Chapter 7 — Sword God Appears

In the following days, Bach Trinh rented a small room at an inn near Dong Street, using the excuse that he was a traveler stopping to sell medicinal herbs so that he could stay in Thanh Lang Uyen for a long time without attracting attention. Every day he stops by Nhan Tam Duong pharmacy several times, sometimes to buy some medicine, sometimes just to drink tea and chat, but in fact to silently observe the situation, to prevent any unforeseen events from happening at any time.

Dieu Vy gradually got used to his presence, and her previous feeling of insecurity about being followed also eased somewhat when she knew there was someone protecting her nearby. She began to open up more, telling him many stories about daily life, about familiar patients, and about the difficulties in maintaining a pharmacy in a competitive time. Bach Trinh listened, occasionally giving some advice on how to use the medicinal herbs he learned from his years of wandering, making Dieu Vy surprised by the extensive medical knowledge of a person who claimed to be just a passing traveler.

One afternoon, while the two were sitting in the small living room behind the pharmacy, Bach Trinh cleverly started a conversation: "From the day you were attacked until now, have you thought of any reason why people wanted to harm you? Do you have any grudges against anyone, or have you received any strange items recently?" Dieu Vy thought for a moment, shook her head: "This young lady is just an ordinary smoker, and has never made enemies with anyone. Perhaps, this young lady only thinks of one possibility, which is the things her mother left behind."

She stood up, went into the inner room, and returned a moment later with a small, old wooden box, containing a few simple jewelry, a half-embroidered handkerchief, and the notebook she had mentioned, the spine of which was worn out over the years. "This is what mother left for this young lady before she passed away," she said, her voice low. "There are a few pages in there that are not mother's handwriting, this young lady guesses that they are father's, but the content is only fragmentary notes, without beginning or end, and this young lady has never paid much attention."

Aunt Ngoc Hien stood nearby, saw Dieu Vy bring out the wooden box, and softly smacked her lips: "Your sister keeps this box very carefully. I asked her to borrow it a few times to try it out a few times but she didn't let me, saying that this is something your father told you to keep carefully and not show it to anyone." Those words made Bach Trinh even more certain that this notebook was not a trivial keepsake, but contained something important that Thanh Phong himself, right from the days of his life, was aware of the danger if it fell into the wrong hands.

Bach Trinh took the notebook, his hands trembled slightly when she recognized the familiar handwriting on a few yellowed pages. That was Chuc Thanh Phong's handwriting, strong and decisive, exactly like the letters Thanh Phong had written to him during his time at Tang Phong Mon. He tried to stay calm, turning each page slowly, eyes glued to each line, trying to find some clue hidden in the seemingly meaningless notes.

Most of the content was notes about the routes around the northern mountains, the names of a few places that Bach Trinh immediately recognized as places near Tang Phong Mon, along with a few strange symbols that he could not immediately decipher. There was one page, written more hastily than the others, with scribbled handwriting as if written in a hurry, with only a few words written: "The black eagle in the western ravine, three people, one of whom..." then it was interrupted, not continuing, as if the writer had been interrupted mid-sentence by some unexpected event.

Bach Trinh felt his heart beat faster. Three people, western ravine, black eagle. This was exactly what Thanh Phong had been investigating before he was murdered, clues about the betrayal plot that he had not been able to fully clarify before being lured to Vong Soul Alley. But how did this notebook end up in the hands of his wife and then passed on to Dieu Vy without anyone in Tang Phong Mon knowing?

"Do you know why your father wrote these lines?" Bach Trinh asked, trying to keep his voice calm even though his heart was churning. Dieu Vy shook her head: "I don't know. Mother once said that father gave her this notebook before he left home for the last time, telling him that if anything unfortunate happened to him, to keep the notebook carefully, not to let it fall into anyone's hands, until the right person came to ask about it. But many years have passed, no one has ever come to ask, so this young lady gradually forgot about it and only kept it as a souvenir."

Bach Trinh was silent for a long time, feeling both sadness and regret. If he had known about the existence of this notebook in the past, perhaps things would have been a lot different, perhaps he could have found the real cause behind Thanh Phong's death sooner, instead of having to wait eighteen years later, when his friend's daughter had to face danger for those secrets to begin to reveal themselves.

"Can you lend me this notebook for a few days?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light. "I once learned a few types of martial-world codes when I was young, perhaps it can help you decode these records." Dieu Vy was a bit hesitant, this was the last keepsake associated with her parents, but thinking that the notebook could be the reason she was being chased, and Bach Trinh had proven her kindness and ability through the life-saving incident the day before, she finally nodded in agreement, only telling him to keep it carefully.

That night, returning to the motel room, Bach Trinh sat by the oil lamp, carefully flipping through each page of the book, comparing what he could remember about the old incident. He realized that Thanh Phong had not simply discovered Thien Ba's plot by chance, but had been secretly investigating for a long time, recording every little detail, perhaps with the intention of gathering enough evidence before reporting to the sect master.

But what bothered him the most was the phrase "black eagle" appearing in the notes. Many years ago, when he was still at the Tang Phong Mon, the elders mentioned a group of martial-world assassins who specialized in using black falcons as communication signals, operating silently in the western border region, rarely appearing, only accepting murder jobs for those who paid a high enough price. Could it be that Thien Ba in the past colluded with this same group of assassins to carry out a plot to seize power, and now, that group of assassins, under a new name, is the Ghost Police Department that is pursuing Dieu Vy?

That thought made Bach Trinh's spine cold. If there is indeed such a connection, then the assassination of Dieu Vy was not a coincidence, but a deliberate attempt to completely erase the last traces of the old conspiracy, before the truth had a chance to come to light. And if so, the person behind it all, the person with the nickname Black Eagle that the assassins still mention, is most likely Nguy Thien Ba, the person who the whole gang still thought had died a long time ago.

He turned over the last pages again, where Thanh Phong's handwriting became rushed, with ink smudged in some places as if his hand was shaking while writing. There was a small line of writing, almost obscured by a smear of ink, that made Bach Trinh have to lean close to the oil lamp to read: "If anything happens to me, I hope people who see these lines understand that I don't blame anyone, I just hope the sect is peaceful." Reading this, Bach Trinh's throat tightened. He realized that even before being harmed, Thanh Phong had sensed that danger was approaching, but still chose to face it alone, not wanting to drag anyone into danger with him, including his closest junior brother.

The more Bach Trinh read, the more clearly he realized the heart of his sworn brother, a heart willing to sacrifice himself to protect the honor and peace of an entire sect, even at the cost of his own life. That made the torment in his heart even heavier, but at the same time it also lit up a strong determination: to find the truth at all costs, to expose the person who took advantage of that noble heart to carry out his despicable plot, and to protect with all his might the only drop of blood that Thanh Phong left behind in the world.

That night, Bach Trinh could not sleep, sitting quietly in front of an oil lamp until dawn, with a faint hope in his heart that he could finally find the truth, while also harboring an inconsolable fear that if his guess was correct, the road ahead would be much more dangerous than what he and Dieu Vy had experienced up to now.