Chapter 78 — The Last Seed Keeper

Khe Mien saw Bach Lam's face before he could say a word, and in that moment, she knew — without explanation, without any details — that something terrible had happened on the diversion route.

"Where is Ngan The Binh?" she asked, her voice shaking, even though she had guessed the answer from that painful absence.

Bach Lam couldn't answer right away, just stood there, his body collapsing under the weight of what had just happened, and Kien, standing behind him, burst into tears, no longer trying to hold back as he had all the way back to the meeting point.

"He saved us," Kien said, his voice cracking between sobs. "He collapsed the passage to block them. He wasn't with us."

Khe Mien felt like the entire world around her slowed down, sounds became distant and blurred, as the truth slowly seeped into her mind — the man who had accompanied them since the first days they left the Green Dome, the man who taught Kien how to read traces on the ground, the man who had always been a practical and calm voice amid every storm they had ever faced, was now gone.

She hugged Bach Lam, feeling his entire body tremble in her arms, and in that moment, there were no words that needed to be said—only presence, the sharing of the weight of pain that neither of them could carry alone.

Diem Quynh, upon hearing the news, sat down on the ground, covering her face with her hands, and the remaining Vom Cat warriors, although not as close to Ngan The Binh as those in the Green Dome group, also bowed their heads in a moment of respectful silence for a person who had sacrificed his life to save those who, just a few hours before, were strangers to him.

Reinforcements from Vom Soi, arriving earlier than expected thanks to the hasty marching speed of a small group dispatched by Wei Ba Cuong as soon as the emergency signal was received, appeared that afternoon, forcing Kich Ba Hoanh to retreat from Vom Soi at the risk of facing a coalition force that was larger than he had anticipated. But that tactical victory, although important, could not ease the pain that was covering the entire group that had just returned from the battle.

Three days later, when the situation had temporarily stabilized and the entire coalition gathered at Vom Soi to hold a memorial service, Khe Mien stood in front of a stone slab placed near the collapsed tunnel door — a place where the body could not be recovered, but a place the community decided would forever be a place to remember those who fell there. Xa Binh Nguyen and the people of Vom Soi together carved a simple inscription on that stone: *Ngan The Binh — the person who stopped, so that others could continue.*

"I remember him telling me one time," Bach Lam said, standing in front of the stone, his voice hoarse from crying more than he had ever allowed himself to do, "that leading the way is not about knowing all the answers, but about knowing when to stop and listen to what the land is telling you. I think, in the end, he listened to the land one last time, and it told him exactly where to stop."

Kien walked up, his hand holding a small handful of ash taken from the campfire they had built together on the first night they met Ngan The Binh, a ritual he had proposed, inspired by the story Khe Mien once told him about Co Diem Ninh's funeral at the Green Dome, where the ashes were used to root a memorial tree.

“I don't have his actual ashes,” he said, his voice shaking but steady, “but I think he wouldn't mind if we planted something alive here, where he chose to stay.” He knelt down, dug a small hole next to the stone, and poured a handful of ash into it along with a seed Khe Mien had given him—one of the rarest and most resilient strains in the Seed Store, a plant that could grow from cracks in the barren rocks.

"It will grow from here," Khe Mien said, kneeling next to him to help fill the soil, feeling her tears fall and mix with the dry soil. "Just like how he lived — finding a foothold in even the harshest of places, and giving those around him a place to put down roots."

The group stood silently around that symbolic grave for a long time, each lost in their own memories of the man who had accompanied them through the Plain of Ashes, through the Salt Dome, through the Stone Dome, through all the dangers that none of them thought they could survive without his practical and persistent wisdom to guide them.

Duong Thi Yen, representing the Stone Dome delegation to support, stood quietly at the edge of the crowd, and when the ceremony ended, she approached Khe Mien with a new seriousness in her eyes. "Wei Baqiang sent me not just to bring reinforcements," she said. "He wanted me to convey that, after hearing about what had happened here, Stone Arch was willing to reconsider its commitment to the alliance. Perhaps that man's sacrifice had shown him that this was not some vain political adventure, but something worth dying for."

Khe Mien nodded, feeling a strange pain mixed with fragile comfort at that news — that Ngan The Binh's death, while irreversible, was not completely meaningless, that it had become part of something larger that was slowly taking shape.

That afternoon, before dark, Khe Mien sat in front of the radio in Vom Soi's makeshift command tent, preparing to send a message to Green Dome—one of the most difficult conversations she had ever had to have, harder than standing before the Central Council at Upper Dome.

"Dieu Lam," she said when the connection was established, her voice trying to hold steady but breaking with the first words, "I need you to convey word to the Council. We have secured Pebble Dome. But we have lost Ngan The Binh."

A long silence echoed through the transmission, and when Tang Dieu Lam spoke again, her voice was choked without concealment. “I'm so sorry, Khe Mien,” she said. "I know what he means to you, to Bach Lam, to everyone."

The news spread quickly through the Green Dome in the following days, and when Khe Mien contacted again the next evening, it was Bien Ba Uy who held the receiver, his voice deep and heavy. "I have ordered the flag of mourning to be flown in front of the Grain Warehouse for seven days," he said. "The people of Green Dome will hold a private memorial service. Although he was not of ours by blood, he protected the children of Green Dome with his life. That deserves to be remembered as a true son of Green Dome."

Even Su Dinh Lam, when it was his turn to speak over the transmission line, could not maintain his usual tone. “I used to doubt the value of trips outside the Filter Roof,” he said, his voice slow and somewhat shaky. "But I cannot doubt the value of someone who is willing to sacrifice his life for others, even if they are not related by blood, not from the same Dome. If that is the kind of person the world outside the Green Dome can produce, perhaps I have been more wrong than I care to admit."

Khe Mien listened to those words with a heart both pained and warm, clearly sensing that even though Ngan The Binh was no longer here to hear them, his legacy had begun to spread farther than anything he could have imagined while he was alive — not only saving the lives of a group of people at Vom Soi, but also touching the hearts of those who were most skeptical about the value of opening up to the outside world.

That night, when Kien sat alone by the memorial stone under the stars, Bach Lam came and sat down next to him. They were both silent for a long time before he spoke.

"He trusts me," Bach Lam said. "Not everyone he would allow to accompany him in battle. He sees something in you — perhaps it was him many years ago, when he was young and just starting to learn how to survive on the Ashes."

"I'm afraid I'll never be as good a guide as him," Kien said, his voice quiet.

“No one can replace him,” Bach Lam replied, “and you don't have to. But if you carry with you what he taught you — patience, respect for the land, the willingness to stand up for others when needed — then a part of him will always continue to guide the way, through you.”

Kien nodded, wiped his tears with the back of his hand, and looked up at the night sky that was not obscured by any of the Filter Roofs in this place, thousands of twinkling stars spread out above like a vast map of a world that still had so much to explore, to protect, to guide the way through.