Chapter 4 — Between Two Worlds: A Bride Exchanged for a Dumpling

Half a month after that night of hasty worship, the gate in the abandoned warehouse was no longer a weak light that suddenly flashed and then went out. Every night, when Tieu Mien fell asleep, Thua An quietly left the kitchen wing, placed his hand on the wooden cabinet door, and every night, that pale blue halo of light appeared more clearly, lasting a little longer than the previous night. On the fifteenth night, when he opened the door, the mist separating the two worlds no longer disappeared after a few seconds like before, but remained stable long enough for him to clearly see the entire room on the other side - a neat back room, wooden shelves displaying antiques, and a small table against the wall, on which were neatly placed a few old notebooks.

He stood silently for a long time, his heart pounding at this rare opportunity. This was the first time the gate was truly "open" in the true sense, stable enough for him to try something more serious than just watching. He remembered an old ceramic vase he had found in a corner of the warehouse, left over from the inheritance of a rich man who had died of starvation years ago - an object whose true value he did not know, but his hunch told him that it was not ordinary.

He placed the vase in a corner of the shelf on the other side of the gate, careful not to disturb what was already in the room, then closed the closet door, wondering what would happen next.

The next morning, when he returned to open the gate, the ceramic vase was gone. In its place was a small sack containing pure white rice, a medicine box with intact labels with clearly printed words that he did not fully understand but guessed the use through the illustrations, and a neatly folded piece of paper with neat, careful handwriting.

He trembled as he opened the piece of paper and read it. The lines, although unfamiliar in modern writing, were still clear enough for him to understand the content: the writer named Pham Dinh Nam, the owner of an antique shop that had been passed down for three generations, said that his grandfather had told him something strange before he passed away — that there was a wooden cabinet in the back room, seemingly just an old decoration, but was actually a "door" connecting to somewhere far away, and one day, someone would appear from the other side. Grandfather told him that if that happened, be sincere, don't be greedy, and don't betray trust.

Pham Dinh Nam wrote that he sold the ceramic vase for a small price to a collector - it turned out to be a rare antique, so ancient that experts were amazed - and with the proceeds, he used to buy rice and medicine to send back, keeping a small part for expenses, the rest will be stored carefully, waiting for Thua An to give instructions on how to use it next.

Reading this, Thua An couldn't help but laugh out loud in the quiet warehouse, a laugh that was both relieved and emotional. Finally, after many days of groping in the darkness of despair, he found a real path — not a gratuitous miracle, but a concrete opportunity, requiring him to be wise and careful to take advantage of it sustainably.

He brought back a bag of rice and a box of medicine and hid them carefully in the corner of the kitchen wing before Tieu Mien woke up. When she asked about the origin of that unexpected food, he had prepared an explanation that made him feel guilty about lying to his wife who had put all her trust in him, but he was not brave enough to reveal the strange truth behind it.

“I found a secret vault in the warehouse floor,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. "Probably where the old rich man hid his wealth in case of chaos. I dug up some and traded it for rice and medicine from a merchant passing through the area."

Tieu Mien looked at him, her eyes slightly surprised but not too suspicious - in the midst of famine, stories about buried wealth were not uncommon, and she had no reason to doubt the husband who had always treated her kindly for the past half month. She was just happy with the medicine box and quickly asked if she could use it for the sick children in the neighborhood.

"We should share some of it with the neediest people in the village first," she suggested, her eyes steady. "If you really have more wealth, please don't keep it all for yourself. Many families have young children and elderly people who are about to die."

That suggestion made Thua An smile slightly. This is exactly what he was thinking, and the fact that Tieu Mien proactively said it made him even more confident about his choice. He nodded and promised to find a way to distribute some food and medicine to the most needy families, although he had to be careful not to attract too much attention.

In letters exchanged over the next week, Thua An gradually learned more about the man on the other side of the gate. Pham Dinh Nam wrote that his family kept the wooden cabinet a secret for three generations, viewing it as both a curse and a favor left by their ancestors - no one in the family dared to touch it, no one dared to tell outsiders, only silently telling each other to wait patiently. He confessed that during nearly ten years of taking care of the shop, nothing had ever happened to that cabinet, to the point that he himself gradually suspected that it was just a myth his grandfather made up in his old age. Until the night the ceramic vase appeared.

Thua An, in his response letter, did not dare to reveal too much about his true situation — he only wrote briefly that he was living in a famine land, needing food and medicine more than anything, and in return, he could provide ancient items that were abundant in the place where he lived but no one valued anymore in the midst of survival. The two people, although separated by an immeasurable amount of time, gradually established a quiet trust through each short letter: Pham Dinh Nam pledged to set a fair price, not to cheat, not to be greedy beyond the agreed level; Thua An promised to only exchange what is truly redundant, not to abuse the gate for selfish purposes.

In the days that followed, Thua An began to establish a cautious rhythm of trade through the gate. Every night, he brought a few antiques he found in the abandoned treasures of the warehouse - old dishes, jewelry, sometimes even broken pieces of pottery that, according to Pham Dinh Nam's writing, still had great archaeological value - put them into the gate, then received back rice, medicine, sometimes simple tools such as knives, hoes, or drought-resistant seeds that Pham Dinh Nam skillfully found and helped buy at his request.

He carefully divided the amount of food he received, not bringing back too much at once to avoid causing suspicion, but distributing it scatteredly in the name of "exchanging work", "borrowing", or simply sharing with the closest neighbors first. He and Tieu Mien worked together to figure out who to help first, who was in the most critical situation, turning the distribution of wealth into an organized job instead of giving on a whim.

News about Thua An's "secret vault of wealth" gradually spread throughout the village, accompanied by admiration and curiosity from the neighbors when they saw that his house suddenly had rice to eat and medicine to treat while the whole area was dying of hunger and thirst. Thua An knew that this was just the beginning — the more wealth, the more attention, and the potential dangers will increase accordingly. But now, seeing the grateful eyes of the neighborhood children when they received fever-reducing medicine, seeing the rare smiles returning to the faces of some elderly people in the neighborhood, he felt all the risks were worth it.

The first family they helped was a widowed carpenter, with three small children who were feverish from exhaustion and thought they would not survive this season. When Tieu Mien brought the medicine and personally fed spoonfuls of the medicinal liquid to the children, the carpenter knelt down and tried to bow his head in thanks, causing her to panic and support him with tears in her eyes. Next is an old woman who lived alone since her son left the village to search for food. She was given a small portion of rice enough to last another half a month. Each time, Tieu Mien reminded Thua An to keep the story quiet, only saying "an acquaintance helped", avoiding revealing that the source of that wealth came from their own family, for fear of attracting unnecessary jealous looks.

Also during those busy days, there were a few times Tieu Mien silently looked at the distant horizon, softly mentioning her lost sister. "I wonder how Tieu Ha is now," she whispered, her voice filled with worry. "If he's still alive, he's probably suffering a lot." Thua An took her hand, without promising anything too big, just softly saying that once his career was a little more stable, he would help her find out news and find a way to bring her sister back. That promise, even though it was still vague, was enough to make Tieu Mien feel somewhat lighter amidst all the chaos and worries.

That night, while sitting next to Tieu Mien on the porch, looking at the weak new moon hanging in the dusty sky, Thua An silently thought about the journey ahead. He doesn't know where this gate will lead him, or what the real secret behind it is, but he knows one thing for sure: every bag of rice he brings home, every dose of medicine he distributes, is weaving a new bond between him, Tieu Mien and the whole village struggling in the midst of this Great Hunger Year. And that thread, although fragile, is becoming what sustains the very gate that saved his life in the most desperate night.