Upon hearing this, the man murmured, "Ha, she managed to hide for so long." Then he tightened his grip, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have had to search for her for so long."

Meng Zhao was in so much pain that her head was completely muddled, but she still tried to glean some information from his few words. Judging from his words, he must have known Wei Jinglan before, but Wei Jinglan was a lady from a respectable family. How could she know someone like this? Meng Zhao couldn't help but recall that Wei Jinglan had once been to a bandit's den. Combined with the two men's skillful methods of binding people, she could roughly guess their identities—mountain bandits.

Meng Zhao grew even more frightened. These bandits entrenched in the deep mountains didn't care about human life at all. If he fell into their hands, he would probably be in real danger.

Once the man had vented his anger, he stopped and began searching Meng Zhao's body. He quickly found a purse, yanked it off, and coldly asked, "Did she make this for you?"

Meng Zhao dared not open her eyes and could only nod. The man got up to leave, but Meng Zhao quickly said, "If you want to see her, you might as well let me write a letter for you to lure her over, so that you don't alert her and make her afraid to come see you."

Wei Jinglan knows Arabic numerals, but the kidnapper in front of her does not. As long as she writes, he can send a message to Wei Jinglan in advance.

However, the man sneered, "What, trying to pass on a message to her not to come? Heh, don't worry, as long as you're here, she won't fail to come."

After he finished speaking, he said to the stuttering man inside the house, "Keep a close eye on him. You know the consequences if anything goes wrong."

The stuttering man hurriedly nodded and bowed, replying, "Don't worry, boss, I'll definitely keep a close eye on him."

As the man opened the door, Meng Zhao quickly opened her eyes and peeked out. The area outside was dense jungle; they were indeed in the mountains. The good news was that there should only be two kidnappers.

The fact that the kidnappers knew to use her to threaten Wei Jinglan meant that they had been watching them for some time. Although Wei Jinglan never went out when she had nothing to do, she traveled between the county and Shenjia Village almost every day. Recently, two or three children in the county also wanted to go to Shenjia Village to study, so every time she went out, she was accompanied by several teenagers.

If there were more robbers, they could have just grabbed Wei Jinglan directly without going through all that trouble to capture her. Meng Zhao knew that she had to seize this opportunity to escape, otherwise she might not be able to get away by dawn.