I, Valon, am frantically searching for my mother.

Hearing the growing commotion outside, filled with disbelief and hope, Wayne slowly turned around.

This time he went to the room in the very center.

The air was filled with the smells of blood, medicine, and a faint, sweet, fishy odor of some kind of decaying tissue.

Wayne glanced around and could see several prepared human figures.

He closed the door behind him, then walked over to the female mage who was huddled in the corner, covering her face and crying her heart out, and looked down at her.

A huge shadow instantly enveloped Vivian completely.

"What's your name?"

"Vivian...Vivian."

"What...did you just want to say?"

Wayne continued to ask, his red, vertical pupils fixed on her.

"No, I won't say... I won't say it anymore..."

Vivian was so frightened that she shook her head repeatedly, and tears started streaming down her face again.

"Besides... you'll still hit me..."

"Heh~"

Wayne didn't waste his breath arguing with her.

He raised his paw, this time aiming it at Vivian's still-intact right eye.

"Bang!"

Another claw strike, neither too strong nor too weak.

"what!"

Vivian screamed in agony.

There's another dark circle under her right eye, which is exactly symmetrical to the one she just had.

It looks just like it! It really looks just like it!

Looking at the mage with dark circles under her eyes, Wayne imagined some rare animal from his past life.

"Wow--!"

Vivian burst into tears, crying with great distress.

"Why...why do I get beaten even if I don't speak up?"

"Master Jinlong... are you going to let me speak or not?"

"I told you to say it when you should!"

Vivian covered her face, which was swollen like a steamed bun, and looked at Wayne with teary eyes. After hesitating for a moment, she said in a sobbing voice:

"Master Jinlong...you are wise...these children were all sold here by their mothers."

"And I... I also have a mother..."

"How could I possibly commit such a heinous act as robbing someone and then killing their mother?"

"I swear! If I really did something like that, may my mom work in the goblin cave every day!"

That's very filial.

After hearing Vivian's assurance, Wayne looked at her expressionlessly and remained silent for a few seconds.

"Is there any evidence?"

"evidence?"

Vivian paused for a moment, then her eyes lit up.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! It definitely exists!"

"Over there! In that box! It should be there! I remember... all the documents... the ledgers... are over there!"

She struggled to raise her hand and pointed to the other side of the room, to a rather sturdy-looking old wooden crate.

Wayne walked over and slapped open the simple lock on the wooden crate with his paw.

Sure enough, there were several thick stacks of account books, some rolled-up parchment, and a few dirty money bags inside.

With the tip of his claws, Wayne carefully picked out the top ledger and opened it.

On the yellowed pages, some entries were recorded in crooked but barely legible handwriting.

Wayne quickly scanned the latest few pages.

He saw today's date, which was recorded below:

Frank, two large silver coins.

O'Kende, a large silver coin.

Lisna, a large silver coin...

Wayne's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly; he roughly guessed what it was.

This time, Wayne started searching from the bottom and quickly found several diaries that might correspond to the date, then continued flipping forward.

Until... he flipped to a section from a long time ago.

This ledger looks quite old; the paper is yellowed and the ink is fainter.

As soon as he turned to the first line of one of the pages, Wayne's gaze suddenly stopped.

The crooked handwriting read:

Sofia, a large silver coin.

……

The worst has happened.

To be honest, Wayne had considered this possibility before.

Could these children not have been kidnapped at all?

After all, to swagger into someone else's house, kill and take the child in front of the mother, and then kill the mother as well, is just too arrogant and shows no respect for you, Master Jinlong.

As it turns out, even though your eyesight might not be the best, you still have the strength and deterrent effect in fighting crime.

You can tell from how those thugs were terrified the moment they saw Wayne in his dragon form, practically running away in terror and nearly restarting the game—

In this city, the name "Golden Dragon" is like the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of true villains, a nemesis that makes them tremble from the depths of their souls.

If that's the case, then why does this hellhole still exist? Why do these children suffer such inhumane treatment, yet it seems no one cares?

A very high, and tragic, possibility is that these children were not obtained through violent abduction, a method that is likely to leave traces and provoke strong backlash and investigation.

They got here in a more covert and chilling way.

transaction.

They bought it from their mother with a considerable sum of money.

This method makes it impossible to trace at all in the first place.

The two parties reached an agreement, and disrupting such a transaction would actually draw considerable criticism.

Given the current level of rule of law in the world, it is clearly not possible to support the enactment of a law prohibiting the sale of children.

Even Wayne suspected that even if the Golden Dragons knew about the child trade, they wouldn't interfere in people's private affairs.

Wayne glanced at the ledger again.

A large silver coin.

This is the price of Sofia.

Wayne sighed softly, and Dragon Claw gently pushed open the door.

Looking outwards.

The atmosphere in the courtyard was completely different from before.

In the dim light, the small, thin figures helped each other as they struggled to climb out of those dirty, narrow cages.

Sofia was struggling to open a tightly locked lock with the heavy key, while another slightly older but equally thin boy helped her.

Several children, seemingly due to numbness in their legs from being curled up for so long, fell to the ground as soon as they came out, and the other children immediately rushed to help them up.

Low, incredulous sobs and whimpers, mixed with the cheers of survivors, echoed through the courtyard, which reeked of blood and filth.

How many of them are Sofia?

How many of them naively believe that they were forcibly taken away from their loving mothers by bad people?

How many people believe that their mothers love them, and even fantasize about their mothers dying to protect them?

The children twisted all their longing for love and security into hatred for the bad guys, and endless longing and guilt for their imagined perfect victim mother.

Only in this way could they barely survive by clinging to their beliefs.

But what is the truth?

The truth is a cold line of text in the ledger, a name, followed by a negligible number.

Love?

Perhaps so, in the hearts of most mothers.

But here, in this world recorded in this ledger, the weight of love cannot compare to a single silver coin that could provide their mother with a good month's life.