Chapter 14 — Forest Keeper

The road to the top of Pu Cai is much steeper and more dangerous than Khue's usual patrol routes. From early Saturday morning, she and Nguyen set out, carrying all the surveying equipment, climbing over sharp rocks and slippery moss-covered slopes after recent rains.

The higher you go, the thinner and colder the air becomes, and the fog begins to form around the large rocks, creating a scene that is both majestic and somewhat gloomy. Khue walked in silence most of the time, each step bringing her closer to the place she had avoided for eight years, the emotions in her heart rolling like an uncontrollable underground river.

"Are you okay?" Nguyen asked, when they stopped to rest next to a large rock, not far from Pu Cai peak.

"I'm not sure," Khue answered honestly, sitting down, her hands shaking slightly as she poured water from the thermos. "The last time I came here was the day of the symbolic funeral, when the family scattered some incense ashes into the crevice of the rock because they could not bring my father's body up completely due to the terrain being too dangerous at that time."

Nguyen sat down next to her, didn't say anything, just placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, a simple gesture of comfort but enough for Khue to feel he was there, facing this painful memory with her.

"I remember, when I was little, every time I followed my father to this area, he always told me to stay close to the cliff and not to hang around near the edge," Khue continued, her voice as if she were talking to herself rather than to Nguyen, her eyes looking distantly at the clouds playing around the distant mountain peaks. "You're the most careful person I've ever known in the woods. No one has ever heard of you slipping, not even once, in your twenty years of working."

"That only strengthens our suspicions," Nguyen said, his voice gentle but firm. "A person with such extensive experience, understanding the terrain down to every centimeter, cannot easily make basic mistakes that lead to fatal accidents, unless some unexpected factor intervenes - it's dark, heavy rain obstructs visibility, or..." he stopped, not wanting to continue with the scariest hypothesis.

"Or there is someone," Khue finished the sentence, her voice strangely cold, as if saying it out loud helped her control the pain roiling inside. "I've thought about it for a long time, Nguyen. I just never had the courage to believe it completely, until today."

Nguyen gently squeezed her shoulder without saying anything else, giving her time to mentally prepare before they continued the final stretch of road leading to the scene.

After a few minutes of rest, they continued their journey, and finally, around noon, they reached the rock crevice area identified in investigation records eight years ago as the place where Mr. Nong Van Thai's body was found. Khue stood still at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the deep rock crevice below, the pent-up emotions of eight years rushing back like a big wave.

Nguyen stood quietly next to her, giving her time and space. Only when he saw her take a deep breath and quickly wipe away the tears that had just rolled down, did he gently speak. "Shall we start the survey?"

Khue nodded, regained his professional composure, and the two began systematically surveying the terrain. Nguyen used a slope meter to record parameters at many different points along the edge of the cliff, while Khue took panoramic photos to compare with what she remembered from old reports.

After more than an hour of meticulous surveying, Nguyen called Khue back and pointed to the meter screen. "Look here, along the entire edge of the cliff within the range described by the report, the average slope is only about thirty-five to forty degrees, this is the type of terrain that can easily cause people to slip, but usually results in slipping and rolling down the slope, not a vertical free fall."

He led her to a specific spot where there was a rocky outcrop, much higher than the surrounding terrain. "This is the only spot in the entire area with a near-vertical slope, high enough to produce the type of concentrated trauma described in the autopsy report. But looking closely at this location, it is located about four hundred meters off the main patrol road, not a place a normal patrolman would pass by, unless there was a special reason to be here."

Khue stood looking at the cliff, a cold feeling spreading throughout his body that had nothing to do with the air temperature. "What you mean is, to fall from this exact location, causing the injuries described, my father would have to be standing here, somewhere far from his usual patrol route."

"Exactly," Nguyen confirmed, his voice serious. "Either he had a reason to be here — maybe he was watching, observing something — or..." he hesitated, not wanting to say what was on his mind.

"Or he was brought here, pushed down from this exact position," Khue finished her sentence, her voice cold as ice but the hand clutching the hem of her shirt trembled with intense emotion.

They continued to survey the area around the cliff, and at that moment, when Khue knelt down to check the rock crevice near the edge, she discovered a small object stuck in the crack, which had been almost completely covered by rocks and moss over eight years. She carefully used a small wooden stick to pry it out, her heart pounding when she realized what it was.

A small piece of steel cable, rusted but still recognizable in its distinctive shape — the same type of cable she obtained from the trap that killed Nau's mother langur just a few weeks ago.

"Nguyen, look at this," she called, her voice shaking with excitement, holding up the rusty cable for him to see.

Nguyen approached, carefully examined the evidence, and compared it with the photos of the new cable section that Khue had saved on his phone. "Same type of wire, same braiding pattern, except this section is much older, at least eight or nine years old based on the level of rust and weathering."

"If my father accidentally discovered a trap set here, near this location, and someone didn't want him to report that discovery..." Khue let the sentence hang in the air, not having the courage to complete the thought that was forming in his head.

Nguyen carefully put the cable into a specialized plastic bag he brought with him, meticulously noted the GPS coordinates, the depth of the found location, and the weathering condition of the evidence in his notebook. "We need to keep the chain of evidence preservation as tight as possible," he explained when he saw Khue following his movements. "If an official investigation agency gets involved in the future, they will need to know exactly how, where, and by whom the evidence was found to ensure legality."

Khue nodded, secretly grateful for his thoughtfulness and professionalism, things that she, in the excitement of a child searching for the truth about her father, might have missed if she were alone. She continued to observe the area around the cliff, and discovered another small but notable detail — a few faint engravings on a nearby rock, mostly covered by moss, but when she pushed away the moss, she noticed that they were not natural engravings but shaped like a symbol, almost similar to one of the symbols her father used to use in his notebook to mark important points on the patrol route.

“This could be a sign my father left behind, marking this spot as a point of interest,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion, taking a close-up photo of the sign. "Exactly the same type of symbols you used in your notebook."

Nguyen looked carefully at the image and nodded in agreement. "If that's true, it means he's been here before, not just by chance, but has been monitoring the area on purpose, perhaps gathering evidence of the trap or of mining activity nearby."

They spent another half hour carefully surveying the surrounding area, taking photos, marking exact coordinates, and collecting a few more soil and rock samples near the cable as evidence. Both understood that, although this was not strong enough evidence to definitively confirm a murder, it was an important piece of the puzzle, directly connecting the scene of the "accident" eight years ago with the sophisticated cable traps that were still being used by the same lines today.

On the way down the mountain, when the afternoon light began to turn yellow, Khue stopped one last time, turning to look at the cliff where her father may have breathed his last breath. She placed a bouquet of wildflowers she picked along the way on a nearby stone, stood still for a long time, tears rolling down her cheeks that she was no longer trying to suppress.

"Dad," she whispered, her voice choking, "I've found a clue. I won't stop until I find out the whole truth, and bring those who did this to you to justice."

Nguyen stood back a bit, giving her space for this sacred moment, but when Khue turned around, his eyes red but full of determination, he walked over, gently hugged her, without saying a word. Khue let herself sink into that embrace for a moment, feeling the warmth and stability that was helping her stand firm through the most painful moment in her journey to find the truth.

"We will bring the truth to light," Nguyen said softly in her ear, his voice as firm as an oath. "I promise to accompany you to the end."

They continued down the mountain in the gradually falling sunset, carrying not only the precious physical evidence they had just collected, but also a new, deeper bond, forged through this painful but meaningful moment, between two people who together faced the ghosts of the past to find the way to truth and justice.