Chapter 27 — Wind Village Robot Team

Phong tore the envelope right at the school gate, his hands shaking with excitement, while Gia Han stood next to her and waited no less impatiently. That was a letter from the Provincial Department of Education and Training, sent by name to Vu Gia Han, inviting her to participate in the selection of the provincial Informatics excellent students team - a direct result from the exam application and the letter of introduction from Mr. Hung, an officer of the Bac Nguyen STEM Center, who witnessed Uyen Nhi run away in panic but was also impressed with the code Gia Han presented fluently right after.

"Passed!" Gia Han screamed when she read the last line, jumped up and hugged Phong, causing several students passing by to turn and look.

Two months have passed since returning from Yen Binh city. Summer is approaching, and life in Long Phong has gradually returned to its familiar rhythm, with only one difference: the warehouse behind the boarding kitchen is no longer a secret for the four people, but has become a familiar hangout for nearly twenty students from grades 6 to 9, all of whom want to follow in the footsteps of the Wind Mountain team.

That afternoon, when Khanh Dan arrived at the warehouse, she saw a scene that made her stop at the door and smile: Nam was standing in the middle of a group of younger 7th graders, instructing how to wind the motor, his tone unusually patient compared to the sassy student of nearly a year ago.

"It's not a matter of careless winding. You have to count the correct number of turns. If you miss one turn, the motor will run weak." Nam said, holding a coil of copper wire as a model, just like Phong showed him the first day.

"Have you taught another student?" Khanh Dan asked, walking in, unable to hide his pleasant surprise.

"Nobody teaches anything, they keep asking, I'll just answer to avoid bothering you." Nam replied, trying to appear calm, but his eyes sparkled with joy that he could not hide.

Uncle Duoc, Nam's father, had also recently started letting Nam handle more difficult car repairs at the shop, tasks that require precise calculations instead of just turning screws based on inertia — a trust he never gave his son before he joined the robotics team. Last semester's exam, Nam was not at the top of the class, but for the first time in his student life, he did not have any subject below the average score, and his name no longer appeared on any school disciplinary records for the entire semester.

Phong, after the exam at the end of the month, received another good news: the largest mechanical workshop in the district, which used to repair agricultural machinery for the whole region, agreed to accept him as a paid weekend apprentice, after the workshop owner heard about the Mountain Wind team through the local newspaper and personally went to Long Phong to meet him. The small amount of wages each week, for Phong, had a much greater meaning than its material value - it was the first money he earned from his own hands and calculating mind, not from helping his grandfather with odd repairs like before.

"Have you heard the news?" Phong asked as he ran home to report the news, panting because he had just cycled all the way home from school.

Mr. Tu was sitting on the porch repairing an old fan. He looked up and heard his nephew tell the whole story, from the factory owner coming to his house, to the apprentice salary, to the fact that he promised that if Phong studied well, he could get an official job next year after graduating from middle school.

Mr. Tu didn't say anything for a long time, just put down the fan he was repairing and looked at his nephew with eyes that Phong had never seen before - not the usual satisfaction when he finished repairing an item, but a much deeper pride.

"If your father were still alive, he would probably be as proud as you are now." He spoke, his voice hoarse with emotion, then stood up, patted his grandson firmly on the shoulder, did not say anything more, just went back into the house, took out a bottle of self-squeezed sugar cane juice, poured two cups, one for himself, one for Phong, as the simplest way to celebrate he knew.

As for Uyen Nhi, the biggest change is not in an invitation or a new job, but in the way she walks in the school hallway every day - her back straighter, her eyes looking straight at the other person instead of bending to avoid them like before. She was nominated by her homeroom teacher to be the student representative to speak at the upcoming school year's closing ceremony, a role that just half a year ago, she would have immediately refused because she was too scared.

"I accepted." Uyen Nhi informed Khanh Dan one afternoon, her voice was still a little nervous but no longer trembling like before. "I was very scared, but I thought, if I could do it at the provincial gymnasium in front of hundreds of strangers, then I could probably do it in front of my school yard."

Khanh Dan smiled, looked at her youngest student, and in that moment, she realized that the biggest success of the whole year did not lie in the small trophy displayed in the warehouse, but in these silent changes - changes that no one can measure with scores or awards, but will stay with each child longer than any certificate of merit.

***

True to the promise at the award ceremony, Bac Nguyen Center's STEM incubation program began supporting the Gio Nui team from the beginning of the second semester: a basic box of components including a true color sensor, a few new Arduino boards, and a small budget enough to repair the warehouse's leaky corrugated iron roof - a job Mr. Toan had suggested from the first session but never had the funds to do it. Every month, a volunteer engineer from the video call program gives additional instructions to the team through the phone that still has to be brought up the station hill to receive a stable signal, although now, thanks to another small donation, the commune has installed a mini mobile broadcast station right near the school, helping the network speed to be much better.

Trinh Anh Khoa also occasionally sent messages through Gia Han's social network account, exchanging some programming tips, and sometimes sending technical documents he found from online courses that the Kim Long team was following. The relationship between the two teams, from just being opponents on the stage, gradually became a form of young colleagues sharing the same passion, sometimes even meeting for online friendly competitions with a robot programming simulation game they both knew.

As for Khanh Dan, when the school year was almost over, she received a call from her old human resources department at NovaTech, inviting her to come back to work on a new project, with a much more attractive salary than the meager contract teacher remuneration she was receiving. She stood outside the school hallway answering the phone, looking out at the yard where Nam was instructing a small group of students to wind motor wires, where Uyen Nhi was rehearsing her speech for the closing ceremony under the almond tree, and she realized her answer had been ready long before she had time to consider it carefully.

"Thank you for thinking of me." She spoke into the phone, her voice calm but firm. "But I think I'll stay here for another year."

She turned off the phone, stood still for a moment looking at the schoolyard, then walked down to find Mr. Nghia to inform her that she would sign the contract again - not because there was no other choice, but because for the first time in many years, she knew exactly where she wanted to be.

Teacher Nghia was sitting in his office. After hearing the news, he put down his pen and looked at her for a long time before speaking, his voice with a rare hint of joking. "I thought what you said about teaching students to dare to try and dare to stay was just empty words."

"I thought so too, until I had to choose." Khanh Dan replied, smiling. "It turns out it's easier said than done, but at least this time I won't just say it."

Teacher Nghia nodded, opened the drawer, took out a new contract that had been prepared in advance - perhaps he had predicted her answer even earlier than she did - pushed it towards her to sign, and in the moment of putting the pen down on her signature line, Khanh Dan felt more relieved than any decision she had ever made during her entire engineering career.

Stepping out of the office, she walked across the schoolyard, where the late afternoon sunlight was spreading across the cement floor, and the laughter of the small students still echoed from the robot warehouse. She stopped for a moment, looked at that familiar scene, and suddenly realized that nine months ago, when she first arrived here with six half-dead computers and an unnamed fatigue, she had no idea that she was entering not a temporary pause, but a completely new beginning. The afternoon wind blew through the schoolyard, bringing with it the familiar creaking sound of Mr. Sau's windmill echoing in the distance, and she smiled to herself, continuing towards the warehouse where the team was still waiting.