Chapter 1 — Between Two Worlds: A Bride Exchanged for a Dumpling

The wind blowing through Bai Tro village no longer carries the smell of wet soil or ripe rice, leaving only the dry smell of dust and ash, as if the earth and sky itself were exhausted after three consecutive years of drought. Ky Thua An sat with his back against the rotten wooden wall of an abandoned warehouse at the edge of the village, holding his knees with both hands, feeling the cramping pain in his stomach that gradually turned into an unfamiliar feeling of numbness. He no longer remembered exactly how many days he had been starving himself; he only knew that today the sun set slower than usual, or perhaps it was just the feeling of a person standing on the brink.

He did not know why he had drifted to that land. Memories of what happened before arriving at Bai Tro village were as faint as a dream washed away by water — only a few fragments remain: an asphalt road, the sound of car horns, bright city lit reflecting on the rainwater. But every time he tried to remember more, his head hurt as if someone had deliberately closed a door. Gradually he learned not to ask anymore. In the midst of this Great Hunger Year, the question "why" was more luxurious than a bowl of porridge.

Bai Tro village used to be a prosperous land, at least according to the surviving old people, before they also collapsed from hunger and disease. The fields were now only cracked pieces of land shaped like dragon scales, the village well is dry, and the river that once flowed through the village is now only a murky creek the size of a hand. The living began eating tree bark, grass roots, even clay mixed with a rare bit of grain flour to trick their stomachs into thinking it was full. Thua An tried that "earthen cake" once, and almost couldn't stand up after that.

This abandoned warehouse once belonged to a rich man who starved to death right in his own big house, leaving a row of empty warehouses for anyone daring enough to stay overnight without fear of ghosts. Thua An did not believe in ghosts. He was just afraid that tonight would be his last.

Darkness fell faster than usual. There was no moonlight, only a few weak stars peeking out from behind a layer of opaque dust clouds — dust that was rumored to rise from the burned fields due to prolonged drought. Thua An closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, but the raging hunger did not allow him to rest completely. He drifted between consciousness and unconsciousness, his ears ringing, and in that fragile moment, he felt a very gentle light, like a trembling candlelight, rising from the darkest corner of the warehouse.

He opened his eyes.

In that corner of the warehouse, where he had never noticed during the previous nights of temporary shelter, there was an old wooden cabinet standing quietly among a pile of discarded furniture - broken bowls, broken plows, a few rotten bamboo panels. The cabinet was shoulder-high, the wood had become dark brown with time, the two doors were ajar, and from the gap between those two doors, a light blue light like the moonlight under water was seeping out, flickering softly in a strange rhythm, unlike any fire or natural light he had ever seen.

Perhaps a hallucination. People who have been hungry for a long time often see things that do not exist — he has heard stories about that, about people who are about to die of hunger and suddenly see a full tray of food appearing before their eyes before breathing their last breath. But there was something in that light that made him unable to sit still. It's not like an illusion of hunger. It has rhythm, life, like a heart beating very softly in a wooden chest.

Thua An put his hands on the ground and used his last strength to crawl towards the cabinet. Every centimeter was a battle with his exhausted body, but that light seemed to be calling him, not with a sound, but with a vague feeling rising from the bottom of his heart - the feeling that behind that wooden door there was something more important than his life right now.

When his hand touched the cold wood, a strange feeling ran down his spine, neither painful nor pleasant — it was like when we touch another person's memory, an understanding that needed no words. In his head, no voice rang out, no words appeared, only an absolute awareness, strangely certain, crept into his mind as if he had known this for a long time but had only just remembered: this was a gate. A gate connecting two eras separated by countless years. And it's as hungry as you were - hungry for something that a loner like you can't give it.

He gently pulled the closet door.

Inside were not rotten wooden planks as he thought. A dim space opened up, like a thin layer of mist covering another room — he caught a glimpse of a glossy ceramic tiled floor, soft white electric lights falling from the ceiling, a row of wooden shelves displaying carefully cleaned antique items, and in the distance, the steady hum of a spinning fan. A strangely cool stream of air, incredibly dry and clean, blew gently on his face, carrying a scent he couldn't name - a blend of varnished wood, old paper and something very modern, very foreign to the arid world he lived in.

Thua An was stunned. For a moment, he thought he was dead, and this was the door to another world. But the cold feeling of wood under his palm was still there, very real, very earthly.

He reached out to touch the mist. His fingers penetrated, touched the cool air of the other room, then withdrew again, still intact, unharmed. In a moment of crazy recklessness, he reached through with his whole hand, touching something hard and smooth — perhaps the edge of a wooden shelf. He grabbed a small object lying nearby and pulled it towards him.

At that moment, the pale blue light flared up violently for a moment, then went out.

The closet door slammed shut as if pushed back by an invisible hand, leaving Thua An sitting on the ground, his heart pounding, his breathing heavy as if he had just run a long distance even though he never lifted his feet from the seat. In his palm was a small object, so strange that he had to look closely under the dim starlight to realize what it was.

A small piece of paper, strangely thin and tough, not the do paper or copy paper he knew, but a pure, sturdy white paper, printed with tiny lines of letters that he didn't fully understand the meaning of but could still read - a sales receipt of some kind, with a few numbers and the name of a store: "Van Nien Antiques Shop". At the corner of the piece of paper there was still a streak of red ink, like a hastily stamped seal.

He sat silently for a long time, his trembling hand caressing that piece of paper as if afraid it would disappear at any moment. This is not an illusion. A gate really opened, even for just a few short seconds, connecting this dark, hungry world with somewhere bright, full, so strange that he didn't dare believe it existed in the same world as Bai Tro village.

He tried placing his hand on the closet door again, hoping the light would return. Nothing happened. The wood was still cold, still silent, like an ordinary door that had been closed tightly for a long time. He tried pushing, pulling, tapping every corner, looking for some secret organ like in the folk tales he vaguely remembered. Nothing. The gate was closed, and it seemed like it wouldn't open just because he wanted it open.

But the strange feeling of understanding from before still lingered in his mind, like the echo of a sentence that had yet to be spoken. This gate did not lack magic, did not lack mystical energy at all — it lacked something much simpler, something that a lonely person, alone in an abandoned warehouse like him, could not create on his own. He didn't know exactly what it was, he just felt a void, a dull lack, like an oil lamp running out of oil, just waiting to be refilled to burn again.

That night, Thua An did not die. The hunger was still there, his body was still exhausted, but in his heart, for the first time after many months of struggling day by day, something had changed. Not empty hope, but a concrete possibility, a real door waiting to be opened again, if he could find a way.

He clutched the small piece of paper in his hand, tucking it into his torn shirt, close to his chest, as if afraid of losing the only proof that he was not crazy. Outside the warehouse, the wind still blew across the dry fields, carrying the sound of distant barking dogs and the sound of someone coughing in the dark night. But Thua An, for the first time since coming to this dead land, felt like he had a reason to live another day — to find what that wooden cabinet was missing, and wake up that sleeping gate again.

He didn't know that what the closet was missing, the energy that could blow that gate back to life, was the most luxurious thing in this Year of Great Hunger - a home, someone to share with, a marriage built with sincerity, not calculation. And the person who will enter his life to bring that about, right now, is also huddled somewhere in the middle of the hungry market of Bai Tro village, just a few miles away from him, waiting for a small miracle so he doesn't have to collapse before dawn.