Chapter 28 — The Last Seed Keeper

Khe Mien couldn't sleep that night, lying on the hard bed of the guest house, her eyes open and staring at the rough ceiling, her mind still reeling from the image of a feverish three-year-old child in a house somewhere near the end of the alley, his mother and grandmother unable to do anything but wait and hope.

She sat up, put on another layer of clothing, and walked out to the common room where Bach Lam was sitting guarding the head shift, the small light placed in front of him illuminating a narrow area in the darkness.

"You can't sleep either," he said, not a question, when he saw her approaching.

"I keep thinking about the child," Khe Mien said, sitting down across from him. "About us having extra water—not much, but enough to get a family through a few rough days. And we just sit here, safe, while they—"

"I know what you're thinking," Bach Lam interrupted, his voice gentle but firm. "And I understand why you think that. But let me ask you something: if we were caught smuggling supplies to a family being punished by this Dome government, what would happen?"

Khe Mien was silent, she had thought about that, but had not found an answer that made her feel more relieved.

"Maybe they will punish that family even more severely, for accepting help from outsiders without the Lord of Hell's permission," Bach Lam continued, his voice heavy. "Maybe they will detain us, confiscate everything, including what you are carrying in that seed box, on the grounds that we violate their Dome's rules. We are not only risking the lives of five people in the group. We are risking the mission but also the Green Dome that is counting on us."

"So we don't do anything?" Khe Mien asked, her voice carrying a defiance she rarely showed him.

"I didn't say that," Bach Lam replied, and in the dim light, Khe Mien saw that he was considering something instead of simply rejecting her idea. "I say we need to do it in a way that leaves no trace that can be traced to us, and without anyone in this Dome knowing the source of that help."

Khe Mien looked at him, a ray of hope sparked in her heart. "You have an idea?"

“Ngan The Binh has done this before, in other Arches,” he said, his voice lower even though no one else in the room was awake. "Leave supplies in a hidden place, when no one is looking, then leave the area immediately, without returning to check, without trying to confirm whether the person who needs it received it. That's the only way to help without creating a link that can be traced."

"That sounds cold," Khe Mien said softly.

"It's the only effective way," Bach Lam replied. "Help is of no use if it puts the person being helped in greater danger."

"What about fever reducers?" Khe Mien asked, remembering the old man's words about the sick child. "How much can we give without endangering our own group if one of us gets sick along the way?"

"Let me ask Diem Quynh," Bach Lam said, standing up to wake up the young technician, who, although still sleepy, woke up immediately when she heard the situation.

"You can divide a third of the basic fever-reducing medicine without much affecting the team's ability to handle emergency situations," Diem Quynh said, rummaging in her medical bag, her hands carefully counting out a number of small pills, wrapping them in a clean piece of cloth. "I'm just sorry I couldn't do more."

"That's enough to make a difference for a child with a fever," Khe Mien said, taking the medicine package from her hand, her voice much warmer than the tension just now. "Thank you."

They woke up Ngan The Binh, who, after hearing the plan, nodded without hesitation, as if this was not the first time he had done something similar.

"I know that alley," he said, already starting to prepare a small bag containing part of the group's water reserve and a few basic fever-reducing pills from Diem Quynh's medical bag. "There's a space under the third door step from the end of the alley, enough to hide a small bag without anyone noticing if they don't know it's there."

"How do you know that exact location?" Khe Mien asked, surprised.

“I watched as we passed there this afternoon,” Ngan The Binh replied simply, as if it were the obvious thing anyone should do. "I always watch everywhere we go. It's a habit that has kept me alive over the years, and sometimes, it also lets me know where a little quiet help might be needed."

At midnight, when the area near the gate and the central square was deserted, Ngan The Binh quietly left the guest house, moving with the almost absolute silence of a person who had practiced this skill for decades. Khe Mien and Bach Lam waited in tension, counting the minutes that passed, until he returned after less than half an hour, his face showing no particular emotion but with a certain relief in his gait.

"Done," he said shortly. "No one sees me."

“Thank you,” Khe Mien said, her voice choked with a mixture of relief and sadness she couldn't quite name—relief that something had been done, sadness that knew it was just a tiny drop in a system of injustice much larger than what the five of them could change overnight.

"Don't thank me," Ngan The Binh said, sitting down, his voice more thoughtful than usual. "I've been through many Arches like this in my life, and each time, I've only been able to do small things like this. Not enough to change anything big. But enough so that I can still look in the mirror every morning."

Khe Mien looked at him, recognizing another side of this quiet man that she had never seen clearly before—not just a scout with extensive combat experience, but someone with the same kind of restless conscience as her, though he expressed it in a completely different, quieter, more matter-of-fact way.

"How many Arches like this have you seen?" she asked.

Ngan The Binh was silent for a moment, as if counting in his head. “Not much, but enough to know that the Salt Dome is not alone,” he said finally. "When resources become scarce and a Dome is not united enough or fortunate enough to retain its original values, power always finds a way to flow to those willing to use it to control others rather than serve them. That is not something unique to the Salt Dome. It is a pattern I have seen repeated, to varying degrees, throughout the Ashes."

That statement left Khe Mien cold, not because of its content, but because of the way it expanded the scope of her worries from a specific Dome to a much larger picture—if the Salt Dome was not an isolated case, then how many other Domes, some of which she had never heard of, were suffering under similar forms of control? And is Sand Dome, their next destination, really as different as she believes based on its long-standing trade relationship with Green Dome?

"So why is the Green Dome different?" she asked, her voice low, almost as if the question was directed to herself rather than to the two men sitting next to her. "We also face scarcity, we also have years of crop failure, and we also have Root Rot that threatens our entire livelihood. So why doesn't our Council become like the Lord of Hell and his Binh Diem?"

"Maybe because you guys still have each other," Ngan The Binh said, after a short silence. "I don't know Green Dome well enough to say for sure, but from what I observed in the weeks leading up to the trip, I see a community where people still argue openly, even oppose each other right in front of the Dome Chief without fear of being punished for it. That is no small thing. In many other places, silence comes much sooner, and once it comes, the power is no longer controlled by anyone."

Khe Mien thought about the divided Council meeting many weeks ago, about the fierce debates between her and Su Dinh Lam, about the fact that Bien Ba Uy had listened to both sides before making the final decision - the things she once considered troubles, the burden of a community that found it difficult to reach consensus, now appeared before her eyes as a kind of valuable asset that not every Arch still retains.

"We should get some sleep," Bach Lam said finally, noticing the tiredness clearly showing on the faces of both companions. "We need to leave early tomorrow, as soon as the water exchange is complete."

Khe Mien nodded, but before returning to the room, she stopped to look out the small window of the guest house, towards the alley where Ngan The Binh had just arrived, imagining the image of a small bag of water found tomorrow morning by a young woman taking care of her feverish child, not knowing where it came from, just knowing that, in the middle of a place where every drop of water was strictly controlled, there was still someone, even a stranger, willing to share without asking for anything in return.

*Maybe that's also a kind of seed,* she thought, as she finally fell into a fitful sleep, *the kind of seed that no one sees is sown, but that still might, one day, sprout into something greater than what we dare to hope for tonight.*