Changing destiny, one grieves over the shifting tides of life, To whom can one confide the matters of mountains and rivers? (Nguyễn Quang Diêu)
In the middle of the courtyard paved with mossy Bát Tràng bricks, Mụ Cả stood arrogantly, narrowing her malicious eyes as she hurled bitter insults at Mụ Nuôi following the latter's failure at the Grand Exhibition the previous year:
"No matter how high you try to climb, you are nothing but mud clinging to the feet of a phoenix."
Mụ Nuôi ignored her completely. She did not cast so much as a single glance at Mụ Cả; her gaunt hands calmly smoothed down the sheets of coarse bamboo paper, neatly stacking the intricate bundles of joss paper and ghost money onto the heavy wooden bed. To her, such narrow-minded jealousy was entirely insignificant compared to the starvation and poverty plaguing the villagers outside after the recent devastating flood.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden doors were pushed open. Ông Liên walked in, leading a sharp-featured woman who carried the distinct scent of the Southern sea breeze.
Mụ Cả stared wide-eyed at the newcomer, her face contorting with humiliation. She shrieked, lunging straight at Bà Tư:
"You Southern Salem whore! How dare you show your face here to steal my husband and defile this clan's traditions? The village is ruined after the flood, the clan line is in dire straits, and yet Ông Liên brings this flamboyant creature back here just to spite me?!"
Bà Tư parried Mụ Cả's scratching hands with one arm, decisively thrusting her away. Standing with her hands on her hips, she retorted with sharp defiance:
"Bring it on, Eldest Wife! You think being the eldest daughter-in-law of the Phan clan makes you special? Your face is as sour as a monkey eating chili, no wonder your husband stays away and never bothers to look at you!"
"You... who the hell do you think you are to talk back like that in this Imperial Capital?!" Mụ Cả shook with absolute rage, preparing to lunge again.
Standing between his two fiery wives, Ông Liên ignored them completely. He made no effort to intervene, nor did he spare a glance at their petty jealousy. His gaze drifted across the flood-mud stains on the ancestral hall walls, before settling on Mụ Nuôi's gaunt silhouette. He slammed his backpack onto the ground, his voice—rattling with a thick, gravelly Central accent—heavy with exhaustion and the burden of the times:
"Quiet down, all of you! Can't you see the villages out there are devastated and the people are starving after that brutal flood? I didn't come back to watch you play the fool with your jealousy. The debts on the farms, the clan taxes, and a mountain of relief work for our relatives are weighing heavily on my shoulders. We need to settle the order of this house quickly so I can attend to greater matters! Anyone who can't stand it can walk right out of those gates!"
His callous, authoritative words made both Mụ Cả and Bà Tư freeze, plunging the courtyard into sudden silence. Ông Liên turned to look at Mụ Nuôi, his sharp gaze softening slightly.
Mụ Nuôi slammed her heavy tea tray onto the stone table in the center of the yard. A sharp, dry “Clack!” echoed through the space. She stood up calmly, looked at Ông Liên, and turned to take control of the situation:
"Sister Cả! Mind your dignity as the eldest daughter-in-law; don't let outsiders look in and laugh at us. As for you, Cô Tư, this Central land is poor and truly ravaged by the flood, but 'starve in clean clothes, stay pure in rags.' Move into the left wing of the side house."
Bà Tư looked at Mụ Nuôi, her previous shrewish demeanor vanishing instantly. Only then did Mụ Nuôi approach Mụ Cả, placing her gaunt hand on the eldest wife's trembling, humiliated shoulder, whispering softly:
"Wipe your tears and go inside to look after Sơn. Our lives are already ruined; we must keep a clear head to care for the children's future. Don't let men treat us like old coats—to be put on or cast off whenever they please!"
Mụ Cả looked up at Mụ Nuôi, choked back a sob, and turned to walk straight into the house, completely abandoning her intention to fight.
Mụ Nuôi turned and hoisted her shoulder poles laden with joss paper, heading back toward the main house. She needed to find food; too many mouths were waiting for her, from her own infants to the impoverished souls out there. Ông Liên's return and his schemes regarding clan hierarchy were none of her concern at this moment.
December
Leaving the clamorous ancestral hall of the Phan clan behind, Mụ Nuôi carried her gánh poles straight toward the far edge of Sình Village, where a mud-and-thatch house stood thick with the scent of ink, nacreous pigments, and persimmon wood. This was the home of Ôn Biện—the old woodblock artisan, the rare genius behind the very prints she had taken to the Grand Exhibition. Ôn Biện, gaunt as an old bamboo stalk, his hands scarred and blackened by wood resin, was quietly and meticulously carving a block of persimmon wood.
Seeing Mụ Nuôi enter with the poles of ghost money on her shoulders, the old man did not look up, only chuckling dryly in his gravelly, ancient Huế accent:
"So you're back, Nuôi? The storm of that Exhibition on the streets swept everything clean, eh? Now you're back to carrying a gánh of paper money to sell for the year-end, I reckon?"
Ôn Biện set his chisel down, his rheumy but piercingly sharp eyes fixing upon her. He took a sip of ginger tea and asked, his voice full of curiosity:
"Tell me honestly, in that cauldron of an Exhibition, where people were tearing each other apart just to pick a side to lean on, why did you wave them all away? A golden opportunity to change your life was right in front of you. The old imperial court faction wanted to rebuild a golden kingdom—the very side Mụ Cả is risking her life for. Then the Republic offered their arguments of enlightenment through Western civilization and science—the path that doctors like Young Master Địch and Madame Thục Đoan faithfully chose. Even the idealistic struggle from the North, calling for liberation through the leaflets of those young girls under the Reverend Matron... Why didn't any of those voices or stances sway you even a little?"
Mụ Nuôi faintly brushed back a strand of her silver-streaked hair, calmly folding the sheets of bamboo paper. The corner of her lips curved into a thâm trầm smile:
"Ôn nờ, as the proverb goes, 'when buffaloes fight, it's the flies that die.' Whichever side wins, they just use us women and farmers as mere pawns. Let them squabble over hierarchy and political sides. As for me... I'm too busy worrying about whether I can keep my own life."
She gently pulled aside her brown rustic tunic, exposing a dark red scar just healing into fresh skin on her shoulder. This was the terrifying secret of the botched assassination attempt on the night of the Exhibition—a secret she hid completely, even from her husband, Ông Liên. The sniper bullet from agent Bình would have claimed her life had it not been for the intervention from the shadows by her old acquaintance. That night, it was Young Master Địch who had quietly, by his own hand, sterilized and treated her wound inside the secret chamber, keeping it absolutely hidden from the clan.
Mụ Nuôi sighed, her voice flat:
"Only after crossing the boundary of life and death do you realize that the titles of primary or secondary wife, or one's rank in the ancient house of Phan, are nothing but a puppet show. When they can orchestrate an attempt to snatch my very life, why should the arrival of Bà Tư Vũng Tàu or Ông Liên's grand clan authority bother me? Why waste my breath on jealousy? I still have too many mouths to feed; my children are starving after the flood. Just hand over the finest paper-money molds that were once used for imperial tributes. It's the end of the year; the living need rice, and the dead need faith. Let us focus on making money to keep our people alive first, alright, Ôn?"
Hearing this, Ôn Biện fell silent for a long time before letting out a heavy sigh, his gaze drilling into the unhealed wound on her shoulder. His voice dropped with deep empathy:
"Now I understand a bit better... My choice will aid you once more with this pile of paper, then. If we cannot prevail with the living, then perhaps we can with the dead. Though in these times, there is little difference between the living and the dead; too many are walking around alive when their minds and souls have long been dead."
Mụ Nuôi poured a bowl of green tea with her own hands and set it beside the old man:
"You knew the outcome beforehand, Ôn. So why did you still toil through the nights to carve those blocks and hand over all your ancestral woodblocks for me to take away?"
Only then did Ôn Biện lower his chisel and look up at her. Stroking his silver beard, he sighed deeply:
"Since when has there ever been justice for the fruits of a farmer's labor, my dear? That Exhibition committee was, from the very start, nothing but a political stage for Republican officials and the old court aristocracy. They used US dollars and foul plots to bury your Sình Village prints; I foresaw it before you even stepped onto the bus. I didn't help you for some hollow prize. I helped you because I wanted you to see the true face of the world. Losing a fair game to a scoundrel clears your head, showing you how to embark on a greater path. That was my true goal."
Mụ Nuôi nodded slightly, her heart suddenly feeling light. That orchestrated failure had turned out to be a priceless lesson in life. Ôn Biện pointed at the pile of freshly carved wooden molds, lowering his voice:
"On the streets, they crave gold and splendor, but down here in the village after the flood, the living need food, and the dead need to be warmed by faith. It is the end of the year; perhaps this trade of making joss paper will save your family and the widows of Sình Village. I have prepared the molds for the gold-leaf paper; take them home and work. Let the men worry about guns and ammunition; we women will worry about keeping our lives and our craft."
Before Mụ Nuôi hoisted her gánh poles to leave, Ôn Biện led her into the dark inner room, handing her a stack of bamboo paper wrapped with absolute care in a piece of coarse cloth:
"You have your ways and connections on the streets of the Imperial Capital. Take this to the café by the Hương River and find my acquaintances. Tell them: 'The ink of Sình Village does not fade under floodwaters, and the character of the Central people does not kneel before the barrel of a gun.' To save people, we must take the winding path, and only your cold head can manage such a task."
Mụ Nuôi pressed the paper bundle tightly against her chest, her steps resolute as she trod upon the fresh mud left by the flood. A new chapter in her life as a liaison and provider officially opened amidst the year-end days grayed by the scent of gunpowder. The trade of making joss paper. Few knew that she had inherited the secret techniques of crafting palace-grade paper offerings, once meticulously created to be presented to the Nguyen Dynasty court.
The Escape
The clan's storm temporarily subsided, leaving the side house with a still, heavy atmosphere thick with the damp scent of Central Vietnamese gravel after the flood. The Coleman lamp was turned down to its lowest setting, casting flickering shadows against the dirt walls.
Mụ Nuôi walked in, carrying a hot bowl of scallion rice porridge and a plate of sliced grilled ginger—the most rustic yet potent remedy of this region against the toxic cold following a storm. She stopped at the threshold, silently observing the Southern woman sitting on the wooden platform.
Far from the fierce, shrewish creature who had brandished her child to challenge Mụ Cả earlier that afternoon, Bà Tư now revealed the true character of a daughter of the Saigon-Vũng Tàu region. She was small and slender, yet she exuded a strange, haughty elegance—an elegance that did not stem from imperial silks like Mụ Cả’s, but from the free, liberated ideals of a new land. Her fashionable, parlor-style curled hair was slightly tousled, and her sharp eyes held a direct, unblinking gaze that hid nothing. Even though she wore a colorful satin pajama set now stained with mud, her back remained perfectly straight, bearing the self-assured poise of a woman who had stood independent in the stormy coastal regions.
Seeing Mụ Nuôi enter, Bà Tư slightly adjusted her collar and raised her elegant eyebrows:
"Eldest Sister... I thought you came in here to enforce another clan rule upon me?"
Mụ Nuôi calmly set the porridge bowl onto the wooden platform, the pungent aroma of ginger and scallions rising warmly. She sat opposite her on a bamboo stool, gently smoothing the frayed hem of her brown tunic, and spoke in a deep, grounded voice:
"Cô Tư, as the saying goes, 'no chili lacks heat, no woman lacks jealousy.' But this Mụ Nuôi has walked through two crossfires and nearly lost her life to the secret police; what use do I have for petty games of household rank? Eat up this porridge to warm your body, and then we will talk straight."
Bà Tư paused, caught off guard by Mụ Nuôi's chilling composure. She lifted the bowl and took a sip, the warm spice immediately rushing through her veins. She looked at Mụ Nuôi, her eyes betraying surprise and a hint of quiet admiration:
"Eldest Sister, to be honest, down South I heard people say Central women are feudal and submissive. This afternoon, when Mụ Cả was crying and invoking the spirit of the mother-in-law to bully me, I thought you would be the same. But the way you slammed that tea tray... it truly woke me up. You are nothing like the women who tether themselves to the kitchen corners of this estate."
Mụ Nuôi let out a dry, witty chuckle:
"Submissive? If the women of this land were submissive, how could we have survived for generations when the soil turns to stone and the floods are relentless? When my own mother was abandoned by my father for a new wife, she decisively remarried to claim her own happiness; she believed if men could do it, why couldn't women? I grew up under the broad shoulders of a National Guard uncle, ran an eatery swarming with soldiers, and thầu-ed an entire cargo charter from the South to the Central region. I captain my own life; I do not wait for a man’s charity."
Hearing the mention of running a "cargo charter," Bà Tư's eyes flashed as a powerful wave of shared perspective struck her mind. The Saigon woman set her bowl down and leaned forward, her voice vibrant with the spirit of liberation yet tempered with gravity:
"Yet Ông Liên comes back here acting as though we are just a bunch of kitchen-bound hens he can suppress with clan rules. In Saigon, I run my own trading business, sign my own checks, and deal directly with Western merchants, turning away even the American secret service. We women have hands and minds; we are not old coats to be put on or cast off at a man's whim!
Bà Tư paused, her gaze drifting toward the darkened courtyard where Ông Liên’s silhouette had just vanished into the secret chamber. Her voice dropped, carrying a fierce, nostalgic pride:
"I don't love Ông Liên because he is rich or powerful. Lord knows Saigon is full of men begging to look after me. I love him because of the unyielding way he stood beneath the rain of blows at Côn Đảo prison. When I used my money and business connections to smuggle supplies to him, I saw a man who would rather break than bend. It was that fiery ideal that seduced a girl who previously cared for nothing but money and independence. Even my choice to leave the glitz of the city, carry my infant child, and travel all the way to this desolate, flood-ravaged Sình Village—enduring the humiliation of being labeled a 'tag-along wife' and slandered by Mụ Cả... it was all because he entrusted me with a mission. He said this village is holding the lifeblood of a grand game. Eldest Sister, do you know the true ideal that made him endure the chains of Côn Đảo rather than bow to the American-Ngụy regime? Ông Liên... he is a deep-cover Việt Cộng!"
The words "Việt Cộng," slipping from Bà Tư’s elegant lips, struck Mụ Nuôi like a bolt of lightning, leaving the iron woman completely stunned. The bowl of green tea in her hand trembled, nearly spilling over.
Mụ Nuôi's chest heaved as a bitter, terrifying wave from the past surged back. Her entire life, she had detested those grand political factions. To a woman who had lost everything—her eatery, her livelihood shattered by bombs, and nearly her firstborn son—labels like "Việt Cộng" or "Republic" carried nothing but the stench of blood and tany tành warfare. She had only wanted to make joss paper in peace to save the villagers. Yet, by a cruel twist of fate, the husband sharing her pillow, the man who had brought Bà Tư back to dictate clan order, was a central gear in the very machinery of conflict she had spent her life fleeing.
Suppressing her shock, Mụ Nuôi locked her sharp gaze onto Bà Tư, her voice hardening:
"Cô Tư, if Ông Liên were merely an underground operative, he wouldn't need to bring you back here to enforce clan order so ruthlessly upon Mụ Cả and me. He is hiding something else from us."
Bà Tư startled slightly, the golden collar around her neck shifting with her quickened breath:
"What do you mean by that? In Vũng Tàu, when he was preparing me to head Central, he gave me a financial cipher and a list of ancient land deeds belonging to the Phan and Trần clans, telling me to calculate the circulation of funds through the trading houses in Saigon. He said... the soil of this Sình Village is not just farmland after a flood. Beneath the ground of the secondary branch's ancestral hall lies something that both secret agents and the old court officials are desperate to possess."
"Exactly! And that very thing beneath the ground, this Mụ Cả has known about for a long time!"
A deep, chilling voice suddenly cut through the darkness from the threshold. Mụ Cả stepped inside, her face stripped of the hysterical jealousy from earlier, replaced by the sharp, calculating coldness of the head of the primary branch. She quietly closed the chamber door and looked directly at the two women:
"Did the two of you think I am only capable of narrow-minded jealousy? Did Ông Liên think that because he vanished into the war zones, I remained oblivious to what he was doing? I aligned myself with the old court faction and shook hands with agent Bình precisely to find a way to keep Sơn and Thúy alive before this clan's game of life and death plays out. Ông Liên brought a Southern woman here and used clan authority to blind the world, but in truth, he wants to activate that underground financial vein before the storm hits."
The air inside the side house grew agonizingly thin. Three women—three distinct forces and schools of thought representing three regions and three separate fates—now stood on a single, covert battle line. The arrival of Bà Tư, the endurance of Mụ Nuôi, and the awakening of Mụ Cả had formed an iron tripod of calculated strategy. They realized that however brilliant Ông Liên might be out in the war zones, within this house, he had severely underestimated the women sharing his life.
Mụ Nuôi stood towering, her piercing gaze sweeping across Mụ Cả before resting on Bà Tư. Her face, carved like mountain stone, hardened with a final, unyielding decision:
"Let the men worry about their macro-politics and choosing sides. We women must focus on safeguarding the lives and character of our children first. If Ông Liên wants to use us as pawns to deceive the world, then we will use our own hands to overturn the chessboard. Cô Tư has the calculating mind of the Southern markets, Sister Cả has the connections of the primary branch, and I have the stubborn grit of a Central woman."
Mụ Nuôi lowered her voice, her tone vibrating with an authority that drew all three into a terrifying plot:
"That cryptic box beneath the ground of the ancestral hall... on the upcoming full moon night when the waters of the Hương River go into labor, the three of us must dig it up with our own hands before Ông Liên can touch it. The counter-espionage list and the clan’s dragon vein must be held by our hands!"
Mụ Cả and Bà Tư exchanged a look, a silent nod of absolute resolve locking between the three iron women. The true secret of Ông Liên's identity, the counter-espionage list sitting at the top of the clan, and the grand strategy to dismantle his patriarchal authority remained buried in the dark, awaiting the fateful blood moon night...
