"Leaving already?" The old cotton farmer Ahmat clutched his hookah, with two swollen blisters hanging from his tired eyes, looking like two dried dates.
"Young man, you can't just leave so soon. It seems you'll be staying in town for a while; I don't know if you'll go looking for that family of Zhou Qizheng," the town mayor relayed Zhou Ziang's earlier question.
"Let him look if he wants, I've said it time and again, this land of Southern Xinjiang is left to us by our ancestors; we can't allow these Han people to call the shots. If he really makes the few plots of cotton trees next to Zhou Qizheng's house yield peach [cotton bolls], I, Ahmat, will hand over the technique of growing long-staple cotton," Ahmat took a puff of his hookah, a thin plume of white smoke entered his mouth, swirled around his throat, then sprayed out from his tall, hooked nose.
The town mayor said nothing, just continued to fiddle with his cigarette case.
Zhou Ziang checked into an inn called "Man Se."
