Chapter 78 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

Last Words by the Pipeline

Dome Floor Central Hospital had a quietness that was different from the chaos Khe Lam had just experienced, the hallways were bright and clean, with the medical team moving in an almost cold, professional rhythm. She sat in the waiting room for the patient's family, with Bach Van and Doan Bich Thu, all of whom silently watched the minutes pass on the electronic clock mounted on the wall, while Bui Dac Sinh was undergoing emergency surgery behind a closed door.

Bach Van used his influence, however slight, to ensure that Bui Dac Sinh received priority admission upon arrival, a privilege rarely given to a Root Layer resident without any official connection to the Dome Layer. He called a former classmate who now worked in hospital management directly, without explaining the real reason behind this emergency, just saying this was an extremely important case to him.

Three hours passed in heavy waiting, each minute felt like an hour to Khe Lam, her mind reeling with countless memories of Bui Dac Sinh — the first time she met him as a child wandering around the Old Garden, the stories he told about his youth, his steady eyes when he finally decided to break nineteen years of silence to help her learn the truth about her mother.

Finally, the door to the operating room opened, and a surgeon stepped out, taking off his mask, his face wearing an expression that Khe Lam had learned, over many years of working in risky technical environments, to recognize immediately — it was the face of someone about to deliver the worst news.

"We tried our best." He spoke, his voice low and careful. "The organ damage was more severe than we initially assessed, combined with the amount of blood lost before arriving here. We've controlled most of the bleeding, but his heart weakened significantly during the surgery. I'm afraid... he doesn't have much time left. Maybe just a few hours, maybe less."

Khe Lam felt like the floor collapsed under her feet, and the doctor's voice became distant as if echoing from a great distance. Bach Van grabbed her shoulders tightly, holding her steady when her legs felt like they were about to collapse.

"Can I see him?" she asked, her voice breaking.

"He's still conscious right now, although very weak." The doctor replied. "I advise the family to take advantage of the remaining time."

They led her into the intensive care unit, where Bui Dac Sinh lay amid a network of tubes and monitoring equipment, his face pale under the white light, but when he heard her footsteps, his eyes opened, searching for her immediately.

"She..." He whispered, his voice now just a hoarse breath.

Khe Lam sat down next to the bed, held his thin hand, feeling every weak beat through his thin skin. "I'm here, Mr. Sinh. I won't leave."

"I wanted to tell you... before it was too late." He spoke, each word struggling to escape his weakening chest. "About your mother... Lam Vinh Chi."

Khe Lam held her breath and leaned closer to hear every word clearly.

"That night, nineteen years ago... I not only saw her taken away." He spoke, his voice shaking from both the physical pain and the weight of his memories. "I even helped her... escape, just a few weeks later, when I discovered where they were holding captives for 'resettlement.' I couldn't save everyone... but I saved her, and took her to the first safe place I knew of, before hidden communities like the Silent Tunnel were truly fully formed."

Tears streamed down Khe Lam's face, a new truth, deeper than anything she had ever known, was being given to her in the last moments of the man who had kept it for nearly two decades.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" She asked, not as a reproach, just a question that needed to be asked.

"I'm afraid..." He breathed harder, the heart monitor beeped more slowly. "I'm afraid if you know I'm directly involved, you'll put me in an even more dangerous position if the secret gets out. I want to protect you... the only way I know how, by keeping my distance from my own role in the story, until I'm sure you're strong enough, wise enough, to carry this truth."

"I'm strong enough, Mr. Sinh." She said, squeezing his hand. "Thanks to you. Thanks to everything you taught me and gave me, even without saying it in words."

Bui Dac Sinh smiled weakly, a smile that brought both pain and a strange peace. "Find her, little girl. Don't stop. And when you find her... tell her that Dac Sinh has finally told everything, there's nothing left to keep secret anymore."

"I promise." Khe Lam said, her voice choked with tears that kept falling. "I promise you."

He closed his eyes, his breathing slowed down, weakened, but his hand still held her hand until the last moments, as if trying to pass on, through that very grip, all the strength and steadfastness he had accumulated throughout his life, a life linked from beginning to end with the pipes, the machines, the secrets of the Origin ship.

The heart monitor let out a long, monotonous beep, then went silent.

Khe Lam sat there, unable to say a word, embracing the cold hand of the man who saved her mother, kept the secret for her, accompanied her through the most dangerous moments in her journey to find the truth, and is now gone, carrying with him the last part of the story he was able to give back before it was too late.

Bach Van walked over, put his hand on her shoulder, said nothing, just stood there, a quiet presence in the midst of pain that couldn't be described in words. Doan Bich Thu stood in the doorway, her hand covering her mouth, tears rolling down, mourning the man who hid her in an abandoned maintenance bay for two days, nineteen years ago, to save her life.

Outside the hospital's simulated window, the simulated image of the starry sky continued to spread, silently and eternally, unaware that the Origin ship had just lost one of the last witnesses of a night that shaped the entire fate of so many people, a person who had lived his entire life in the most silent way, and now, had passed away in the most courageous way he could choose.

*

News of Bui Dac Sinh's death spread to the Root Layer before dawn, bringing with it a wave of sadness different from the anger that had flared up all the days before. Tram Ba Nguyen, when he heard the news, sat silently for hours in his small room, his face etched with a deep regret that he knew would follow him for the rest of his life. He spent the night wondering whether, if he had not called that gathering, if he had chosen a different, less drastic path, the old mechanic would still be alive.

At the Dome Floor, news also reached Chuong Khac Dinh via a brief report from Ton Khac Du, listing only the death as one of many casualties that needed to be recorded after the incident. But when Chuong Khac Dinh read the name — Bui Dac Sinh — he stopped, his eyes stunned for a long moment. He remembered that name, vaguely but surely, from the same file of the Night of the Broken Roots that he had buried for nineteen years—a minor witness, who did not play a leading role, but was present that night, who the old report noted had "disappeared from the area" before the repression force had completed its work.

He sat alone in his office, his hand on the report, and for the first time in many years, Chuong Khac Dinh felt something close to real regret, not the abstract regret he had learned to live with for two decades, but a concrete pain, in the name of a man who had just died because of the very system he had set up to protect everyone, including people like him.

He remembered what the woman who had led the protest had told him nineteen years before, words he had never forgotten: that truth is never truly dead, it only falls asleep. Now, looking at the name Bui Dac Sinh on the report, he wondered if he, after all these years of trying to keep it sleeping, would be the one to finally wake it up, with his own hands.