Chapter 21 — The Medicine Bearer Through the Chaos

Tomb beside Long Mon Gate

The soil at the foot of the mountain behind the military medical barracks was hard and mixed with crushed rocks, each blow of the hoe made a dry "click" sound, as if the mountain did not want to hold back any more people. Tinh Yen dug herself, not allowing anyone to help, even though there were nearly a dozen soldiers standing silently behind, helmets in hand, waiting to take her turn.

"Miss Tinh Yen, leave us." A young soldier, his arm still wrapped in a white bandage, stepped forward to grab the hoe handle.

"Let me do it myself." She spoke, her voice not loud but enough to make him pause. "My master once said that medical practitioners must personally take care of those they cannot save. That is the last and heaviest part of the profession."

No one dared to stop anymore. They stood in a circle outside, silently watching the young healer dig the dirt in the pale afternoon sunlight until the grave was deep enough to place a human body.

There were no good wooden coffins - the barracks in the middle of the war season did not have enough to make a coffin for a wandering monk without relatives or rank. People could only wrap Lieu Nguyen's body in a hastily sewn white shroud, covered with the old cassock he had worn throughout his years of practicing medicine all over the world. Tinh Yen had sewn up a few broken threads on her shirt the night before, sitting alone under the light of an oil lamp, the needle pricking her finger countless times without even feeling any pain.

Lu Bat stood in the front row of the farewell crowd, his iron face and solemnity rare for a deputy general who was more familiar with the bloody scenes of battle than funerals. "Doctor Lieu Nguyen has saved more than three hundred lives in this military camp in the past month alone." He spoke, his voice resounding in the calm afternoon, loud enough for the whole crowd to hear clearly. "No royal medal is worthy of that merit. But I, as the deputy general guarding the Long Mon pass, on behalf of the entire army, send him off with the highest ceremony this barracks can do."

He pulled out his sword, held it horizontally in front of his chest, and bowed his head. Behind him, rows of soldiers - some had their wounds stitched up by Lieu Nguyen himself, some had only heard of them through stories - also quietly bowed their heads, without a sound, only the mountain wind blowing past rustled the camp flags in the distance.

Tinh Yen knelt down next to the grave, clasped her hands, and stopped crying. Her tears had dried up since the previous rainy night, when she sat hugging the cold body of the second teacher in her life until morning. Now, she was left with only a heavy stillness, like the surface of a lake after a storm had passed but had not yet returned to clarity.

"Master," she said softly, loud enough for only herself to hear, "I will not let what you give me go to waste. I promise."

She placed a handful of dried mint leaves on the grave - the first herb Lieu Nguyen taught her to recognize on her wandering path. The cool scent still lingered on her fingertips as she filled the grave with dirt. No stone tablet, no engraved name - just a simple wooden slab carved by her own hands, engraved with just four words: "Teacher Saves Life."

The crowd gradually dispersed as the dusk turned dark purple, leaving only Tinh Yen sitting quietly next to the new mound, until a familiar limping step approached.

"She's been here all afternoon." Ve Thanh Phong spoke in a low voice, sitting down just far enough away from her so as not to violate the solemnity of the funeral but close enough for her to feel his presence. "I just came back from the defense line. When I heard the news, I didn't have time to change my armor."

Tinh Yen looked over and saw battlefield dust on his shoulder, and an old streak of dried blood on his wrist - not his blood, she guessed through the experience of looking at blood that had grown thicker over the past year.

"You don't need to be in such a hurry." She said, her voice hoarse. "I just... don't want to leave Master lying down alone without anyone around for a little longer."

"He didn't lie down alone." Thanh Phong replied, looking towards the new grave. "The whole camp is grateful to you. Me too - if it weren't for you and me that night on the battlefield, I probably wouldn't be here to talk to you today."

Silence lasted for a while, only the sound of the wind and the chirping of insects began as the sky grew darker. Tinh Yen clenched her hand that was placed on her knee, where the palm of her hand still felt the feeling of the half piece of jade talisman she had kept carefully in her medicine bag since the night her master passed away.

"I've been thinking a lot these past few days." She spoke slowly, as if she was rearranging her thoughts. "Up until now, I was just an apprentice following my master, helping wherever people needed me, without any status in the official military hospital. But now my master is gone, if I continue like this, just relying on everyone's kindness to let me stay and help, sooner or later there will come a day when people won't need me anymore."

"What are you going to do?" Thanh Phong asked, his eyes focused.

"I want to officially join the military hospital." She spoke, her voice much firmer than the moment before, as if saying it out loud had helped her strengthen her resolve. "Master left me a token from the Royal Medical Institute. Even though I don't fully understand its true meaning, at least it proves that what I learned is not a fabrication. I will bring it to present to the Army Medical Captain, asking to be accepted as an official medical doctor."

Thanh Phong was silent for a long time, long enough for Tinh Yen to turn to look at him, seeing something in his eyes that was both worried and difficult to put into words.

"Do you know what kind of person Captain Ky Ba Nghiem is?" Finally he spoke. "He is the one who keeps this military hospital according to the old rules, valuing rank, certification, and background more than anything else. He once refused to accept many well-skilled medical students just because they could not pass the official royal school."

"I understand." Tinh Yen replied, her voice not wavering. "But I have no other way. Master has taught me enough to stand on my own, but if I don't have a legitimate position, I will always be just a wandering girl in cloth, no matter how good my skills are, no one will recognize me when I need to make important decisions. I don't ask for his pity. I only ask for a chance to prove it."

He looked at her for a long time in the fading sunset light, a mixture of admiration and worry clearly visible on his face that rarely showed emotions. "If you are determined, I will go with you to see Captain Ky. At least, let him know that there is someone in the army willing to testify to your skills."

"No." Tinh Yen shook her head, resolutely. "If I let you go with me as a guarantor, I'm afraid Captain Ky will only think that I asked to be admitted to the hospital based on your identity, not because of my own strength. I want to stand before him myself, with only the skills and tokens I have. If I am not strong enough to convince him with myself, then perhaps I am not strong enough to be an official medical doctor."

Thanh Phong laughed softly, a short but rare, genuine laugh amid a scene still heavy with the smell of mourning. "She's still as stubborn as the first time I met her. When she was still on the stretcher, she dared to loudly order the group of soldiers carrying the stretcher to slow down."

"That's not stubbornness." Tinh Yen replied, the corner of her lips slightly raised for the first time that day. "That's the principle. Master taught me, a physician who doesn't have his own principles is just someone who dispenses medicine according to someone else's wishes and is not worthy of being called a physician."

At night, mountain mist began to spread on the top of the hills around Long Mon pass. The two of them sat quietly together for a moment longer in front of the newly built grave, not saying another word, just letting each other's presence fill the void where they both knew that tomorrow there would be even more challenges waiting.

The next morning, when the first sunlight had just shone through the mountain top, dyeing the whole barracks in a layer of pale yellow mist, Tinh Yen stood in front of the small mansion where the office of the official military hospital was located - a place she had never once stepped foot in over the past months even though she had cured hundreds of people right outside that wall.

She smoothed the old but clean hem of her shirt, clasped in her palm the half piece of jade wrapped tightly in red cloth, took a deep breath, then walked over to knock on the door.

Before leaving the tent, she took a moment to stand in front of the basket holding the Bach Thao Chan Sutra, turning back to the first page where Lieu Nguyen's handwriting was still clearly visible, the ink had discolored over the years. He once wrote there, in small, neat letters: "Medical science does not differentiate between high and low, only between those who have heart and those who do not." She read and reread that sentence countless times during the sleepless night, until it was engraved in her heart like a talisman.

She also did not forget to stop by the tent where the old wounded soldiers who had been cared for by her were still recuperating, giving a few last words before leaving, as if afraid that if that door closed in her face, she would no longer have the chance to return to care for them. An old woman cooking in the barracks, who often gave her an extra bowl of hot porridge on long nights on duty, took her hand and stuffed a small ginger root into it. "Just keep it, suck on a slice of ginger to warm your stomach, don't let the coldness of the Captain's room make your hands shake before you can open your mouth."

Tinh Yen laughed lightly, gratefully received it, put it in her pocket along with the piece of jade amulet, then actually took the last steps to the red wooden door that had faded due to sun and rain, where two guards stood at attention on both sides, their eyes looking down at her simple cloth as if wondering what business a girl like her would dare to come here at this hour.