In the stories told by those who had left, the city was a dazzling paradise. But to those who remained in Lạc Village, like Tiểu Hạ, it was more like an invisible monster, slowly devouring the village's strongest men. Since the day Quốc Khải left, the Lạc ferry pier had grown strangely desolate. The bamboo flute had fallen silent; only the wind shrieked through the thorny bamboo thickets, accompanied by the meaningless muttering of bà Ngỏ, the madwoman, whenever dusk descended.
Bà Ngỏ was not originally from this village. People said she came from the city, carrying with her a madness without explanation and a pair of eyes that burned as if seeing things no ordinary person could. She often sat on the highest mound by the river, where she could survey both the fields and the single road leading to the district town.
One deep violet afternoon, as Tiểu Hạ returned from cutting grass, she saw bà Ngỏ standing in the middle of the road, her thin arms groping at the air as if trying to catch the last rays of sunlight.
"The light… it's about to go out. The child who seeks the sun will have his heart burned to ashes!" bà Ngỏ screamed, her voice hoarse like rotting wood being torn apart.
Tiểu Hạ froze, her heart pounding. She had always been afraid of bà Ngỏ, but the words "the child who seeks the sun" made her think instantly of Quốc Khải. Gathering her courage, she stepped closer and set the bundle of grass down.
"Bà Ngỏ… who are you talking about? Is it Khải?"
Bà Ngỏ suddenly spun around. Her face was a web of deep wrinkles, yet her eyes shone with a terrifying brilliance. She grabbed Tiểu Hạ by the shoulders; the strength in her bony hands made Hạ gasp in pain.
"You're the one who keeps the wooden comb, aren't you? Stop combing your hair! The more you comb, the tighter longing and memory will strangle a person. That boy… he's gone. He's not searching for money—he's searching for a golden cage to lock his soul inside!"
"I—I don't understand what you're saying…" Hạ trembled, trying to pull away, but bà Ngỏ tightened her grip.
"The city is a furnace, child. It illuminates the rich, but it burns the poor to cinders. Your Khải has the eyes of a devil and the heart of an angel. But the devil will win. When he returns, he'll bring back a light that blinds you!"
Bà Ngỏ burst into shrill laughter, then disappeared into the bamboo grove, leaving Tiểu Hạ standing numbly in the empty road. The madwoman's prophecy haunted Hạ like a specter. She looked down at the wooden comb Khải had given her—the crudely carved summer flower now seemed steeped in something dark and ominous.
At the same moment, hundreds of kilometers away from Lạc Village, Quốc Khải stood before a massive construction site. He was no longer the romantic boy who played the flute by the ferry pier. The white shirt he once cherished was now stained with mud and sweat. He had just endured ten straight hours of hauling cement sacks for a handful of meager wages.
"Hey, kid! Want more work?" a bearded man named Khắc called out as he approached.
Khắc was the man who would later become Khải's most capable—and most dangerous—right-hand ally. For now, he was merely a small-time foreman with the cunning eyes of an old fox.
"I'll do anything, as long as it pays," Khải replied, his voice rough with thirst.
Khắc snorted, eyeing Khải's tall, lean frame, taut with resolve. "You've got ambition. But here, raw labor isn't enough. You've got to learn how to step on other people's shoulders to climb. See those luxury cars?" Khắc pointed toward a row of vehicles belonging to investors who had just arrived. "Their owners never let cement dust touch their hands."
Khải followed Khắc's gesture. Sunlight reflected off the polished glass of the cars, dazzling his eyes. That was the light he had always yearned for. In that instant, ông Diên's warning about "the color of the earth" was completely drowned out by the roar of engines and the intoxicating scent of power.
That night, lying on a torn reed mat inside a workers' shack, Khải pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper to write to Tiểu Hạ. He wrote—and then tore it up. He couldn't tell her about the humiliation of being cursed at by supervisors, or meals consisting only of dried fish and water. In the end, he wrote simply:
"The city is beautiful, Hạ. I'll earn enough money soon. Wait for me."
The letter carried his first lie. He didn't know that every lie told in the city would become another brick in the wall separating him from the Lạc ferry pier.
Back home, Tiểu Hạ sat beside her father. Ông Diên coughed more than usual that day, each cough tearing through the stillness of the night. She picked up the wooden comb, about to run it through her hair, but bà Ngỏ's words echoed in her mind: "The more you comb, the tighter longing and memory will strangle you." She shivered and tucked the comb deep into the bottom of her chest.
"Father… if one day Khải changes, will we still be here?" Hạ asked softly.
Ông Diên gazed at the oil lamp, its wick dying, the flame flickering in the wind."The Lạc River keeps flowing, child—but its old water has already passed. People are the same. Once they've tasted the sweetness of the city, the river water of home will never taste sweet to them again."
That night, Lạc Village welcomed its first rain of the season. The river swelled, muddy and turbulent. Bà Ngỏ the madwoman still sat out on the dike, singing a rhyme without rhythm, about souls lost beneath neon lights.