Chapter 3 — The End-of-Day Train

That Thursday, the strange young man Khanh Chi had seen standing hesitantly at Thanh Chau station appeared again, this time actually boarding the last train of the day.

He is tall, has a thin but sturdy figure, wears a gray shirt with rolled up sleeves, and a thin windbreaker because the weather starts to get cold at dusk. On his shoulder was a large backpack, inside revealing the corner of an old camera and several scrolls of paper that appeared to be carefully rolled up drawings. He stepped into car number one, gave the ticket to Khanh Chi to check without saying much, just nodded and said hello, found a seat near the window, put his backpack on the seat next to him as a way to keep distance from other passengers.

Khanh Chi glanced at the ticket - one-way Thanh Chau to Van Phong - then looked up to look at his face for a moment. There was something in this young man's eyes that made her pause for a moment, an unusual attentiveness as he looked out the window, not the absent-minded look of a tired worker wanting to go home, but the eyes of someone trying to remember every detail of the scene passing by.

"Thank you," he said quietly when she returned the ticket, his voice low and somewhat reserved.

Khanh Chi nodded and continued working, but in his mind there was still the image of him standing in front of the train timetable on Tuesday night, then leaving without getting on the train. Maybe he was still pondering something that day, she thought, then pushed that thought aside to continue checking tickets for the remaining passengers.

The train left the station, penetrating into the night like every night. Arriving at the second station, when Khanh Chi passed by where the young man was sitting, she noticed that he was taking out a worn leather notebook, writing something down with a pencil, occasionally looking up at the window, observing the structure of the awning of the loft station he had just passed, then bending down to quickly draw a few sketches.

"Did you draw the station?" Khanh Chi couldn't hold back her curiosity and stopped to ask when she saw that the carriage was empty, no one needed her to check tickets right away.

The young man was a little startled, looked up, a bit confused as if he had been caught doing something private. "Ah... yes. I'm an architect, I'm used to recording old projects I find interesting."

"Are these old lofts interesting?" Khanh Chi asked, his voice slightly joking.

He smiled, for the first time since getting on the train, a smile that made his normally serious face soften. "Interesting. These stations were built during the French period, the dome structure and the arrangement of light windows have many details that people no longer do. I feel sorry if no one wrote it down before..." He stopped mid-sentence, as if suddenly realizing he was about to say something he shouldn't say to a stranger.

"Before what?" Khanh Chi asked, her eyes sharpened a bit, her professional intuition told her there was something hidden behind that unfinished sentence.

The young man was silent for a beat, then shook his head slightly, avoiding the question. "Nothing. I just have a habit of taking notes, don't mind."

Khanh Chi did not ask further questions — she knew the line between professional curiosity and invading passenger privacy, although in her heart she still felt that unfinished sentence like a small grain stuck. She nodded and was about to continue walking, but the young man suddenly spoke up to stop her.

"Miss, may I ask... does this train stop at any station near Vong Pass?"

Khanh Chi paused. That name, uttered from a stranger's mouth, always made a corner of her heart reflexively contract, even after twelve years had passed.

"Yes. The fifth station on the line, about two kilometers from the foot of the pass. Why do you ask?" She tried to keep her voice calm, but she could also hear the caution in her question.

"I... have something to investigate in that area. I heard there was a big accident in the past, right?"

Khanh Chi's heart beat faster. She looked straight into his eyes, trying to read if there was anything unusual in that question, but only saw a seemingly sincere curiosity, not the cheap curiosity of people who like to hear sensational stories.

"Yes, there was a landslide twelve years ago," she replied, her voice trying to keep it steady as if she were recounting an unfamiliar historical event, even though each word sounded heavy. "The train went off the rails. One person died."

"Excuse me," the young man said immediately, perhaps realizing something from the look on her face. "I don't mean to bring up sad stories. It's just... I'm learning about the history of this route, for a personal matter."

"It's okay," Khanh Chi replied, trying to force a light smile. "I have to go check tickets again, please understand."

She walked away, but the feeling of insecurity still lingered in her heart the rest of the way. That young man was not like ordinary passengers. He had a clear purpose in boarding this train, and that purpose seemed to be related to the accident that took her father.

Arriving at Cau Doi station, Mr. Canh boarded the train like every night, and Khanh Chi noticed that the young man suddenly attentively observed the old man, his eyes filled with something both surprised and cautious, as if he realized he was someone important. But he didn't speak up to start a conversation, just quietly turned back to look out the window, his hand tightening around the notebook on his lap.

Khanh Chi stood at the front of the carriage, observing the scene from afar, a series of unanswered questions arose in her heart. Why is an architect from Qingzhou interested in the history of this half-abandoned railway? Why did he ask about Vong Pass, about the accident, right in the first conversation with her? And why did his eyes look at Mr. Canh have such a strange nuance?

She had no answer, she only knew that her professional hunch - the hunch that had helped her recognize so many unusual things on this train over the past four years - was telling her that this young man would be more than just a passerby.

The train continued to roll into the night, taking the group toward Van Phong. Arriving at the last station, when the passengers got off the train one by one, Khanh Chi saw the young man standing for a moment on the platform, looking up at the old station name sign, the yellow light casting unpredictable contemplative expressions on his face. He took out his phone, took a few photos of the sign, then slowly walked out of the station gate, into the darkness of the small town.

"Girl, do you think that guy is strange?" Mr. Canh, still lingering on the station platform chatting with a few acquaintances before going home, suddenly asked Khanh Chi when he saw her standing hesitantly looking after the young man's silhouette.

"Yes, I see it too, old man. He asked me about the accident at Vong Pass."

Mr. Canh frowned, and his old face suddenly flashed with something hard to name - not necessarily worry, but like an ancient memory that had just been stirred up. "The Deo Vong Pass accident... It's been a long time since anyone mentioned that. Pay attention to him a little, but don't think bad things. Maybe he's just curious."

Khanh Chi nodded, but in her heart she knew that tonight's story had planted a seed of restlessness in her that she would not be able to get rid of easily. She looked towards the dark street where the young man had just disappeared, then turned and walked into the station duty room to complete the day's end-of-day accounts, thinking to herself, I don't know if he will return to this train tomorrow or not.

The Van Phong station duty room is small, only enough to accommodate an old wooden desk, a filing cabinet and a wooden board with a train schedule that has become yellow over the years. Khanh Chi sat down, opened the duty book, recorded the number of passengers, any incidents, whether the train arrived on time or late - today it arrived on time, nothing unusual except a strange passenger asking about the past. She wrote that line and then crossed it out, thinking that it was not necessary to write down things about her private feelings in the duty book.

Through the window of the duty room, she saw the distant light from her mother's noodle shop still on. Perhaps she was waiting for her to come home for dinner like every night. But Khanh Chi doesn't want to go home right away. She sat quietly for a moment, playing with the old watch on her wrist, thinking about the strange young man's question - about Vong Pass, about the accident, about the look he looked at Mr. Canh just now. There was something about the way he asked that made her feel that this was not the random curiosity of a tourist or a simple architectural researcher. It was like he already knew part of the story, and was trying to confirm the missing part.

She told herself she was thinking too much. Maybe he's just an architect passionate about old buildings, happened to hear somewhere about a famous accident on this route, and was curious to ask. But the sharp intuition of someone who has been in contact with all kinds of passengers for four years told her the opposite — that the young man had a story, and that story was somehow related to her own family.