Chapter 22 — The Last Seed Keeper

Three days after the storm, the water distiller began making a strange hissing sound every time it was operated — a high-pitched, intermittent sound that made Ngan The Binh frown every time he heard it.

"Storm dust got into the intake air filter," he concluded, after partially disassembling the housing to inspect. "It can be fixed, but needs a small replacement rubber gasket, the kind we don't carry as a spare."

Dinh Bach Lam studied the map marked with his own symbol for a long time, his finger stopped at a point not far from the group's current location. “There is an old settlement here,” he said, his voice thoughtful. "Before the Great Change. I passed by it twice, never going deep inside, but other groups have reported finding usable supplies in the rubble — rubber, metal, sometimes even intact pieces of plastic."

"You said it's not recommended to go through the ruins," Khe Mien repeated, clearly remembering his words in the meeting before leaving.

"I said it's not recommended to go through unstable ruins to shorten the route," he corrected, his eyes serious. "This is different. We need that gasket for the distiller to continue operating, and without it, our water rations will drop to dangerous levels before reaching Sand Dome. This is not a risk to save time. This is a necessary risk to survive."

The group changed direction slightly, and near noon, the ruins appeared before their eyes - a cluster of partially collapsed concrete and metal structures, the walls were mottled with black burns from long ago, the roof had largely collapsed, only a few bare steel frames stood up like the ribs of a giant beast that died many generations ago.

Khe Mien had never seen anything like this. The Green Dome, with its continuous construction and maintenance for decades after the Great Cataclysm, had nothing like it — no sense of a world that once existed, that was once lived, worked, loved, and then disappeared almost in an instant, leaving behind these empty frames.

"What was this?" she asked softly, not taking her eyes off the crumbling walls.

"No one knows for sure," Bach Lam replied, his voice was also somewhat low, different from his usual pragmatism. "It could be a residential area. It could be some other facility. Much of what might indicate answers is long buried or decaying."

The group entered cautiously, Bach Lam led the way with a long stick used to probe the ground before each step, Ngan The Binh walked last, his eyes constantly scanning hidden corners. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of rusty metal and crushed stone dust, and light filtered through gaps in the roof, forming dim pillars of light in the darkness.

"Be careful here," Bach Lam said, pointing to a large crack in the floor, a sign of a void below. "Go around the wall."

They followed a narrow hallway and found what they needed in a small room in the far corner — a metal cabinet that had fallen on its side, inside were a few rolls of rubber bands that had hardened with time but could still be cut, and some small metal parts whose uses Ve Diem Quynh shouted with joy when she realized the use.

“That's enough,” she said, carefully stuffing the supplies she found into her tool bag. "Enough to repair not only the distillation unit, but also the spare air filter if needed."

While waiting for Diem Quynh to finish, Khe Mien looked around the small room, and for the first time she noticed the remaining traces of a life that once existed here - a warped metal photo frame, the glass surface had long been broken, inside there was nothing left but a piece of rotten paper whose original shape could not be recognized; A chipped ceramic cup lies in the corner, the pattern on the cup has mostly faded but the outline of something that resembles a flowering branch can still be seen. She bent down to pick up the cup, feeling its cold weight in her palm, trying to imagine the person who had held it, drank from it, set it on the table some ordinary morning before their world fell apart.

"Are you thinking about who lived here," Bach Lam said, not a question, standing right behind her without her noticing.

"Yes," Khe Mien admitted, placing the cup back carefully, as if it still belonged to someone. "At the Green Dome, we always talk about the Great Change as a boundary — before and after. But standing here, I can really feel how much normalcy has disappeared within that boundary. Not just the numbers, the crop lines. But also the morning cups."

“Most people who pass by here don't stop to think about it,” Bach Lam said, his voice low. "They just found supplies and left. Maybe that was the only way to not be crushed by all that was lost."

"But you'll stop," he added, not as a question but as an observation, almost as if he had just learned more about her. “I think that's part of the reason why you were the right person to carry those seeds so far.”

At that moment, a strange noise rang out from somewhere above their heads — a prolonged, scraping sound of metal, then a sickening crack of concrete being pressured beyond its limits.

"Get out! Now!" Bach Lam shouted, grabbing Khe Mien's arm and pulling her towards the hallway they had just passed.

The whole group rushed out, but Kien, who was behind, tried to pick up a piece of metal that fell out of the cabinet, half a second slower than the others. A piece of the concrete ceiling above his head began to collapse, and in that moment of chaos, Ngan The Binh rushed back, forcefully pushing Kien aside just before the concrete block collapsed right where he had just stood.

Dust and debris splashed across the hallway, and for a few seconds, Khe Mien could see nothing but a solid gray cloud.

"Kien!" she shouted, her voice cracking with panic.

"I'm fine," Kien's voice rang out from the dust, shaking but intact. "It's just... my leg."

When the dust settled enough to see clearly, they saw Kien lying on his side on the ground, one leg crushed by a small piece of metal from a fallen cabinet, not serious enough to break a bone but enough to create a deep cut and a clear pain on his face when Bach Lam lifted the piece of metal away.

"Sit still," Ngan The Binh said, already kneeling beside him, examining the wound with the expertise of someone who had handled dozens of similar situations before. "It's not broken. But it needs stitches, or at least a tight bandage to prevent infection."

The whole group quickly left the building, carrying Kien, who was carried on Bach Lam's back all the way out, until they found an empty space safe enough to stop to treat his wound.

Diem Quynh opened the medical bag, her hands shook slightly but her movements were still precise as she cleaned the cut and began sewing the first stitches under the guidance of Ngan The Binh, who had trained the whole group in basic first aid skills before the trip but now had to do the hardest part herself.

Khe Mien sat next to him, holding Kien's hand tightly while he gritted his teeth to endure the pain, saying nothing but her eyes never left his face, as if her presence could share some of that pain.

"I'm sorry," Kien said, his voice choking as Diem Quynh completed the last stitch. "You're slowing down the whole group."

"I have nothing to apologize for," Khe Mien said immediately, her voice hard. "I didn't mean to get hurt. And Ngan The Binh saved me in time — that's why we went together, so no one had to face what Dong Tro threw at us alone."

Ngan The Binh, standing up after checking the bandage one last time, just nodded and said nothing more, but Khe Mien noticed something in his eyes — a quiet relief that he didn't want to express in words.

That evening, when the camp was set up and Kien lay resting in the tent with his feet elevated as Diem Quynh had instructed, Dinh Bach Lam sat alone at the edge of the camp, looking out at the ruins that were now only a faint shadow under the moonlight.

Khe Mien came and sat next to him, saying nothing for a long time, just quietly sharing that silence.

"You're thinking about something," she said finally, not a question.

Bach Lam did not answer immediately. He looked down at his hands, old and new calluses interwoven on his tanned skin. "Every time someone in the group was nearly in danger," he said, his voice carrying a different heaviness than usual, "I thought about the time I didn't react quickly enough."

Khe Mien was silent, not pushing, just waiting, sensing that this might be the first time he was truly willing to say more than a brief sentence about his past.

"Not today," he continued, his voice slow. "Today Ngan The Binh was fast enough. But one time, I wasn't fast enough." He stopped, his jaw clenching for a moment. "I'll tell you, but not tonight. Tonight I just want to sit here, knowing that everyone in this group is still breathing."

"Okay," Khe Mien said gently, not pressing him further. "When you're ready, I'll listen."

He looked at her, and in the pale moonlight, Khe Mien saw something in his eyes that she had never seen before—not the cold judgment of the early days, nor the constant pragmatism he still carried like a layer of armor. It was a fragile trust, just revealed, like a seed that had just touched water for the first time after a long time lying dormant in dry soil.

"Thank you," he said, "for not asking any more questions."

They sat there for a while longer, not saying anything, just quietly looking out at the darkness of Dong Tro stretching to the horizon, somewhere ahead, the Sand Dome was still many days away from them, and between them and it, no one in the group knew for sure how many ruins, how many storms, how many untold pieces of the past would still be waiting.