Chapter 1 — The Inn at the End of the Pass

The fog at Vuc Suong Pass does not dissipate over time like the fog in the plains. It just hangs there, hovering around the old pomu roots, occasionally retreating into the ravine and then spilling out onto the road again, like a lazy person who doesn't want to leave his accustomed place. Do Mien Thao has lived with that dew for twenty-seven years, long enough to no longer find it as romantic as passing guests admire, but only see it as part of the morning's work - sweeping dew from the wooden steps before guests get up, drying the table on the porch before setting out bowls and chopsticks, and reminding Nhat Minh to go to school not to let his pants get wet because of the grass on both sides of the road.

The Inn at the End of the Pass is located right at the last bend, where the road begins to slope sharply down towards the plain. Mr. Do Van Chinh, Thao's father, built it nearly thirty years ago, when the pass was still the only single road connecting the highlands with the lowlands, when passenger cars still had to stop midway because the engine was overheating, when drivers still needed a place to take a nap before going down the most dangerous curves in the province. The shop is built of pomu wood and mountain stone, the roof is covered with moss, there are twelve small rooms and a large common dining room with six long tables. On the wall of the dining room, there is also a hand-carved wooden sign with the words "Stop and you will go home" - Mr. Chinh's handwriting, rustic, slightly shaky at the end.

Thao woke up at four thirty in the morning, like every day. She lit the wood stove, put on a large pot of water, then went around to the back to check the chicken coop and the vegetable trellis grown in old wooden crates. The sound of her knife and chopping board echoed steadily in the kitchen, cutting through the mist remaining outside the window. By five o'clock, the smell of rice and braised meat began to spread, enough to wake up last night's guests - two motorbike travelers, a couple selling agricultural products, and three truck drivers sleeping rough in the room at the end.

"Miss Thao, are you out of fish sauce yet?" Thuy Duong's voice came from the kitchen, her voice was still sleepy.

"There's one bottle left, saving it to make sour soup this afternoon. I'll get a new bottle from the warehouse." Thao replied without looking back, her hands still quickly stirring the pan of meat.

Thuy Duong is sixteen years old, in tenth grade at district school, every morning she has to get up early to help her sister before catching the bus to school. The girl has eyes like her mother - Mrs. Ha - deep and often looking into the distance, but has a hard-working personality, rarely argues, but is often quiet when no one is paying attention, as if there is some void in her heart that she doesn't know how to name.

Nhat Minh, twelve years old, was the latest to wake up in the family. Every time Thao had to call three or four times before he would crawl out of the blanket. But in return, the boy is the only one in the family who still retains his innocence - eating breakfast while scribbling a map of the pass on the back of an old calendar, marking each turn with homemade symbols, muttering the names of the road segments as if drawing a map of a kingdom.

"Miss Thao, why doesn't our pass have any names of curves? I have named them all. This part is called Cua Suong Mu, that part is Cua Ong Bay because it is close to Mr. Bay Trinh's house."

"Yes, that's a good name. Someday it will be printed on a tourist map." Thao smiled and patted her head, although in her heart she thought: what kind of tourist map is there, when the inn this month lacks money to pay the installment loan to repair the roof.

The only person who has not appeared at the dinner table is Gia Binh. He is twenty years old, works as a part-time car mechanic at a garage in town, nearly an hour away from the pass, so he usually stays there a few days a week, only returning home when work ends or when he runs out of money. This morning his room door was still closed. I knew he came home last night but he probably slept until noon.

Thao did not urge. She learned a long time ago that knocking on doors too much will only make the person inside close tighter.

This family, strictly speaking, has never been a family in the sense that people understand it. Thao's father, Mr. Chinh, married Ms. Luc Thi Ha when Thao was twelve years old, three years after Thao's biological mother - Ms. Vu Thi Xuan - passed away from a serious illness. Mrs. Ha brought her two children from her previous marriage, Gia Binh and Thuy Duong, to live at the inn. Three years later, she gave birth to Nhat Minh. So under one roof, there is Mr. Chinh's only biological child with his first wife, there are two stepchildren of Mrs.

Four years ago, Mr. Chinh died of liver disease, after nearly a year of treatment everywhere. Three years ago, Mrs. Ha left the pass for the city, saying she was looking for a job, promising to send money back regularly and then pick up her children later. The first month she called. The second month gradually thinned out. By the third month, there was silence, only strange amounts of money transferred to Thao's account, without the name of the sender, coming regularly like a silent apology that Thao was the only one to recognize.

From that day, at the age of twenty-three, Thao became the keeper of the house, the shop, and the caretaker of her three younger siblings - one younger sibling, two younger siblings who had no blood relatives with her other than a deceased common father and an abandoned common mother.

She never sat down and explained to any of them why she did what she did. For Thao, that is not an option to consider. It's simply something that has to be done, like having to light the stove every morning and sweeping dew from the steps.

The morning passed like any other morning until nearly seven o'clock, when the sound of a truck horn blared from down the slope, unusually long and urgent. Thao raised her head from the pan of meat, feeling something was wrong.

"Sister Thao, there's a broken car out there!" Thuy Duong ran in, her voice excited.

Thao wiped her hands on her apron and walked out onto the porch. Outside, in the middle of the fog that had not yet completely cleared, a two-wheel drive pickup truck covered in red dirt was pulling up to the curb right in front of the shop, its emergency lights flashing. The car door opened, three men got out, dressed like construction workers - reflective vests, dad shoes, one with a total station on his shoulder, one holding a stack of drawings rolled up in a plastic tube.

The leader, tall, thin, wearing a moss green windbreaker that had faded due to the sun and wind, stopped and looked around - at the mossy tiled roof, at the wooden sign engraved with the words "If you stop, you'll get home", then at Thao standing on the porch with a polite questioning look.

"Hello. Our car's engine overheated in the middle of a hill, so we had to stop to rest. I wonder if our restaurant has any rooms available? We'll probably have to stay a night or two waiting for the mechanic to come fix the car."

His voice was low, slow, a bit like that of an acquaintance living on the road - not in a hurry, not complaining, even though it was clear that their morning had just had a big problem.

"Yes, there is room." Thao walked down the steps, looked at the car, looked at the small sign posted on the window - the words "Construction Survey Team" were printed faintly, and below was a series of project numbers that she couldn't read all of. "What are you guys going to survey on our pass?"

The man paused for a second, as if considering his answer, then just smiled slightly and replied absentmindedly.

"Just a geological survey, sis. Normal work."

The answer was so smooth that Thao squinted her eyes a bit, but she didn't ask further. A guest is a guest, no matter who they are, the inn must still welcome them attentively - that is the principle left by her father, engraved deeper than the handwriting on that wooden sign.

"Please come in. The room is on the left row, there is hot water, the restaurant also has lunch, you can feel free to eat."

The man nodded in thanks, turned around and signaled his two colleagues to bring in the things. Before walking up the steps, he stopped, looked at the wooden sign again, then looked at Thao.

"This is such a good sentence. 'If you stop, you'll go home.' Was it written by you?"

"My father's." Thao replied, her voice uncontrollably lowered a bit. "He passed away. But the shop still keeps that sentence."

The man was silent for a moment, his eyes softened somewhat, as if he had just touched something he did not intend touch.

"Nghiem Khai Dang. I'm an engineer in the crew." He introduced himself, held out his hand to shake.

"Do Mien Thao. Owner." Thao shook hands, briefly, then turned around to lead the guests inside, not knowing that ordinary handshake would be the beginning of a long series of days that would change her whole life and that of her younger siblings who were trying their best to keep under one roof.

In the kitchen, the pot of broth was still boiling, the smell of fried onions mixed with the smell of burning firewood spread out to the porch. Thao returned to her unfinished work, her hands quickly setting out more bowls and chopsticks for the three new guests, telling Thuy Duong to cook another pot of rice, her eyes still glancing at the red dust-covered pickup truck parked precariously on the side of the road. There was something in the way the man named Khai Dang stood that she couldn't name—not quite suspicion, not quite curiosity, but a vague feeling that this morning, though it began exactly like any other morning, would not end like any other day.

Nhat Minh, still holding an old calendar with unfinished maps, ran out to the porch and looked at the survey team with bright eyes. He was immediately fascinated by the total station mounted on a three-pronged iron leg that one of the team members was setting up in the middle of the yard.

"What is that, uncle? Are you measuring the road? I also drew a map, do you think I drew it correctly?"

The man named Khai Dang stopped walking, smiled slightly at the boy's undisguised excitement, bent down to look at the old calendar full of scribbles that Nhat Minh was holding up to show off.

"Let me see." He sat down at the child's eye level, his fingers tracing the curves drawn by Nhat Minh, nodding his head in a serious manner. "This corner I drew is a little harsher than reality, but overall it's in the right direction. Do you want me to show you how to draw contour lines?"

Nhat Minh's eyes lit up as if someone had just given him a precious gift. From the porch, Thao stood still and looked at that scene for a moment, not sure why her chest suddenly felt a strange warmth, before returning to the kitchen to continue the unfinished work, leaving behind her brother's soft laughter mixed with the warm voice of the stranger who had just entered the inn, into her whole life, without warning.

Behind them, the fog had not yet completely dissipated on Vuc Suong Pass, still lingering around the old po mu trees as if it had never intended to leave.