5 Years Later
ELDERLY CHINESE FARMER DISARMS BURGLARS WITH BLOWPIPE
June 5, 2086151Please respect copyright.PENANANdloNhYQNU
Beijing – A farmer in the remote province of Qinghai on the Tibetan plateau disarmed two151Please respect copyright.PENANAVM4djaQWW4
burglars with a blowpipe. The elderly farmer in his 70s was awakened from his151Please respect copyright.PENANATT04T58tHp
sleep in the middle of the night from sound coming from his kitchen. Using a151Please respect copyright.PENANAqusIJi6tv7
blowpipe, he disabled both burglars as they were scrounging around his home.151Please respect copyright.PENANAD4pMw28W9L
The darts used had a powerful tranquilizing drug used on animals. When asked151Please respect copyright.PENANAk5lIG4WYw6
how he acquired the blowpipe, he said he instinctively knew how to make the 5-foot151Please respect copyright.PENANAQpbLXOl3UM
long blowpipe out of bamboo. He was not taught the trade. A blowpipe is a151Please respect copyright.PENANAh4t6t4eHgL
weapon indigenous to tribes of Borneo, an island in the South China Sea. AFP.
“Did you read today’s report of a farmer in a remote part of China using a blowpipe to151Please respect copyright.PENANARnaLpqZB6a
knock down two burglars?” Cheng asked Hiang as she came into the office during151Please respect copyright.PENANA9Qbbm09khC
her usual start of the day.
“What of it?” she asked unconcerned.
“It strikes me as odd that this farmer on the Tibetan plateau knew how to use a blowpipe.”
“Tibetan plateau?”
Strange stories always catch her attention. She looked up the piece on her screen.
“I can see why it made the news,” she said. “Anyways, what do we have on our agenda151Please respect copyright.PENANAnGh0Ij6KNS
today?”
They discussed the topics of the day that would potentially appear in the paper151Please respect copyright.PENANAeRiR2otrZk
tomorrow.
But the story stuck in her mind: the blowpipe is a weapon indigenous to Borneo in the151Please respect copyright.PENANAxXrDWkXx3x
South China Sea and the Kadazans, of whom Nur was a member, are from Borneo.
She recalled an interview she had of a Chinese retiree in Malaysia who had called her 4151Please respect copyright.PENANAUGtbDM0aYD
years ago after she had printed an article of Nur in the Singapore Times. The151Please respect copyright.PENANALsGKOVMJml
article was an account of her search of the special forces officer over 6 years151Please respect copyright.PENANAoZHdU15bRH
culminating in her visit to the Etajima Naval Academy where she witnessed his151Please respect copyright.PENANAc1TLb6JHOW
death on video.
The retiree had a rank equal to a Lt Col in the Singapore Armed Forces when he was with151Please respect copyright.PENANAdnZAE021Mf
China’s People’s Liberation Army. Lt Col Shang claimed he was a captain when he151Please respect copyright.PENANAHz9ckHuzbW
was attached to the Intelligence Department of the PLA. He said he recognized151Please respect copyright.PENANAuZkrISYP9A
Major Nur as the prisoner he was tasked with keeping watch over in 2051. She151Please respect copyright.PENANAtOsxqrPVXG
had a meeting with him in Johor Bahru in a café in a busy Shopping Mall.
“How sure are you this person was Major Nur?” she had asked.
“He had a strange story. We knew he came from an observation post on an island in the151Please respect copyright.PENANAiyMyuZZ8sb
South China Sea. But he couldn’t remember anything from his past. Maybe he was151Please respect copyright.PENANAx0kYN334iK
faking it. We couldn’t be sure. So we kept him for 5 months asking the same151Please respect copyright.PENANAl0l5CFSHdo
questions over and over again.”
“How did he survive that episode near Tioman island?”
“Apparently the Japanese had scuba divers in the water as soon as they spotted his body. He151Please respect copyright.PENANAGKjoACNojA
was a high priority target and they wanted him alive. They pulled him out of151Please respect copyright.PENANAv42gMPzA02
the water and applied CPR.”
“I saw he was in the water for 20 minutes his head submerged. How could anyone be151Please respect copyright.PENANAGC2qaEBzkX
resuscitated after being in the water for 20 minutes?”
He shrugged. Hiang eyed him as he answered the questions. He seemed sincere. And what good151Please respect copyright.PENANAK8S1zdr6HH
would it do him to create a story like this?
“Where was he sent after the 5 months of interrogation?”
“We did everything, torture, drugs, even changed our tactics by providing him comfort151Please respect copyright.PENANAUkFkqV1h0s
and good food. But he couldn’t remember. After 5 months he was sent back to the151Please respect copyright.PENANADoZVhejB7t
POW department. Not sure what happened to him after that.”
“Any tattoos on him?”
“Yes, there was one, the US Navy Seals trident on his left arm.”
Hiang was startled. There was no account anywhere in her article of the trident tattoo,151Please respect copyright.PENANAzeTrXB8bSS
nor for that matter anywhere in the internet. And Nur had that tattoo on his151Please respect copyright.PENANAVT6i0GlGY7
left arm. However most US Navy Seals graduates do this kind of stuff, as a kind151Please respect copyright.PENANAsa40B3W8ke
of badge of honor. So it wasn’t unique nor conclusive.
She tried to get corroborating evidence from other sources including through Gen Sofi’s151Please respect copyright.PENANA2hyOYQtymW
successor. But there was none. It was a dead end. And now this article about a blowpipe in the Tibetan plateau far from151Please respect copyright.PENANAyD9U1zZbsy
its place of origin. If Nur was alive he would be in his 70s, the age of that151Please respect copyright.PENANAH6LXFtBkft
elderly farmer.
“Let’s send Jenny to Qinghai,” Hiang said to Cheng a month later.
“What for?”
“I am intrigued by that blowpipe story.”
“You think there might be a connection with Nur?”
She nodded. “I was looking for corroborating evidence when the PLA officer claimed to have151Please respect copyright.PENANAptNo2WXn49
seen Nur after the Tioman incident, and I think this is it.”
“Could someone be alive after been in the water for almost 30 minutes?” Cheng asked.
“Nur was especially fit and at the prime of his life. I wouldn’t discount that151Please respect copyright.PENANA1120tOP8Mh
possibility.”
And Jenny, one of her Senior Journalist, went on a trip to Qinghai.
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