Chapter 11 — The One Who Keeps The Venom Saves People

The road to the flooded border point passed faster than Du expected, perhaps because she drove faster than usual safety, both hands tightening on the steering wheel through each slippery turn. Khiem sat next to him, one hand holding the insulated box tightly on his lap, his eyes glued to the small temperature gauge mounted on the lid of the box, the needle still stably pointing at four degrees Celsius.

"It still retains heat well, sister." He reported, his voice gradually getting used to the pace of work after a long night.

"Good. Stay like that until you get on the boat." Du replied, not taking his eyes off the road ahead, where the headlights illuminated a streak of water spilling across the road, warning them they were approaching the first flood point.

The radio mounted on the dashboard made a crackling sound and Nguyen's voice rang out. "Miss Du, can you hear me? I'm waiting at the old spot. The water has risen more than before. Please be careful on the way in."

"Got it, we're almost there." Du replied over the radio, then slowed down as the car entered the shallow flooded road, water splashing up on both sides like white propellers under the headlights.

*

At Son Trach district hospital, Thu stood next to the patient's bed, her eyes never leaving the screen monitoring vital signs. The mild convulsion had passed, but Nhi was still not fully awake, only occasionally stirring slightly in a deep coma. The blood calcium test results just came back, lower than the normal threshold as Du predicted, and Thu administered a calcium gluconate supplement according to the regimen, but that was only a temporary solution for a symptom, not for the cause.

"Doctor." A young nurse walked in, holding the latest test results. "The baby's red blood cells have decreased more than two hours ago, probably because there is still bleeding inside."

Thu held the results sheet, her eyes quickly scanned the indicators, her teeth clenched. This was the sign she feared most - silent internal bleeding, not as obvious on the outside as a swollen bite wound, but silently draining the life from that small body from the inside.

"Prepare spare blood, what is the baby's blood type?" she asked.

"O positive, I still have two units of packed red blood cells from the same group."

"Infuse one unit immediately, keep the remaining unit in case you need it." Thu ordered, then walked out into the hallway and called Du. There was no signal — the area she was traveling in must have lost signal. She had to text, knowing that it would only be read when the signal returned: "Red blood cells have decreased further, suspected internal bleeding. Can you come?"

She stood leaning against the hallway wall for a while, looking out the window where the sky was still dark, the rain had stopped but the atmosphere was still heavy as if she was holding her breath waiting. In her mind, the image of a pickup truck, a motorboat, and three bottles of serum in an insulated container kept appearing continuously, like a fragile thread on which Nhi's life was hanging.

*

They arrived at the meeting point just as the sky began to show a little pale gray light on the horizon — not a real dawn, just a sign that the night was gradually giving way to a new, gloomy day because the rain clouds were still thick. Nguyen was waiting, the motorboat anchored next to the shore, the engine still running, ready to depart immediately.

"Hurry, the water is rising quickly." He urged, reaching out to take the insulated box from Khiem's hand, placing it in the middle compartment of the boat, tying it tightly with a rope to the crossbar to avoid jostling.

Du and Khiem immediately jumped into the boat, quickly put on their life jackets, and Nguyen turned the throttle and rushed out into the water as soon as they both stabilized their seats.

"This part is different from the part before." Nguyen shouted loudly to cover the sound of the engine and water. "This is the main branch of the river, the flow is much stronger than the flooded fields before."

Du nodded, clinging tightly to the side of the boat, watching the murky water rushing past, carrying broken tree branches, pieces of floating trash, and occasionally the body of a small animal that couldn't escape the flood. She tried not to let her mind wander to old memories, focusing her attention on the task at hand — holding the insulated tank steady, remaining calm, keeping her eyes alert for any possible danger.

On both sides of the river, the remains of a small hamlet appeared dimly in the pale gray light — roofs jutting out of the water, a monkey bridge broken in half, a few buffaloes standing huddled on a high mound, their eyes reflecting the passing flashlight like small spots of light in the darkness. Somewhere far away, the sound of a dog barking echoed, lost in the vastness of water.

"Have all the households in this area been evacuated yet?" Khiem asked, his voice a bit worried when he saw a few flickering oil lamps still on in a half-submerged, half-floating stilt house.

"Most of them have left, but there are a few elderly households who refuse to leave and just stay and keep the house." Nguyen replied, not taking his eyes off the water. "Yesterday, our rescue team had to forcefully take two old people out of the house. They refused to leave because they felt sorry for the chickens and pigs."

Du listened silently, a familiar feeling arose in her heart - the feeling of witnessing nature both nourishing and threatening at the same time the people who cling to it for survival, no different from the story of her own family many years ago.

The boat passed through the middle of the stream, hitting a large wave that caused all three people to tilt, water pouring over the side of the boat and soaking their feet. Khiem hugged the insulated box tightly with both hands, holding it close to his heart as if it was the only thing that kept this whole trip meaningful.

"How much further, Mr. Nguyen?" Du shouted.

"Ten more minutes!" Nguyen replied, his eyes still glued to the water ahead, his hands adjusting the steering wheel continuously to avoid logs floating in the middle of the stream.

At that moment, the boat's engine suddenly stopped, the steady explosion turned into an intermittent growl, then stopped completely. The boat lost momentum and began to drift with the current, turning slightly at an angle.

"Dead!" Nguyen shouted, his hand quickly pulled the restart cord, but the engine only made a weak whirring sound and then fell silent. "The propeller must have caught something, or the spark plug is wet!"

Du clearly felt her heart beat faster, not because of panic but because her body was automatically switching to a state of high alert, a reflex ingrained from both her profession and her old memories. The canoe is floating freely in the fast water, without power, only depending on the current to decide the direction.

"Can you check?" She asked, trying to keep her voice calm even though her hands were clinging tighter to the side of the boat.

"Okay, wait a minute!" Nguyen bent down to the stern of the boat, his hand reaching down to check the propeller in the dim darkness, muttering a low curse as he did so.

"There are vines wrapped around the propeller." He announced, his voice urgent, both hands trying to untangle the tough vines wrapped tightly around the spindle. "It must have drifted from the abandoned fields above. It's so dark. How can you see ahead?"

The boat continued to drift with the current, each passing second drawing them closer to the reef bend. Du looked around for a spare oar and saw a bamboo pole tied along the side of the canoe.

"Give me the pole." She told Khiem, pulled out the pole, and thrust it firmly into the river bed to probe the depth. The pole reached the bottom at a depth of less than one and a half meters, enough for her to use force to push the boat out of direction if necessary, even though it was only a small fraction of the strength of the current.

"What are you doing?" Khiem asked, his voice panicked.

"Try to push the boat out of the main current, away from the reef." Du shouted, putting all his strength into pushing the pole, feeling every muscle in his arm tense due to the resistance of the water flow. The boat moved just a little, not enough to completely escape danger, but enough to buy a few precious seconds.

"Okay, it's done!" Nguyen shouted, yanking the starter cord. The engine roared, stalled, then roared again, this time starting evenly again, and he immediately turned the steering wheel sharply to get the boat away from the main flow.

Khiem breathed a sigh of relief, but before he could relax, he saw Du still sitting stiffly, his eyes wide open, looking at a bend ahead, where small waves were still breaking irregularly around a few reefs lurking below the water's surface - a bend that the boat had just passed close to the edge by a hair's breadth.

"Miss Du, I passed, I escaped." He said, his voice still shaking but relieved.

Du didn't answer right away, his hand was still clenching the bamboo pole. She watched the curve recede behind the canoe, and in that moment she realized exactly where in the river they had passed—not more than five hundred meters upstream from the bend where her father had disappeared twenty-four years before.