Van sat down on the gra.s.s and patted the spot next to him. An Lin looked at him suspiciously.

"It's just sitting on the gra.s.s. I'm not going to violate you or anything."

Van gave a satisfied smirk. An Lin's face became as red as a rose.

"She's strangely cute."

Van mumbled to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, just talking to myself."

She gave him a strange look.

"What? You don't trust me?"

"Well, we just met his morning and it's not like we've talked much."

"We're talking right now."

Van grinned at An Lin. She finally decided to sit down next to him.

"So what do you usually like to do?"

"Is that supposed to be a lame pickup line?"

Van started to panic.

"No, no! It's just an honest question."

"Well, I'll take your word on that."

She laughed at his embarra.s.sment. Despite the fact that he was being laughed at, he felt happy,w for he had gotten her to laugh.

"I've never heard you laugh before. It sounds nice."

An Lin froze.

"I shouldn't be here."

She whispered.

"But why?"

Van stood up, confused.

"There're reasons that you wouldn't understand."

An Lin turned towards the camp and started walking.

"It's just talking! There's nothing personal. It's not like I would ever want to kiss you or anything."

"Oops!"

Van quickly realized what he had just said. An Lin turned around and slapped Van extremely hard and walked towards the camp, fuming.

"Real Smooth Van, Real Smooth."

The Mouse came out with a sorrowful glance at its master.

Van picked himself up and dusted of his clothing.

"She's probably going to tell the camp about my mouse. Oh, well. I deserve it."

Van headed back to camp and met with Han Kim, Xuan Gan, and Binh Gao staring at him.

"What did you do to An Lin?!!"

Xuan Gan dove at him, gripped his s.h.i.+rt, and started shaking him.

"I... I just tried to talk to her."

Van stammered as he tried to shake off the dizziness.

"What kind of talk was that? Did you try to violate her?"

They gasped as they thought of the possibilities.

"No! Why would you think that?!"

Van stared at them alarmed.

Xuan Gan continued to stare at him suspiciously but the other two seemed to calm down.

"You can ask her yourself if you really want to know. Where is she by the way?"

Van tried to look for any sign of An Lin, but she seemed to have evaporated into thin air.

"Not any where near you! Creep!"

"Why so aggressive?! You don't even know what happened!"

"All I need to know is that you hurt my An Lin!"

Van looked down at this unreasonable girl, speechless. Seeing that anymore efforts would be futile, Van sighed and walked back to his tent.

"Tomorrow is going to be a long day."

He said to himself as he wrapped himself in the blanket.

He woke up to the sounds of metal coming out of their sheaths and lots of shouting. He looked outside to find a morning sky. He yawned and noticed that there was blood all around him with martial artists fighting against, what seemed to be, a fierce beast horde.