The city had no scent of warm earth after rain. It smelled only of gasoline fumes, sun-scorched concrete, and a breathless urgency that pressed down on the chest. For a boy raised by the Lạc River like Quốc Khải, the first days here felt like a never-ending nightmare—one he was not allowed to wake from.
The workers' camp where Khải lived lay deep inside a narrow alley of an unfinished construction site. It was a row of makeshift shacks pieced together from rusted sheets of tin—furnaces in the summer, ankle-deep floods in the rainy season. Khải lay on a wooden plank propped up by bricks, his shoulders trembling after hauling more than ten tons of cement in a single day. The calluses on his hands had split open, blood seeping into the gray dust of the site, burning so badly he could no longer clench his fists.
"Hey, Lạc Village boy—get up and take a swig. Loosen your bones a bit."
Khắc stepped inside, holding a bottle of cheap rice liquor and a plastic bag with a few pieces of boiled tofu.
Khải forced himself upright. His eyes were dull from lack of sleep, yet when he looked at Khắc, he still tried to keep his posture rigid. Khắc sat down beside him, the flickering light of a faulty fluorescent bulb casting shadows over the foreman's scarred face.
"What are you working yourself to death for?" Khắc sneered, pouring liquor into a chipped porcelain bowl. "To send money back to that girl named Hạ?"
Khải took the bowl in silence and drained it in one gulp. The harsh burn scorched his throat, making him cough violently—but it dulled the ache in his muscles, if only for a moment.
"I have to see her through school," Khải rasped. "And I have to buy medicine for chú Diên."
Khắc burst out laughing, the sound dry and hollow in the cramped space."You're too naïve, Khải. You can haul cement until your shoulder bones rot, and you'll still only make a few million a month. In this city, that wouldn't even pay for one banquet of the rich folks sitting in those cars outside. You want to carry the future on your shoulders? Even shoulders made of iron would snap before you ever reach it."
Khải stared at his battered hands. His heart tightened at the thought of Tiểu Hạ—waiting for his letters, using the wooden comb he had stayed up all night carving. He had promised her a life of silk and comfort, yet here he was, no more than an ant crushed beneath the city's heel.
"Then what should I do?" Khải looked up. A dangerous glint flared in his eyes—the very spark Khắc had been waiting for.
Khắc leaned close, his voice a venomous whisper."Tomorrow, the materials supplier will deliver a batch of substandard steel to this site. All you have to do is sign for it in my place while the supervisor's away—and keep quiet. You'll earn three months' wages in one go."
Khải froze. He knew it was fraud. Illegal. Ông Diên had taught him to stay clean even in hunger, to keep honor even in rags—that a carpenter never used bad wood for an ancestral altar. But then he saw Tiểu Hạ in a shirt torn at the shoulder. He saw ông Diên coughing up blood in their leaking house. His shoulders felt unbearably heavy, and poverty like a shackle he could not break through honest labor alone.
That night, Khải did not sleep. He stepped out of the camp and stood beneath the unfinished high-rise. The city wind cut cold through his thin clothes. He looked up at distant windows glowing with light—homes where wealthy families dined in comfort, where music drowned out the cries of the poor.
In that moment, the Quốc Khải of the Lạc ferry pier died a little. Ambition took root in his heart—dark, fierce, and hungry.
The next morning, when the steel shipment arrived, Khải stood before the driver with a pen in hand. His fingers trembled. From afar, Khắc nodded in encouragement. Khải closed his eyes, imagining a future where he no longer had to breathe cement dust and sweat.
A red luxury car screeched to a halt at the gate, splashing muddy water all over Khải's trousers.
The door opened. A young woman stepped out—it was Phù Sa. She wore a sea-blue silk dress, her sharp heels striking puddles with arrogant ease. She was the only daughter of the project's investor—a true city heiress, wrapped in the heavy scent of French perfume that overwhelmed the senses of a country boy like Khải.
Phù Sa glanced at him—a grimy laborer holding a delivery form. Her gaze was filled with disdain, though a flicker of curiosity crossed her eyes at his angular face and deep-set stare.
"Hey you—move aside," she said sharply.
Khải stepped back, gripping the paper tightly. Her presence struck his pride like a slap. She was beautiful, clean, and absurdly wealthy, while he and Tiểu Hạ struggled daily just to eat.
"Sign it, Khải!" Khắc urged from behind.
Khải signed the forged document quickly. His path was chosen. He had not merely signed a piece of paper—he had signed away his own integrity.
That afternoon, holding a thick wad of cash—his first dirty money—Khải felt his hands filthier than when they were caked in cement. He rushed to the post office and sent most of it back to Tiểu Hạ. On the remittance slip, he wrote:
"Extra wages. Buy medicine for chú, and get yourself a new pair of sandals. I'm doing fine."
It was a lie. He was not fine. He was breaking apart.
Back in Lạc Village, Tiểu Hạ received the money and Khải's note. She cried with joy and ran to show her father. But ông Diên took the money, lifted it to his nose, then slammed it onto the table.
"This money… it doesn't smell of Khải's sweat," he said, his voice trembling."Hạ, put it away. Don't spend a single coin. This is the devil's money, not a man's."
Tiểu Hạ stared at him in confusion. "What are you saying? Khải worked so hard for this…"
"Hard work doesn't earn money this fast," ông Diên replied, gazing out at the Lạc River, infinite sorrow in his eyes."He's sold his shoulders to the devil. From now on, he's no longer carrying your future—he's carrying a stone that will drag both of you down into this river."
That night, Tiểu Hạ took out the wooden comb again. She brushed her hair—but for the first time, the long strands tangled painfully into tight knots. Outside the dike, bà Ngỏ's mad voice rose again, carried by the wind:
"The light has come! The blood-stained light has come!"
In the city, Quốc Khải stood on the highest floor of the rising building, looking down at the traffic below—tiny as ants.