Chapter 46 — The Last Seed Keeper

The shift change bell rang just as Bach Lam had predicted, a dull metallic sound echoing throughout the stone corridors, and in about three minutes of mild chaos as the old soldiers left their positions and the new ones had not yet settled in, he gently pushed open the door, checking the empty hallway before gesturing for the group to follow.

They moved in the dark, sticking close to the cold cliff, each step being placed lightly according to the wordless instructions of the leader Ngan The Binh, who had the best instinct to recognize the terrain in the group. Diem Quynh led the way through her memory of the route she had observed during the day, turning through darker, less frequented side corridors, leading gradually down to a lower compartment where the air became more humid and the sound of gurgling water sounded more clearly with each step.

“Here it is,” she whispered as they approached a small sunken chamber, where growing chamber number three loomed in the weak light from a narrow skylight above, tiny rows of green vegetables grown in soil transported from outside, and in the far corner, an iron grate covered a water outlet wide enough for a person to squeeze through.

Bach Lam knelt down and used his dagger to carefully pry open each bolt holding the iron grille together, working in absolute silence with the precision of someone who had removed hundreds of locking mechanisms throughout his traveling career. Each bolt popped out with a soft click, and when the last bolt was removed, he gently lifted the grate, revealing a narrow tunnel leading down, the water flowing through the bottom in a shallow but continuous stream.

"Patience first," Bach Lam ordered softly. "Then Diem Quynh, Khe Mien, Ngan The Binh. I will go last to put the iron net behind, distracting them when they discover."

Before Kien slid down, Khe Mien held his hand for a moment, looking straight into the eyes of the teenager who was trembling more from fear than from the cold. "Remember what Bach Lam taught you," she said softly. "Breathe evenly, look where you put your feet, don't look back unless I call you."

He nodded, clenching his teeth to keep from making a sound, then slid down the tunnel, the sound of water splashing softly as he reached the bottom. Diem Quynh followed immediately, without a second of hesitation even though Khe Mien could clearly see her hands shaking as she clung to the slippery rock to keep her balance. The two began moving along the narrow tunnel, crouching low to avoid the jagged rocks protruding from the ceiling, toward a faint light in the distance — perhaps the outlet to the outside of the mountain, the only thing that gave them any concrete hope to cling to.

But just as Khe Mien was about to slide down, a loud shout echoed from the hallway behind them, followed by the sound of running footsteps and the oil lamp light shaking violently — someone had discovered the living room was empty earlier than expected.

"Go now!" Bach Lam shouted, no longer needing to keep quiet, pushing Khe Mien down the tunnel while Ngan The Binh turned around to face the direction of the sound, his hand pulling out a jungle knife as a protective reflex.

Khe Mien fell into the cold water, the seed box clutched tightly to her chest reflexively ingrained into her body, and as soon as she stood firm, she turned to look up and saw Bach Lam trying to pull the iron grate back to its original position, but the light from above had already flooded to the mouth of the tunnel, along with the shouts of the soldiers.

"Bach Lam!" she called out, panic rising in her chest.

"Run, don't wait for me!" he shouted down, his voice cutting through the chaos with an undeniable command, before turning to face the oncoming soldiers, standing next to Ngan The Binh like a living wall between the hatch and his pursuers.

Diem Quynh, who stopped in front to wait for Khe Mien, grabbed her hand and pulled her away. "Sister, we have to go," she said, her voice choked with tears, but still maintaining the alertness necessary to act. "Mr. Bach Lam is right — if we stay, we will all be arrested."

Khe Mien took one last look toward the mouth of the tunnel beyond, where lights and figures were struggling in a chaos she couldn't see clearly, screams and metallic clashes echoing down through the rock, before a small explosion — perhaps from an alarm or a block of rock deliberately knocked down to block pursuit — shook the tunnel, bringing with it a torrential shower of rock dust and water.

"Kien!" Diem Quynh screamed as the teenager, running ahead, slipped on the wet, slippery rock just as the tremor struck, falling into the water.

Khe Mien rushed forward, pulled him up, the three continued to rush towards the light ahead while behind them, the sound of falling rocks continued to echo, and when Khe Mien glanced back one last time before the tunnel turned, she could no longer see the silhouette of Bach Lam or Ngan The Binh - only darkness, dust, and a large block of rock that seemed to have collapsed blocking the path they had just passed.

"No," she whispered, stopping even though Diem Quynh still pulled her hand. "We can't leave them behind."

"Sister Khe Mien," Diem Quynh said, her voice trembling but determined, gripping her shoulder tightly. "If that block of rock has collapsed, we can't go back through there anymore. The only way to help them is to get out of here, find a way around from the outside."

Kien, soaked and shaking with cold and fear, nodded in agreement, his voice choked. "Sister, I think she's right. We don't have the tools to dig through rocks, we don't have strong enough light, nothing."

Khe Mien stood motionless for several endless seconds, torn between her instinct to turn back and her reason that screamed that it would only put them all in more danger. Finally, with a pain as if someone had just ripped a part of her body off, she turned around and continued rushing towards the light ahead, tears mixed with cold stew running down her face.

The tunnel finally opened into a natural crack in the mountainside, where the released water flowed into a small stream among the rocks, and Khe Mien, Diem Quynh, and Kien staggered out under the starry night sky, breathing heavily, their wet clothes clinging to their bodies trembling from cold and exhaustion.

Behind them, deep in the heart of the mountain, the noise continued to echo vaguely—maybe it was the sound of pursuit, maybe it was just the echo of the rock collapse—but there was no way to know for sure, no way to know whether Bach Lam and Ngan The Binh had escaped in another direction, had been captured, or worse, had been buried in the same rock that had saved the three of them from pursuit.

Khe Mien stood in the middle of the dark night on an unfamiliar mountainside, holding Diem Quynh and Kien tightly in her arms as if she let go, she would lose the last two people left by her side, and in her heart, a single question, terrible and unanswered, continued to echo endlessly: *are they still alive?*

For a long time, none of the three people could say a word, only the sound of panting mixed with the sound of the gurgling stream around their feet and the sound of the night wind rushing through the rocks on the mountainside. Kien was the first to break the silence, his voice breaking into a sob that he could no longer suppress.

“This is my fault,” he said, his hands clasped around his knees, his body curled into a small, trembling mass on the wet rock. "If I hadn't slipped, if I had been faster..."

"It's not your fault," Khe Mien said immediately, kneeling in front of him, grabbing his shoulders with both hands to force him to look her in the eyes. "This is the fault of someone who decided to accuse us before finding out the truth. Not yours, not any of us."

Diem Quynh, even though she was also trembling herself, knelt down next to her, wrapping her arms around both Kien and Khe Mien in a clumsy but sincere gesture, as if trying to hold on tightly to what was left of the small family they had built throughout their long journey.

“We'll find a way,” she said, her voice still shaking but with a slowly building determination. "Mr. Bach Lam and Mr. Ngan The Binh are the best people at survival I've ever known. If anyone can get through this, it's the two of them."

Khe Mien wanted to believe that reassurance with all her heart, but when she looked up at the dark mountain range towering behind her, somewhere deep within the rock, the fate of the people she loved the most was still an open question. She could only hold the hands of the two remaining people by her side, and step tremblingly into the darkness ahead, carrying the fragile but never completely extinguished hope that this was just a temporary separation, not a final goodbye. same.