Chapter 7 — Chinh The Muu

The candlelight shook violently, I sat on the edge of the bed, one hand placed on the back of his hand, two dark circles under my eyes. His fingers moved slightly, and I immediately woke up.

“…what happened in the end.”

He was silent for a long time.

“It is the emperor's calculation.” His voice was like being crushed by gravel, word by word pressed out:

"When he was injured to the point that his life was in danger, he felt at ease. When he was injured to the point where he only had half his life left, he believed...I was back. I just wanted to give this life back to you."

I held his hand, outside the door the snow was falling without a sound, in the room there was only the occasional crackling sound of candle wicks. Then he asked Tiet Uyen. I said she was gone, I had come to see her, during the days when the Cam Y Guard surrounded the palace, I came to ask her, that year did she really not love Bui Chieu, she sat in the corner of the wall, holding that empty diaper, raised her head to look at me, her eyes were clear, just like when she knelt in a pool of blood and said "I was not wrong", still as clear as that.

“You tell me.” She said.

After a moment of silence, she opened her mouth again:

"I was seven years old and already knew him, but Thuan Uun Ninh, you and I are different. The day the whole family was beheaded, I stood on the corner of the street, watching a hundred or so dozens of my family members being escorted out, my father, my mother, my brother, my wife, my three-year-old niece, one by one, kneeling at the execution site of the vegetable market, the knife slashed down, blood splattered, I counted, one hundred and thirty-seven knives."

Her voice was very calm.

"From that day I knew, everything in this world is fake, love is real, but love can't save lives, Bui Chieu loves me, but he can't even save his own life. I want to live, is it wrong?"

She pulled the diaper in her lap a little higher.

“You ask me if I love him, I love, I have loved since I was seven years old, but what is the use of love, can love bring my father back to life, can love bring Niem An back to life, can love bring back to life the nanny, she raised Niem An, every sip she breastfed for me, she was beaten to death, because I told her to come to the door of Ba Quy palace, I owe her, I owe Niem An, I owe everyone, I don't pay floating anymore.”

She bowed her head, pressing her face against the diaper.

“You go, if he comes back, I'm afraid I'll die by his hands.”

I placed the civil registration document on the table. He had changed the civil registration for her. She was no longer Tiet Uyen's daughter of the gods. Next to the document was a stack of money bills.

“You go, wait for him to return, you will truly die by his hands.”

She looked at the document, looked at it for a long time, then took it back and hid it in her chest.

“Why did you help me?”

“I don't have to help you.”

She left, not knowing where she went, a long time later asked someone to bring back a box of lipstick, saying that in the South there was a shop, selling lipstick, living very well, I opened the box of powder to smell it, it was the smell of cinnamon flowers, in the yard of Tiet family's old house there used to be a cinnamon tree, before she was seven years old, every autumn cinnamon flowers bloomed to cover the entire tree, her father would pick her up, let her reach out to pick the highest branch. After the age of seven, she no longer smelled cinnamon flowers. After listening, Bui Chieu was silent for a long time, outside the window the snow was still falling. He didn't ask any more. The Queen Mother loves our daughter very much. That child grew up exactly like the Princess Truong when she was young. Every time we see her, The Queen Mother hugged the child in her arms, caressing the child's small face, absent-mindedly. She never asked the Princess Truong, she just held the child, caressing the child's eyebrows and eyes over and over again. One day she suddenly opened her mouth.

"Tri Doanh was like that when he was young, he didn't like to cry, he liked to laugh. Every time he smiled, there was a small dimple on his left cheek." Her finger touched the left cheek of the eldest daughter's grandmother, where there was a faint dimple, the child giggled, the Queen Mother also laughed, laughing until tears fell.

Then many years passed. The wound on Bui Chieu's body healed then recurred, recurred then healed again, the most recent recurrence tormented him for half a year before he could get out of bed, the first day he could stand up, he walked out of the hospital, his daughter was building a snowman, when she saw him she froze for a moment, then ran to hug his leg. He bent down and picked up his daughter. The pale scar on her neck appeared white in the snow light. Her daughter reached out to touch him and asked if he was in pain. My son, who was sparring with his martial arts master, heard the movement and stopped and ran to hug his other leg... "carry me...carry me" He bent down, put the daughter down, then sat down and hugged both of them, a girl and a boy, in his arms. He said it didn't hurt, he was cured soon. I stood in the hallway looking at them, snow falling on his shoulders, falling in his hair. The girl reached out to pick up the snowflake, and when she caught it, she held it up in front of his eyes for him to see. He looked at the small drop of water in her palm, looked at it very attentively for a moment, and said, it's so beautiful.