The woman noticed where her gaze rested. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info She pointed to the line with her pen and read it word by word. When she had finished reading it, she looked at Zongheng expectantly, as if he should understand.

But Zongheng didn't understand at all.

Zongheng could see that the woman recognized every word in this passage, but her pronunciation was not at all the Chang'an or Heluo sound commonly used in the Tang Dynasty. Zongheng felt that she was simply reading this passage in a very cold dialect. Listening, it's a bit like the accent of Liaodong and Bohai.

Sure enough, he is a Hu man, and he can't even speak official words. Zongheng thought to himself. Do you want to answer her questions truthfully?

After some careful thinking in his heart, he decided to tell a little lie. At the moment, it is better not to reveal your identity than to be named.

So, Zongheng took the pen from the woman's hand and wrote on the paper: "I don't know"

The woman looked startled and pointed to the line and read it again. Shaking his head, he continued: "I don't understand your words, and it's easier to talk with a pen."

This time, the look on the woman's face was even more strange.

……

Lydia returned to the monitoring room, and Hatton immediately asked, "What did you talk about with that kid?" I see that your face is very bad. ”

Lydia threw the notebook in front of Hatton and said, "See for yourself!" ”

Hatton raised his eyebrows, lowered his leg from the table where the monitor rested, picked up his notebook and glanced at it, and said, "You know I can't read Chinese." ”

"Sorry! I'm all! Forget you don't understand Chinese. Lydia came to her senses and copied the notebook back into her possession.

She recounted what had happened in the hospital room and snorted, "That kid is playing dumb. He said that he couldn't understand what I said, and that he couldn't remember his name and origin, and he didn't know why he fell into the sea. Does he think I'll believe that? ”

Hatton shrugged his shoulders and said, "But if he insists on saying that, we have no way to prove that he is lying, can we?" He's still a minor, and there's no way we're going to use a lie detector on him. ”

"That's what makes me the angiest!" Lydia said, "I know he's lying, but there's no way to expose him!" ”

Hatton just smiled, and he pointed to the monitor and said, "Why are you angry? The situation is now in our favor. After all, he was just a child, and he didn't understand that in a situation like him, with the advantage of his age, not saying a word was the best way to deal with the investigation. If you tell a small lie, you will have to make up for it with countless lies in the future. The more you try to tell a lie, the easier it is to expose more clues. Isn't it? Whether he's telling the truth or not, he's still willing to talk to you. Isn't that the biggest takeaway of the day? ”

"But in that case, God knows how long this mission will last!" Lydia said unsatisfied.

"Hey! Lydia! Take it easy! "Don't you remember what the Boss said?" This time it will likely be a long-term mission. As long as the boss doesn't speak, it's not a particularly strange thing for us to spend a year and a half. Be patient! ”

Lydia looked at Hatton with a strange look. She asked, "Hatton, can you answer me honestly with a question?" ”

"Excuse me!" Hatton spread his palms.

"Did you enjoy this quest?"

"Huh? How could it be ......" Hatton's heart suddenly became empty.

"Tell the truth!"

"Okay!" Hatton looked helpless, "To be honest, I do enjoy this kind of mission. ”

"Why?" Lydia looked confused.

"You're young! Like all newcomers who have just joined the FBI, they spend their days thinking about solving big cases and being a superhero. Hatton crossed his legs on the table to make himself more comfortable, "But I'm too old to be like you young people who think about fighting and killing all day." I just want to go to work happily every morning, go home safely in the evening, and get a full monthly salary. It would be great to be able to get paid without having to report to the office every day. Just like now, sitting alone in this hut, just looking at the monitor, writing a report and handing it in regularly, not having to face a hail of bullets, not having to deal with office bosses and colleagues, smoking when you want, drinking beer when you want, ordering takeout when you want, it's really a paradise day! ”

Lydia was dumbfounded and blurted out, "So you rushed to participate when you heard Skinner's assignment?!" ”

"Aren't we partners?" Hatton said with a shy face, "Partners should share blessings and hardships!" ”

Lydia slammed her notebook into Hatton's face and scolded, "your blessings!" Since it's a partner, I can't be affected alone. The daily report is up to you! ”

With that, Lydia turned and walked out of the monitoring room, not looking back, no matter how Hatton called her name from behind.

……

Lydia's Diary

Date: August 9, 2001

Today is the fourth day since the unnamed boy was found, and after two days of bed recuperation, the unnamed boy is recovering well without any post-trauma or post-operative complications.

With the doctor's permission, the visitation hours have been extended to two hours a day from today. One hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon.

In the morning, the nameless boy finally asked where he was. I told him that he was lying in his ward at Downtown Hospital in New York. He was curious about the name of New York, as if it were the first time he had heard of it.

He asked me which direction of Chang'an New York was located and how far away it was. I was confused by his question. I asked him if the Chang'an he was talking about was China's Xi'an. He was a little impatient, saying that Chang'an is Chang'an, and Chang'an has never been called Xi'an.

To answer his questions, I promised to bring him an atlas in the afternoon. He didn't seem to believe much in my promises. I asked him why, and he said that maps are all building blocks, and ordinary people are guilty of killing their heads if they hold them. Through the limited contact in the past few days, I feel that he is far from a normal person in terms of knowledge structure and language and vocabulary, as if he has really lived in an isolated tribe since he was a child.

In the afternoon I brought the atlas as promised, and he looked shocked. The atlas was bought in nearby Manhattan's Chinatown and was Chinese Simplified edition. When he saw it, he said that the map was beautifully drawn, but there were too many typos. I know he is talking about the difference between traditional and simplified characters, but I didn't correct his statement.

I pointed him to the location of Xi'an and New York on the map. He stared at the map for a long time without saying a word. Later, the doctor came to remind me that the time for the visit had come. I left the map to him. Back to the monitoring room.

From the time I left, until the evening, the boy had been looking at the atlas. He had a look of disbelief on his face all the time. It wasn't until the doctor repeatedly told him to rest that he put the atlas down. But from the surveillance, it can be seen that he is very uneasy and can't sleep at all.

……

Lydia's Diary

Date: August 10, 2001

Today, the boy's recovery is still good. The boy's physical recovery ability seems to be much stronger than that of ordinary people, and at this recovery rate, it may only take him a month to recover like an ordinary person.

During the morning visit, the boy asked which emperor was reigning. Another strange question. I told him that there was no emperor in either the United States or China.

He asked me again, is there still a Datang? I told him that the Tang Dynasty had been in ruin for more than a thousand years. His eyes widened in disbelief.

After a while, he asked me again if I knew anything about the Anshi Rebellion. I said yes.

He asked me when the Anshi Rebellion had subsided, and I told him that it had happened more than a thousand years ago.

Since then, the boy has been in a daze.

Towards the end of the visitation time, the boy asked me to bring him a history book when I came back in the afternoon. I agreed.

In the afternoon, I bought several history books from Chinatown, both in simplified and Chinese versions. The owner of the bookstore asked me if I had suddenly felt the urge to find my roots and ask my ancestors. I told him that it was one of my nephews who wanted to learn about the history of China. The boss was very happy to hear it, he said that although many Chinese children now have black hair, black eyes, and yellow skin, they can only speak English, and they don't know anything about the history of their home country, and they are all out-and-out banana people, but I didn't expect that a mixed-race family like me can still speak fluent Chinese and insist on learning Chinese history, which is very rare. For this, he also specially discounted me. Although there was a bit of a racist tendency in his words, I was glad to get a discount.

The boy didn't communicate with me all afternoon, he just read a book. The doctor was upset and thought that I was disturbing his recuperation by giving him so many books. It wasn't until I showed off my MD that his face looked slightly better.

……

Lydia's Diary

Date: September 10, 2001

For the whole month, the boy was reading books, except for the necessary exchanges.

He recovered well, except for two huge scars on his chest and back, and it was completely unrecognizable that he had ever suffered such a severe gunshot wound. Now he is able to go to the ground, and the ward has been moved from the intensive care unit to the general ward. It's just that his freedom is still restricted, and there are always guards at the door of the ward.

Before changing rooms, Hatton and I went in and installed the surveillance equipment. The hospital complained about it, saying that it violated the patient's privacy, but we got a warrant from the prosecutor and they couldn't stop it.

Hatton was on duty last night, and when he changed shifts in the morning, he told me that Nemo was secretly doing weird things at night. Nemo is the code name that Hatton and I gave to the boy, and it's an Old Latin word that means "NoOne."

I watched the video and Nemo was supposed to be practicing boxing.

Strange boy.

Today, with Skinner's permission, I gave the phonetic and textual materials of Nemo's part to Professor Fei of Columbia's graduate university. Professor Fei is a sinologist, and hopes to find out some clues about Nemo's true identity through him.