Chapter 26 — A Sweetness Forgotten

At six o'clock in the morning, nine months after the opening day of Coi Quarter, Diệp Chi stood in Ngọt Xưa's open kitchen, soft yellow light shining on the stainless steel tabletop still wet with morning dew. The street outside was still quiet, with only the sound of street cleaners' brooms and the sparse sound of motorbikes echoing in the distance.

"Auntie, is it correct for me to stir coconut milk like this?" A girl about fifteen years old, wearing an apron that was still a bit loose compared to her small figure, stood next to the stove, stirring a pot of coconut milk with a tense expression.

That's Baby Na - the familiar name the whole shop still calls her, the daughter of a woman selling lottery tickets near the neighborhood. Diệp Chi took her on as an early morning assistant before school, helping her have a little extra money to help her mother, just like how a kind woman once accepted another girl into an apprenticeship many years ago.

"Stir a little slower, more evenly," Diệp Chi instructed, placing her hand on the girl's hand, adjusting the stirring rhythm. "You see, keep the heat low, let the coconut milk slowly thicken, don't rush."

"Yes." Baby Na nodded and followed attentively, her eyes lit up when she saw the layer of coconut milk gradually turning to the desired smoothness.

Diệp Chi smiled at the girl, a familiar feeling rising in her heart - the feeling of a continuing cycle, where what she had once been given, she now had the opportunity to pass on to another generation, the same way her mother, and then Uncle Bảy Thông, had done with her.

"Auntie, my mother said that when I was a child, you were very poor and had to work as a sales assistant for your mother, like me, right?" Baby Na asked, with the innocent curious eyes of a fifteen year old.

"That's right, child," Diệp Chi replied, her voice gentle, her hands still constantly preparing ingredients for the new day. "I also used to carry a tea basket and deliver goods every morning before going to school, just like you do now."

"So why are you so good, able to open a large chain of stores?" The girl continued asking, her voice full of admiration.

Diệp Chi stopped for a moment and looked at the girl with affectionate eyes. "Not because you are better than anyone else, but because you never give up, no matter how difficult it is. You too, as long as you persevere, you will achieve what you want, maybe even more than me."

"Yes, I will try!" Baby Na replied, her eyes shining with confidence, then bent down to continue her work with twice as much attention as before.

The doorbell rang softly. Thế Khôi walked in, not wearing a vest as usual, but wearing a simple shirt, holding two cups of coffee from a familiar shop nearby.

"Why are you up so early today?" Diệp Chi asked, looking at the wall clock - it was only fifteen minutes past six, even earlier than the time he usually visited on weekends.

"Want to see your morning opening scene," Thế Khôi replied, placing the coffee cup on the table, looking at Bé Na who was bowing politely. "Besides, I have something to discuss with you today that has nothing to do with work."

"What's going on?" Diệp Chi asked, still not stopping her morning work.

Thế Khôi didn't answer right away, just quietly gave her a new notebook, with a dark brown leather cover, different from her mother's old recipe notebook that was still kept carefully in a drawer.

"What is this?" Diệp Chi took it, flipped through the first few pages, and saw that they were all blank, not a single word had been written.

"A new notebook," Thế Khôi explained, his voice was gentle but filled with a lot of meaning. "I think, your mother's notebook has completely completed its mission — the final recipe has been written, the promise has been fulfilled. But your life, both of our lives, still have many pages left unwritten. I think, maybe it's time to start a new notebook, not to fulfill the promise to the past, but to write together new recipes, new stories for the future."

Diệp Chi held the notebook in her hand, flipped through each pure white page, feeling a different emotion from what she had experienced when completing the "Third Taste" formula - not the emotion of completion, but the joy of a new, open, promising beginning.

"I like this idea," she said, her voice warm, her eyes shining with indescribable joy. "But the first page, I want both of us to write."

"Write what?" Thế Khôi asked, curious.

Diệp Chi smiled, did not answer immediately, but put the new notebook on the kitchen table, opened it to the first page, then gave him the pen.

"You write first. Whatever you want, as long as it's sincere."

Thế Khôi picked up the pen, thought for a moment, then bent down to write the first words on the pure white page: "The first day of the new notebook. Twelve years ago, a girl carrying a bucket of tea rushed through the school yard, spilling coconut milk on my shirt. Today, I still feel grateful that morning happened."

Diệp Chi read those words, tears suddenly rose to the corners of her eyes, but this time she didn't try to hold back, letting the happy tears fall naturally onto the page, mixing with the ink that had not yet completely dried.

Baby Na, standing nearby watching the two with the curious eyes of a child, asked softly. "Miss, why are you crying? Is something sad?"

Diệp Chi wiped her tears, turned to look at the girl, a bright smile on her lips. "It's not sad, my child. These are happy tears. Sometimes, the best things in life also make people cry, you know?"

She looked out the small window of the kitchen, where the first morning sunlight of the new day was filtering through the trees along the street, illuminating the handwritten "Sweet Old" sign in the exact style of her mother. Not the sunset tinged with nostalgia, but the dawn of a new beginning, pristine and full of hope.

She took the pen from Thế Khôi's hand, bent down and continued writing on the notebook page, right below his words: "And I believe, the sweetness is never truly forgotten. It's just waiting, quietly, until the day someone is brave enough to come back and find it."

She closed the notebook and placed it on the kitchen counter, right next to her mother's old recipe book - two notebooks, one old and one new, one finished and one unfinished, standing next to each other as a reminder that, sometimes, completing a journey is not the end, but simply the door that opens for another, sweeter, longer journey, waiting ahead.

Outside, the morning sun had risen a little higher, the street began to bustle with the footsteps of the first customers of the day, and the scent of taro tea mixed with the faint smoke of the kitchen spread throughout the small stall, like a warm welcome to a new day, a new chapter, just begun.

Tường Vy appeared at the door, carrying a bag of groceries on the way. Seeing the two of them standing next to each other next to the new page, she raised her eyebrows teasingly. "Hey, you two were so in love so early in the morning? Did you pay any attention to the customers waiting outside?"

Diệp Chi turned around in surprise and saw a few regular customers already standing in front of the counter waiting to order. They quickly put the new notebook carefully in a drawer and smiled awkwardly. "Sorry everyone, let me serve you now!"

Thế Khôi laughed, rolled up his sleeves to help carry the first cups of tea to the guest table, his movements much more skillful than last year's power outage evening. Tường Vy stood looking at the two people working together in the small kitchen, smiling slightly to herself, feeling warmed by this positive change.

The morning passed bustlingly as usual, with a constant stream of customers coming in and out, bustling laughter mixed with the sweet scent of tea spreading throughout the stall. Near noon, when the largest number of customers had calmed down, Diệp Chi stood and rested for a moment at the counter, looking out at the busy street, then turned to look at Thế Khôi who was sitting and recording the last few orders, a satisfied smile appeared on her lips.

Uncle Bảy Thông, stopping by as usual at this time every week, sat down at a familiar corner of the table and ordered a cup of "Old Kitchen Smoke Sweet Soup" - the dish he always ordered every time he came, as a way to remember the student who once made him cry because of the simple taro sweet soup.

"It gets more and more delicious," he commented, tasting the first spoonful of tea, his eyes filled with pride as he looked at his student who had now become a steadfast, happy woman, standing firmly on her own feet in the midst of a tumultuous life, without any trace of the fear of the past.