Miss Chu stood still, shifting her ears left and right, adjusting her posture. After a pause, the little girl's voice reached her ears again, faint as if someone were whispering, "...You promised, you promised to take care of me...The heavens sent you to save me, you can't leave me...I secretly prayed countless times to the gods and Buddhas, but I never thought that there really was a god above me. You really came, bringing retribution to all the kidnappers..."
At this moment, the voice stopped abruptly. Miss Chu hurried to the door and saw the servant coming over with a bucket.
Three girls were lying in the last room. Miss Chu seemed absent-minded when doing things. Fortunately, after a long period of practice, she had become proficient. When she mechanically woke up the three girls and led the three children to the yard, Shi Chuan had disappeared. At the door of the main room, Huang E was holding a girl's hand and sitting on the threshold chatting. The girl was the youngest of all the abducted girls, the seven or eight-year-old girl that Chu Suzhen had once held.
Before Miss Chu could ask, Huang E immediately explained, "Shi Dalang went to take a bath. The blood has formed scars on his body. He feels uncomfortable all over and smells bad. I asked him to change into new clothes quickly."
As soon as he finished speaking, Shi Chuan, wearing a very ill-fitting and ridiculous outfit, rushed out with a ledger in his hand: "I found it, I found it. This is their ledger. All the trafficked girls are recorded. We can check it according to the ledger."
After a pause, Shi Chuan said regretfully, "It's a pity that everything is recorded in code. We need to decipher it."
Miss Chu's eyes lit up: "Really, that's great, bring it over to me."
Huang E waved to Shi Chuan and said, "Da Lang, your clothes are on the wrong way. Squat down and I'll straighten them for you."
Shi Chuan walked over meekly, squatted down and let Huang E tidy up his clothes. He raised his other hand high and handed the account book to Miss Chu.
Miss Chu took it and looked at it. It was full of incomprehensible characters, such as this line: "Renshen Yimao Bingwu Wuchen Huainan Donghuangzhou Yangluo Huanger..."
"What does this mean?"
"The time, location, person involved, number of girls abducted, payment to the person involved, location of the pick-up points along the way, and expenses—all that needs to be recorded in the account book is just this. If you examine each one, you can figure it out. Then, by comparing the date and location of the girls' disappearance, you can quickly find out where their hometowns are."
Miss Chu breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good. We can help these children find their relatives."
Chu Suzhen was so happy because most people in those days had no knowledge of geography. In that era, maps were state military secrets. Not only ordinary people, but even officials could not see maps unless they reached a certain administrative level.
For ordinary people, knowing the name of their hometown and nearby famous counties is considered a great achievement. However, their parents' names are even more taboo for their children. Not only can they not say their parents' names for the rest of their lives, but even when encountering the same characters during imperial examinations, they must omit a stroke when writing them, as a sign of filial piety.
When rescuing those girls just now, Miss Chu had questioned them one by one. Sure enough, most of the girls could not tell their father's name at all. The youngest girl, who was seven or eight years old, didn't even know her own surname. She only knew that her name was Huanniang (Huanniang).
Now with this account book, even if the abducted girls cannot tell the name of their hometown or the street where their parents live, we can roughly infer the place where they were abducted by tracing back based on the date 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. How come one is missing - no, two, Shi Dalang, your name is not on the list either?!"
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