Chapter 7: Chapter 7 The Mad Temple Keeper — Ink on an Old Map

The old man's panic lasted for several minutes. He kept prostrate on the jagged rocky ground, burying his head in his thin arms, constantly muttering meaningless sentences about "red fire", "ghosts" and "moonless night".

Lê An slowly put the jungle knife in its sheath, keeping a safe distance, but still slowly took off the backpack. She took out a bottle of pure spring water and a package of dry food, peeled them and placed them lightly on a flat rock close to the old man's reach.

"Sir," An spoke softly, trying to convey safety through each syllable. "I'm not a person from the underworld. I'm a living person who came here from far away. Please drink some water to relieve your fatigue."

The rustling sound of nylon and the sound of rushing water seemed to awaken the wild man's basic survival instincts. The old man paused, his white, bloodshot eyes slowly looked up at the water bottle. He licked his chapped, dry lips. With a lightning-fast movement like that of a wild animal, he grabbed the bottle of water, gulped it down until he choked, the water spilled out of the corners of his mouth, running down his sticky beard. After that, he grabbed a piece of dry food and chewed it greedily.

It only took less than thirty seconds for the old man to consume all the food that An planned to consume for an entire afternoon. As his empty stomach was soothed, the madness in his eyes subsided a bit, replaced by wariness and curiosity.

"You... came in from outside?" The old man asked hoarsely, pointing towards the misty mountainside where An had just gone down. "They don't block roads anymore?"

"It's still forbidden, but I sneaked in through the forest," An replied honestly, slowly squatting down to eye level with him. "Have you lived here long? What is your name?"

The old man stared at An for a long time, seemingly trying to rearrange the fragments of memories in his brain that had suffered too much damage. "I... my name is Bay. Everyone calls me Seven Hunter. Living here... I don't know how many moons. Since that night of red fire."

"Mr. Bay." An swallowed, carefully asking the most important question. "Did you ever live in Đan Trầm village?"

Hearing the words "Đan Trầm", Mr. Bay's body trembled again, but this time he did not scream anymore. Cloudy, salty tears slowly oozed from the deep corners of her eyes, rolling along deep wrinkles like plow furrows on her cheeks. He covered his face and cried, the choked, angry sobs of a man who had embraced the pain of loneliness for half a century.

"My village... my family... my wife and children..." Mr. Bay sobbed. "I survived because of sin... That night, I was angry with my wife and went up to the limestone mountain to catch porcupines. I stood on the top of the high mountain, looked down... saw everything... saw all the crimes..."

"What did they do? What did Operation X-14 do to your village?" An stepped forward and grabbed Mr. Bay's thin arm. His hands were cold and calloused like dry tree bark.

Mr. Bay withdrew his hand and looked around wildly as if afraid of some invisible force. "Follow me. It's not safe here. The red devils can hear."

The old man picked up the machete, staggered to his feet, and signaled An to follow. He led her deep into the valley's western slopes, where a small waterfall poured down from steep cliffs. The noise of the waterfall drowned out all sounds of the mountains and forests. Mr. Bay squeezed through a narrow crack hidden behind a curtain of white water. An turned on the flashlight and followed.

Inside the crack is a dry cave with the faint smell of incense and incense smoke. As An's flashlight swept around the cave, she had to put her hand over her mouth to suppress a scream.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of rough wooden statues were stacked on top of each other, covering the cave walls. They are small pieces of wood, clumsily carved with a machete, carved with human faces. There are large statues, there are small statues, there are statues that are only as big as a child's fist. In front of each group of statues are incense burners made from bamboo tubes, filled with cooled incense sticks.

This is not a cave. This is a mausoleum. A mausoleum built by a crazy man to commemorate the hundreds of souls who were wiped out from the face of the earth.

Mr. Bay sat down in front of a group of small wooden statues, his eyes becoming painfully gentle. "My wife, Jasmine. My son, Ti. And the hedgehog who hasn't yet been named..." He caressed the lifeless wooden statues. "And this is the village chief, this is teacher Hung from the lowlands..."

"What happened that night, Mr. Bay?" An sat down next to him, her voice choked.

Mr. Bay closed his eyes, his face twitching. "It was a moonless night in April. The soldiers returned to the village. They did not wear normal military uniforms, but wore blue and black shirts, without any military insignia. The soldiers were very strange, their eyes were as cold as ice. They gathered all the villagers in the middle of the communal house yard. When the village chief came out to ask, a commander held a gun pointed at the sky and shot a powerful shot. They said there was an emergency order from the central government, Đan Trầm valley was requisitioned as a special strategic area. They asked all the villagers to relocate at night, no. may bring any property other than the clothes on their person."

"Where are they going to take everyone?" An asked.

"They said they would open a new economic zone off the highway," Mr. Bay smiled bitterly, a creepy smile. "But they lied. They deceived everyone. From the top of the mountain, I saw that they did not lead the villagers towards the forest gate. They drove all the old people, children, women, men... hundreds of people, back deep into the valley, towards the village's largest natural agarwood cellar."

"Agarwood bunker?" An frowned.

"Yes. Đan Trầm is rich thanks to agarwood. At the bottom of the valley there is a huge underground cave system, where the villagers have hidden and brewed agarwood for hundreds of years. Those strange soldiers drove the villagers down to the cellar under gunfire. Then they locked the cellar door. The village chief knelt down, my wife cried... I heard their voices echoing up to the top of the mountain."

An felt the air in the cave seem to freeze. She shivered, remembering the giant sinkhole filled with murky water outside the center of the valley.

"And then what?" An stammered.

"They started setting explosives," Mr. Bay said, his hands clutching the rock so tightly that they bled. "They buried dozens of drums of industrial explosives around the underground bunker. They pulled a slow-burn wire. At that time, I was about to rush down the mountain to risk my life with them, but... a flare shot up. And then... BOOM!"

The old man clutched his head and screamed in pain like a wounded animal. The screams echoing against the cave walls sounded so miserable and chilling.

"The ground exploded! The whole valley shook like an earthquake. Flames glowed red in a corner of the sky. Earth, rocks, and trees were thrown up dozens of meters high. The incense bunker collapsed, burying all my wife and children, burying the entire Đan Trầm village. The screams fell silent. Only the sound of crackling fire and the burning smell of gunpowder mixed with the smell of human flesh remained..."

An covered her mouth tightly, tears welling up. The brutality of the truth transcended all boundaries of imagination. Operation X-14 was not a relocation. The T-9 logistics station was just a cover. Their real purpose was to seize the huge agarwood treasure hidden underground. To cover up the clues forever so that no one could testify to the crime, they buried the entire village alive, plowed the ground to turn it into a blank area, and then reported it to their superiors as a top-secret military operation.

Then, they used that damn chemical ink to erase Đan Trầm's name from the map, completing the process of destroying a human community to plunder its property. And Colonel Hung, the commander of the Logistics Department at that time, if not the mastermind, was also the person most deeply involved in concealing this tragedy.

"They didn't let the villagers go..." Mr. Bay put his head down on the pillow and cried loudly. "They killed everyone to steal the agarwood... I'm a coward... I don't dare go down... I'm afraid of death... I'm a coward..."

An knelt down next to the old man, hugging his thin, trembling shoulders. She couldn't say a word, she could only cry with him. The darkness of history is sometimes too heavy, and anonymous gatekeepers like her, or like Mr. Bay, are the ones who have to buckle under the weight of that truth. Đan Trầm is not just a name erased from the map. Đan Trầm is a giant mass grave screaming for justice at the bottom of a foggy valley.