Ang Ta squeezed several dry, cold chuckles through his teeth and shook his head, his blade still pointed at Xiao Baoyue:
"I don't trust you. You aren't an envoy of the Imperial Court. How can you guarantee Profit Shares and the trade route? The Ten Thousand Mountains Freight Depot belongs to Wang Yang personally. Without it, what good is opening a route if we can't trade? Clear us of our crimes? How? Didn't you say the Imperial Court might make an example of our Yongning Tribe? Didn't you say the emperor might fly into a rage and refuse to pardon us? Can you speak for the Imperial Court? Can you speak for the emperor? Whatever you want to use me for, once I've done it, what can I do if you turn around and sell me out? Go to that whatever-it's-called hall and plead my innocence? I don't trust you. If I have to choose between trusting you and Wang Yang, I trust him."
Xiao Baoyue smiled, and amid the icy composure of a strategist directing affairs from her command tent, a trace of beauty seductive enough to topple a city slipped out unbidden:
"If you trust him, why not simply tie me up and present me to him?"
Ang Ta had always prided himself on being bold and clever, immune to feminine charms. With his anger and wariness toward Xiao Baoyue, and a life-or-death decision before him, he should never have entertained any other thoughts. Yet her smile still dazzled him. He hurriedly gathered his wits, maintained his vicious expression, and roared:
"You think I wouldn't dare?!"
"It isn't that you lack the nerve. You simply aren't stupid. You trust neither him nor me. You only trust the winner. When I exposed the ambush, you realized I had something