Chapter 1 — The Promise of a Demobilized Soldier

At six o'clock in the morning, the mist still hung thinly on the corrugated iron roof of the Southwest Industrial Park. The first shift siren of Binh Minh Agricultural Products Company rang out as regularly as it had for the past ten years. Do Thanh Phong stood in the yard in front of the processing factory, holding a cup of iced tea at the beginning of the day, looking at each group of workers starting their shift one after another. There were people who walk normally, there were people who limp with their prosthetic legs exposed under rolled-up pants, and there were people with only one arm who control a forklift with the other hand so skillfully that no one can recognize a disability without looking closely. More than two hundred people, most of whom were once soldiers, were now workers, accountants, security guards, and drivers of his company.

He gently rubbed his left shoulder, where old bullet fragments still lay somewhere near the shoulder blade, a dull ache every time it gets windy. The doctor once told me to leave it too long, and now it's more dangerous to remove it than to leave it alone. He's gotten used to it, sees it as a companion that reminds him of who he used to be before becoming the owner of a famous agricultural company in the area.

"Mr. Phong, is this morning's shipment of squash and bitter melon enough?" Tran Van Ben, Deputy Director in charge of production, stepped forward, his right sleeve neatly folded with a safety pin, his other arm holding a stack of delivery documents. Having lost his right arm in an ambush while still in the artillery unit, he was discharged from the army and returned home not knowing what to do. It was Thanh Phong who traveled all the way to the district to find him, bringing him back to the company to work in the first days when Binh Minh was just a rented warehouse.

"That's enough, the first car left at five o'clock. The second car is waiting to finalize the order with the wholesale market." Thanh Phong replied, still looking towards the packaging line, where Nguyen Duc Toan sat in a wheelchair controlling the conveyor belt of vegetables passing by, his mouth still not forgetting to drop a few jokes, making the young workers nearby laugh.

"That Toan guy, sitting in a wheelchair, laughs louder than a healthy person." Ben shook his head, his voice full of affection.

Thanh Phong did not answer, just smiled. That smile, those who had known him since his military days say, had rarely seen it fully in the past ten years. There was a part of him that seemed to have been left somewhere far away, where there were explosions and called for comrades' names amidst the smoke and dust.

He entered the small office located next to the factory, where a wooden sign hanging at the entrance bore the words he hand-wrote on the company's opening day: "Binh Minh leaves no one behind." Ten years ago, when he had a small amount of military service money plus a mortgage on the house his parents left behind, no one believed that a former platoon leader who was only used to holding guns could do agricultural business. But he did it, not with a sharp business strategy, but with the principle he learned in the military: not leaving his teammates behind, whether in the middle of a battlefield or in the middle of a business.

The morning briefing was brief as usual. Ben reported production, Toan reported the condition of machinery, and the company's chief accountant, another veteran who had been blinded in one eye by shrapnel, read through the weekly income and expenditure. Everything is still running smoothly, the numbers are growing steadily, contracts with large supermarket chains in the city are still stable. No one in the meeting room that morning knew that in just a few days, all those numbers would fluctuate.

After the meeting, Thanh Phong stayed in the office alone, opened his desk drawer, and took out an old photo with frayed corners. In the photo were five young soldiers, standing in front of a military vehicle covered in red dust, smiling as if war was just a game they were taking a break from. The person standing in the middle, the tallest, holding Thanh Phong's shoulder, was Vu Dinh Khang.

Four months ago, Khang passed away. Liver cancer, detected too late. Thanh Phong clearly remembers the afternoon at the hospital, when Khang, who had become so thin that he was just skin and bones, still tried to smile to reassure him: "Don't worry, I'm just one step ahead. As for my wife and children, you know what to do." That sentence was as light as a familiar joke between two old soldiers, but Thanh Phong understood that it was a last word.

He placed the photo on the table and sighed. Since Khang's funeral, he had stopped by Bao Chau's house twice, but both times she politely refused all help, saying only one sentence: "Mr. Phong, you and I can take care of ourselves, don't worry." Thanh Phong understands Bao Chau's personality, a woman with high self-esteem, who does not want anyone to look at her with pity. But he also understands that self-esteem sometimes becomes a wall separating people from the very help they need the most.

He stood up, walked out of the factory, and walked around the packaging area. There, a legless soldier was carefully pasting labels on each box of vegetables, another person with only one hand was tying rope around the package with both of his remaining hands and an improved clamp that Toan himself came up with. No one complained. For them, this is not simply a job, but a place where they can be themselves, stand up straight in life after falling once on the battlefield.

"Mr. Phong, I've been feeling absent-minded lately." Ben walked by, stopped and patted his shoulder with his only remaining hand. "It's about Khang, right?"

Thanh Phong nodded, not hiding it. "I keep thinking about the promise I made to him. The day he died, I stood in front of the coffin, I swore to him that I would take good care of his wife and children. But now, the two times I've come, Ms. Chau has always chased me away."

"Then slowly." Durable comfort. "She's only been a widow for a few months, who wouldn't be hard-hearted. Just keep an eye on her silently, when she needs it, she'll automatically speak up."

Thanh Phong didn't say anything more, just nodded. But in his heart, a vague premonition kept gnawing restlessly. He remembered the last time he visited Bao Chau's house, seeing a strange motorbike in the yard, two strange men standing and talking to her in a harsh voice, although when he entered they quickly left, laughing and joking as if nothing happened. Bao Chau's face turned pale at that time, but he still tried to act calm, saying it was just an acquaintance visiting.

I don't believe it. The intuition of someone who had been on the battlefield told him that something wrong was secretly going on behind that woman's back.

At noon, Thanh Phong ate with fellow workers in the company's cafeteria, as had been his habit for the past ten years. He never eats alone, even though he is the boss. Sitting next to him was a younger veteran who had only been working for half a year and had lost a leg in an accident while on duty to remove remaining bombs and mines in a border province.

"Mr. Phong, you and Uncle Khang were very close in the past, weren't you? I heard from my brothers that Uncle Khang lost his leg to save the whole squad."

Thanh Phong paused for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Yes, Khang is my benefactor. Without him, I wouldn't be sitting here today."

The young soldier remained silent, perhaps realizing he had just touched a wound that had not yet healed. Thanh Phong rubbed his left shoulder, looking out at the rising sun in the yard, where the silhouette of the national flag hanging in front of the company gate flapped in the morning breeze.

That afternoon, when the sunlight began to turn yellow, Thanh Phong drove away from the company earlier than usual, not to go home, but to run around the road leading to the neighborhood where Bao Chau and little An lived. He didn't intend to stop by, he just wanted to run by and see if everything was okay, as had been a silent habit for nearly a month since the funeral.

When his car drove slowly past the small house, he saw the old rusty iron gate, the small yard planted with a few flower pots, and inside the house, yellow light shone through the window. The silhouette of a small woman is bending over the desk, teaching her daughter to do her homework, the scene is so peaceful.

He stopped the car a long way away, sat in the car and looked in that direction for a long time, his heart filled with a feeling of both warmth and sadness. He remembered what Khang once said, when he was still healthy, sitting and drinking tea with him after work: "You know, Phong, I only hope for one thing, that An grows up to live a peaceful life, without having to worry about anything. My wife is the same, she has suffered all her life, she just wants to be in peace."

Thanh Phong tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He did not know that, just a few hours later, a call would come, shattering that fragile peace, and pushing him into a new war, without guns and bullets, but just as fierce as the old battlefield.

He started the engine and drove towards the company, not knowing that tonight, a phone call from the familiar number of his deceased friend would ring, and the person who answered the phone would be him.