Chapter 89 — The Last Seed Keeper

Loi Bach Dat took a few more steps between the shelves of the Original Seed Warehouse, his eyes scanning each storage box with a strange indifference, as if he had seen them hundreds of times before and no longer felt any surprise at what they represented.

"You already know," Khe Mien said, her voice shaking with indignation when she realized that indifference. "He's known this place existed all his life."

"Of course I know," Loi Bach Dat replied, not denying at all, his voice still maintaining its characteristic calm, almost gentleness. "I was first brought down here at the age of twelve, when my father explained to me the responsibility that our family bears—the responsibility to protect the future of humanity, even if it requires decisions that most of the world will never have the courage or wisdom to understand."

"Responsibility?" Doanh Ba Thong spoke up, his voice trembling with an anger he had suppressed for many years working silently in the heart of the Upper Dome. "You call hiding thousands of breeds while the whole world starves a responsibility?"

Loi Bach Dat turned to look at him, and in that moment, a flash of anger flashed across his always calm face. "Doanh Ba Thong," he said, his voice now carrying a more naked bitterness. "I have trusted you for many years. I have let you work in my very center of power, unaware that you are secretly betraying everything I stand for."

“I betrayed what you stood for,” Doanh Ba Thong replied, not backing down, “precisely because I finally understood what it really was—not order, not protection, but hoarding masked in fancy words, while millions died for want of what you were hiding right under your feet.”

Khe Mien, still holding the recording device tightly in her hand, continued to let it record every exchange, realizing that this very conversation, transmitted directly through the Toan Vom Radio thanks to the connection that Bach Lam was still maintaining above, held more weight than any documents she had ever found.

“You talk about responsibility,” she said, taking a step forward, facing the man who had haunted her nightmares for months. "But real responsibility is not to keep things to yourself and those you choose. Responsibility is to share what you have, so that everyone, not just a few, has a chance to survive and thrive. That's what I learned from a seventy-year-old woman in a small room in the Green Dome, who never had a fraction of your power, but understood responsibility more deeply than you could imagine."

A tense silence filled the space between them, broken only by the footsteps of Canh Ba Tuyen's soldiers who finally arrived, lining up behind Loi Bach Dat, weapons pointed straight at Khe Mien, Kien and Doanh Ba Thong.

"Arrest them," Loi Bach Dat ordered, his voice regaining its familiar coldness. "And turn off the broadcast connection immediately."

But as soon as he finished speaking, one of the soldiers, instead of advancing, hesitated, lowering his weapon. "Mr. Chairman," he said, his voice shaking, "we just heard... everything. The whole area heard it. Our family on the Base Level was listening too."

Canh Ba Tuyen, standing behind the soldiers, glared at the soldier who had just spoken. “This is no time to question orders,” he barked, but his voice now carried an undisguised panic, as if he too could feel the foundation of power he once stood on shaking beneath his feet.

Up above, at the main gate of Vom Thuong, the confrontation between the security forces and the allied army suddenly stopped as the broadcast blared through every public speaker system, and Wei Ba Cuong, standing in the front row of the allied army, saw the soldiers opposite him begin to lay down their weapons, their faces filled with shock as they heard the accusations ring out clearly and irrefutably.

Farther east, another army was approaching—Salt Dome reinforcements led by Confucius Ba Truc himself, escorted by Kich Ba Hoanh, had received word of the attack on Vom Thuong and rushed to defend their most powerful ally. But when the army got close enough to hear the broadcast, another chaos began to spread within their own ranks—soldiers who had doubted orders, men like Son Ba Dat who had been, now heard their own secret suspicions publicly confirmed before the entire area.

Son Ba Dat, after completing his mission at Dai Phat Toan Vom, rushed out of the tower and ran towards the approaching Salt Dome army, knowing full well that this might be the only chance to prevent unnecessary bloodshed right in front of the city gates. He stood in the middle of the road leading to Upper Dome, alone, both hands raised high, facing hundreds of soldiers who were once his comrades.

"You heard me," he shouted, his voice echoing across the closing distance between them. "Confucius Ba Truc, General Kich Ba Hoanh — do you intend to continue fighting for a man whose own descendants are being turned against by his own soldiers right now? Do you intend to continue burning the homes of innocent people, in the name of an order that has just been exposed as a lie?"

Kich Ba Hoanh, riding at the head of the army, looked down at the fugitive soldier with cold contempt, but when he turned to order his soldiers to advance and arrest Son Ba Dat, no one moved, their eyes instead looked at each other, then looked towards the Upper Dome, where the broadcast continued to echo endlessly. Khong Ba Truc, sitting quietly on horseback behind Kich Ba Hoanh throughout the entire march, finally spoke, his voice deeper and more tired than anyone had ever heard it before.

"Stop," he ordered, causing Kich Ba Hoanh to turn around and look at him with undisguised surprise. "I have ruled the Salt Dome with fear for too long, general. If what is being said is true, then perhaps even I am just another pawn in Loi Bach Dat's game, nothing more, nothing less. I will not shed any more of my soldiers' blood to protect a liar."

Back in the Root Store, Loi Bach Dat looked around, aware of the hesitation spreading among his own soldiers, and for a moment, his face revealed something Khe Mien had never seen before — not anger, but the naked fear of a man who realized the power he had once considered inviolable was vanishing right before his eyes.

“You don't understand,” he said, his voice now filled with an almost desperate urgency, turning to his soldiers. "Without the order that I and my family have maintained, this world would be in complete chaos. Who do you think would coordinate resources, who would prevent war between the Arches, if there were not a center of power strong enough to impose order?"

“We'll do it ourselves,” Khe Mien said, her voice ringing clear, carrying the weight of all she had built over the past months. "Not by imposing from above, but by trusting each other, sharing with each other. The Dong Tro Network has proven that it can be done, without the need for a monopoly to decide who deserves to survive."

Loi Bach Dat looked at her for a long moment, and in his eyes, Khe Mien saw the collapse of a worldview that had been built over generations, a belief that centralized power was the only thing standing between humanity and total destruction. He opened his mouth to say something more, but before he could utter a word, the team of soldiers behind him, who had just heard the whole truth echoing through the loudspeaker system of the Upper Dome, all lowered their weapons, no one was willing to obey the arrest order anymore.

Canh Ba Tuyen, realizing that the situation had completely reversed, took a step back, his eyes wandering around looking for a way out, but Kien, more agile than he expected, blocked the only exit of the hallway, the small knife in his hand did not tremble at all.

"You're not going anywhere," Kien said, his voice surprisingly calm for his age, "until everything you've done is said, in front of everyone listening right now."