it was just past midnight, the time for the guards to change shifts.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Sun Miao'er quietly sneaked into the backyard.

The villagers were bound by their feet, only their hands could move, and they were piled up in the backyard, with the men in one group and the women and elderly in another, the women with their children.

Some women lowered their heads and sobbed softly, while others, unable to resist their sleep, had already fallen into a deep sleep.

Upon seeing Sun Miao'er approach, they were quite frightened and shrank back even further.