Chapter 12 : Tented Pants

Tian darted down the stairs of the hut as his empty stomach rumbled. His long, thin eyes widened with excitement as he saw the familiar food before him, both marinated duck, crispy BBQ pork, and crispy fried prawns, and he turned to Wasan with a pleasant smile.

"Thank you very much, Dr Phi. They're all my favourites."

"Eat as much as you like, when you find out you're not full here." Wasan tried to reach out and touch his head affectionately but was met with murderous eyes.

"You don't have to say anything about eating good food, I'll try my best," Tian promised, patting his flat stomach.

"It's a pity the food isn't hot anymore, I bought it during the day and it's already evening." The medic handed a plate full of rice to the volunteer teacher who sat around Sven on a bamboo stand.

"I'm used to eating cold rice when I'm here, and it's good to eat if I can eat it all the time, but on second thought, it's better than nothing," said Tian, as he stuffed the fatty duck into his mouth. Unlike the other two adults sitting with him, they take their spoons and turn away to make eye contact, seemingly thinking the same thing.

Something was changing in this young city student. The man being watched looked up, as he felt what felt like an unusual silence. "What are you doing? If you don't eat, I'll take it all." Having said that, he swept up the crispy pork, poured the sauce over his own plate of rice and dipped it deliciously on the side.

"Have you got some medicine for his stomach, Dr. Bastard?" asked Captain Phupha frivolously.

"No, who walks around with that?"

"Not yet, but in a little while, I won't be able to. I'm afraid the stomachs of the gluttons around here will split open and kill them." And with that, Tian's eyes were quick to kill the taller officer, who was retaliating by piling all the various dishes on the bamboo shelf onto the other man's plate.

"Eat more, your mouth will be busy, Captain.

"Gee, it's better when someone pleases your mum like that, bastard Phu," Dr Wasan said with a happy smile at his friend.

"My mother's been dead since I was ten, and if you're asking about my father, I'll light incense tonight and hope he comes and breaks your neck." Phupha made a gesture of cutting his own neck as a threat.

"OK, I surrender." The doctor, not wanting to test his skills, raises the white flag and asks for a truce, then turns to chat with the volunteer teacher.

"Tonight, the young people in the village are probably going to have a good time, it's worth seeing, Nong Tian."

"Why? There's a wedding tomorrow."

Wasan laughed and didn't look sincere." It's an old Akha tradition. If any young man wants to get married, he must first sleep with a detached girl or widow appointed by the villagers to teach the groom to make love to get rid of the dirt on the groom.

"Ha…" Tian drew a cold breath at hearing this strange ritual, "Or is this the prototype for the idea that the groom must go and find a woman to satisfy himself before marriage?" This was common in society until now it's almost customary.

"I don't know about that." It's probably just that poor people's selfish beliefs have become tradition. Wasan shrugged his shoulders carelessly and chewed the rice in his mouth with gusto.

"So why does Dr. Nam have to say that the young people of the village are having a good time? Whatever it is, it's just a ceremony for the groom alone.

The man who was questioned danced his eyes and smiled like a fox, he leaned down and whispered in Tian's white ear: "Try going out and walking around the village tonight, if you find a group of people with torches and lamps follow them."

"Bastard doctor! Eat up… we have to go back to the base of operations together--" Phupha shouted, interrupting him, before the detrimental friend could teach more strange things to the curious young man.

Even so but Tian still doesn't understand, so he listens absentmindedly and then eats the food he likes in front of him until his stomach dies.

When the plates were cleaned up in good order, Tian came out to see the two guests off as usual.

Phupha didn't turn around with his friend, because he had come on a motorbike and before he went back, he repeated his advice, because it wasn't safe, not to go out at night and wander around.

Tian nodded his head in greeting, while waving the soldier back and then he walked back to boil water to take a shower behind the hut. Gritting his teeth and braving the cold wind behind him like a media man, he finished his shower and almost got a cramp when he got dressed in the hut and suddenly caught a damned glimpse of something strange.

Pond porcelain washbasin fuck, forgot to return it to the village elder.

In front of the biggest house in Phabandao village, a young man is standing shivering in a fashionable not exactly city like but a Ski jacket and long pajama trousers, shouting to the owner of the house in the wooden door behind the stairs, the door slowly opened slightly, while Bianglae Khama came out with a lamp to see.

"Mistake, teacher, what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

"I forgot to return the washbasin, I'm afraid uncle's wife will need it in the morning. Because most Akha housewives walk to the waterfall to wash their clothes together in the early morning.

"The basin, there's no hurry. There are plenty at home, keep them for the teacher."

"Huh, that's fine. Tian rubbed his neck in confusion, before turning around to go back, the village chief stopped him, as if he had just remembered something.

"Since you're here, come in, we have something for you." Tian frowned in confusion but agreed to climb the stairs to the top of the house. He sat on the straw matted floor and waited with the basin beside him. Tian looks around, examining the living conditions of the Akha people and finds that it really does correspond to what Bianglae used to study and work in the city.

There are many modern decorations, even a bookcase. The slender eyes are fixed on a golden frame, a photograph of His Majesty the King visiting a remote people. The picture printed on the poster is so clear, so clear that the King's sweat is visible, that we know how hard His Majesty worked for us.

Tian thinks instead of the calendar with the King's picture hanging at the back of the classroom cupboard, it was put there because the nail had fallen out. He thought he would borrow a hammer from Bianglae this Monday and then go and hammer down the nails, so that the children could see the faces under the land and so encourage their morale to study.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting, teacher." Bianglae came out of the room with his wife who is holding a pile of Akha clothes, "My wife has just finished fixing the last one."

"Why did uncle bring so many?" Tian asked, puzzled.

The old man had a kind smile on his face, while taking the knitting set from his wife and placing it in front of the volunteer teacher, "These men's clothes are the best knitted clothes in our village, some of them are a bit old but my wife has sewn them all up. Today, when the villagers saw the teacher wearing their clothes and helping to build the palanquin to take the bride, everyone was very happy, so they wanted to thank the teacher."

Tian didn't move, felt his eyes burning, "Do the villagers like to see me in the same clothes as them?"

"A lot of people here like to wear urban clothes to make themselves look fashionable but how many city people like to wear traditional clothes like ours, " Khama puts his hand on a pile of colourful short patterned clothes, outside, if the teacher doesn't mind these clothes they have worn take them."

He stifled a sob, feeling that even though he hadn't been here very long, his forgotten self-worth had risen remarkably.

"How could I resent it? Tian bends down and holds up the pile of clothes, as if they were expensive items. Then he turned to Bianglae Khama's wife and smiled at her.

"Uh, thanks Ching, Mate." he stammered out his thanks in the Akha language he had just learnt from the young boys in the village this afternoon but the two elders burst out laughing.

"It's okay, the teacher's dialect is a bit wacky," Bianglae translated for the listening party as soon as he hears his wife's reply.

"It's okay, teacher."

Tian put the clothes in the basin, then said goodbye to the owner and carried them down the stairs. He shines his torch along the rugged path in the middle of the village, it is a dark night, so he saw the dazzling starlight filling the dark sky, the evening is so cold that it exhales white steam.

Tian has never experienced this level of cold before in Thailand, he raised his hand to wipe the drooping nose from the tip of his nose. Suddenly, the back of his eyes caught something unusual, the lights flickered as a group of black silhouettes crept quietly along the back corners of the rows of wooden houses.

The parties now peered at each other until the shadows came out with steam lamps in their hands, so that he began to see faint faces in the darkness, these were the young men who had helped build the palanquin village during the day, what were they doing out now? But before anyone could give him an answer to his doubts, he saw the men waving.

Tian looked left and right and then pointed his finger at himself and called him? When the group in the shadows nodded frantically and waves urgently, he strides over to them without a second thought.

When the men saw the volunteer teacher coming to join the group, they smiled happily and slapped his thin shoulders, then rushed off together, Tian with a torch in one hand and a basin in the other, followed the others in confusion but when he thought about what Dr. Nam had said at night, it made sense that there would be a group of people out walking with lights in the middle of the night.

Tian was as excited as a child who was doing something wrong in the dark. After a long walk to the foot of the hill, he saw a hut built alone behind a large tree.

"What are we doing here?" asked Tian. It wasn't very loud but at such a silent moment, the sound was so clear that the young men turned and unanimously held their index fingers to silence, as a signal to keep quiet. The brave squad stretched out their heads to look for the hole through the bamboo siding until they found it, before calling their friends together at once.

The light from the lamp inside was only enough to see a blur of movement, soft, shuddering moans and loud chatter interspersed, the group of warriors licking their lips and smiling faces and he could make a good guess as to what was going on.

The Akha, who had seen Tian standing at a distance, kindly touched Tian as he approached the hole used to peek into the bed of the groom and the widow.

The widow's two breasts rush out to fill both eyes, causing the peepers to gasp.

"Hey-!!!" But before he could utter a word, his mouth was gagged by many hands.

When he can't move, Tian has to endure the extreme embarrassment of watching a live film. As the men in the hut are reaching their climax, he hears the whistling of the young men surrounding him, he tries to turn his head away but his eye sockets are fixed.

The slender yellow legs are spread wide, ready for the enemy to enter the pose for the big fight. The huge hardness of the perfect masculinity is slowly inserted into the woman's body. As the soon-to-be groom begins to move slightly, the widow, who teaches Zuo love, moans, making those who are watching in the shadows tingle with sensation, all over.

"Have you had enough?"

A very familiar low voice said very softly, even in Thai, which some did not understand but with a force that penetrated the villagers' auditory nerves until they all fled and scattered together.

Oh my! The basin had not allowed him to run fast enough, so much so that he was caught by a stout hand. His face was covered in crystalline sweat, despite the coolness of the weather. He laughed dryly and then turned to the tall, cold-faced man who was now transformed into a tall grim.

"Haven't you gone back to base?"

"I had a feeling, you were going to do something untoward after the shower, so I rode my motorbike back. When I didn't see you at home, I came straight to perform the ritual and I was right. Phupha emphasised the last words, leaving the chick in his hand trembling.

"You don't have to be so concerned about my life to do that--" Tian grinned heatedly with embarrassment on his face. What? Not really scared.

"Go back!" Phupha pulled Tian away, so much so that his slender hand almost fell off his shoulder.

"Hey! Gently." Tian cried out in pain for mercy but only because the strong hand is as strong as iron, still squeezing the upper arm tightly.

Phupha pulled Tian back to his motorbike parked a short distance away, in order to ride him to the hut but in the meantime, he felt that the other man's gait was strange, not as agile as usual. The officer quickly stopped and turned around, his sharp eyes continued to look down until he saw the inflated bulge in the middle of his torso and gave a wicked smile.

"Hey! What are you looking at?" Tian yells, hastily pulling the hem of her jacket down to cover her bottom, her pale, smooth face turning red with shame at the sight.

"What did you see when you peeped in that hole?"

"It's none of your business what I see." He tried to push away Phupha, who had lowered his head to approach as if to tease him deliberately.

"Shall I help you?" The tip of his nose pressed against his slender ear, a husky voice whispered in his ear: "We are all men, don't be shy."

Goosebumps rose on every pore, Tian closed his eyes, squeezed his arms and shouted like a slaughtered buffalo, all over the valley. "But a Northerner man like you is dangerous!"

The slender hands slammed the basin into the strong abdominal muscles, the assaulted man bent over in pain, Phupha looked up at the mischievous young master who walked proudly straddling the motorbike parked a short distance away.

"Can you hurry up? I'm cold!" shouted Tian, his face contorted like a chess horse.

Phupha let out a long sigh, did he say that, or did he know something from that mouthy doctor? When he returns to the base of operations he is going to do a shake down of the good doctor.

Because he was afraid of the "hope." that never existed would drift even further away. The Akha wedding has a long tradition, it took about three days to complete all the work. From the first day the bride has to be brought to the groom's village, then the Yama or respected elder of the villagers came to the ceremony to welcome the bride, by thoroughly cleansing her body and knocking on the groom's roof, in order to successfully invoke the bride's spirit.

On the second day, the bride became a field servant, feeding the village elders, as a token of gratitude. On the last day, the bride cuts down red plantains or aromatic roots in the forest and they are brought to burn for the invited guests.

Afterwards, the guests will use vegetable oil mixed with the soot from the bottom of the pot to coat each other during the event, including the bride and groom and continue to live together to test their patience for their future life together.

Tian took a drink of water from a water carrier and was then invited to walk together to the next village to fetch the bride. The winding path leads up and down through the sparse forest, he does not carry a palanquin but tries to sit and catch his breath all the way, while the other young people are still laughing and joking.

Today the volunteer teacher wears the traditional costume given to him by the villagers and this morning, Bianglae Khama also gave him a hat that looks like a forehead and is decorated with beautiful coloured silk, if you look at it, you can't really tell who is a townie and who is a villager, because they all blend in.

The officer who came to help welcome the bride this morning was not Captain Phupha but a scout he knew well, as many of the men were working shifts at the school on guard duty. Although he wondered why the tall officer hadn't come, he was too tight-lipped to ask.

Tian stretched out wearily and then joined the others in the huddled cave. The bride and groom are now continuing the wedding, alternately giving each other three rounds of eggs and just as Tian's face turned blank with questions, the village chief Bianglae answered his queries.

"It's an old divination technique, teacher. If the eggs fall to the ground, they will have no children and no happiness."

Tian nodded in confusion, is this like a woman's ovulation?

Then there is a feast from afternoon to evening, singing and dancing in the central courtyard of the village. Some of the chickens brought to the feast are cooked for the bride and groom to eat together, as a first meal. Tian, who is sitting with the village headman in a group of people squeezing sticky rice and dipping it in chilli sauce, starts to get bored and withdraws to wander around the cultural courtyard.

The young girls and the children dancing to the rhythm of the music were lovely but what caught his attention more was the loud sound of the men, young and old, from the village in front of him, standing in a circle, probably playing some kind of game.

Tian! Someone approaches and calls for a volunteer teacher.

"What are you doing?" Even if you don't understand Thai, it's enough to guess what it means, because the newcomers stick their faces out and look at the spinning ball in the middle of the circle with great interest.

"Gyr..." they tried to explain, "Gyro, spinning gyro."

Tian edited the words, "Is that a gyro?"

They nod and smile, inviting each other to try it out. The Chong ball or Akha gyro is slightly stranger than the spikes of iron or long metal in the middle that are usually seen but here they are sharpened with hardwood until the end is long and thin, so the gyro is bigger and bulkier than the popular style. The rope itself consists of a straw rope and a piece of twine tied to a piece of wood at the other end.

Tina was born in the age of radio-operated cars and went to an aristocratic school. Where would he get a chance to play with a plastic gyroscope and bring along a bag of treats they had never seen before or jump rubber bands.

Tian looked dumbly at the traditional toys that are shoved into his hands by well-meaning people, surrounded by the sound of a laughter in Akha that he doesn't understand but judging by the way he pulled the wood back and forth with his hands, he is probably saying for Tain to pull.

Tian decided to follow the cheers and pulled the wood at the end of the straw. The result, the wooden gyro rolled around a few times on the ground and then stopped spinning, his play was not as cool as the villagers'.

The laughter from around the room makes Tian, who has just played for the first time, stand there in shame and numbness, Tian clenches his fists in anger, feeling his manly dignity boiling over, he strides with his head up to the man who gave him the gyro and then intimidates him with sign language to show him how to play immediately.

The young Akha man showed Tian how to throw the gyro, usually we see the man wrap one side of the string around the shaft of the gyro, then pick it up until the other end is tied to the player's finger. But the Thai hill tribe use thin bamboo poles to wrap around the end of the rope instead of their fingers to increase the centrifugal force and to make the heavier gyro spin with more force than usual.

Like the baseball pitcher he used to play when he was in summer school in America, when he felt he was a pitcher but with the ball in his hand pushed to the top, he no longer felt fear. So perfect was his stance on shaking the end of the wood for a long throw, that the professor's men looked pretty good.

The heavy gyroscope flew for more than ten metres before dropping, it soon spun on its own but soon stopped. He threw his wrist around a few times and tried many more positions but still couldn't see that it could spin as long as the others, so he had to stop and see how his gyroscope was different from the villagers. Tian crossed his arms, stood there for a while and then frowned. He turned to the gyro master himself and then pointed to the used straw rope.

As if he knew what the volunteer teacher meant, the man smiled dryly, while waving his hand and saying no, now the engineering student knew what the problem was, the straw was too slippery and how do you make it stick or adhere to the ground like twine.

He looked left and right and thought long and hard to make the surface rough, it had to be sandpapered but if he wanted the rope to be rigid, it had to be mixed with sand. Tian thinks with extreme logic, wrapped the long grass rope around the ground to make it less slippery.

Tian played it far and tested it again, after the top of the wooden gyro dropped to the ground, it started spinning at high speed at an alarming rate, the Akha standing next to them even looked stunned. Tian clenched his hands, pulled his arms towards his body, shouted, the test was successful. He then dragged his necessary partner back and bravely challenged the large crowd to a race.

In the evening, a group of officers familiar with the local people came to congratulate the bride and groom. Captain Phupha was wearing camouflage trousers and knee-high boots, a khaki shirt on top and a military winter jacket over it, showing that he has just returned from a patrol.

Dr. Wasan, who is dressed like him in semi-work casual, entered handing Bianglae a bag of beer and branded white wine he bought just yesterday, as a gesture of goodwill.

"Thank you, doctor--" said the village chief of Phabandao, inviting the officers to sit in a circle on a long bamboo stand to eat. He saw Captain Phupha looking around for something and smiled.

"Looking for Mr. Tian? There he is." Bianglae points to a group of young, tall boys gathered together.

"What are they playing?" Phupha tried to look over but the group was standing together, so that nothing could be seen.

The teacher challenged the men to a gyro race.

Bianglae Khama's sharp eyes jumped up, "Khama is drunk, it's a question of whether the man knows the gyro."

"Oops!" Captain Bianglae slapped his hand on his forehead again, "If you don't believe me, I'll show you later." He led the big man through the crowd and into the circle.

The young man, barely out of his youth, was lifting his legs like a pro and throwing a wooden gyroscope wrapped in string, which even leaves Phupha standing speechless in amazement.

The cheers are so loud that one's ears ring but his gaze remains on Tian's clean, smooth, red, flushed cheeks, which look natural, natural in their nature, untouched by the framework of urban society.

The busy young master turned and saw him and then made a gesture of crossing his arms and tilting his jaw, showing off that he was a winner again, Phupha twitched his mouth and smiled, shaking his head helplessly and lovingly. He hoped that the other man would learn to make the most of his time here before it was over.

Back to the other "world." he came from

"I didn't think Mr Tian would make it through the term as promised but seeing it like this, I've changed my mind."

Captain Phupha glanced at the man who had spoken. If he could see that the volunteer teacher was of exceptional social standing in both manner and dress, how could someone like Bianglae Khama, who had experienced so much of the world, not know?

"I have to change my mind too." he replied calmly but deep down it was as if a boulder had been placed in his chest, growing heavier with each passing day.

So how will he endure that time?

***

The sound of something being pounded loudly in the early morning but it didn't bore the two scouts guarding the school, perhaps because the people inside were doing what they should be doing most.

Raising the portrait of His Majesty the King to the top.

Tian chose to use small iron nails to prevent the wood from breaking after years of heat and cold. He gently tapped the heads of the nails with a hammer until they were about halfway down the length and then took the glossy sheets of paper from the back of the bookcase where the dust had begun to accumulate and swept them clean.

The calendar hangs in his slender hand, while slowly stepping back to see the results. Light brown eyes scrutinise the publication in front of him. The picture of His Majesty the King shaking hands with the old men who are waiting in the wilderness to welcome him without regard for themselves. This shows that, no matter where we are in the land of Thailand, we are always in the eyes of His Majesty the Great.

The teacher who had come to volunteer for other purposes took a deep, secret breath and the young man began to feel guilty for his hypocrisy in coming here, he was not doing anything for anyone, except himself.

"These are my father's clothes."

Tian turned to the tiny, familiar voice, the red-faced girl grinned, while grabbing the Akha-style woven man's clothes he wore today.

"Thank your father for me."

"Mother asked Father's permission, it was Mother's." Mizu smiled slightly, when she remembered the war in the house the other day, her father's long-standing good clothes to wear had been passed over by her mother, for the new volunteer teacher to thank him for his help to the villagers.

"Then apologise for me." He smiled and remembered: "Is Ayi coming to school today?"

"He's coming, Dad's back is healed. Mum said she had to come to school, so she wouldn't be cheated by anyone."

Tian nodded at the girl's words. From now on, he wanted to teach them something really applicable to living. As the place was far from the bustle, there was no need for a cram school but it was an extra school for how to tackle life.

After the flag was raised, the pupils, who seem to be everywhere more than last week, swarm together into the spacious classroom, which is only made of bamboo. Tian writes in chalk on the blackboard how to simply compare weights according to the system of weighing units popularly used by the Thais and draws a scale and a thin line with additional numbers as teaching material.

After half a day of teaching, he reiterates that he knows how much the children have understood, Tian erases the original chalk marks with his fingertips and then draws a new scale needle for the scales and asks questions.

"In that case, what is the hand on the scale called?"

The Akha student looked at the numbers marked, then put up his fingers and counted, just as the teacher had once taught, "Eight marks eight hundred grams!

"If someone said, this is five hundred grams, how many grams less does that equate to?"

"Three hundred grams."

Tian smiled happily, his teaching had produced a satisfactory result. "Well then, let's take a break and eat together." With that the children cheered and took their lunch, tied in banana leaves with banana strings, outside to find a place to eat.

He himself carried the lunchbox he had brought from Bianglae Khama's house earlier in the morning, a simple dish like an omelet and boiled vegetables in chilli sauce. To this day, although the food is cold and tasteless, it is still delicious when you are hungry. Tian sat on the edge of the wooden platform that extended from the classroom and ate, while watching the students jumping around the flagpole square.

The teacher sat on the ground, well-fed and breezy, almost asleep for a moment and then there was a small commotion among the mountain children. When he heard a succession of shouts, Tian woke up, he rushed to his feet to see the children chasing an object floating in the air.

The shouts were loud in both dialect and Thai but he understood them well enough to say, "Giant bird!"

Tian raised his hand to shield himself from the blinding sunlight, while looking upwards, as the school was situated high up on a cliff, so it was clear what was coming through the clouds.

"It's called an aeroplane…" He suddenly smiled, hanging on his lips and shouting loudly as he raced the children who were happily flying and hovering with their arms spread out like the wings of an aeroplane.

When they were tired of bouncing around, in the afternoon Tian taught them to fold paper aeroplanes and then went out to fly them.

Since when are these kids more silly than the city kids? After flying for a while, the children began to take the paper planes out of sight and modify them, both by bending the ends of the wings and by folding off the front, so that their toys could fly further than their friends.

But unfortunately, the wind on the cliff was so strong that when they threw the planes, they could not resist the strong wind and they were blown off course and all fell to the ground.

The children then ran around with their aeroplanes having fun until the teacher told them to sit down and continue learning.

Whilst teaching the simple English words, he noticed that some of the pupils were just sitting around listlessly, so he asked.

"Do you like aeroplanes that much?" The Akha children looked at each other, then Ayi replied, "I want to fly in the sky."

"To become a pilot, you have to study, because it's very difficult." said Tian but the little boy who seems to look back with shining eyes does not understand these difficult words, he closes his lips tightly and feels the pressure and expectation coming on.

"For example, even if the plane can't fly itself, there are things we can manoeuvre to make it fly in the sky."

"What's that? Phii Crayon."

Tian smiled, jumped up with long, thin eyes, looked cunning saying, "I won't tell you. We'll find out tomorrow."

As the teacher refuses to tell, the wails of disappointment ring out from all sides.

He finished teaching early today, so he rushed home to Bianglae Khama. After sitting for a while on a bamboo stand in the basement, the man he wanted to see came back from working in the vegetable fields. The village chief takes off his straw hat, pats the dust off his legs and greets his guest, Tian rises to his feet and hurries up to him.

"I'd like to ask you; how do you get into town now?"

"You have to walk to the main road and wait for the (double bench) mini-bus but it will be cold before you get there, what does the teacher want?"

"I want the internet--" he quickly changed his words, when the village headman looked confused, "I mean, I want to find some materials and equipment for the children tomorrow. In other words, I promised them to make 'kites'.

"A kite? What makes you think of that?"

"I was really excited to see the children see the plane, I wanted to make something that could fly."

Bianglae Khama pondered for a while and said, "Then I'll try to contact the base of operations by radio first.

"And why should you tell them? I'm not a prisoner, so much so that I can't go anywhere on my own." Tian made a hissing sound until the village chief laughed.

"Not a prisoner but someone under Captain Phupha's care. And you have just had a confrontation with Sia Sakda, so you need to be very careful."

He understood the phrase but the first phrase, Tian's face falls, since when is he the one under the care of the tall officer!

Tian had to come up and wait in the Bianglae room but his eyes widened when he saw the village elder holding equipment that looked like a square box with a long antenna and a shoulder strap.

"This is a soldier's field radio." He used to see soldiers on patrol with it on their backs patrolling the villages.

"Yes. The camp brought it to me for the time being, so that I could be informed in case of an emergency."

"And is my business included in such emergencies?"

Bianglae smiled, not minding being disturbed by Tian, "The teacher's business is an emergency for the captain alone." After the words, Tian even quickly continued to be silent, as if someone had turned off the switch and immediately sat down and waited calmly.

He looked askance as the village chief expertly switched on the field radio by hand, probably because he himself had been a conscript for two or three years. Bianglae Khama rotates to the preset frequency and then feeds his voice into the mobile radio.

"Three Stars calling..." Switching, shortly after receiving a rustling radio signal from the speaker, someone replies.

"Three Stars confirm."

"Three Stars informs Mill, Teacher Tian now wants to go into town, over"

"Mill understood, also informing Eagle, awaiting reply." With that the radio waves were cut off. Bianglae turned around and was startled when he saw the man sitting on the floor staring at the communication tool.

"Teacher, do you like field radio?"

"Yeah, I think it's cool, should try to get it open right away and see what's inside." He's been here for days, he felt his love of invention is coming back.

"It can be taken apart but it must not be this machine, I still don't want to visit the teacher in prison which will happen if this thing is broken--" Bianglae replied jokingly and then the voice from the radio communication rang out again.

"Eagle to Three Stars, over." The muffled voice is not very audible, still knows who it is.

"Three Stars understood, over."

"Eagle on mission, sending pigeon instead, over and out."

Tian scratches the back of his head, calls a code word that really sounds completely confusing, "This hawk I guess is Captain Phupha but who is this pigeon?"

"Dr. Wasan."

Tian nodded his head in understanding but deep inside a sense of frustration grew, like someone who had taken a lot of wood and deposited it in his heart. All they did is contact Dr. Nam from the beginning to the end, aren't they more like than friends! What else would he have done?

Tian suddenly stopped, rubbed his face vigorously as he did so to reduce his ruminations but this did nothing to alleviate the frustration that had built up inside.

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