Chapter 32 — The Last Seed Keeper

Thin smoke rising from a small ravine caused Ngan The Binh to stop suddenly the next afternoon, his hand raised to signal the group to be silent.

"There's someone," he said softly, his eyes squinting as he watched the thin smoke disappearing into the air ahead.

"Cooking fire, not a big campfire," Bach Lam commented, also lowering his voice, his hand reflexively resting on the knife's handle. "Maybe just one or two people."

The group approached cautiously, and when they rounded a rocky outcrop, they saw the source of the smoke — a small hut skillfully built between two large rocks, using them as natural windbreaks, and sitting by a small fire in front of the tent was an elderly man, his hair had turned almost white, his skin tanned and wrinkled from many years of exposure to the harsh sun of Dong Tro.

The man looked up when he heard footsteps, not showing signs of panic, just observing the group with the strange calmness of someone who had lived too long outside the safety of any Arch to feel afraid of strangers.

“Rare visitor,” he said, his voice hoarse but clear. "No one has passed through here in many years."

"We don't mean to bother," Bach Lam said, keeping a respectful distance, his hands still alert but not threatening. "We're on our way to Sand Dome."

“Sand Dome,” the man repeated, nodding slowly. "It's still far, about three days' journey in the direction you are going. Sit down, if you want. I have enough water to invite guests, although not much."

Khe Mien exchanged looks with Bach Lam, and after a short nod from him, the whole group carefully sat down around a small fire, although Ngan The Binh still stood guard in a position where he could observe the entire surrounding area.

"My name is Dai Van Cuong," the man said, introducing himself before anyone could ask. "I have lived in this area for nearly twenty years, ever since my Arch fell."

"Which arch is that?" Khe Mien asked, her voice was gentle, curious but did not want to stir up unnecessary pain.

"A name you won't know," he replied, his eyes gazing distantly into the fire. "It did not last long enough to be mentioned in any stories other than the memories of the few survivors like me. The air filtration system failed, no one had the technology to repair it, and in less than a year, the entire community had to scatter, each finding their own way to survive."

There was a short silence, and Khe Mien thought of the story of Vom Suong she had heard at Green Dome, wondering how many other Domes had suffered the same fate without anyone ever mentioning their names.

"You've lived here alone for twenty years?" Diem Quynh asked, her voice carrying sincere sympathy.

"Most of the time, yes," Dai Van Cuong replied. "I tried to find my way to the other Arches, a few times, but I was old, and most of the Arches weren't too eager to take on another mouth to feed that couldn't contribute much. I learned to survive alone, to find water, to find what was still edible in the surrounding ruins. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't as bad as one might think, once you got used to it."

Khe Mien looked around the small hut, noticing a strange orderliness amidst the harsh circumstances — stones lined up to mark the boundary of the dwelling, a crude shelf made from dry tree branches hung a few worn but clean cooking utensils, and in the corner of the tent, a cloth covered something that seemed to be kept more carefully than the rest.

"You've lived here alone for twenty years and still maintain such neatness," she commented, unable to hide the admiration in her voice.

"When there is no one else to talk to, people learn to talk to the order of their own lives," Dai Van Cuong replied, a sad smile crossing his wrinkled face. "It's how we keep our minds from going astray, after losing everything that once mattered."

Bach Lam, who had been observing the surrounding area while chatting, noticed a number of unusual items neatly arranged near the tent — pieces of metal, a few books that were rotten but carefully wrapped in cloth, and a small metal box with a lock.

"Did you find many things in the ruins around here?" he asked, trying to keep his voice natural.

"Enough to live on," Dai Van Cuong replied, but his eyes glanced at the metal box unconsciously, a small gesture that Khe Mien did not miss. "This area was part of something big before the Great Cataclysm. I've been digging long enough to know that."

"We found a symbol, a day's journey from here," Khe Mien said, deciding to try her luck, taking out Diem Quynh's sketch paper and showing it to him. "A circle in a triangle, with rays of light shining out. Have you ever seen it?"

Dai Van Cuong took the paper, and the moment he looked at it, his face changed completely — the usual calmness was gone, replaced by a complex expression that mixed recognition, fear, and an old, long-buried pain.

"Where?" he asked, his voice suddenly tense. "Where did you find it?"

"On a ruined wall, about a day's journey east from here," Bach Lam replied, carefully observing his reaction. "You know what it is?"

The old man was silent for a long moment, his hand still holding the paper tightly, his eyes looking far away at something only he could see.

"I know," he said finally, his voice quiet. "My Dome — the Arch that collapsed twenty years ago — was built by a group of engineers who worked for a large organization before the Great Cataclysm. They never explicitly named the organization in public, but the elders of the community, those who remembered the world before the disaster, sometimes mentioned it in private conversations. This symbol," he pointed at the paper, "is their mark. I have seen it engraved on some of the old technical equipment that the that engineer brought with them when they came to build my Dome."

"What is the name of that organization?" Khe Mien asked, her breath stopped as she waited for an answer.

Dai Van Cuong looked at her for a long moment, as if pondering something heavy. "You already know the name, right?" he asked back. “I saw it in your eyes when you mentioned this symbol.”

"Thien Ho," Khe Mien said softly.

The old man nodded slowly, a gesture of confirmation heavier than any words could express. "Thien Ho Group," he said. "Where did you hear that name?"

"From my teacher," Khe Mien replied, "who only heard it once, from your teacher, many years before any of us were born. Do you know anything more about them?"

Dai Van Cuong sighed, a sigh that carried the weight of twenty years of living alone with memories that no one else cared about. "No more than what those engineers used to reveal when they were drunk or tired and forgot to keep their mouth shut," he said. "But enough for me to believe that, whoever they are, they're not just any ordinary company from the old world. If you really want to know more, I can show you something — but I warn you, once you've seen it, you won't be able to pretend like you've never seen it again."

The group was silent, and Khe Mien clearly felt, sitting by the small fire in the middle of the dead land, that they were standing on the threshold of something far greater than anything she had ever imagined when she left the Green Dome's Filter Roof, weeks and a lifetime ago.

Ngan The Binh, still standing guard but clearly listening to every word, spoke for the first time since the conversation began. "Are you sure you want to show us?" he asked, his voice cautious. "Once you share, you can't take it back. And we're strangers you just met less than an hour ago."

Dai Van Cuong looked at him, then at each person in the group in turn, his eyes stopped longest at Khe Mien. “I've been holding on to it for twenty years, waiting for someone to ask the right question,” he said, his voice carrying a strange sense of relief, as if the burden he'd been carrying for so long had finally found a place to lay down. "I'm old, and I don't know how much longer I can live in this place. If I die without telling anyone, everything I know will die with me, forever. Perhaps that's what I fear more than trusting the wrong person."

“We want to see,” Khe Mien said, her voice steady even though she wasn't entirely sure whether she was ready for what was to come.