Chapter 3: Chapter 3 Đan Trầm Village Doesn't Exist — Ink on an Old Map

The next morning, Lê An applied for ten days' leave. The reason was briefly stated: "Resolving family matters," Chief Khang frowned as he signed off but said nothing, perhaps thinking a break from her old maps would cool her head from conspiracy theories.

But An had no intention of resting. Immediately after leaving the office, her first destination was not a relaxing café or shopping mall, but the National Library of Vietnam, which stored the immense documentary treasures of Indochina.

With the Archives Center's senior researcher card, An could easily access documents restricted to the reading room. Her goal was clear: find a name, a note, or even a census number related to the words "Đan Trầm" from before 1968.

She started with land records and population census books from the French colonial period in the 1930s, then from 1945, 1954, until the early 1960s. Dozens of books were thick, with yellowed paper that crumbled under each gentle turn. An's eyes blurred because of the numbers and places in Hán Nôm or ancient phonetic Vietnamese characters.

She found hundreds of villages in the Northern Central Highlands—Kon Plong, Dak To, Plei Kan—but there was absolutely no administrative unit named "Đan Trầm." It was like a ghost, never recorded in any state-management system.

"That's strange," An muttered, rubbing her stinging eyes after five hours of staring at blurry pages. "A village large enough to be marked on a 1:50,000 topographic map cannot possibly be absent from the land register. Unless..."

Unless it is not recognized as a legal administrative unit. Or, it was removed from all records before the 1968 map was drawn.

Feeling stuck with the manual search method, An decided to call for help from Nam - a close friend who studied in the same History course at the University in the past, and is currently working as a spatial data analyst (GIS) at a prestigious geographical research institute.

Two hours later, Nam was at a small cafe hidden in an alley near the National Library. In contrast to An's calm, somewhat classic appearance, Nam has the appearance of a true technology nerd with thick glasses, a wrinkled t-shirt and a backpack containing a powerful laptop.

"What trouble have you gotten yourself into again, you crazy archivist?" Nam teased while sipping a cup of peach orange lemongrass tea, his hand quickly opening the laptop lid. "It sounded very urgent from your voice over the phone. Don't tell me you're planning to prove that a certain famous general doesn't actually exist."

"It's serious, Nam." An showed her friend a sketch of the coordinates 14°N - 108°E and a drawing of the letters "D-a-n T-r-m" that she had reconstructed from black ink. "I need you to use the GIS system to scan all topographic maps, old satellite images, or military geographical survey records of both France, the US and the Republic of Vietnam before 1968 at these coordinates."

Nam pushed up his glasses and looked intently at the paper. "Đan Trầm? That sounds like the name of some strange man. Do you suspect there is any gold in this place, why do you force me to use the institute's VIP account to look up confidential data like this?"

"It's not gold, it's a village," An whispered, leaning forward. "I just discovered that its name was blacked out with top-secret chemical ink on the strategic map of Military Region V in 1968. But I searched the national geographic archive this morning, and it completely does not exist in any administrative system."

Hearing the words "top secret chemical ink", Nam's facial expression immediately changed. He stopped laughing, his fingers rattling the keys at breakneck speed. The laptop screen displays dark data access interfaces with lines of code running like waterfalls.

"Okay, let's see," Nam muttered. "Administrative map system... None. Land survey data of the Republic of Vietnam in 1965... None. Rural population report... Neither."

"Try going back to the French colonial period," An suggested impatiently. "Those coordinates lie deep in a very rugged valley. It could have been a spontaneous settlement of ethnic minorities or people fleeing the rubber plantations." Nam nodded, changed the search keywords and connected to the digitized database of the French National Library (Gallica). This time, the system took longer to respond. Suddenly, a small "beep" sounded. On the screen appeared a page scanned from the book "Journal of Indochinese Geological Survey" published in 1930.

"Here it is!" Nam pointed at the screen, his voice excited. "Look. The coordinates are exact."

An leaned forward, straining her eyes to read the French words Nam had bolded:

*"At latitude 14 North, longitude 108 East, nestled between two arc-shaped mountain ranges, we discovered a small settlement with about fifty thatched roofs. Local people call this area the Đan Trầm (Đan Trầm) Valley. It is unclear what ethnic group they belong to, but they live completely isolated, are self-sufficient, and possess an extremely unique technique for extracting agarwood essential oil. This land has never been used by the Huế court or the government for tax collection or protection."*

"It really exists!" An exclaimed, feeling an electric current run through her body. Her intuition had been correct. Đan Trầm was not a printing error. It was a human community of flesh and blood.

"Existed in 1930," Nam emphasized, his expression turning serious. "But you have to understand this, An. If it existed in 1930, but was erased from all records systems of both France, the US and the Saigon government afterwards, and then finally erased by our army with ink forever on the map in 1968... then that is not an omission of history."

Nam folded the laptop screen in half and looked straight into An's eyes with a warning look. "It's an apocalypse."

"Extinction?" An shivered, feeling a chill run down her spine despite the summer heat. "What are you talking about?"

"I work on geospatial, I've read a lot of documents about 'ghost villages' during the war," Nam lowered his voice, looking around the cafe. "During the war, there were villages that were flattened by napalm bombs, which was a crime by the enemy. But there were also villages located in very sensitive strategic locations. They could be forcibly relocated, burned to the ground by the resistance to make 'empty gardens', or worse... they were flattened to build top secret military projects that neither the people nor the enemy were allowed to know about."

Nam took a gulp of tea, swallowing hard. "If Đan Trầm's name is blackened with high-level intelligence ink, then it belongs to the third case. People don't just want to hide its location from the enemy. People want to completely erase the memory of its existence to cover up something more terrible. An, you are touching a 'forbidden area' of history. Secrets like this are often protected by people who are still alive, and they will not hesitate to do everything to let it continue to sleep."

Nam's warning did not make An hesitate. On the contrary, it further ignited the fire of desire to find the truth in the young archivist's heart. Hundreds of people in that valley could not just evaporate from the earth without leaving an echo.

"I understand the risks," An said with a gentle smile, putting the sketch paper in her bag. "But the truth is not at fault, Nam. The people of Đan Trầm do not deserve to be turned into a mindless ink blot. I have to find them."

"What are you going to do next?" Nam sighed, knowing that he couldn't stop his stubborn friend.

"Before buying train tickets to the Central region, I need to ask about the people who carried guns in Military Region V at that time," An replied, her gaze steady. "I have an uncle who is a veteran. He didn't participate in the Central Highlands campaign, but he can connect me with someone who was there."

An paid the water bill, walked out of the café, and joined the hustle and bustle beneath the bright sun of the capital. She did not know that her decision to turn over that old map would put her on a train without a return ticket, carrying her into a storm of memories waiting to explode after half a century of burial.