A young warrior—he looked completely unaccustomed to this bloody place—staggered away from the battlefield. He wore armor made of iron plates and imitation leather, with two crude strips of colored cloth hanging from gaps in his shoulder guards, stained with blood streaming down from his own face. The iron sword in his hand was bent and blunted, and the shoddy weapon had brought him not the slightest victory. His side had fallen completely behind in the melee, so the young man could only fight desperately to escape before his entire force was wiped out.
The soldier sprinted past a low wall at a street corner. In his panic, he failed to notice the shadow concealed beside it. A leg suddenly thrust out from around the corner and tripped him hard, sending him sprawling.
Hao Ren stepped forward and pinned the soldier down. He had spent the entire journey thinking about how to make first contact with the locals and introduce himself, but he had never imagined speaking to one of them under circumstances like this. It seemed that no careful plan could withstand a sufficiently dramatic change. The soldier was even more startled when he was pinned down. Thinking he had fallen into an enemy ambush, he immediately tensed up and did not dare resist. He struggled to raise his head and peer from the corner of his eye at whoever had captured him, only to see a group of strangers dressed in bizarre clothes. Panting heavily, the young man said, "My lords... and a lady? I... I'm just a soldier..."
"Quiet. We know you're a soldier, and we have a lot of questions for you." Hao Ren loosened his grip slightly, but warned the soldier with a look not to make any rash moves. "Who are you people? Why