Chapter 87 — The Ship That Never Looks Back

Woman in Greenhouse Number Seven

Eleven days after they arrived at Dong Sang, on an afternoon when the simulated light was turning to the orange-yellow color of an artificial sunset, Khe Lam was bending over to check a joint in greenhouse number seven when he heard the familiar footsteps of a skilled worker, not the hurried footsteps of an ordinary farmer, but the slow, steady rhythm of someone who had been used to moving in technical spaces for decades.

She looked up, and her heart stopped beating.

A woman stood at the entrance to the greenhouse, with a thin but sturdy figure, her gray hair tied neatly at the back of her head, her skin tanned by the sun and wind of areas rarely visited by people, wearing old protective clothing with a tool bag slung over her shoulder. But it was the eyes that made it impossible for Khe Lam to leave — the eyes she had seen reflected in the mirror for twenty years of her life, now looking straight at her from a strange yet heartbreakingly familiar face.

The woman paused, sensing something unusual in the way the young girl in front of her was looking at her, an attentiveness that went beyond normal curiosity.

"I came to check the irrigation system again." She spoke, her voice cautious, her hand slightly retreating towards the exit like a survival instinct ingrained from years of living on the edge of the system. "I didn't know there were other maintenance crews working here."

"Lam Vinh Chi." Khe Lam said, her voice shaking so much that she could barely hear herself clearly. "You are Lam Vinh Chi, right?"

The woman froze, her whole body tensed up like a rope being pulled to the limit, her eyes quickly scanned the entire greenhouse, looking for a way out, looking for signs of a trap.

"Who are you?" She asked, her voice now sharp, defensive. "Who sent you here?"

"No one sent me." Khe Lam said, tears began to flow uncontrollably. "I came here by myself. I am Do Khe Lam. Your daughter."

Silence enveloped the greenhouse, with only the hum of irrigation pumps in the distance, the gentle rustle of leaves in the circulating air. Lam Vinh Chi stood there, motionless, her eyes wide open, looking at Khe Lam as if she were seeing a ghost, or a miracle she had never allowed herself to believe could happen.

"No." She whispered, shaking her head, a gesture of defense rather than denial. "No way. She's only a year old. She can't..."

"I'm twenty years old, mom." Khe Lam said, taking a step forward, slowly, cautiously, as if approaching a wild animal that could run away at any moment. "Nineteen years have passed. You've grown up, you've found out the truth about the Night of the Broken Roots, about Dinh Khac Bat, about what really happened to mom."

Lam Vinh Chi took a step back, one hand raised to cover her mouth, her body trembled from an emotion too great to control. "How did you find me? How did you know I was alive?"

"Mr. Sinh." Khe Lam said, her voice choked. "Bui Dac Sinh. He helped mother escape nineteen years ago, and he silently followed news about mother all those years, even though he never told me until the last moments of his life. He left a notebook, a clue that led me to Dong Sang."

"Dac Sinh." Lam Vinh Chi repeated the name, a new pain appeared on her face. "He...he was..."

"He's gone." Khe Lam said softly. "Almost a month ago, while protecting others during a clash in the Root Layer. He mourned for his mother before he passed away, and left behind a final clue for me to find here."

Lam Vinh Chi fell to her knees, not because of physical exhaustion, but because of the weight of so many emotions crashing down at once — the immense joy of seeing her daughter grown up, alive, standing in front of her, mixed with the pain of losing the last friend who had silently protected her for nearly two decades. Khe Lam rushed forward, knelt down next to her, embracing her mother for the first time in her life that she could remember, feeling the warmth and heartbeat of the woman who gave birth to her, had to leave her so they could both survive.

"I'm sorry." Lam Vinh Chi whispered, her voice breaking into the sobs she had been holding back for nineteen years. "I'm sorry for leaving you behind. I thought, I believed, that if I came back, if I tried to contact you, you would be in far greater danger than growing up without me. I believed that the only way to protect you was to completely disappear from your life."

"I don't blame mom." Khe Lam said, tightening her arms around her mother. "I understood, through everything I found out, that you had no better choice that night. But I need you to know, I lived, I grew up, and I never stopped wondering about you, even though for years I didn't even know what that question meant."

They sat there on the greenhouse floor, among the green vegetable beds, embracing each other for what seemed like an eternity, nineteen years of separation compressed into a moment that no words could fully describe. Finally, Lam Vinh Chi stepped back a bit, her hands cupped Khe Lam's face, looking at each line as if trying to engrave it in her memory so she would never lose it again.

"You're more like your father than I thought." She said, a shaky but genuine smile appearing through her tears. "The eyes are yours, but your chin, the way you grit your teeth when trying to hold back tears, those are Viet Khiem's."

Mentioning her father's name, Khe Lam felt a new pain pierce her chest, remembering the eight-page file she still carried, remembering the truth she had just discovered about his not-so-simple death. But she decided to put that aside, just for this moment, to enjoy the rare happiness of reunion.

"Do you want to see grandma?" she asked. "She's still alive, still waiting for her mother all these years, even though she never dared to put that hope into words."

Lam Vinh Chi was silent for a long time, her eyes clearly showing a deep struggle. "I want it, more than anything in the world." She said finally. "But you need to understand, daughter, I am still officially a fugitive on the Council's records, one of the leaders wanted since the Night of the Fallen Roots. If I returned, even just to see your grandmother once, I could be arrested immediately, and that could put both you and everyone who helped you in danger."

"I know." Khe Lam said, holding her mother's hand tightly. "That's what I want to change, Mom. Not just to find you, but to change the system that forced you to live like a shadow for nineteen years. Me and the people I trust, we're very close to forcing Zhang Keding to admit the whole truth. I need you, Mom. Not just my mother, but a living witness of what really happened."

Lam Vinh Chi looked at his daughter for a long time, seeing in her eyes a fierceness she had never expected, a courage she realized had been passed down from her, though not in the way she had imagined.

"Give mom a little time." She spoke finally, her voice still shaking but beginning to find its steadiness. "Nineteen years of living in the dark is not easy to let go of in one afternoon. But I promise, daughter, I won't disappear again. Not when you've found me, not after all you've had to go through to do so."

Outside the greenhouse entrance, Trinh Yen My stood quietly, her eyes were wet even though she only partially understood the full meaning of the scene before her eyes. She promptly signaled Ngan Thuc Vy to keep her distance, so that mother and daughter could have their first private moments after nineteen years without any other eyes intruding. The woman who coordinated the farm stood not far away, her hand clasped tightly around the glass door frame, a quiet but emotional smile on her sunburned face, as if she herself was witnessing a reward for the trust she had placed in the two strange young girls who came to her office door just eleven days ago.

"We need to get out of here before it gets dark." Yen My spoke softly, stepping closer when she finally saw Khe Lam and Lam Vinh Chi standing up, hand in hand. "The evening patrol will be passing through this area in less than an hour."

Lam Vinh Chi nodded, her eyes quickly scanned Yen My and then back to her daughter, a professional alertness ingrained through nineteen years of living on the edge of the system still did not fade even in the most emotional moment. "She's right." She said. "We need to find a safer place to continue talking, away from the regular patrol paths."

Khe Lam squeezed her mother's hand one more time, not wanting to let go for even a second, then left greenhouse number seven with the whole group, stepping out under the lights simulating the sunset that was gradually turning purple into the artificial night, carrying with her a fragile hope that was stronger than anything she had ever dared to believe since the day she discovered Lam Chu's coordinates during a seemingly normal routine maintenance shift.

Amidst the green vegetable beds quietly growing under the artificial light that has fed generations on this ship, two women walked side by side, rewriting each first line of a new chapter in a story that seemed to have been buried forever nineteen years ago.