Chapter 8: Chapter 8 Fragments Beneath the Ground — Ink on an Old Map

Mr. Bay's horrifying story was like a thousand-pound rock collapsing, crushing all of Lê An's illusions about an administrative mistake or a simple military relocation campaign. Đan Trầm had not disappeared because of foreign bombs, nor had it been sacrificed for some great national benefit. It had been destroyed by people who carried the name of compatriots and wore blue military uniforms, driven by bottomless greed. The cellar containing natural agarwood—a priceless treasure that the people of the mountains and forests had guarded for generations—had eventually become a giant mass grave burying hundreds of innocent lives. That bitter truth made An's chest tighten until she could hardly breathe.

That night, the sky of the Central Highlands seemed to be indignant at the injustices that had just been recounted. A fierce tropical thunderstorm suddenly descended on the foggy valley. Lightning split the black night into terrifying visual fragments, roaring like fireworks falling from the air. The rain poured down, fiercely lashing the cat-eared cliffs, creating waterfalls of blood-red mud, frothing and turbid, flowing down to the bottom of the valley. The entire mountain and forest seemed to be screaming in a primordial rage.

An and Mr. Bay were forced to defend themselves in the narrow cave behind the roaring waterfall. The old man curled up in a dark, damp corner, clutching his head with both hands, his thin body shaking with each thunderclap. His mouth constantly muttered prayers for the souls who could not escape. To his traumatized mind, those thunderous explosions probably recalled the horrifying sound of tons of explosives collapsing the incense bunker on that moonless night.

An tore off a piece of foil thermal blanket from her survival backpack and covered the old man, trying to soothe his stiff shoulders. She herself sat with her knees bent against the cold cliff, staying up all night looking out into the dark space through the criss-crossing rain. She thought about her father and the proud history lessons she had learned at university. How many of those glorious victories were built on the sweat, tears, and forced silence of people like the villagers of Đan Trầm? Beyond the black ink stains on old maps, how many more black holes of crime were hidden?

The next morning, the storm dissipated as quickly as it came, leaving behind a damp and chilly atmosphere. The pale, weak sunlight penetrated through the thin layer of fog, shining dappled rays of light into the ragged valley after the hurricane.

An woke up Mr. Bay and convinced him to lead the way back to the giant sinkhole area in the center. The ground was muddy and as slippery as grease. Last night's terrible forest rain, with its huge flow of water, had eroded a large piece of rock and soil on the northern edge of the sinkhole. The destruction of nature had accidentally done something that human machines had not yet been able to do: sweep away the blackened topsoil that had sealed the scene, hiding the crime for half a century.

Standing precariously on the edge of the landslide, An squinted her eyes and looked down at the part of the cliff that had just been torn apart. Under the sunlight reflected after the rain, she keenly recognized a few tiny, sparkling objects mixed in with the layer of red basalt mud that was continuously oozing.

"Mr. Bay, you step back, be careful of the subsidence, I'll go down and take a look," An said, then carefully clinging to the roots of the old sycamore tree emerging from the ground, slowly swinging himself down the steep cliff. The slippery mud caused her to almost fall several times.

She chose a sturdy position on a protruding ledge, pulled her sharp jungle knife out of its sheath, and used the blade of the knife to gently brush away the wet mud covering those strange objects.

A piece of broken ceramic slowly appeared under the blade of the knife. An used a gloved finger to gently wipe away the layer of soil. The piece of pottery has jade green cracked glaze, a very delicate hand-painted chrysanthemum pattern, and a rustic drawing typical of the ceramics for civil life in the South Central Coast around the mid-twentieth century. No military base or forward logistics station would use fragile patterned ceramic dishes like this for daily activities. These are the utensils of ordinary families.

An continued to dig with her bare hands, ignoring the mud that covered her nails and splashed all over her face. Her heart pounded continuously with each gasp. The soil layer below this cliff was not natural sedimentary soil. It was soft and messy, filled with streaks of dark coal ash and... fragments of violently destroyed everyday lives.

A buffalo horn comb with half of its teeth broken was probably once in the long hair of a mountain woman. A bronze smoking pipe carved with a delicate dragon head was completely distorted and deformed due to the pressure of high temperature and explosion. Mixed in the red mud was a children's bracelet made of pure silver, tarnished and broken in half.

"This is it..." An whispered, tears welling up at the corners of her eyes again, dripping hot drops onto the cold ground. These inanimate objects are iron evidence, more eloquent and real than any paper documents being stored in cold storage in Hanoi. They prove that under this layer of plowed, blackened soil, there once existed a living, loving community with women, the elderly and children. It exposed the cruel lie of the X-14 file about an area completely under military jurisdiction and unpopulated.

Mr. Bay stood on the edge of the hole, saw the bronze pipe in An's hand, and immediately collapsed, bursting into tears like a child. "The village chief's pipe... He never left it for half a step, from the time he went to the fields until the time he went to sleep... The devils... they buried them all alive... Uncle!"

An picked up each item with absolute respect, carefully used water from a cardboard jar to wash away stubborn mud, and then wrapped them in small anti-static zip-top plastic bags used specifically to store evidence. She took her smartphone, turned on the flash and took photos of the entire scene, mapping the location of the items found, ensuring everything was recorded as objectively and scientifically as possible.

Suddenly, An's hand touched a hard rock a little deeper in the mud wall, right below the location of the silver bracelet. It's smooth, rectangular, about the size of a hardcover notebook. Her intuition told her this was not an inanimate stone.

She used both hands to forcefully pry the stone out of the sticky mud. The surface of the stone slab was blackened by smoke and rough, but still showed extremely delicate engravings. An brought the stone slab to a nearby puddle of rainwater, carefully using the hem of her jacket to scrub the stone surface.

The carved Chinese-Nom characters, painted with red lipstick even though they had faded with time and chemical damage, slowly appeared clearly under the light. An had studied a course on basic Hán Nôm at the University, enough for her to be able to read simple lines on epitaphs and genealogies.

She stroked along each engraving, muttering the spelling of each word.

*"Worshipping... Le Mon Duong Thuong... Đan Trầm Village... Established in the Year of the Rooster..."*

It is a tablet (deity) to worship the ancestors of a family with the surname Le in Đan Trầm village! It is the most sacred thing placed on the altar of a traditional Vietnamese family.

An sat down in the muddy puddle, her trembling hands clutching the cold stone tablet tightly to her chest, as if wanting to warm the souls who had wandered here for half a century. Here it was: final proof. Evidence that could not be denied or distorted.

If pieces of pottery, a smoking pipe or a bracelet can be disguised by sophists as belongings carried by logistics soldiers from down below or picked up on the march, then this stone tablet is absolute physical evidence. It confirms that the name "Đan Trầm Village" is not just an innocuous name censored on the 1968 map, but a spiritual entity, a natural administrative unit with a family, a belief, and deep roots in this land long before the bombs and bullets of the war arrived.

The order "Erased. Leave no trace" of the dark forces of the past could not successfully complete its task. Mother Nature, through last night's rainstorm, tore away that layer of lies, giving Đan Trầm a loud voice after half a century of silence.

An took her phone, opened the camera app, and took dozens of pictures of the tablet from many different angles, zooming in on each stroke of the Hán-Nôm characters. She knew that what she held was not just a heavy spiritual stone, but a slow-burning bomb with enough destructive power to destroy the political careers of the perpetrators and those who continued to cover up the crime, from Colonel Hung to the leaders of the current Archives Center.

"Mr. Bay." An climbed up the edge of the cliff, covered in mud, and walked over to hold the old man's shaking hand. "I promise you, I promise the village chief, I promise the Le family, the deceased will not die in vain. I will bring these things back to Hanoi. I will bring the truth to light, so that Đan Trầm's name will be rewritten on the map, not with black ink to cover up lies, but with the red ink of historical truth." Mr. Bay looked at the resilient young girl in front of him, his crazy eyes seemed to soften. He nodded, giving a wry smile, both sad and shining with a thin ray of hope. "You have to be careful... They are still out there... Their power reaches very far, farther than the top of Hòn Sương mountain..."

An carefully wrapped the tablet in the thickest jacket, placed it in the middle of the backpack, and tightly packed it with other items to prevent impact. She knew Mr. Bay was right. Holding this evidence in her hand means she officially declared war on a system of power that has covered up this crime for decades. The biggest battle is not at the bottom of this muddy, foggy valley, but in the capital, in air-conditioned rooms with high walls, where history is written, censored and erased by the nods of those in power.

She has to face Mr. Khang, Colonel Hung, and possibly even more high-ranking figures. But An is no longer afraid. An archivist's heart beat in unison with the unjust souls of Đan Trầm village. She will return. And history will certainly have to be rewritten.