Chapter 19 — Between Two Worlds: A Bride Exchanged for a Dumpling

The biggest trading market of the year opened with unprecedented brilliance. Hundreds of stalls are set up close together along the main road leading to Bai Tro village. Merchants from all neighboring villages came, bringing cloth, livestock, and first-season agricultural products. The sounds of selling goods, the sounds of bargaining, and the sounds of children laughing mixed together into a chaotic but vibrant song - a sound that this entire land had not heard during three years of continuous drought.

Thua An and Tieu Mien stood in the middle of their main booth, which displayed the most typical products that the business they built. Representatives of the district government, as expected, were also present to supervise this important market. Everything seems to be going smoothly. But Thua An knows, this is just the calm before the storm.

Ma Dac Uy appeared at noon, leading a group of people. He walked straight to Thua An's stall, his voice was loud enough for the whole market to hear.

"Ky Thua An! Today, in front of the government and all the relatives, I must expose your true face!"

The crowd immediately stopped and surrounded. The whispers rose like ocean waves. Ma Dac Uy raised his hand and pointed straight at Thua An.

"This person not only has a shady source of wealth. He also hides an illicit relationship with a demon woman in another world, cheating on his beautiful wife for a long time!"

He turned to the accompanying guard and signaled to bring out the "evidence". But when the guard opened the small wooden box in front of the crowd, his face turned pale. Inside is empty.

Ma Dac Uy was stunned. The brooch and the letter — which he was sure were still in his hands — had disappeared without a trace. He did not know that Tieu Ha had taken them back a few days ago.

"No way," he muttered, sweat beading on his forehead.

The crowd began to whisper, attention gradually shifted from suspicion to suspicion of the accuser himself. But Ma Dac Uy had gone too far to retreat. He shouted, pointing at a few people standing in the crowd - people he had bribed before.

"Someone saw it with their own eyes! Say it, don't be afraid!"

Some people pretended to hesitate, then spoke up to confirm baseless rumors, their tone was stiff and unnatural. But among the confused crowd, those false testimonies were still enough to sow more doubts.

The representative of the district government stepped forward, his face solemn. He had witnessed the previous unjust search. This time, he did not immediately believe it.

"Village Chief Ma," he spoke, his voice cold. "You accuse a serious crime, but the evidence is empty. Your witnesses falter and disagree with their testimony. Do you understand the consequences of slandering before the government?"

Ma Dac Uy turned pale, but there was no way back. He gritted his voice, trying to salvage it. "Sir, please give me more time. This officer definitely has evidence, it's just that someone..."

"Stolen the fake evidence that you orchestrated?" A voice rang out from the back of the crowd. Tieu Ha walked out, holding a stack of papers. "If the village chief wants to talk about evidence, I have the testimony of the ghostwriter, confirming that it was you who paid to write that anonymous letter."

The crowd roared. His eyes turned to Ma Dac Uy, no longer with suspicion, but with growing anger.

Cornered, Ma Dac Uy could no longer keep calm. He roared, his face red with distress. "It's all slander to the contrary! No one, arrest Ky Thua An immediately, re-search all of his assets according to the authority of my village chief!"

A few of his remaining henchmen rushed forward, intending to arrest Thua An right in the middle of the market. The crowd panicked and moved to both sides. Screams and sounds of collapse rang out from a nearby stall that was pushed aside. The district representative shouted loudly and ordered his soldiers to intervene, but the crowd was too large and too chaotic to be controlled immediately.

Tieu Mien clenched her hands, stepped up and stood next to her husband, blocking Thua An and the oncoming group of henchmen. She was not afraid.

At the same time, an unfathomable amount of time away, at the Van Nien Antiques Shop, another chaotic scene was taking place.

Kieu The Vy pushed the door open and rushed into the back room, followed by two large men. Pham Dinh Nam is standing next to the wooden cabinet, preparing for the largest exchange ever - the amount of goods serving the market makes the gate operate stronger than ever, and the pale blue light is radiating brilliantly and with unusual stability.

"That's enough, Nam," Kieu The Vy said, her voice cold. "I don't want any more shares. I want full control of this thing."

"You don't understand what you're doing!" Pham Dinh Nam stood in front of the gate, his voice shaking with anger. "This is not a money printing machine for you to take over. There is a real person on the other side, a real family depending on it!"

"That's better," Kieu The Vy smirked coldly. "Once I control this gate, I will decide who gets what."

He signaled the two men to come forward, intending to pull Pham Dinh Nam aside to approach the cabinet himself. Pham Dinh Nam resisted fiercely, but his strength could not compete with two strong men.

Pham Dinh Nam refused to give up. He threw himself between Kieu The Vy and the cabinet, shouting loudly for the neighborhood security guards, even though he knew that even if they arrived in time, the strange events that were happening could not be clearly explained to anyone. One of the two men tugged on his shoulder, pushing him face down onto the tile floor. Kieu The Vy walked past him, straight to the door, placing both hands on the vibrating wooden surface.

"Open," he hissed through gritted teeth, trying to push the door wider, greedily wanting to take in all of the light rolling behind the mist.

The moment Kieu The Vy's hand touched the wooden cabinet door, intending to reach in and directly interfere with the flowing energy, the pale blue halo suddenly vibrated violently, not because of him, but because of another, much more distant cause.

In Bai Tro village, amidst the crowd stirring up Ma Dac Uy's accusations, Tieu Mien felt a sharp pain in her chest - not fear, but an invisible tension that was tightening the very thread connecting her and Thua An. She looked up at her husband and saw that his face also changed color for a moment, as if he had just sensed something wrong from afar.

Two crises, in two separate eras, are happening at the same time, resonating with each other through the trembling gate between the lines of collapse. Marriage, honor, career, and even the magical portal connecting two worlds — all are hanging on a fragile thread, just waiting for one final tug to break them forever.

In the middle of the market, Ma Dac Uy's henchmen approached. A guy waved his hand to grab Thua An's collar. Tieu Mien did not shy away, standing right in front of her husband, her eyes glowing with an indomitableness that no one had ever seen in this inherently gentle woman.

"If you want to catch my husband, you have to go through me first," she shouted, her voice echoing throughout the chaotic market.

That sentence made the guy stop for a split second. But behind him, Ma Dac Uy was still screaming and urging, there was nothing left to lose. The crowd spread out into a circle, both scared and curious, not knowing how this scene would end.

In the distance, Thua An's eyes suddenly caught sight of the faces of several families he had helped during the worst famine days, standing in the crowd, their eyes filled with anger on behalf of their benefactors. But just as he could think of calling them to speak up, a sudden dizziness struck, bringing with it the blurred image of the unfamiliar back room where Pham Dinh Nam was struggling with Kieu The Vy, as if his own mind was being torn between two worlds that simultaneously demanded his presence.

He staggered, one hand holding his head, the other hand still holding Tieu Mien tightly. Both worlds, both wars, are now converging on one fateful moment, leaving no room for any hesitation. The roar of the crowd, the sound of the wooden door in the far back room creaking and struggling, all blended together into a single chaotic sound, signaling that the final boundary was about to be broken, and in just a moment, everything they had worked so hard to build could collapse irreversibly.