The horrific scene in the courtyard immediately made the girls vomit uncontrollably. Seeing that they were even more sick than she had been at first, Miss Harper felt a little better. She shouted loudly, “Mr. Ford, you take care of these girls who are awake. I’ll go wake up the rest of the children.”

David Ford nodded. Before he could say anything, Helen Miller quickly interjected, “Don’t worry, Sister Harper, I’ll gather them all in the main house. You go ahead.”

Miss Harper led the servants into another room. As she entered, she thought of those girls who had just woken up. Seeing the scene in the courtyard, they were so frightened they could barely stand, just like she had been. But Helen Miller—how could she remain so calm all this time? Miss Harper couldn’t help but mutter to herself, “So sly at such a young age, like a little fox! Even Henry Brooks, a grown man, was shaken by such a gruesome sight, yet she can stand there calmly chatting at the door. What kind of family could raise a girl like this, a real Daji?”

After going through several rooms, all the abducted girls had been awakened. Miss Harper entered the last room—during this constant running back and forth, every time she stepped out the door and returned to the courtyard, the horrific scene would reignite her fear and nausea. Her legs would go weak, and she’d want to flee the place. But she kept going, determined to save the girls who had been drugged.

While she was rushing from room to room, David Ford was faithfully standing guard. Somehow, he had found a red-tasseled spear and stood in the courtyard, leaning on it, keeping watch.

Even more astonishing, while even Henry Brooks used the excuse of settling his companions to avoid re-entering the courtyard, little Helen Miller didn’t seem to care at all about the corpses everywhere or the heavy stench of blood. She kept holding David Ford’s free left hand, chatting with him off and on.

Their conversation was intermittent. Whenever someone appeared in the courtyard, Helen Miller would stop talking and smile at the newcomer, while David Ford always seemed a bit slow to react. Miss Harper didn’t pay any attention to this; she was only focused on waking all the girls as quickly as possible and then… escaping this place.

The servants went to fetch more water. While waiting for the cold water, Miss Harper paced anxiously in the room. By chance, she overheard a few drifting words—it was David Ford’s voice: “The (lies) you make up sound like…”

Miss Harper immediately stopped in her tracks, but the voices faded away. After hesitating a moment, she walked to the window and peered outside through a crack.

This temple was wealthy; the windows were covered with silk gauze instead of paper. Silk gauze couldn’t be poked through, so Miss Harper could only look out through the cracks. She saw the two people in the courtyard moving their mouths, but she couldn’t hear a thing.

Miss Harper thought for a moment—as one of the most talented women in Haizhou, she had read many miscellaneous books and knew a bit about things like echo walls and drum galleries. After a brief consideration, she began retracing her steps along the path she had just taken. When she reached a certain spot in the room, another sentence drifted to her ears—it was Helen Miller’s voice: “…only by saying this can…”

Miss Harper shifted slightly; her ears moved just a few centimeters, and she could hear nothing more.

Standing still, Miss Harper moved her head left and right, adjusting her posture. After a moment, the little girl’s voice drifted to her ears again, very faint, as if someone were whispering right beside her: “…you promised, you promised to take care of me… Heaven sent you to save me, you can’t leave me behind… I prayed countless times in secret to all the gods and Buddhas, and I never thought there really would be a spirit three feet above my head. You really came, and all the kidnappers got what they deserved…”

Just then, the voice abruptly stopped. Miss Harper quickly went to the door and, sure enough, saw the servant coming with a bucket.

There were three girls lying in the last room. Miss Harper was a bit absent-minded as she worked, but after so much practice, her hands were skilled. Once she had mechanically revived the three girls and led them into the courtyard, David Ford was nowhere to be seen. At the main hall entrance, Helen Miller was holding a girl’s hand, sitting on the threshold and chatting. That girl was the youngest of all the abducted girls—the seven- or eight-year-old whom Grace Harper had once held.

Before Miss Harper could ask, Helen Miller immediately explained, “John Ford went to bathe. The blood on him had scabbed over, and he was uncomfortable and smelled bad, so I told him to change into clean clothes.”

As soon as she finished speaking, David Ford burst out wearing a set of very ill-fitting, comical clothes, holding an account book in his hand. “Found it, found it! This is their ledger—every abducted girl is recorded in here. We can check everything against it.”

After a pause, David Ford said regretfully, “Unfortunately, it’s all written in code. We’ll have to decipher it.”

Miss Harper’s eyes lit up. “Really? That’s great! Let me see.”

Helen Miller waved to David Ford: “John Ford, you’re wearing your clothes wrong. Squat down, let me fix it for you.”

David Ford obediently walked over, squatted down so Helen Miller could straighten his clothes, and held the ledger high up to hand it to Miss Harper.

Miss Harper took it and saw that it was full of incomprehensible codes. For example, one line read: “壬申乙卯丙午戊辰淮南东黄州阳逻黄二…”

“What does this mean?”