Chapter 63 — The Last Seed Keeper

The expanding group—now containing not just the five familiar people but eighteen survivors from the settlement, including three young children who had to be carried in turns and two old men who moved slowly despite their best efforts—moved much slower than the pace Ngan The Binh wanted, and by mid-afternoon on the second day, as the sun began to lean westward and long shadows fell across the cracked ground, he motioned the group to an abrupt stop, one arm. held straight up in the air.

"There's someone ahead," he said softly, barely audible. "Behind the low rocks on the left, about four hundred meters."

Bach Lam immediately walked up beside him, both watching through a gap between jagged rocks. "How many people?" he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"I can count five," Ngan The Binh replied after a moment of careful observation. "Equipped with black leather armor, metal trim. Not a merchant caravan."

Khe Mien felt her heart beat faster when she heard those words, turning to look at the group of people behind her — scared faces, children exhausted from the journey, old people who couldn't move quickly even if they wanted to. There was no way for this group to escape or hide in time if the other patrol discovered them.

“We need a place to hide, now,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm despite the panic rising inside her.

"There's a shallow ravine behind us, about fifty meters," Diem Quynh said, pointing toward a sunken patch of land she'd noticed before, the reflex of someone who had learned to observe the terrain after months of traveling through Dong Tro. "Not very deep, but enough to hide people if we crouch low."

"Go now," Bach Lam ordered, his voice firm and decisive, leaving no room for hesitation. "Absolute silence. Diem Quynh, Kien, lead everyone first. Me and Ngan The Binh will go last to erase the traces."

The group moved as fast as they could in silence, the survivors from the settlement, exhausted as they were, found some reserve of strength in the knowledge of the danger — they had faced this same army before, and that fear was still fresh in their tensed muscles. Khe Mien helped an old woman step down the ravine, her hands trembled slightly as she felt her own panicked heartbeat mixed with the older woman's rapid breathing.

They had just had time to crouch down and hide behind a low ridge of rocks when the sound of footsteps rang out — unhurried, carrying the organized rhythm of soldiers accustomed to patrolling, the sound of leather armor scraping against each other, and a cold voice cutting through the still air of Dong Tro.

“Check the northern area,” the voice ordered, a man with an authoritative tone but not the mature voice of a high-ranking commander—perhaps a lower-ranking captain, not the Kich Ba Hoanh that Trach Thi Hoa had described. "There are reports of a group of people leaving the eastern settlement. We can't let them reach Sand Dome without being stopped."

Khe Mien felt her entire body freeze when she heard those words, realizing immediately that this wasn't just a random patrol — they were searching for the exact group of people she was protecting.

A small child, no more than five years old, began to stir in his mother's arms, a small cry threatening to escape from fear and fatigue. The mother quickly covered her child's mouth, tears streaming down her face in the silent horror of a mother having to choose between hurting her child and risking the group being discovered.

Kien, sitting nearby, quickly took out a piece of soft cloth from his pocket and gently gave it to the child to bite, a technique he learned from Diem Quynh in the early days of the journey when he needed to keep quiet through dangerous areas. The child sucked the piece of cloth, and the crying that was threatening to overflow died down into small sobs.

The footsteps continued to sound, coming closer, then stopping right above the rocky ridge where the group was hiding. Khe Mien held her breath, her eyes glanced at Bach Lam, who was lying on the ground with an unsheathed dagger, ready for the worst-case scenario that they both knew would be disastrous if it happened—five armed soldiers against a group of mostly exhausted civilians, children and the elderly.

"There's nothing here," another voice said, closer ominously. "Only rocks and ashes."

"Closer inspection," the commander's voice commanded. "We don't have time to go empty-handed."

A moment of silence stretched on for what seemed like an eternity, and Khe Mien felt a cold sweat run down her spine as she heard the footsteps of a soldier approaching the edge of the ravine, just a few feet from where they were hiding.

Then, suddenly, another noise rang out in the distance — the hooves of some animal, perhaps one of the few wild animals left on Dong Tro, passing a short distance to the south.

"That side!" shouted the voice of the soldier near the ravine, and the footsteps immediately changed direction, all five people flocking towards the sound with the alertness of predators accustomed to not missing any signs.

The group lay still for a while longer after the sound of footsteps had completely disappeared into the distance, no one dared to move until Ngan The Binh, after crawling up to check carefully, signaled it was safe.

“They went away,” he said, his voice still cautious. "But they won't stop searching. We need to change course immediately."

When the whole group stood up, trembling from the stress they had just experienced, Khe Mien realized Kien was gently rubbing his ankle with a painful grimace trying to hide it.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, kneeling down immediately to check.

"Just a slight twist, when I helped an old lady down a ravine," Kien replied, trying to give a reassuring smile even though he was clearly in pain. "It's okay, I can still go."

Diem Quynh quickly bandaged his ankle with one of the bandages she brought, her eyes carrying an undisguised concern for the companion who had gone through so many trials with her throughout the journey. "You have to say it next time," she scolded softly, though her voice was more concerned than reproachful. "We can't let anyone on the team suffer alone."

Bach Lam, standing and observing the whole situation with a pensive expression, finally spoke up when the whole group was preparing to continue on their way in a further detour that Ngan The Binh proposed. "Kich Ba Hoanh didn't just burn and retreat," he said, his voice heavy. "He is actively hunting down any survivors, anyone who might carry this story further. This is not a single retribution — this is a calculated campaign to completely silence the voices of resistance."

"So we have to get these people to safety faster," Khe Mien said, her eyes steady even though her body was still shaking from the danger she had just experienced. "And we must make sure their stories are heard, not just in the Sand Dome, but everywhere possible."

When night began to fall and Ngan The Binh decided that the whole group should stop to rest temporarily in a sheltered rock hole before continuing the further roundabout route early the next morning, he sat down next to a small fire that was carefully shielded so as not to expose the light far away, sharpening his jungle knife with slow, familiar movements, as a ritual to help him rearrange his thoughts after a stressful day.

“I counted their footprints,” he said, without looking up from his work. "It wasn't just the five patrols we just avoided. There were at least three other teams spread throughout the area, from what I read from the tracks on the ground. This wasn't a small manhunt."

"You mean that Confucius is putting all his strength into blocking the news from spreading?" Bach Lam asked, sitting down opposite him, the firelight reflected on his tense face.

"I think so," Ngan The Binh replied. "Or someone else ordered him to. In all my years of leading troops through the Ashes, I've never seen a lord mobilize so much force just to pursue a group of civilians fleeing his own territory. It's expensive, and there's no direct benefit — unless the target isn't these people, but anyone who might hear their story."

Khe Mien, sitting and listening from the other side of the fire with the seed box placed neatly in her lap, felt that those words matched the premonition that had been simmering inside her since she heard Trach Thi Hoa mention the name Vom Thuong. "If that's true," she said quietly, "then this is no longer about the Green Dome and a small settlement. This is about who will be allowed to tell the truth, and who will be forced to stay silent."

No one responded right away, and in that silence, Khe Mien looked at Trach Thi Hoa who was helping an old woman prepare a place to rest for the night in the corner of a nearby rock hole, and in her heart rose a new determination, sharper than ever - determination that what she had just witnessed would not just be a story told in fear, but would become the driving force for something greater, something she had not dared to name, but had begun to form in her mind like A new seed, waiting for the right land to germinate.