Chapter 21 — The One Who Keeps The Venom Saves People

On a rare Sunday morning when she wasn't on duty, Du drove alone to the old village along the Lam Tri River, where she grew up before moving to the camp's dormitory. Her mother still lives there, in a small house that was rebuilt more solidly after many repairs, just a few hundred meters from the old river wharf.

"I came to visit my mother without any notice." Her mother said as she opened the gate, her voice both blaming and happy, her hand hastily drying her shirt before hugging her daughter.

"I want to surprise mom." Du smiled and hugged her mother for a longer time than usual, clearly feeling the familiar warmth that she always sought when she needed a fulcrum.

After a simple lunch with a few home-grown vegetables, Du asked his mother for permission to walk to the river wharf, which is now just a sloping land bank leading down to the water, with no trace of the old wharf that was swept away by the flood twenty-seven years ago.

She stood there for a long time, looking at the Lam Tri water flowing gently in the afternoon sunlight, reflecting sparkling streaks of light on its surface. This was the first time in many years that she proactively returned to this exact location, not for work, not for an emergency, but simply to stand here, alone, facing the place that took her father.

"I did it, Dad." She spoke softly, her voice loud enough for only herself to hear, mixed with the sound of water rushing under her feet. "I didn't let another child have to wait too late for the serum, like I did before."

The gentle wind blew through, shaking the reeds growing along the shore, and in that moment, Du felt a sense of relief spread throughout her body, completely different from the heavy, haunting feeling she had carried with her every time she thought about this place for the past twenty-four years.

She sat down on the ground and took out an old photo with frayed corners from her pocket - the only remaining image of her father, taken in front of the old house a few months before that fateful night. He stood smiling, holding her as a child, his face beaming, unaware of what was about to happen.

"I miss you so much dad." She said, her fingers gently caressing the photo. "But I think, if you saw me now, you would be proud that I chose to stand close, instead of watching from afar."

She recalled fragmentary memories of her father—not many, since she was only nine years old when he died, but enough to be engraved in a child's mind. Her father is a quiet farmer but skillful in gardening. Every season he grew the best sweet-potato beds in the neighborhood. He often carried her on his shoulders every afternoon to walk around the fields, showing her the flocks of white storks flying back to their nests at sunset. He was not a person who often expressed his feelings through words, but each of his small gestures - the way he always reserved the best fish in his meal for her, the way he stayed up late to make bamboo kites for her during the windy season - were all his own love languages that now, when he remembers, Du can fully understand their value.

The night she was bitten by a snake, she clearly remembered the last time her father looked at her before stepping down to the riverbank — not a look of fear, but an unusually calm determination, as if he had accepted all the risks just for a small chance to save his daughter's life. She spent years wondering if he would have regretted that decision, if he had known what the outcome would be. But now, sitting on this riverbank, she thought she understood — a father, when faced with the possibility that his child could die for lack of a bottle of medicine, would never choose to stand still, no matter how great the risk.

She sat there for a moment, letting her emotions settle, then stood up, brushed the dust off her pants, and went back to the road leading to her mother's house.

When she entered the house, her mother was sitting knitting a wool scarf, her eyes following her daughter with a gentle questioning look.

"Are you going to the riverbank?" She asked, without needing Du to confirm, she already knew the answer from her daughter's expression.

"Yes." Du sat down next to his mother, resting his head on her shoulder like when he was a child. "I think I've finally made peace with that place, Mom."

Her mother put down the wool scarf, wrapped her arms around her daughter, said nothing more, just let the warm silence between mother and daughter fill the small space in the house.

"I always knew you could do it." She spoke after a long while, her voice hoarse with emotion. "Since the day you decided to pursue this profession, I have worried countless nights, but I also know that this is the only way you can truly let go of that pain."

"Are you angry with me for choosing this profession?" Du asked, a question she had never dared to ask for the past eight years.

"Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm scared." Her mother was honest. "But I have never regretted letting you follow that path. You turned my family's pain into something useful for others, not everyone can do that, daughter."

Du remained silent, letting the tears roll down her cheeks without trying to stop them, for the first time allowing herself to cry completely because of her own story, not because of work pressure, not because of another emergency, but simply because she needed to cry, and she finally allowed herself to do it.

After a long while, when the emotions subsided, her mother stood up, went into the inner room, took out a small old wooden box, the lid of the box was engraved with a few simple patterns that had been worn over the years.

"I've been keeping this for a long time. I planned to save it for when you were ready to give it to me." She said, placing the box in Du's hand. "Left to my grandfather."

Du opened the box, inside was an old snake hook, the wooden handle had become shiny from many years of use, along with a few yellowed pages of paper written in the shaky handwriting of an elderly person - notes about the characteristics of each snake species in the area that her grandfather had personally compiled throughout his life as a folk snake teacher.

"He left it to me before he passed away, telling mom to give it to me when I really need it." Her mother said, her voice choked up. "I think, maybe today is that day."

Du held the snake hook in her hand, feeling the familiar weight even though this was the first time she touched it. It was lighter than the modern hooks she used at camp, but had a meaning that no other professional tool could compare to.

"I will keep it carefully." She spoke, her voice trembling with emotion, her hands cradling the snake hook as if she were cradling a priceless treasure. "Thank you mom for keeping it all these years."

"Your grandfather always believed that you would go far on this path." Her mother said, sitting down next to her daughter. "Grandpa once told mom, out of all the children he taught, you were the only one who understood the core of this job — it's not about how good you are at catching snakes, but about daring to stand close to your own fear to save others."

Du flipped through old pages, read each line of his grandfather's neat handwriting, feeling like he was talking directly to him after many years of separation. A few notes about the Mist-Scaled Viper appeared in there, simple but surprisingly accurate observations compared to the scientific knowledge she would later learn at school and at camp.

"I will take these notes back to camp and add them to my research file." She said, her eyes still glued to the pages. "Your folk knowledge, combined with modern science, can be of great help to our work."

"You will be happy to know that." Her mother smiled and gently wiped away the remaining tears on her daughter's cheeks. "He always said, knowledge is only valuable when it continues to live in the hands of others, not when it lies in an old notebook."

That afternoon, Du stayed at her mother's house longer than planned. Mother and daughter together flipped through each page of her grandfather's notes, reviewing old memories, and when the sky began to turn dark, she reluctantly stood up to prepare to return to camp, feeling more relieved than at any time in many years.

Before getting in the car, she turned around and hugged her mother again, squeezing tighter than usual. "I will come visit mom more often." She promised. "It's not only when something sad comes back."

"I really hope that." Her mother replied, her eyes still filled with tears but the smile on her lips was brighter than at any time that afternoon, the smile of someone who had just been relieved of a burden she had carried for twenty-four years.