LÀNG QUAN HỌ

Tornado

(HURRI CANES)

(CUỒNG PHONG)

Vietnam writer’s association publishing house 2008

Novel by writer NGUYEN PHAN HACH

Email:nguyenphanhachhnv@yahoo.com

Address:Write’s association publishing House -65 Nguyen Du Hanoi Vietnam

Tel:(84) (4) 38433000

Tiểu thuyết Cuồng Phong của tác giả Nguyễn Phan Hách.Nhà Xuất bản Hội nhà văn Việt nam xuất bản tại Hà nội năm 2008

Bản quyền chuyển ngữ sang tiếng Anh của Nguyễn Phan HÁCH. Nhà xuất bản nào muốn xuất bản sách này không cần phải xin phép tác giả. Tác giả chỉ mong muốn sách đến tay được bạn đọc

Bản dịch tiếng Anh này chưa được người bản ngữ chỉnh lý lại , nên có thể còn sai sót . Kính mong quý vị chỉ bảo , sửa chữa , để bản dịch hoàn thiện hơn

NGUYỄN PHAN HÁCH

PART ONE

(Recorded)

Date ….

I was strolling on the Willow road. The shades with many bends of very blue small brooks of the willow trees with their leaves hanging down were silhouetted on the extremely long meandering street beside the bridge of Tang poem style. I caught a lady named Bao Ngoc (or Bao Thy) who were together with her maids of all work wandering. I who was a man living in the twenty first century had been staying all night in a place with the dream of Pink castle atmosphere which gave us the confusion of time and history background as a paying guest. I could see the feature of Thuy Kieu playing her musical instrument to serve Kim Trong right after listening to the song “Carrying the customers over the river” sung by the courtesan living in the Tam Duong harbor accompanied on the Chinese four-chord lute. I had bought the musical instrument of the bands-woman acted as Thuy Kieu’s role to keep as a souvenir before waking up my day-dreams and living in the present – it was my time, the twenty first century. I was born in the countryside. I had allowed me to forget about all my youth period to recall my childhood at my hometown. There they were! They were banyan tree at the beginning of the village, the well, the golden moon, the lane with the ivory bamboos planted on both sides, the pond in which the first winner of the three competitive examinations Yen Do wasn’t interested in being a high-ranking mandarin of the court anymore but did fishing and composed poems. I unlocked the gate. My mother with her kerchief tired in a triangle on the forehead stepped out of the thatched cottage with glossy straw-roof. My meal had cooked-rice, salty eggplants and the mix soup of vegetable and juice of ground freshwater crabs. I was playing at chucking coins, flying a kite, seeing the Mo sister who was teasing the elder village notables in a treat stood by Mau as a pardon for her being with young without getting married.

My sweet child time slipped away and I had to follow my studying at local province. I belonged to modern life in a comfortable house with luxurious decoration.

The main block of Quiet Poplar Garden Resort was reckoned among the three stars Hotel although its owners (including me in the position of a shareholder) didn’t considered it as everything but the place for the citizens to relive the days of their childhoods or to spend the Chinese ancient culture space or to experience the comfortable of Western modern life after being tired of with the industrial business. There, they could relax themselves with the wild nature, swim in the streams or under the water falls, moon away the time on the paths in the forests covered by the dry leaves with surroundings voices of birds.

Quiet Poplar Garden could give everybody a short space of time or a day-dream period which was completely different with the outside world.

Date …

The plan landed on Noi Bai airport. Lu went out easily with neither luggage nor suitcase but a laptop.

The Earth seemed to be so small and each country appeared to be a village that helped people with the quick and convenient moving from one place to another. Vietnamese people could time and again come and go out of America as if they went to the market.

Lu always felt highly enthusiastic just like coming home whenever he was on the way to familiar and respective Quiet Poplar Garden of where he was one of the owners by mean of stocks.

Leaving the taxi, Lu went through the gate with the temple roof-like curved hard palate sinking in the late afternoon sun. He wanted to make a surprise by giving the related people neither telephone ring nor message asking for arranging any transportation for picking him up. The Receptionist welcomed the owner with a warm cheer as though he was his relations that gave Lu a happiness which he had never had if he stayed in United State.

A servant staff followed his steps to VIP room and performed the exactly and technically all the actions beside a glass of pure water and a white wet warm towel.

Lu sat down on the saloon. His clothes were still very clear and he didn’t feel tired at all despite of the long flight.

- Let me make a phone call to Ms Hai Yen. She was in Ha Noi – The maid girl suggested respectfully.

- Oh, no.

- And Mr Trung was not around as well, sir!

- Don’t mind him.

Lu looked at the girl in the way of a master who was paying his “harem servant” a sight and raised his hand to give her cheek a stroke.

- You look more beautiful.

She smiled while her face was turned red …

- A very young beautiful and pure girl has just been recruited to work for Countryside block – She informed – Let me arrange for you a trip on the lake.

Lu felt eager. He waked up early in the next morning with an anxious spirit. A small boat was ready by the wharf. The feature of the rustic girl aroused an image of an immaculate white Jessamine which had just opened its petal under the glow of dawn and some drops of dew were still stagnating on it. The lake was vast with full of water under the sky carrying a ship and isolating itself from the world. The immaculate white Jessamine was continuously spreading its perfume.

Lu slightly fondled the bare arm of Jessamine whose complexion was still remaining the smoothness of puberty.

The vessel was bobbing on the short waves. Jessamine turned her head against his shoulder. Her low-necked shirt showed the very bright interstice between her two breasts. The button was come apart as easily as a rose was picked up.

Lu was having his head in the clouds. Jessamine was a wind on the field, a chirp behind the bamboo hedges in front of the house, a sun-light on the beginning to open rose and a drop of dew on the blade of grass in the early morning.

Lu perceived all such clearness and pureness. Lu was nothing but an ant in America. Nobody cared of an Asian young tiny man with a pale black skin beside the capitalists whose bodies seemed to be loaded with full of gold ingots which were ready to spit out on the floor whenever they walked. Then, he nauseated when remembering the feeling of the as fat as elephants low class girls’ tastily rich and burnt smell in the bars, red-light districts where he used to visit. Lu was fed up with his American cool “non-official wife” Li Da who stayed in a different house and hadn’t got any child. In that moment, Jessamine had “compensated” for him all the loss. And he realized that it was a right decision to pour out all his capital earning from playing the “stock” (the shares) into the work of building the Quiet Poplar Garden Resort under the contributions of Hai Yen and Trung.

Date …

It was autumn time in Quiet Poplar Garden … with flickering golden light and tremulous winds. Quiet Poplar looked like a nice girl experienced a sad love story. The ripples of the lake were no longer unprejudiced. The figures of the willows were melancholy with the dead leaves showing the regret. The color of the autumn sun expressed the thinking of what was far off and was warming up the curtain of indistinct dew. And the autumn winds blew the autumn atmosphere to all the customers.

The management board had the meeting for form’s sake. The balance report was read perfunctorily. Hai Yen was impressively sitting on an arm chair carved dragon and phoenix following the Chinese Minh dynasty style. She was tall, fat and firm with well-proportioned body and stentorian voice. Something called authority which both I (Trung) and Lu perceived was expressed by her way of performance. Nobody had enough quality to compete her “most proprietarial” position in the Quiet Poplar Garden. She directly bossed the show from controlling, domestic to foreign affairs to business operation although I was the “designer” of Quiet Poplar Garden. Without Yen, the Resort was sure to be completely ruined within a month.

The three owners celebrated the meeting occasion by a small party before departing for Stone Farming House in But Nam area in late afternoon. I played the driving role while Lu and Yen were sitting at back seat. The bare street with many bends was covered by red dust. The range of very blue short rolling hills appeared behind the immense flat country. The bamboo hedges surrounded the Stone Farming House in a valley just like a stronghold. We considered it as our “native village” which was built about hundred years by our grandfather, a district chief Nguyen Duc Nguyen. Long time ago, it was a vast ancient Farming House in which there were “Streamlet”, “Blue Lake”, “Waiting for Winds” storey, old trees garden, “Oath of Faithfulness” bridge, the extremely long graduate of a pre-court competition-examination block of around ten rooms with its yards, pavements, flight of steps and paths tiled by green stones taking from the nearby mountain.

The Stone Farming House was then as devastative as an “uninhabited block of houses” because of the “change” of time and the leaving of younger generations’ native land. It was lucky of me to live in Hanoi where were only tens of kilometers far away from there so that I could have repair to that place and make it turned out to be a relaxed destination at weekend.

When both I and Lu were at the “immature ages” or “thank God”, we would like to do something to memorize our ancestral family’s images and we had reached a high degree of unanimity in producing a celluloid film named “the family’s chronicle” which told about our clan. The first character was Great Oldest Uncle in the French resistance. Next was our grandfather, the doctor of letters Duc Nguyen in Renew and Teaching nobility of mind in Eastern Capital movement and was held in custody and ground down in Con Lon Islands. And the last was our fathers. There were “none of us to be present in the film” due to our lives of no fame and fortune achievement.

Screenplay and play-acting direction were been in charge of in the person of me. The film budget was not too expensive for three of us to pay for it. We had invited some actors for casting the parts of “ancestors”. It was not able to classify it as “feature film” but only scattered “records” just like the documentary film to perform some periods of time in which our forefather had experienced. In brief, it could be considered as a family annals film which was implemented for the purpose of handing over the later generations.

It was also called as a “type of exceeding the limits” in which several monumental shots with complex backgrounds and properties were arranged. However, it was assumed to be so cheap to compare between Vietnam and America in cost aspect according to Lu’s opinion.

Joking with the actors playing the roles of my forefather, my grandfather, my dad … gave me a strange feeling. Each recollection wave train was appeared in my mind whenever we talked loads of casual and nonsensical jests. I would bear the guilty of “smearing” our ancestors or history or both if the film was of no avail. All the past events must be described righteously but neither embellished, exaggerated nor distorted and wrested facts. That was why I had to “control” all the activities and prevent Lu’s subjective and intentional interferences. His daddy was Duc Vinh whose younger brother was my father – Duc Ham. They were two brothers in two front lines …

Date …

… A certain morning on Ngan Nha Mountain in the early summer, the wild plants were brightening with their verdant and tender buds beside the very strong smell of ground, fresh trees and decayed leaves, each sunshine-fall-like stream of sun pouring on the soil through leaf canopy, the very fragrant perfumes of trees, wild fruit and flowers, the echoes of chirps orchestra harmonizing each others to form a sound net and cover everybody’s heads.

Great Oldest Uncle was strolling and the dry leaves were broken into pieces under his steps. He looked like a stone sculpted statue with a bush-whacker stuck on the upper hem of a pair of trousers, a bow and arrows carried on his shoulder and his bare imposing back taking the sun.

Lots of squirrel-like gibbons were hurriedly scurrying here and there in all directions looking for him whenever he moved. He walked up-stream aimlessly. He had gone like that once before and he had skirmish a tiger in a so near distance that he could only slipped his knife out when the animal made a roar. That was an old huge ferocious tiger which was opening his mouth and showing his little finger-like teeth. He had actually never wanted to meet human unless he was hungry on that day and his food was in front of him without trying to find out. How about Great Oldest Uncle? He was totally able to avoid it by hiding behind the old ancient tree before claiming on the high branches of the plant and wait for the tiger’s leaving because it could not swarm and thus would bore of biding. On the contrary, Great Oldest Uncle was having a seething will and would like to fight with it. He dared nothing at all. He used to exchange blows with bear and had stuck his poniard into the animal’s heart. The bear was colossal and Great Oldest Uncle was not smaller. He was an extraordinary person. His feet were as big as the elephant’s ones. His figure was as heavy as an enormous man by nature. And that was why his mother named him Great Oldest Uncle as an expression for that aspect. He had a croaky voice. His arms were so strong that he could strike up the bamboo tree by the roots. He had considered practicing martial arts as his hobby when he was a child and hence he always left home for his kung fu teachers’ places all year round. His natural appearance likely seemed to make everybody fall into a dead faint from fright, let alone his fighting skill. Then, all the villagers shook their heads and clicked their tongues. Great Oldest Uncle always offered himself as a candidate for a post of wrestler in a buffalo fight whenever there was a festival taken place in the local area. A grassy arena was completely destroyed by measuring their strength against each other. He held the oxen’s horns so firm that it had to stand still without making any move. Great Oldest Uncle pushed its head down the ground and forced it kneeled. Nevertheless, he had also made it fell backwards showing all its hooves struggling with the space as if it was an entertainment in the game.

Great Oldest Uncle’s wife was a little woman who was more beautiful than any one else. He usually played a game like prestidigitation by letting his better half stand on the hollows of his hands. Great Oldest Uncle often defied about ten male villagers whenever carrying out a catch-as-catch-can. The image that they darted themselves at Great Oldest Uncle and swarmed over him looked like a cluster of figs. One man was drawing out his arm, the others were clinging his legs, his shoulders, his neck while he was firmly standing as though he was “a pole holding the sky”. Then, all of them fell and rolled forward just like shedding figs when he powerfully shook his body at a blow. When he stood position in Kung Fu, everybody could freely take a run-up from a far distance and stormed into him by their heads or struck hard with their fists on his figure. As a result of that, their heads were considerably swell and their hands were black and blue because of his wall-like muscles. He was able to do the sweet watering from the sugar cane, crush a bamboo tree and make another kind of bamboo have punctures which sounded as clap and clap with his hand.

That was the reason why Great Oldest Uncle scared nothing from such an old tiger on that day and the Chinese story of the youth named Vo Tong beat the tiger to death was surely correct 100%. The above mentioned Vo Tong must be as strong as Great Oldest Uncle who had successfully avoided the tiger’s slaps by confidence tricks at that moment. It was extremely dangerous for Great Oldest Uncle to choose the position of “Riding on tiger’s back” attack like what our ancestor used to say in order to squeeze its neck. It violently struggled whereas Great Oldest Uncle’s pair of pincers-like hands kept strangling it to stop breathing, to try its last frantically squirm and to its eyes glassily numbed. Great Oldest Uncle did the same work of Vo Tong carrying his spoils to his village.

Being generous by nature, Great Oldest Uncle gave his neighborhood all the things belonged to the tiger but its skin for making the coat, its bones for cooking the tiger bone glue before putting into the bottle of the wine and inviting all the youth in the village. However, he refused to offer the county chief even a hundred grams when such mandarin assigned his taskmaster coming and requesting. How exceedingly stubborn he was!

- Why have I to share to the mandarin? – Asked Great Oldest Uncle inconsiderately like a person who had just dropped down from another world and that was his characteristic in an obstinate way …

… Great Oldest Uncle was an illegitimate kid. His mom was an unmarried woman. She took a journey laborer within the area as her main job. One day, she appeared in pregnant image. She had lonely “lied in childbirth” in her shelter built by banana leaves in the middle of the garden. Everybody neither took care of her nor saying a word to her. Nothing could be considered as shamefulness as getting into trouble! Villagers spitted in her face. Nobody wanted to make friends. She had painfully thrown herself about on the mattress of dry banana leaves when she “delivered her son” and the echoes of her screams in late silent night made surrounding people’s hair stood on end. The lad was present on earth. He was considerable big and he was twice as much weight as normal ones. She had tried her best to sit up and use her teeth to cut his umbilical cord, embrace him in her bowel, do the milking on her breast and pour it into his mouth. The brat had filled out a lot within three months. What an imposing exterior! Rumors were wondering: Who was the father of him? Was he “a greenwood outlaw or a robber”? Or was he a “military first doctoral candidate”? Or was he some kinds of unfathomable forester?

The woman had brought up her unfledged youth without giving any complaints and her existence was just like a life history of a sweet potato bud: it for sure would start fading after sprouting young and tender leaves which were no longer going to die, developing and growing bulbs. Yes, she had been gathered to her father when her offspring was 15. He had been a leader of all the villagers’ children since then. There was a rich family recruited him as “a servant”. Working there, he had no kick left. He had flied into a fit of madness and beaten not only the ploughs but also the rakes till they were broken when the unfair advantage of him was taken as long as it was more than flesh and blood he could bear. He had replied to his boss’ shout and asking for compensation by giving such owner a thick ear which helped him to be disillusioned, to understand the most simply universal truth on earth at least and to become more reasonable.

The above mentioned little boy started strolling in the forest to look for another food instead of rice. Firstly, he dug the yams. How sweet and delicious smell the roast yams were! Next were chestnuts which were exploded in salvoes with crackling sounds whenever they were baking over a slow fire. Besides those, there would not be enough for him to eat of course and was there anything else? The wild beasts’ meats of all kinds were a correct answer. He had managed to trap rabbits and musk-cat at the beginning. And his life seemed to be more comfortable with bee’s honey on the trees and fish in the strings. No kids of his age had enough venturesome spirit or hazardousness as well as getting a kick out of wandering in the forest like him. Who dared to climb on the huge trees as tall as a pole supporting the sky? Who could have ability to catch even the copperhead’s neck with swift-handed and effort?

Great Oldest Uncle lived on the products of forest and thus he devoted his heart to forest, mountains and streams. At the age of 17, he had married a girl whose father was a very rich person named uncle See leader. Realizing the extraordinary strength of Great Oldest Uncle, uncle See gained initiative in suggesting:

- Although my daughter Na is the most beautiful bud in this place, I am going to “marry” her to you without requesting any wedding-presents because I love you so much.

- Thank you for your kind but I haven’t got any money for bringing wedding offerings according to traditional rituals to the bride’s.

- How stupid you are! – Commented uncle See while he was heartily and wholly laughing with his hand gripping on Great Oldest Uncle’s shoulders – I will give you the full amount in order to buy betel and areca so that you can pay in the engagement ceremony. Then, I will organize a farewell wedding party and you will stay with our family. We both do hunting in the forest everyday. What most wonderful lives we have!

However, what an awkward situation for him when on that occasion the son whose daddy was the wealthiest gentleman Canton chief in that area had also “fallen in love” with Na due to her sublime beauty. Uncle See had been puzzlement a bit out of a little consideration for Canton chief. The Mandarin’s son had led an unruly and perverse delegation from the neighbor village and stopped in front of the gate of uncle See’s house and at the same time with Great Oldest Uncle’s appearance. Catching the Great Oldest Uncle’s superb and impressive figure at the first sight, the undersized jack-a-dandy’s attitude immediately made a volte-face to be obsequious towards him:

- I surrender.

All of his “subordinates” burst out laughing.

- Do you want to follow me and to attend a “combat”?

- To whom should we treat?

- A bevy of male youths who usually flirts my hometown’s girls in District Street.

- Go! – The whole group shouted for joy.

Receiving the bad news, the District Street boys hurriedly assigned their guy to pay a visit to Great Oldest Uncle’s address for bargaining:

- We would like to lower our colors and promise not to pay court to woman living in your region anymore from now on. But, we would be grateful if you could join with us as our apostle and punish the sailors who used to give our District Street buds much trouble whenever their boat makes a landfall at our area.

- OK, chastise them! – An agreement was uttered.

The hilariously small battles were taken place and Great Oldest Uncle played a leading role. The sailors had no longer dared to make fuss in District Street. A quite life with no rivals in defending weaker sex looked sad. Suddenly, a band of gangsters coming from some where of famine or bad harvest arrived and started their operations. All houses in every village had to carefully close their gates and doors in the early sunset. The village watchmen seriously did their jobs. The bamboo ramparts built into hedgerows with full of thorns surrounding the villages were set right again and sharp spikes were driven in till there was no room to swing a cat. The robbers often brought the soil picks, shovel hoes, crowbars, bamboo stepladders with them in order to dig the walls, broach the thresholds, set the wooden ladders against the gates for climbing into the houses while the weapons like lances, broadswords, cudgels, hardware were always in their hands for “fighting”. They also placed firecrackers into the tubes made of another kind of bamboo and pressed them for creating the pop sounds like the ones of the gun shooting.

The whole people in Nha Son region were panic …

The brigands were quite strong and brave. The chief of bandits was a lame elderly like a magician. All the attacks controlled rather methodically. First, he appointed his fellows to fulfill their reconnaissance duty and drew the chart of field experiment. The propertied families were usually their targets. The “advance parties” often disguised themselves as farmers and market-goers to mingle with villagers in the early evening so that they could open the iron wood doors built at the village gate and received their accomplices at midnight. Bangers were exploded. Flames were burst. One of them took the hammer to break the entrances, one burn the hedgerows, the others eagerly forced their ways into the house with lances, broadswords, cudgels. They divided their tasks by leading buffaloes by the noses, taking all the things in the trunks, pressing their knives against the owners’ necks to ask for the keys of asset strong-boxes, carrying all the valuable implements without having anything left. They were ready to make a stand against the village watchmen if they came. Both sides cut each others’ bodies and their blood was dripping.

The quite merciless boss of the pillages lusted for life revenge. He used to be a thief who always stole pans made of copper, brass trays when he was a youth. He kept doing such work despite of being caught in the act and tied up firmly for beating so many times. And the most terrible punish was given to him at last: Cut his hoof tendon.

A very sharp blade had very easy cut the sinew as big as a finger in his heel of foot. A cord was pulled and broken with a snap just like a twine. He had become a lame person since then. However, his braveness and strength still remained although he disabled. The more he thought about that event, the more he felt bitter. He took robber as his career and gathered the rascals in his area to do whatever they wanted.

Nha Son had mountains and thick forests. The out of the caves and springs hamlets and villagers were far apart by a whole mount or a range of hills. The terrain was full of obstacles and difficult of access that gave convenience for human’s naturally wild manners to erupt. They were able to lurk in the endlessly extended forest and immense mountains like a bird flying and hiding among the tops of the trees without scaring any arrows to avoid the hunting down after rebelling or doing something like to set the Thames on fire.

The spoliators’ general headquarters was located in a deep cave where all the plunders were concealed. Everybody in the region was frightened to death because of them. Nobody could make them awed into submission but Great Oldest Uncle. The loot-resistant defense human beings whose cadres were “warlike” men fighting all chaps coming for flirting female villagers. The celebrated victory in the first engagement had pushed Great Oldest Uncle’s reputation famously.

On that day, the lame robber and his staffs did their mission at Water Canton chief’s house in Tamarind village. They had destroyed the internal and external entrances by using the axes because the bamboo hedgerows were equipped by so thick thorns that there was no space for even an ant to glide headlong. Water Canton chief was stayed against the pillar under the circles of rope. His wife was handing over the keys of big and small trunks and seeing them searching thoroughly. Around ten of oxen were taken out of their stalls. Being controlled, all domestic helps, hefty peasants, servants were powerlessly standing rooted to the spot and seeing the deprived men with swords in intense hands choosing whatever they wanted. Great Oldest Uncle force had appeared just at that moment to get close and combat. Great Oldest Uncle had opened the battle by fencing and directly charging the lame general. He had cut the flat of the guy’s shoulder which were nearly left his loosely dangling arm within a few strokes of sword. All the other gangsters’ attacks were experienced by might of the “titan” Great Oldest Uncle. They turned out to be worried and to run away after trying Great Oldest Uncle’s braveness and ascendancy no mater how trigger-happy they were. Great Oldest Uncle’s staffs, hefty peasants, hired ploughmen turbulently counter-attacked. Five slow-paced robbers were arrested and their hands were bound together behind their back while the rest ones were managing to get out of danger without paying any attention to their lame master holding his shoulder where his blood was non-stop dripping. That was really a glorious feat which pleased everyone. Great Oldest Uncle only just missed honoring as a Saint. His power and reputation were celebrated everywhere …

… Great Oldest Uncle stopped walking by the bank of the stream. It was in late afternoon and the weather was hot and muggy. The fading chirps of birds in the forest were replaced by the rolling voices of cicadas.

The spring was limpid. Great Oldest Uncle was lying on the natural mattress made of dry leaves among whose stem was bearing its very fragrant and dryly condensed resin and being bitten. He dreamily closed his eyes. The sun beams were avoiding the leaves canopies and dancing on his two rows of eyelashes in which the upper row was weighing down on the others one. His glint caught a swimming shape in the far distance when he opened his eyes.

Great Oldest Uncle silently and lightly came close to the target and hid himself behind the thicket. A huge white fish-like girl was wandering about on the surface of the water in front of his face. The spotlessly white pebbles were lying on the stream-bottom. The waves were sparkling under the sunshine. The bud seemed to be winded by golden threads-like sun beams in the water and they embraced her in their twinkling colors while she was amusing herself in the spring. Great Oldest Uncle had never seen any girls’ figures as attractive as her in his life. He had been a silly person ever since. Meanwhile, he could not help violently lusting for her and she kept swimming spontaneously and thrashing the water with her limbs. Her shoulders were blazing. Her black hair was bobbing and drifting. Her arms looked like the spreading immaculate white wings.

Great Oldest Uncle was not able to stand anymore and nothing could stop him once he had already infatuated with sex. He slipped off his clothes and plunged into the water. She jumped out of her skin with a start and shouted loudly. Her tongue was tied, her legs and hands were flagging and her body was bleary in the middle of the stream as though she was a drowned fish while he was approaching.

- Don’t be so scared … It’s me!

- Don’t touch me …

- You are extremely beautiful. I had seen your bathing for so long. I like you and love you. That’s all!

The female teenager was going to escape by running to the bank when Great Oldest Uncle captured.

- It’s me! It’s Great Oldest Uncle. Don’t you love me?

His heavy and full-blooded body was outstandingly illuminated under the sun light and her lanugos were standing out on her spotless white body which was putting on flesh.

- Let’s make love! My darling!

- Oh, no! – She was crying.

- You have no choice. Wasn’t I well-matched with you?

The sparrow-hawk had already clawed the chicken in its clutches. The bud was shaking like an aspen leaf. She was trying to struggle. The more she moved the tighter he clasped her in his arms. He lowered his head and repeatedly kissed on every corner of her physical appearance.

- Don’t! Pleased! … Pleased don’t hurt my reputation! …

- I love you … I love you so much! and I can’t stop my love for you.

Great Oldest Uncle had made a hard press on her body in the limpid water. The drops of virginal blood appeared, dissolved in water and went adrift with the current. He made love passionately and thirstily with an ecstasy of intoxicatingly delight he had never experienced.

The woman seemed to be mesmerized. She was hanging in his arms. Her legs were swaying lightly in the current while her hands were holding his neck. She was assaulted sexually in the middle of the stream. Meanwhile, she was also in no mood to a male stranger’s extraordinarily sinewy handsome which she had ever seen.

Great Oldest Uncle carried her in his arms and stepped on the shore of the spring. She lied stretched out as if she was a drowned person.

- Don’t get angry with me, pleased! – He dressed her whereas she still cried continuously. He kept drying her tears but they were non-stop flows which were painfully following one another out of her eyes.

Great Oldest Uncle took out his gold necklace on which five tiger’s claws were being hung and his plaque carved his name to wear on her neck.

- Keep them to long for each others!

It required a lot of exertion to film that shot done on location. The sex scene in the water was incomparable. The most difficult job was to shoot a close-up of the drops of virginal blood spreading in the current and to look for an actress who had accepted to cast in the role of the girl was more strenuous work. Fortunately, for cinematic femininities whose “occupational indulgence” was wholeheartedly faithful to art, they would never care any actions no mater that was “the spectacle of their father to be in jaws of death”.

- Ok! We prepare all the sites first and when we edit the shots we should balance the advantages against the disadvantages. – Lu advised Trung - Great Oldest Uncle was our grandpa and his violation towards a bud in the spring is not good at all.

- But that was the real story and the rape itself was the origination of our currently lineage. Our crowded family has been developing since then. We won’t appear on earth unless it exists. Everything was nothing without such ravishment. And we have nothing to say anymore.

- We can amend a bit like this: Great Oldest Uncle and the swimming bud had fallen in love with each others before spontaneously devoting themselves to making love which caused the presents of us. – Suggested Lu.

- To do this is to distort facts, to twist the history.

- Wow! No truth is actually true. They were normally paint in bright colors, blacken or fixed. You think the history of our human beings was exactly the same to what we had written, don’t you? No! You are wrong! It was modified a lot.

- Well! I still want our “the family’s chronicle” film performed all the things exactly the same to what they had truly happened 100% any way. We are descendants of such forced love. It’s correct. We are no need to deny or hide it.

Date …

Scholar Ngan was sitting under the frame of orchids. The chrysanthemums grown in raceme were swaying lightly in the wind and their perfume was floating in the air.

He was attentively looking at some invisible things and his cup of tea made of flowers blossoming in the seventh lunar month was going up in smoke and pervading in the air.

- Grandfather! Pleased help me in catching the butterfly. – asked Nguyen while he was scuttling along the yard under the flower trellis.

- Let it fly and you will see it is more beautiful.

- Hum! – The kid uttered to express his mild disagreement and to coddle himself. Scholar Ngan was fondling his bobbing hair contributed to his handsome face. He felt agitatedly. How lovely he was! The lad was his happiness and his sorrow or the greatest miserable thing as well …

He had never forgotten that terrible date. The ground under his feet seemed to be landslide. His family background of moral philosophy and Confucian scholar’s manners had gone up in puff of smoke. To be of the Confucian School and Well Educated knowledge birth through generations despite of failure in examinations, his family always respected sages and saints’ moral principles in order to create a deeply educational house of customs and practices.

Inherited house of scholar’s tradition

Humane cared, reached satisfaction

Received pride at sixtieth birthday

Like the perfume of cinnamon-trees on the veranda and orchid garden.

Those are verses composed to sing the praises of him on the date of his great sixtieth jubilee.

He was not rich but lived in easy circumstances with a tiled mossy house, a thick century-old tree, a sweet-scented lotus pond in front of his shelter and a school which always resounded with the voices of children studying manual composed of sentences of Three-words. Scholar Ngan with his long curved nails was leaning against his new casket and sitting on the kind of tough furniture wooden short terra-cotta seat-like beside his rattan switch. Opposite to him was a group of teenagers going on all fours on the ground with their writing and tracing …

Scholar Ngan always received respectful salutes such as Sir, Teacher,… whenever he was on the street. He used to hand over the knowledge of manual composed of sentences of Three-words and Five-word verse to all the people from generations to generations in the village. You had to call him professor from whom you studied full word or half one. And hence, he was admired in his hometown. He was considered as a model of moral Confucian scholar. How capricious it was! His well-mannered and beautiful daughter turned out to have pregnant without getting married yet. He couldn’t believe in his eyes but dreaming status. His unique maiden offspring was very gentle and virtuous. That year, she traveled to her aunt’s apartment in Nha Son mountain area. She followed her relative to the forest in order to pick up the mushrooms, bastard cardamoms and chestnuts. The great number of birds and flowers had attracted her so much that she had been staying there the whole season and paying no attention to coming back. Suddenly, she appeared at home in the figure of weeping till the eyes swell and started incarcerating herself in her room. She hadn’t tumbled down in a genuflection in front of her parents for telling all her story till she was not able to hide her three months expecting a child anymore. She alone went gathering bastard cardamoms in the jungle on that day and an extraordinarily huge man assaulted sexually her while she was bathing in the stream. He then gave her a silver plaque as his guarantee for finding each other in future.

It seemed that Scholar Ngan would die on the spot. He loved his daughter so much as she had no guilty at all. She was neither of very easy virtue nor termagant. Her meeting with such accident was only because of his clumsily leading a religious life or having no happiness and prosperity and it couldn’t be helped. He had to take what the god gave.

That Scholar Ngan had to send the apple of his eyes to his younger widowed sister who was living in a far distance from there so that she could be delivered of a baby without being kept the villagers’ eyes open to speak scornfully of them. He had better to forget such Harry guy whose silver plaque was written the name of the well known “headstrong” grabber in Nha Son region. He decided not to be in touch with such a panther-like or wolf-like man of means and it was ashamed of him to have a son-in-law of shameful conduct.

How time slips away! His maternal grandchild had already been six years old. Meanwhile, his daughter couldn’t live down her sorrows and writhes. She was so sad that she had had a short life and everything had fallen into oblivion. The Scholar Ngan received the intelligent handsome nephew in compensation of died female teenager. He had to take the bit between his teeth and gradually exchanged all the sorrows for the happiness of having an extremely bright-looking grandson. Day by day, he sat thick-wittingly on his low flat platform beside neither painted casket nor silver lock and there was no smoke flying around his heirloom incense-burner. He was no more impressive as a talent scholar but taught silently his little boy Nguyen … What a child! The more lessons the grandfather gave, the more comprehensiveness he knew. Moreover, he was able to receive more knowledge than what he had been delivered. He made his grandpa Vu Gia Ngan surprised. His family still had a godsend. His daughter’s offspring was formed by the same flesh and blood with him despite he was his maternal grandchild only. The scholar Ngan would like to make a break with his father and consider him as his unique nephew who was going to inherit the achievements of his clan Vu Gia. He understood that at that moment “The Creator gave” him a smart descendant. It was the will of Heaven when he had replaced a child for him to maintain the continuity of family line by the early death of his beloved daughter to whom he took great passion to reduce the issueless pain. Then, the sorrow of leaving his lovely girl was changed into the hope of grandnephew who could maintain the continuity of family line. And the life “revolved” round and round.

The scholar Ngan closely kept the silver bracelet hanging five tiger’s clutches and the silver plaque engraving the name Great Oldest Uncle. The name Great Oldest Uncle must be put out of his head and the little kid Nguyen must not know such name even an only time. The baby was belongs to him, to Mr. Ngan’s family. The scholar Ngan insisted on working in practice that mission. However, everything was up side down. A “great plan” had never appeared in his mind was going developed by nature because Great Oldest Uncle was not only “rising in rebellion”, and “offering up something as a sacrifice to the flag on the occasion of a military display parade” but also appointing himself a “Great General of the army”, playing a role of a king to control the whole Nha Son area as well as its surroundings. More and more “stubborn people” on the earth were right and left surrendering to him as though the water was flowing into the hollow.

Nha Son District was destroyed and its county chief was killed. The “mutineers” had taken all the asset of the rich houses to share among the poor ones. The region of forest and mountains Nha Son with full of obstacles and difficult of access had become the insurgent army’s revolutionary base. Three Nha Son bastions were built by land, stones, bamboo full of thorns and trees. The systems of natural caves were prolonged from mountains to mountains inside the stronghold. It was so firm that the volunteers scared nothing from all night and all day long attacks with cannon. The surrounding hamlets had become fortresses and righteous army was the villagers themselves. They did farming job in peace period and fighting for disturbances happen.

Great Oldest Uncle gave an oath of killing French colonialism and Republic of Korea’s soldiers. He used the flag half of which were red and blue. The red color represented the blood. The blue one was for the peace and freedom. Great Oldest Uncle’s image looked like a person named Tu Hai who “was going to do anything at his will and pleasure without concerning to any mandarins”.

Nha Son people of all generations were wild, made friend with tigers, panthers, bears by nature. So, their characteristic was frightfully violent and pigheaded and cared nothing about “the country’s rules”. They were nervous of neither landlords, government officials nor the death. Their four limbs would fret easily if they didn’t fight anyone. Then, every village “had” its own self-proclaimed Commander (the title considered as the highest rank in their region). There were Farming Commander, Rampart Commander, Handsome Commander, Leading Commander, Fighting Commander, Disciplined Commander, Harelip Commander, Tall Commander … All of them were working for Great Oldest Uncle and elevated him to the status of Commander-in-chief and created a military forces growing in momentum.

All “Commander” contributed their strength in digging ditches, entrenching, hedging the villages, creating matchlocks, forging broadswords and lances, making bows and arrows, staking out bamboo spikes, placing traps. They made the pitfall like the one used to catch the deer in the forest. A lot of deep blind ditches that were hidden so many iron spikes at the bottom and covered by bamboo wattles plating grass in order to camouflage were set up. The deer earning their living at night would be caught in traps. The tigers could not move whenever it fell into snares. The traps were placed everywhere. The soldiers received the orders from their district bosses or their military post leaders to attack the villages and dropped themselves into the snares. Their bloodcurdlingly screaming echoes were reverberating all night for help whenever they fell into traps.

Great Oldest Uncle’s general headquarters was as steady as a rock. The grottoes were by nature created inside the rolling chain of mountains out of out sight. His soldiers were appeared and disappeared. They could suddenly vanish in the forest right after getting the instruction while they were walking on the roads.

A rumble rumor which was sometimes embellished or exaggerated was going about that Great Oldest Uncle had a precious stone centipede on hid chest and hence he was okay in battlefield as all the arrows and the bullets was going to be pushed in two side to avoid him. He had successfully attacked a mass of districts, suburban districts, French military post through out the areas in Northern provinces. His troops had overrun forts before totally destroying and burning. They tied up firmly and escorted lots of enemies such as: French commanding officer of provincial garrisons who used to lay down the law and decide the lives of everybody; the mandarins who used to ride horses accompanied by his servants to hunt down beautiful girls everywhere in order to assault sexually if those ladies were pleasant to their eyes and some of them were even killed if they dared to resist; the fat and colossus looking officials used to eat young antlers, tiger bones, the hands of the bears, the legs of the deer, … All of them were captured after throwing in the towel. They were then in bare feet, ponchos, conical straw hats and had to husk paddies in the logistical houses in Nha Son guerilla base. The policemen were given the job of skilled screening rice like women. District mandarins in silk shirts with horn identity hanging on the necks were standing rooted to the spot and pounding rice. Such three “most ridiculous works” were reserved for three sorts of mandarins that made everyone had to cover their mouth with their hands whenever hearing the stories and thus the mandarins’ prestigious fame were ended in smoke.

The court and the French troops in the person of province chief himself and French Generals in corporation attacked Nha Son stronghold many times and made the whole area seemed to be broken in pieces. The streams were just like boiling fast with blood spreading. Great Oldest Uncle’s guerillas from each hamlet and village “stopped the French enemies into segments” and applied guerilla tactics to attack them every night and hid themselves in the forest everyday.

The mountains in Nha Son extended endlessly with narrow only paths full of cliffs which were the same to the ones in strategy plans as per what the tales of the Three Kingdoms told in China long time ago. The only way tactics were applied just like Ton Tu art of war: To entice the enemies to chase into the trap and then all the guerillas appeared at two ends for fighting. The French forces had no way to escape but died.

It was not easy to defeat Nha Son people rose up in arms. French colonialism and Republic of Korea’s soldiers could not do any thing to reject such army like a magician. They had to be going downhill and assigned their person to discuss about holding peace talk in the last resort.

Let them be friends and no more fighting. Everybody did their own works. District and Province chiefs lived in their palaces and their provinces. Great Oldest Uncle stayed in Nha Son. Villagers were controlled by Commanders who took care of their farming and hammering spears and scimitars. No taxes were applied. Both sometimes “friendly pay a courtesy visit” to each other. Commander-in-chief Great Oldest Uncle gave a tiger to Commanding officer of a provincial garrison on his birthday. On the contrary, Commanding officer of a provincial garrison offered Commander-in-chief a box of tobacco named Co-tap, lump sugar, milk with bird trade mark, Bordeaux wine.

Both were pretending to be good friends and waiting for a chance to kill each other. They defended and would immediately make a surprise storm if the other performed any weakness …

… The scholar Ngan had monitored the situation for long time. He would have never contacted Great Oldest Uncle if he had been a “gang of robbers”, “greenwood outlaws or pirate”, “chief of soldierly bandits” … And The lad Nguyen would have never received such a daddy but the official person to maintain the continuity of a Vu Gia Ngan line. However, Great Oldest Uncle whose first career was an image of a person with “emperorship” was a really great leader during Mr. Ngan’s observation period. Nobody could predict Great Oldest Uncle’s brilliant future and undertaking …

… The scholar Ngan disguised himself as a medical practitioner who came to Nha Son forest for picking up the medicine leaves. Meanwhile, he was leading his daughter’s eight-year-old child together. By using the silver plaque which was carved the name of Great Oldest Uncle as his “valuable thing”, he was able to overcome all the guards on the gates placed on a tortuous road leading to general headquarter of the war-lord. Great Oldest Uncle looked motionlessly at the kid. He had completely forgotten his actions in the stream in the old days. He hadn’t remembered all the things until seeing his plaque and the lad who was a dead ringer for him in miniature specially. He embraced his offspring in his arms whereas his mind was thinking of the events in the past.

- Dear Sir! Pleased do not think that your scholar has a screw loose in his mind and he only knows everything “obscurely and deceitfully” in the village. I always consider about your great reputation every night. I have specially thought of your political profession since the date you and your staffs rose up in arms. – Mr. Ngan fearlessly delivered “a speech” in front of his “famous indisposed bridegroom” – The important career can be developed and comes into your own. Nguyen clan has just been like a puppet dynasty which has been protected by foreigners for years. The foreign country is the cruel and evil French colonialism that is dominating and invading our country. The civilizing mission – Nobody has invited them to come here for giving the civilizing mission. Our Southern Peace people are civilized enough to live happily.

Our Vu Gia family has led the lives which have been heaped with boiling over with silent indignation for generations. We have been trying to keep up with academic activities till getting grey-headed. Unfortunately, we have never sat even one time only on palanquin and canopy by successful examinee in order to return to our village. That made us been angered by disappointment. We don’t resign ourselves to our fates to be the common people or subordinate ones that do farming work everyday. We are master in the learned Sages and Saints profession. However, we can not make a contribution to society. And now, our family’s great blessing was developed by my daughter losing her virginity with you and as a result, the handsome kid who can understand double what he has studied was brought into the world. Hence, I would like to follow you, to work for you and to fight for justice. I used to learn by heart all the works of fictions such as “Eastern Chu dynasty defeated all nations” to comprehend the kings’ tactics used to repair their fortune; “Governing a country of Land Lords” – a ancient Chinese book teaching people how to start being enthroned. I also know the story of Luu Bang – the dog meat seller – who had become the monarch of Han dynasty and his lineage had been famously everlasting for around 500 years. And the driving buffalo guy Chu Nguyen Chuong had set up Minh dynasty as well.

I had read all the books I know and had day-dreamed. Vu Gia’s great blessing had induced the meeting between you and my offspring and perhaps this is a good chance for me to devote what I have study about Chinese books to help you in your career …

… Great Oldest Uncle was thinking of the future difficulty in spite of the fact that he was holding peacefully undisturbed talks. Nobody knew the results of the battles and that was why the lad out of the blue had to keep between him and the elderly and the gate-post. It must be “stored” and kept in secret so that he could use his son for future purpose. Any way, the child was his illegitimate kid no mater how he was born. All the children of his first wife were then teenagers and were practicing to fight for his ideal. Meanwhile, the little boy should be hidden in somewhere to prevent all the troubles which are going to happen.

Great Oldest Uncle gave the lad Nguyen a bag of gold and told unexpected father-in-law Ngan his calculation. The scholar and his nephew traveled to the house of High-school graduate Sand who was his closed friend in Southern province where was very far away from there. High-school graduate Sand was very honest and believable. He received the bag of gold as well as the little boy as his adopted son. He didn’t forget to promise to set him as a well educational person. Mr. Ngan had worked out the second plan: The intelligent boy like his daughter’s son would be the best student and fore sure he will pass al the examinations and was going to be a mandarin. When he was assigned to be the member of the court, he would be “reveal his human condition” as a son of insurgent troops leader - Great Oldest Uncle. They would contact each other to build their own achievements. That was the long term expedient or the best policy …

Finishing al the relevant works, the scholar Ngan turned back Nha Son base for the position of adviser purpose.

- He said – Dear Commander! You are the person of intelligence and courageousness. You have the will of God and you are a clear-sighted king as well as a grandeur greatness person. Our enemy can’t attack our very firm Nha Son stronghold. The delaying discussion opened by their suggestion proved that they have admired us. However, if you want to develop your enterprise, you shouldn’t accept what you have today. You should not deviously stand your ground in this Nha Son forest. You should enlarge your forces in everywhere and call upon the people to take part in your ranks. This place will be the head quarter to govern every other area or even the whole country. I would like to show you my expedient as follow: We assign our people to go around the country and recruit talented, strong fighting will persons and the person of the same ideal for contributing to our troops. We guide them how to choose the regions full of obstacles and difficult of access forests and set up hundreds or thousands of bases like our Nha Son. Then, we fight French colonialism and Republic of Korea’s soldiers at the same time.

- If there are hundreds or thousands of bases like our Nha Son how can they resign themselves to us? – asked Great Oldest Uncle.

- This is the most difficult matter. You have already had God’s will. You fight for great cause. How you can win the popularity of the self-denying people all over the country is belonging to you skill. That was more important than your supremacy in all your born day.

Mr. Ngan found out one set of “Tales of the Three Kingdoms” and gave them to Great Oldest Uncle.

- Dear Sir! You can study more after reading these books. You see! All the achievements of Luu Bi, Tao Thao, Ton Quyen are worth for you to concern and there are so many lessons to be learned from these books.

Great Oldest Uncle looked at the scholar Ngan’s appearance whose figure was small and thin. He didn’t have any ascendancy performed. How such image can be the father of the girl whose feature was very beautiful swimming in the spring in olden times. And what he said was very reasonable. How Great Oldest Uncle can successfully work in practice all his saying was the most important. To talk was easy. To carry out was more difficult. He didn’t know the dispensation given him to be what kind of leader. To make a go of it was not belong to his will. He can not win what he thought immediately.

- I assign you to do what you have just suggested. - Great Oldest Uncle ordered.

- Dear Commander! I am a scholar only. I am even very weak and inefficient. I am a strategist-adviser. I can only offer you the course. The practical person must have military power and dispensation enough to implement such key thing … Thus, pleased appoint another person …

… 10 years of detente, Great Oldest Uncle rested on his laurels. He satisfied with the position of the Land Lord of Nha Son forest. He had delicious wine, lots of beautiful girls surrounding. His destiny was only an emir or rajah of his area but not the Divine Son of Heaven or a king of his country.

The situation was changed on the eleventh year of peace. During the last 10 years, the volunteers were still living in poor condition. They who used to take part in the battle and look down the death were leading their lives in cottages, eating inferior quality rice while their Commanders were resting on their laurels as well. They were rich. They were Land Lord and concerned only their loot. That caused the scattered thinking in mind of freedom fighters. When the thing reached the pinnacle it surely went down. The French troops and the court soldiers appeared to make a rain-storm attack on Nha Son bastion showing their making a U-turn whereas all the Commanders were interested in delicious wine, lots of beautiful girls surrounding and were resting on their “delaying space”. They were attacked suddenly. They had no time to respond to emergency while their signal stations were destroyed. The resistances lacked of comprehensive corporations. They became losers despite the strong forces here and there.

The French troops had increased a lot of new weapons for 10 years of delaying. Each segment line of resistance was broken into pieces after receiving the thunder-like canons pouring on it. Great Oldest Uncle’s soldiers performed a confused retreat into the forest as if they were ducks. They run as fast as their legs could carry one to save their lives. Great Oldest Uncle could not manage to control them stop running and start counter-attacking. On the 30^th, the French forces opened a large scale raid and caught the scholar Ngan by the bank of the stream. He was tortured, flayed alive, cut the body. He was so pain that he had to lead the enemy to a cave while Great Oldest Uncle and his staffs were hiding. Right after seeing Mr. Ngan, Great Oldest Uncle appeared a thought: I was taken revenge. I was avenged … I raped his daughter and then he brought the death to me.

The young brave Commander-in-chief who had a satisfaction period made a smile, calmly raised his hand and pointed his gun at his temple. He pressed the trigger. The French soldiers had no time to prevent him.

Great Oldest Uncle and his accompanies were cut off with their heads which had been pinned on the stakes to display in the middle of the market of Nha Son area for months. The ravens and hawks were circling around them to scoop the eyes of victim out with their beaks, to plume the complexion of the heads, to noisily chirp in a strident gibber. The sounds were echoing the whole region. The Commanders’ apparitions sparkled every night just like the glowworm flying.

Nha Son market was stop opening up and nobody dared to come there for selling or buying anymore.

The French traced Great Oldest Uncle’s family to “execute to death penalty the three generations”. All the children were killed. His first wife died of beating her head against the wall. Everybody thought that his clan was extinction of a race. On that year itself, a young male candidate whose name was Nguyen Duc Nguyen carried tent and bamboo camp-bed for mandarin examination. He reached “the descended person from three-year circle doctor”. On the date of calling names, his laureate-mate by accident gave him a French Government’s propaganda leaflet on which the Great Oldest Uncle’s face was printed. The new graduated doctor phlegmatically looked at his father’s head without any care whether he had any relationship with it …

… A long video clip about the disintegration of the Great Oldest Uncle insurgent army was the most expensive and difficult one: Arranging a big battle with the complicated technique about creating the smoke and flame and the ancient properties of the old days such as lances, swords that were not easy to manufacture as well. The Europeans studying in Ha Noi were hired to play the French soldiers. The minute that Great Oldest Uncle seeing the scholar Ngan leading the French delegation to his secret den to arrest Great Oldest Uncle and he had to utter: The consequences of his previous life was the most impression shot.

- Trung! I can not stand this view. – Lu expressed his opinion – I feel that there is something wrong! How our grandfather who talked about the way of saving our country so good was able to turn a cat in the pan and to take the enemies to his Commander for carrying out the capture in the end. You see! The images of our ancestors were not beautiful at all. They were not good and each person had his own flaw.

- Nothing was perfect on earth. – I announced.

Date …

The eight-year-old child’s memory was faded just like a piece of mist. He didn’t remember clearly anything. The little boy Nguyen remembered vaguely about the feeling that there was one Commander raising his big hand and slightly fondling on his bobbing hair. Yes, the Commander gave his hair only the first and the last affectionate stroke. The big man kept the lad’s face opposite to him. He squinted when aiming at his kid’s eyes while he was smiling. That was all! … He start running his life by lying with his elbows on the ground to study in the High-school graduate Sand’s house all day as though he was an water hen crying unceasingly. He received a carefully good concernment. He was treated with kindness and consideration. The High-school graduate Sand loved him so much by calling him his son despite that he was sometimes beaten with a rod on his rear so hard that the lines of whip had stood out in relief whenever he learned lazily.

The High-school graduate Sand taught him the first “universal truth”: “the Emperor should respect gentle people. Literature taught listeners. Thousands of careers were low quality in manner but not reading books”. (Every job was low class except reading books was the high class).

The High-school graduate Sand gave him a comparison to make him comprehend the ideal: “Studying people led moral standards lives. And vice versa” (Well educated people were quality paddy. Stupid ones were grass and dirt).

The boy Nguyen was trained to be exactly the same to the one in his lesson: “The 7-year-old child with five push-carts carrying books on his shoulders” (Five trolleys of books were placed on the back of the 7-year-old boy). What a rough! How strenuous it was! He had already understood. He had already known about the important of literature: “Books were heirloom. Literature gave us the knowledge of political situation” (Literature is always the teacher of everybody).

The High-school graduate told him how glorious the graduate was: “Whenever the third highest academic title in old system passed by an old landscape the perfume of flowers clinging on his shirt” (The fragrance stagnated on his chasuble when third highest academic title in old system walked on the old path). And “The youth wore pinky brocade court robe. The Spring breeze stirred his green robe” (The young man in the robe given by the court when he had passed the examinations was experiencing the spring breeze which was stirring his green robe).

On the date of returning home with pride: “Ashamed girls with pink cheeks standing on the roadside which was planting flowers as high as the waists of them were competing to see the face of the man in green dress” (The girls were competing to see the face of the man in green dress on the roadside which was planting flowers as high as the waists of them).

The Little Nguyen had to think of the philosophy of Trinh Di, Chu Hy and Confucius although he was so young. He had to talk about great problems such as: “The position included the middle, the above and the below. We should have the ability to judge among the god, the earth and human. Five basic elements were our parents. The eight trigrams decided who were a king and the people”. (People were in the middle of the sky and the earth had ability to distinguish among the god, the earth and human. Five basic elements were our parents. The eight trigrams decided who were a king and the people).

He had to try his best to understand: “The Land Lord lived for moral principles the Heaven would help and support. The mandarins were uprightness the people would be peaceful”. (The country had moral code the Creator would let everything in smooth. The officials of the king were integrity the people would lead peaceful lives). And the last thing was his thinking unceasingly: “Young people should study. Literature helped people led good lives. Graduates worked for the court. And all the elegant lived on earth in the long run”. (When we were young, we should learn hardly and pass all the examination to establish our position in life. The court was full of people in purple robe. Students achieved fame) …

The candidate Nguyen Duc Nguyen took the examination on that year … He had learned by heart all Four Books and Five Classics. Even so, he study traditional Sino-Vietnamese dissertation, poem and literary composition, mourning, petition to the king, … Nevertheless, he had to know how to write an Vietnamese essay, “national question” about Vietnam history, geography, measure mathematics. The third test was the most difficulty one: Translated a Vietnamese composition into French. Nguyen had passed all the tests. The whole Van Cat villagers crowded on the street to see The descended person from three-year circle doctor Nguyen Duc Nguyen returning home with pride. He sat on palanquin which was carried by four people. The “Grant favor for returning home with pride” plate which was red lacquer trimmed with gold was sparkling under the sunshine beside the flags were waving in the wind. There wasn’t any palanquin and canopy behind because the new graduate hadn’t got married yet. He went out of the palanquin when it arrived at the gate of the village. He greeted and paid respect by holding his two hands together towards the village-chiefs in deep blue sacrificial robes or tunic waiting on the street.

The High-school graduate Sand who was Duc Nguyen’s adoptive father, teacher and fortune maker was struck with a disease after he had received the title district chief for some years. He went across Van Cat village from Thuan An district in order to meet his foster-daddy. The High-school graduate sent everybody out except him. To be in full possession of his faculties, the High-school graduate extraordinarily told the story in a coherent and compendious way:

- My dear adopted son! … What I tell you today you must kept in secret. If you reveal any small detail our family will face to catastrophe right away or you will be behead or at least you will be sent into exile where black people live and far away from here at any time. I am not your natural father but adoptive one. Your own pa was Commander Great Oldest Uncle of the Nha Son insurgent army. He believed me and hand over you to me so that I could set you up as a district chief. You now made a reputation for yourself and I am pleased to sleep with your father. However, I can not bring this secret with me to the other world but tell you the truth. Let you live to be deserving of Commander’s son as you are the unique child of his. The French have always thought the race of Great Oldest Uncle to be extinct and they can not imagine that they are wrong … That was the most interesting and meaningful thing I have done.