I've never seen anything like it: two small, round plates of glass resting on looped wires in front of his eyes.Is he blind?If he's blind and tries to hide it, I can understand it.But he is not blind.The small round piece of glass was dark and opaque from the inside, but he could see through it.It's a new invention, he told me: "It protects the eyes from the glare of the sun, so you don't have to squint all the time. It also reduces headaches. See—" he touches himself The corners of the eyes, "no wrinkles. He put back the pair of glass plates again. It's true, he looks much younger than his age by looking at the skin. "In our place, everyone wears these things. "

We sat in the best room of the hotel, with a flask and a pot of nuts between me and him.Neither of them mentioned the purpose of his visit, and it was enough to understand that he must have come here out of some urgency.We were just talking about hunting.He told of a recent big game drive in which hundreds of deer, pigs and bears had been killed, and the mountains and plains were so overwhelmed with carcasses that they had to be left to rot (“It’s a sin ").I told him how flocks of wild geese and ducks migrated to the lake here every year, and how the locals set traps to catch them.I suggested to him to take him fishing in a local boat at night: "This is a good thing not to be missed." I said, "The fisherman holds a burning torch by the water and beats the drum to drive the fish to In their net." He nodded.He told me about some of the other frontier places he'd been to, where snake meat was a delicacy, and how he'd shot an eland.

He inevitably bumped and bumped a bit as he walked among the unfamiliar furniture, but he refused to remove the dark glass that covered his eyes.He went to rest early.He was placed here because it was the best hotel in town for board and lodging.I had emphasized to the hotel up and down that this was an important visitor. "Colonel Joel is from the Third Bureau," I told them, "The Third Bureau is the most important agency in the Department of Defense right now." That's what we heard, and it's been heard from the capital a long time ago information.The hotel owner nodded, and the hotel maids nodded too. "We have to make a good impression on him."

I took my sleeping mat to the castellation of the roof, where the cool night breeze dissipated the heat from the air.On the roof, by moonlight, I could make out the silhouettes of other sleepers.The murmurs of people talking under the walnut trees in the square still reach my ears.In the darkness, a pipe lit like a firefly.The fire is dimmed, and it is bright again.Xia Tian slowly turned to his own end.The orchard trees groaned under the weight of the fruits.I have been to the capital in my youth, and have never been there since. I woke up before dawn and tiptoed past sleeping soldiers who were snoring and sighing and dreaming of their mothers and lovers.I go downstairs.We are literally on the roof of the world here.When you wake up at night, on an empty rooftop, you will feel starry, bright and seductive.

The guard sat in the doorway, sleeping soundly with his legs crossed and his gun resting on his shoulders.The concierge's cabin was still closed, and his cart was parked outside.I walked over. * * "We don't have facilities for convicts," I explained. "There's not much crime here, and the usual punishment is fines or hard labor. The hut you see is just a storage by the barn." room." It was cramped and smelly.There are no windows in the house.Two bound prisoners lay on the ground.The stench came from them, a smell of stale shit and urine.I called the guards in: "Let these two people go wash up, hurry up."

I let the visitor inspect the cool, dark barn. "We're expecting to produce three thousand bushels on the public lands this year. It's only been done once in the past. The weather's been pretty good." We got into rats and ways to keep them under control.Back in the hut, there was already a smell of dry ashes, and the two prisoners were about to be interrogated, kneeling in the corner.One is an old man and the other is a boy. "They were arrested a few days ago," I said. "There was a robbery less than twenty miles from here, which is very unusual. Usually, they are far from the fort, and these two men were brought in afterwards. They said they had nothing to do with the robbery. Not at all. I don't know. Maybe they're telling the truth. If you want to talk to them, I'd be happy to translate for you."

The boy's swollen face was bruised and one eye was swollen shut.I knelt down in front of him and patted his cheek. "Listen, boy," I told him in the frontier dialect, "we want to talk to you." He didn't respond. "He's pretending," said the guard, "he understands." "Who hit him?" I asked. "Not me," he said, "that's how he came here." "Who hit you?" I asked the kid. He's not listening to me.He looked over my shoulder, but he wasn't looking at the guard, he was looking at Colonel Joel next to the guard.

I turned to Joel: "He's probably never seen that before." I pointed, "I mean the eye glass. He must think you're blind." But Joel didn't smile back.In front of the prisoners he maintained a certain dignity. I knelt down to the old man again: "Listen, Dad, we brought you here because of a warehouse robbery. You know it's a serious thing, and you're going to Penalty, you know." He stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.His face was gray and tired. "Did you see this gentleman? He's coming from the capital. He's going to inspect all the forts on the frontier. His job is to see if every case is right. That's what he does. He can tell The truth of the case. If you don't want to tell me, you have to tell him. Understand?"

"My lord," he said, his voice deep and hoarse.He cleared his throat and said, "My lord, we didn't steal anything at all. On the way, these soldiers stopped us for no reason and tied us up. We came here to see the doctor. This is my sister's child. His wounds have never healed. We are not thieves. Show your wounds to your lord." The boy took off the bandage wrapped around his arm with a couple of snaps and bites.In the last circle, the blood scab glued the bandage to the flesh.He lifted the bandage a bit so we could see the bloody edges of the wound. "You see," said the old man, "there's no cure. I took him to the doctor, but the soldiers stopped us. That's how it happened."

I walked back to the square with the visitor.Three women passed us, returning from the irrigation dike with wash baskets on their heads.They looked at us curiously, but their necks froze there.The sun was shining straight down. "We've only taken those two prisoners for so long," I said. "Coincidentally, usually we don't have any savages here for you to see at all. This kind of so-called robbery usually happens very rarely. They usually steal a few sheep or take a few from someone's livestock. Sometimes we fight them back. Mainly the poor tribes along the river do it. It's their way of making a living. The old man said they went to the doctor, maybe it's true. No one will take An old man and a sick child were drawn into a robbery gang."

I consciously excused them. "Of course I'm not sure if they are thieves. But even if they are lying, what use are such simple-minded people to you?" I suppressed the unhappiness in my heart, and looked at his inscrutable reserve, the mysterious appearance of a small but exaggerated dark barrier in front of his healthy eyes.As he walked, he twisted his hands together in front of his chest like a woman. "However," he said, "I should interrogate them tonight, if it is convenient. I will bring my assistant. Also, I need someone to help me with the language translation. This guard, can he?" "We both know. Don't you want me to be at your service?" "You'd think that's a boring job. We have our own procedures." * * People talked afterwards about hearing shouts from the barn that night, but I heard nothing.But at every moment of that night going about my business, I knew what was going to happen, and my ears were tuned to the audio of human suffering.But the barn was a huge building with heavy doors and tiny windows, and it stood south of the slaughterhouse and mill.Besides, there was the hustle and bustle all around—first an outpost, then a frontier fort, and now slowly turning into a town of 3,000 agricultural settlers, all of whom uttered their voices on warm summer nights. Noise doesn't stop because someone somewhere is shouting. (At one point, I started to justify my own inaction.) When I saw Colonel Joel again, he was idle, and I directed the conversation to the torture. "Did your prisoner tell the truth?" I asked, "still don't think he can be trusted? Isn't that a bad situation? I can imagine: they want a confession, just for the confession, and nothing more Confessions, broken bones, forced to reveal more! That's what interrogation does! How do you know if someone has told you the truth?" "There's a certain tone of affirmation," Joel said. "There's a certain tone of affirmation that comes out of someone who's telling the truth. Training and experience teach us to recognize that tone." "A tone of truth! Can you recognize that tone in everyday speech? Can you hear if I'm speaking the truth?"