The surroundings suddenly fell quiet. A dry, musty smell of animal hides and hay assailed him, mingled with a trace of bloody rankness.
The barbarian woman gave him an unceremonious shove. Wang Yang's back struck a tent pole, and the black cloth over his eyes was yanked away-
A gleaming curved blade pressed against Wang Yang's throat, its edge barely half an inch from his Adam's apple.
A short, dark-skinned barbarian woman stared at Wang Yang with murder in her eyes. Several coils of silver rings gleamed coldly around her neck and wrists.
"You come to fetch Master Liu?" Her eyes blazed with menace as she thrust the blade forward, seemingly ready to kill him the very next instant!
Without the slightest hesitation, Wang Yang asked with a puzzled expression, "Who is Master Liu?"
"Liu Cheng!" She tightened her grip on the hilt, her gaze growing fiercer!
Wang Yang looked even more bewildered. "Who is Liu Chen?"
The woman could hardly detect Wang Yang's subtle adjustment to the nasal ending. She merely assumed their accents differed. Her fierce killing intent suddenly stalled, surprise flickered through her eyes, and her blade unconsciously eased back a little:
"You not know Liu Cheng?"
"Who on earth is Liu Chen?!"
Wang Yang looked utterly exasperated and speechless, his voice even cracking slightly at the end from his apparent anxiety.
The woman was baffled. "You... you not Han envoy?"
Wang Yang's eyes were innocent. "I am a Han envoy, but I don't know who Liu Chen is!"
Confused, she lowered her blade and stepped back twice. After turning it over in her head for a while, she looked at Wang Yang again and asked suspiciously:
"You Han envoy, how you not know Liu Cheng?"
Wang Yang countered, "Why must a Han envoy know Liu Chen?