I, Valon, am frantically searching for my mother.

"Ever since then... I haven't... really enjoyed getting too close to these little guys."

"Knowing the name, remembering the face, and then seeing that familiar face at the work counter again... that feeling..."

She shook her head and didn't say anything more, but the pain on her face was clearly visible.

"Master Jinlong, I'm suffering too..."

Vivian's voice was choked with sobs.

"I couldn't save them, not a single one. Watching them suffer was more painful than anything else. So later... I simply forced myself to ignore it, not to look, not to think about it... I treated myself like an emotionless tool, just doing the work and getting paid."

"So that I won't feel uncomfortable seeing acquaintances on those bottles, jars, and material tables."

Wayne remained silent, his massive body casting an even deeper shadow in the dimly lit room.

"You are a mage."

After a while, Wayne slowly spoke.

"Even if you can't save them all, with your abilities, surely you can at least make their lives a little better and reduce their suffering? Would those mortals dare disobey the orders of a mage?"

Vivian looked up at Wayne, a deeper bitterness and helplessness than before on her face. She shook her head.

"Sir, you are a golden dragon, a naturally powerful being. You may not understand the rules of lowly mages like us, or the rules of this place."

"I am indeed a mage. All the human materials here undergo flesh and blood transmutation, which I am responsible for, and then I submit the finished product."

"Without me, they wouldn't be able to do many of their businesses, and they wouldn't be able to submit many of the things their superiors require. That's why Old Scarface and the others always treat me very politely, calling me 'Master Master'."

"But Lord Golden Dragon..."

She sighed.

"At the end of the day, I'm just a first-ring mage, a complete novice. I can mess with ordinary people... like thugs like Old Scarface, maybe. But to go against the higher-ups? Isn't that just asking for death?"

"You didn't see it, I don't even dare to change jobs! I'm afraid someone will kill me."

Vivian continued:

"Moreover, the management here is all done by Old Scarface. As a mage, I can occasionally intervene once or twice, but if I do too much, Old Scarface will report me."

Vivian hesitated for a moment, then said:

"Besides, I've actually done what you're talking about."

"To be honest, I don't have a good relationship with that old man. His methods of tormenting the kids are too much. I don't like him, so I deliberately order him around at this time."

"It felt so good to see this old man bowing and scraping in front of me."

As she said this, Vivian's eyes gleamed with excitement, and she certainly seemed to be enjoying it.

She scratched her head and then said:

"However, this trick stopped working after a while. The old man probably figured it out and started to outwardly comply with me while inwardly having his subordinates deceive me. I didn't want to break ties with this old man, so I toned it down a bit."

"However, I'm not completely idle. Every time I have a chance, I throw a tantrum and send a few reports to the old man above me to make things difficult for him and prevent him from being too reckless."

At this point, Vivian became somewhat uneasy, and she said to Wayne:

"Sir, I know I am guilty."

"All the money I've earned here, earned against my conscience, I'll donate it all! To these children, to find them doctors to treat their injuries, to buy them food and clothing, and to find a safe place for them to grow up peacefully!"

"I'm willing to cooperate with you. If you want to completely destroy this place, I'll do my best to help you, as an act of atonement."

"Of course, if you still won't let me go even after all this, then I'll accept it. After all, I'm the one who caused this mess."

"But please, please don't cause trouble for my mother. This really, really has nothing to do with her. She's just an ordinary country woman, she doesn't know anything. She always thought I was an apprentice at a proper mage tower in the city because of my line of work..."

Vivian thought for a moment, then said very softly:

"If all else fails... just throw her into a goblin cave to work; at least she'll survive, right?"

What kind of thunderous statement is this?

Wayne couldn't help but ask, "Does your mother know how filial you are?"

Vivian chuckled.

"That's right. When my mother gave birth to me, a little old man from a prophetic sect told her that this child would be filial from a young age."

"Alright, alright, I wasn't praising you."

Wayne waved his hand, signaling Vivian to shut up.

By this time, with the help of Sophia and a few other slightly older children, Dou had completely broken free from those dirty cages.

They supported each other, still thin and battered, their bodies and faces filthy, but their eyes had regained their light.

The children spontaneously gathered around Wayne's huge, majestic, golden body, looking up at him with awe, curiosity, and indescribable gratitude.

"Wow! It really is a golden dragon! Mr. Golden Dragon has come to save us!"

A slightly bolder boy exclaimed excitedly in a low voice.

"I told you so! As long as we stick to being good children and don't do bad things, one day, the kind and powerful Golden Dragon will come to punish the bad guys and save the good guys!"

A girl with a crooked braid and tear stains on her face spoke in a clear voice, her tone filled with a kind of innocent conviction.

"Lord Golden Dragon is so handsome! His scales are so shiny!"

"Thank you, Lord Golden Dragon!"

The children chattered excitedly, their voices initially tinged with fear, but quickly replaced by the excitement of surviving the ordeal and the thrill of seeing the legendary creature, gradually becoming noisy.

Vivian, standing to the side, also made faces and winks. Perhaps sensing that the atmosphere had eased, her panda eyes no longer looked so disheveled, but rather somewhat comical.

She casually patted the heads of a few children who were close to her, and then, as if by magic, pulled out a handful of candy from the rumpled sleeves of her mage's robe.

"Here, take this. Eat slowly, don't choke."

The children's eyes lit up instantly, and they took turns peeling off the candy wrappers and licking a few candies.

Some of the children, looking at Vivian who had grown two black eyes after being beaten up by Wayne, couldn't help but ask curiously:

"Sister, you look so strange~"

"You're not allowed to speak ill of my sister!"

A child, licking a candy, said:

"Sister Vivian is the best!"

After saying that, he probably felt that what he said was not complete, so he scratched his head and looked at the majestic golden dragon beside him and added a sentence.

"Of course, no matter how good my sister is, she is still a little bit inferior to Lord Jinlong."

"And last time I got beaten up by bad guys and it hurt so much, when I was crying, Sister Vivian secretly slipped me a piece of candy and said that eating it would make it hurt less..."

Another small, thin girl whispered to her companion.

"Exactly! Every time that nasty scarred man is about to hit someone really hard, Sister Vivian just happens to need to call him, or she suddenly loses her temper, and the old scarred man doesn't dare to hit him anymore!"

Vivian quickly became friends with the children, who showed no fear of the purple-robed mage.

It's clear that she didn't mistreat the children. Even Sophia only mentioned a strange mage, without saying anything bad about her.

Based on what he had overheard from those villains, Wayne could roughly conclude that the young mage did not deserve to die.