That morning, Do Do was shrouded in a thick, drifting blanket of hoarfront. The late winter chill felt like sweet, sharp cuts grazing against the skin. Ngan’s silhouette stretched long along the red basalt path. His luggage held nothing but an old guitar, a few sets of clothes faded by the wind and dust, and a heart etched with wounds.
He did not blame Ha Lan; it was just that she needed more than what he could offer. And back then, he had nothing but his guitar and his sorrowful love songs. He wanted to flee—not only from Ha Lan’s emerald eyes, the very eyes that had imprisoned his soul in a unrequited love, but also from another pair of eyes. Eyes that were just as clear as an autumn lake, sparkling with the vibrant energy of youth.
The day Tra Long passed her university entrance exam, Ngan knew her world had broadened. She was no longer the little girl who used to shrink behind his back under the shade of the chinaberry tree. No longer the schoolgirl who begged him to drive her past deserted forest edges just to hear him strum those melancholic melodies. Tra Long had grown into a young woman who carried the spitting image of her mother from the old days, yet possessed a soul entirely whole, passionate, and untainted by the betrayal of the city.
In the distance, an old, dented bus came into view, its sides marred by large patches of peeling paint. It was the only bus of the day, carrying fugitives toward new horizons.
Suddenly, a clear, sweet voice called out from behind him:
"Uncle Ngan..." Ngan turned around to meet Tra Long’s crystal-clear eyes, now glistening with a thin veil of mist.
He offered a gentle smile and softly brushed her flushed cheeks.
"Are you really leaving, Uncle?" Tra Long’s voice was tiny, trembling against the roaring rumble of the bus engine.
Ngan sighed softly. The warm breath escaping his mouth quickly vanished into the void, turning into a wisp of white smoke. He nodded, a distorted smile appearing on his weathered face:
"The children up in the mountain village need a teacher like me, my dear. You are about to head to the city for college, too. Your future lies wide open ahead."
Tra Long bit her lip tightly. Her eyes suddenly welled up with a thin layer of tears, glistening yet fierce, refusing to fall. She took a step forward, closing the distance between them, and looked up at him with a gaze that held both maturity and a touch of her stubborn nature:
"The big city is vast. People say it is dazzling with lights and flowers, making it easy to forget the way back. But you know how I am, Uncle... Whatever has taken root in this Do Do soil cannot change its heart, no matter where you replant it. Besides, no matter how many seasons of shedding leaves the chinaberry tree at the village entrance goes through, its roots still remain deep within the old earth."
Ngan understood the hidden meaning behind her words. The girl's affirmation was like a resilient root driving deep into the soil of Do Do—radiant and pure. Yet, it was that very purity that terrified him. He realized he was merely a shadow of the past, a man carrying the soul of another era. Unwilling to taint the pristine heart waiting for him, Ngan waved goodbye—a wave that left behind an entire unfinished youth for the young girl. He turned his back and walked briskly toward the idling bus by the roadside, fleeing like a fugitive of love. Stepping onto the bus, Ngan did not dare look back.
The bus rolled forward, carrying him further and further away from Do Do. Through the dust-stained windowpane, Ngan stared blankly backward. The small village receded and faded behind the red dust, taking with it his entire youth, his memories, and the scars of his first love. Each old bamboo grove, each path shaded by chinaberry trees where he used to wander with his guitar to weave a hopeless romance with Ha Lan, now flashed past like a slow-motion film. Every tree trunk, every bank of earth in Do Do bore the imprint of a piece of his soul—a soul covered in scratches that had never truly healed. He was leaving, carrying a bleeding heart, but also fleeing from a new destiny that was closing in on him.
On the other end of the journey, Tra Long still stood motionless by the roadside. Her emerald eyes—eyes that fully inherited the clarity of her mother's, yet carried a steadfast, burning gaze of her own—silently followed the retreating bus. In those eyes, there was no resentment, only an immense sadness and a silent faith. She did not cry, nor did she chase after him, but her gaze clung to the bus like a faithful vow of the homeland earth.
The mountain village welcomed Ngan with a biting, bone-chilling cold and a dense, blinding fog that swallowed the horizon. The school for the mountain children was nothing more than a few scattered, makeshift huts of thatch and bamboo, perched precariously on the hillside. The children here had bright eyes and lips darkened by the freezing cold; they went bareheaded and barefoot, yet their smiles were as innocent as wild orchid blossoms.
He threw himself into the work of erasing illiteracy like an ascetic monk seeking redemption. By day, he taught the little ones to spell and write. By night, under the dim, flickering glow of a kerosene lamp, he graded papers while the mountain wind howled and tore through the gaps in the woven bamboo walls. He forced himself to stay busy, wearing his body down to utter exhaustion, so that the moment his back touched the mat, he could plunge into a dreamless sleep. He wanted to forget Do Do. He wanted to forget Ha Lan. And above all, he wanted to erase the silhouette of Tra Long from his mind.
Yet, the high-altitude fog could not conceal the heart of a man burdened by too much love. In this remote, deep corner of the mountains, when all the sounds of daily life died down, leaving only the relentless chirping of insects and the distant murmur of the stream, his longing would rear its head—more violent and clawing than ever before.
The strange thing was, during those long, sleepless nights beside the flickering hearth, the face that materialized in Ngan’s mind was no longer Ha Lan’s. The emerald eyes of the past seemed to have receded into a distant drawer of memory, fading away like an old photograph bleached by time. Instead, the image that entirely possessed his soul was Tra Long. He realized that he had fallen in love with her.
It was not the vast, protective affection of an uncle for his niece, nor was it pity for a child who grew up without a father's presence. It was love. A genuine, burning, and longing love between a man and a woman.
The letters Tra Long sent him from the city, Ngan read every single word without skipping a line. She wrote about her student life, about the city streets dazzling with lights, but every single line ended with the same question: "When are you coming back, Uncle Ngan? Every night, I dream of the chinaberry tree in our village..."
The world often mocked him, calling Ngan a fool, a slave to love. But they did not know that though Ngan appeared gentle and foolish in the eyes of others, he was still a grown man with all the primal instincts of a male. He, too, harbored fleshly desires; there were moments when the blood boiled in his veins at the thought of a pair of lips, a warm embrace.
However, the moral principles and self-restraint forged by his upbringing, and the ethics expected of a rural teacher, did not allow him to yield. He despised mundane lust—that naked, physical pleasure that one could easily purchase in the bustling, decadent cities, or through fleeting, casual encounters. He would never permit himself to seek out weathered women just to satisfy his instincts. He waited for a sublime harmony between pure love and the flesh, a sanctuary where the union of two bodies must be the ultimate, beautiful culmination of a deep love, sealed by absolute fidelity and mutual respect.