Chapter 1 — The Medicine Bearer Through the Chaos

Morning Dew On Ngai Hill

Before the rooster crowed in the third watch, Mrs. Khue woke Tinh Yen up with a familiar sentence: "The most precious medicine is the one picked while the dew is still there." The eight-year-old girl rubbed her eyes, her hands quickly grabbed the patched shirt hanging above the bed, the scent of soapberry still lingering in her hair that hadn't been washed since last night. Outside on the porch, the summer moonlight was as pale as rice water, illuminating the clay yard with a dim halo of light enough to see the silhouette of the woman tying the burden.

"Grandma, what are you picking today?" Tinh Yen asked, her voice still hoarse from sleep.

"Mugwort on the hill, with some honeysuckle at the foot of Uncle Tu Dien's fence." Mrs. Khue gave him a small sickle, the blade of which had been polished brightly since the previous afternoon. "Hold it firmly, don't let the sickle point at you. How many times have you told me?"

The girl clutched the handle of the sickle with both hands, even though her grandmother had told her that only one hand would be enough. He liked that heavy-handed feeling, as if he was carrying a real piece of adult work, not just tagging along.

Lach Dua village is nestled in a quiet puddle of Dong Hai town, where a small river flows into the sea, creating a crescent-like sand strip - perhaps that's why the village's name is associated with the coconut groves growing along the banks of the creek, with leaves flowing into the water to the point where children in the village can hang from the branches to bathe every summer afternoon. Mrs. Khue's house is at the end of the hamlet, close to the foot of the hill, far enough from the beach to avoid the salt wind carrying salty vapors that spoil the drying chemicals, but still close enough to hear the sound of waves crashing every night like the collective breathing of the whole village.

The two of them walked through the pebble-lined path, with dew hanging over the salt fields waiting for the sun to rise. In the distance, several basket boats set sail while it was still dark, oil lamps swaying with the waves like stars falling onto the sea. Tinh Yen walked and inhaled her chest. The smell of young mud, the smell of dried seaweed, the smell of someone's early-fired kitchen smoke - all blend together into a smell that later, no matter where they go, they will immediately recognize it as the smell of home.

"Where does mugwort grow?"

"Look closely. The leaf has a chalky white underside, deeply serrated edges, and when crushed has a pungent yet fragrant smell - that's wormwood. As for leaves that are similar but smell bad, the edges are cut shallower, don't pick them." Mrs. Khue stopped next to a bush growing along the road and gently lifted the leaves for her child to see. "Can you remember?"

Tinh Yen bent down, brought her nose closer, rubbed a leaf between her fingers and sniffed. The acrid smell rushed up the bridge of his nose, making him wince, but he still nodded firmly.

"I remember. The wormwood is fragrant but dark, the other leaves are smelly."

"Good." Mrs. Khue rarely complimented her in many words, but her eyes when looking at her niece at that time had a warmth that didn't need to be said. She was fifty-six years old, her hair was more than half white, her back was slightly bent from more than forty years of bending down to pick left, pound medicine, and massage the sick - but her hands were still unusually agile every time she touches plants, as if they were the children she raised since childhood.

They climbed up the wormwood hill, where the entire gently sloping land was filled with that type of plant, mixed with myrtle and wild crab. Mrs. Khue taught her how to cut the tree so that the roots are not severed, so that the tree can grow again next season; How to bundle small handfuls with string, not large bundles, because large bundles of medicine in the middle will steam and darken, losing their medicinal properties. Tinh Yen followed, clumsily at first, her hand was scratched with a red mark by the myrtle thorn but did not complain, just pursed her lips and continued.

"Grandma." She asked while cutting, without raising her head. "Why does our family have to go pick medicine for the whole village? Van's house doesn't have to pick anything for anyone."

Mrs. Khue was silent for a moment, her hands still nimbly cutting leaves. "Do you know your great-grandfather?"

"No, my great-grandfather passed away before I was born."

"My great-grandfather was the first person in my family to learn the medicine profession, passed down from a traditional medicine man in the mountains. He taught my grandfather, and my grandmother learned the profession directly from my grandfather, because back then few girls could learn how to learn the trade, but my grandfather saw that she had hands and eyes, so he taught her privately." Mrs. Khue stopped and looked out to sea, where the sunlight was rising red like a giant chicken egg amid the steam. "My great-grandfather once told my grandfather something, my grandfather told my grandmother, and now I'm telling you again. Medicine is not a profession to get rich, nor is it a profession to make people respect you. It is a profession to pay off debt."

"Repay what debt?"

"Pay your debt for the life you're living. Everyone gets sick sometimes, sometimes they need someone else to save them. After learning how to save people, if you don't save them, it's like losing your debt to heaven and earth." She looked down at her grandchild, her voice softening. "Bookmaker Van doesn't have to go pick medicine, because he doesn't owe anyone that debt. Our family owes it. From my great-grandfather's generation until now."

Tinh Yen did not understand everything she said, but he felt the weight in her voice, like an oath that had never been said out loud but still smoldered in the blood of three generations of people. He looked down at the handful of mugwort in his hand, the leaves were dark green on top, silver white on the bottom, still wet with dew, and suddenly saw that they were much heavier than before.

On the way home, we stopped by Uncle Tu Dien's house to pick honeysuckle climbing around the bamboo fence. Uncle Tu Dien - the village chief, whose voice resonated like a gong - was sitting on the porch sharpening sticks. When he saw the two of them, he laughed loudly.

"The healer left early in the morning. Is someone in the family sick?"

"No, let's go pick and reserve today, Uncle Tu. The rainy season is coming, we won't have time to save."

Uncle Tu Dien nodded and looked at Tinh Yen who was busy cutting each piece of honeysuckle vine the same way she taught - leaving a piece of the root so that the tree is still alive, not cutting close to the ground. "This girl will probably succeed her when she grows up. Look at the way she holds the sickle, just like her when she was young."

"I don't know anything yet, uncle." Tinh Yen blushed and lowered her head to continue working.

"No matter how little or how much you know, you have to study thoroughly." Mrs. Khue rubbed her grandson's head, her voice more serious than usual. "If you learn this job half-heartedly, one day you will kill people instead of playing it."

Those words made the morning atmosphere suddenly quiet down a bit. Uncle Tu Dien no longer smiled, just nodded, his hands still sharpening the needles steadily. In the distance, the sound of buffalo bells echoing from the fields, mixed with the endless murmuring sound of ocean waves, as if the whole Lach Dua village was breathing in the same slow rhythm of the morning.

When she got home, Mrs. Khue spread out the mat in the yard and laid out the left she had just picked to dry. Tinh Yen helped her turn over each layer of left to get even sunlight, muttering the names of the herbs she had just taught - mugwort to treat menstrual cramps and stop bleeding, honeysuckle to treat internal heat and pimples, and other herbs she had taught before such as lemongrass to treat colds, ginger to treat stomach colds. It's so memorable that sometimes she even surprises herself.

In the afternoon, someone knocked on the door. That was Kinh, at this time still a boy about the same age as Tinh Yen, the son of a fisherman in the neighborhood, his skin was black because he spent all day in the sun on the beach. He stood in front of the gate, holding a fresh mullet.

"Grandma, my mother told me to bring the fish to you. Thank you for treating my brother last month."

Mrs. Khue took the fish and smiled gently. "Thank your mother. Tell her there's no need to do any weights, treating children's illnesses is the right thing to do."

Kinh nodded, then did not leave immediately but stood and looked sideways into the yard, where Tinh Yen was sitting among piles of dried tobacco leaves. "What are you doing? Sitting in the middle of the dry grass looks funny."

"This is medicine, not hay." Tinh Yen rolled her eyes, feeling a bit self-conscious. "You don't know anything."

"Who cares? I'd rather go to the beach and catch cuffs." Kinh shrugged his shoulders, but then sat down next to it, curiously picked up a branch of wormwood and sniffed it, wincing at the pungent smell. "Is it this disgusting that you can drink it?"

"Not to drink, but to apply to the stomach when you have a stomach ache, or to pound it to stop bleeding when you cut your hand." Tinh Yen reached for the wormwood branch in her hand, folded it neatly back into its original place, and moved neatly like a real adult. "My grandmother taught us to put them in the right place, not to mix them up, otherwise we won't be able to get them in time."

Kinh looked at it for a while, said nothing, then suddenly asked a question that made Tinh Yen pause: "Do you remember your father and mother?"

Tinh Yen bent down, still folding the leaves but slowing down. "I don't remember very well. When my mother passed away, I was still a baby. My father... I only remember him carrying me to the beach once, showing me some wild animals."

"So you must be very sad?"

"If you have a grandmother, you won't be sad." The girl replied briefly, trying to sound calm, but her fingers tightened around a branch of honeysuckle until the leaf was crushed. He didn't want to say more about it, and Kinh - even though he was young - was observant enough to notice, silently turning to show off the dagger he had just carved from bamboo.

That night, after Kinh returned, Mrs. Khue sat by the fire, twirling some hemp threads to tie the medicine, while Tinh Yen lay with her head on her lap, her eyes half-closed, looking at the flickering firelight on the wall. The oil lamp on the small altar flickered, the yellow light illuminating the blurred images of his parents - two young faces that he could only vaguely remember through fragmentary memories.

"Grandma." He whispered, his voice muffled by sleepiness. "In the future, will I be able to become a doctor like you?"

Mrs. Khue looked down, her calloused hand gently caressing her child's hair. "Do you want it?"

"I want to. I want to be like her, so that no one in our village has to die because there is no medicine anymore."

That innocent statement made Ms. Khue quiet for a moment. Outside, the sea breeze changed direction, bringing with it the sudden coldness of a distant thunderstorm forming offshore, even though the sky was still clear. She pulled the thin blanket over her grandson, her eyes looking out at the dark window, where the darkness of Dong Hai town stretched far away towards the distant mountains - where, although she did not know it yet, in just a few years, the sound of war drums would begin to echo from that direction, slowly but unceasingly, like the breathing of a great animal waking up.

"Go to sleep, child," she said softly, her voice mixed with the sound of the crackling fire. "You still have to get up early tomorrow."

But that night, the oil lamp on the altar still burned late into the night, longer than usual, as if it too was trying to stay awake with her, guarding something that had yet to come.