Chapter 5 — Mist Peak Rescue Team

"Be careful, it's not safe to kick under your feet!" Bao Khang shouted, but the sound of the wind swallowed half of his words before it could reach the ears of the person in front.

Team B was following a steep rocky slope west of Sa Mu peak, where the weathered rock crumbled into small patches under a layer of moss damp from dew. Visibility had dropped to about fifteen meters from thirty when last reported, and Kien, in the lead, was trying to find a higher point to get a wider view before deciding whether to continue or not.

"How far is it to the observation point you mentioned?" Long, the middle person, asked, his voice a bit tired after nearly an hour of continuous climbing.

"About another fifty meters," Kien replied, his eyes still glued to each step on the slippery stone floor. "Get over this ramp and you're there."

At that moment, a fist-sized rock under Bao Khang's feet suddenly shook, then broke into small pieces when he put his weight on it to continue walking. He struggled, one hand struggling to find a grip, the other reflexively raised his hand to cover his face when a series of rubble from above - moved by his own footsteps - rolled down, one piece hitting him directly in the right shoulder before he could dodge.

"Ah!" Bao Khang's cry rang out, short but enough for both Kien and Long to turn around.

"Bao Khang!" Kien rushed forward immediately, both hands catching his shoulders before he slipped further. "Are you okay? Did you slip down?"

"I... I'm fine, it's just my shoulder." Bao Khang winced, holding his right shoulder with one hand, his face pale with pain. "If a rock falls on it, it's probably just a bruise."

Kien quickly checked, his fingers feeling along Bao Khang's shoulder and collarbone through his jacket. There were no obvious signs of deformity, and he could still move his shoulder despite the pain, but he couldn't be completely sure without specialized diagnostic tools.

"Can you move your arm? Slowly."

Bao Khang lifted his arm slowly, his face grimacing but his movements were still under control. "Okay... it hurts but I can move."

"Maybe it's just a soft tissue injury, not a fracture," Kien said, partly reassuring Bao Khang, partly assessing the situation in his head. He looked around - visibility was now only about ten meters, and he suddenly realized he was standing right at the boundary that Dac Lam had told him: below ten meters, stop and find shelter.

He reached for the walkie-talkie and pressed the call button. "Heaven's Gate, this is Team B. We have a problem — a small rock slide, one member has an injured right shoulder, possibly a soft tissue injury, undetermined bone fracture. Current visibility is about ten meters, decreasing rapidly."

On the other end, Khanh Van's voice rang out immediately, without any delay: "Team B, hear clearly. Stop moving immediately, find the nearest shelter, do not try to continue to the observation point. Report your current GPS coordinates."

Kien read the coordinates from the handheld navigation device, his voice, for the first time that morning, sounded a bit like acknowledgment. "Get the coordinates. Heaven's Gate, I... I underestimated the speed at which the mist fell in this area."

"It's not the time to blame yourself, Kien. Now find shelter, fix Bao Khang's shoulder with the triangle bandage in the first aid bag, keep all three people warm. Team A is preparing to depart to provide support." Khanh Van paused for a second before continuing, her voice without any blame, just pure urgency. "You did the right thing by reporting immediately. Now keep in touch every ten minutes until we arrive."

"Clear." Kien turned off the radio and turned to Long. "Find a nearby rock hole or thick bush, as quickly as possible."

The three groped about twenty meters more in the fog that was getting thicker by the minute, until Long found a large rock protruding to form a natural shelter, enough for the three of them to sit close together to avoid the wind. Kien took a triangular bandage from his personal first aid bag, fixed Bao Khang's arm close to his body, and explained each step to reduce stress for his young teammate.

"Sorry everyone," Bao Khang said, his voice low, his eyes avoiding looking at Kien. "It's because I was careless and didn't carefully check my grip point before putting my weight."

"It's not your fault." Kien tied the last knot of the triangle bandage tightly, his tone more serious than usual. "It was my fault. I led the way, I chose the speed, I didn't stop to check the terrain before the team walked over. I thought faster was better, and sometimes that's true. Today, it wasn't true."

Long, sitting next to him, said nothing, just gave Bao Khang an insulated blanket from his backpack and wrapped it around his shoulders. The wind whistled through the crack in the rocks above their heads, bringing colder and sharper air, and the three sat in silence, with only the sound of their breathing and the wind, waiting.

Ten minutes later, as scheduled, Kien turned on the radio to report the situation. "Heaven's Gate, this is Team B. Bao Khang's shoulders are fixed, he is alert, there are no signs of shock. All three are staying in the rock hole, coordinates as reported. Current visibility is almost zero."

"Get it clearly." Khanh Van's voice rang out, steady but one could hear the rapid breathing behind the words, as if she was talking and moving at the same time. "Team A is completing preparations. We will depart on the western slope to reach you first, then continue to area T7. You stay in place, do not move further, even if visibility temporarily improves - mountain mist in this area can open and close many times in an hour."

"Clear." Kien turned off the radio, exhaled a long breath, his breath condensed into thin smoke that quickly dissipated in the cold air.

Long looked at him, questioningly. "How long do you think it will take Ms. Van to get here?"

"If you go around the west side like me, maybe an hour, an hour and a half." Kien looked down at his hands, his fingers were starting to get numb from the cold even though he was still wearing gloves. "But she won't go as fast as I did. She'll check every step."

"So is it too slow?"

Kien did not answer immediately. He looked out into the mist, thinking about that question in a completely different way than a few hours ago, when he was standing at the Gate of Heaven station, insisting on starting immediately. "No," he said finally, his voice slow as if he were weighing each word himself. "I thought... maybe that was exactly the speed needed, I just never wanted to admit it."

Bao Khang, his shoulder still wrapped in bandages, sat silently listening to the exchange between the two people, his eyes shifting from Kien to Long and then back. The pain in his shoulder had eased somewhat thanks to the fixed position, but the cold seeping through the insulating blanket still made him shiver slightly with each gust of wind blowing through the crack in the rock.

"Mr. Kien," he spoke up, "earlier you talked about the incident at Vong Phong ravine, you saved that person because you acted immediately. But what if that day you were walking in thick fog like today and couldn't see anything?"

Kien was silent for a long time, long enough for Long and Bao Khang to think he would not answer. Finally he said, his voice softer than usual: "Maybe I would have sat still like I am now, and that man might not have survived that night. The difference is not in whether I am fast or slow, Bao Khang. It is in the fact that day I could still see the road, but today I can't."

He looked up at the milky white void above his head, where the sky should have been. "I think that's what Ms. Van tried to tell me from the beginning, but I kept refusing to listen. It's not about being fast or slow, right or wrong. It's about knowing when your eyes can still see the road, and when you can't."

No one said anything more after that. The three of them sat leaning against each other under the stone roof, sharing what little warmth remained, listening to the wind roaring across the mountain ridge and waiting for the sound of the support team's footsteps to come from the mist - a sound that all three knew could take a long time to hear.

Kien sat with his back against the rock, his eyes looking out at the opaque white mist, no longer able to distinguish between heaven and earth. In his mind, the image of the hypothermic man he had saved at Vong Phong ravine last year appeared again - the moment he decided not to wait for the correct procedure, rushed in as soon as he received the news, and as a result, a life was saved before nightfall. That time, his instincts were right. This time, sitting here with Bao Khang's shoulder wrapped in bandages and zero visibility, he was no longer so sure.

He thought of Khanh Van's words before he left — "I used to be in the same position as you are now" — and for the first time, he wondered if what she was trying to tell him was not that he was wrong, but that even people who were right many times can encounter times when they were not right, and the cost of that time can be greater than all the times they were right combined.

"Mr. Kien," Bao Khang spoke up, breaking the silence, "how much longer do we have to wait?"

Kien looked at his watch, then looked out at the mist still rolling outside the cave. "Don't know," he replied honestly. "But I'll wait, until it's safe to continue, or until the reinforcements arrive."

That answer, while simple, is the closest thing to an admission that Kien has ever made in his life as a rescuer — that there are times when the only thing a person can do is sit still and wait, even though every instinct in him screams at him to act.