Mr. Tho donned a conical hat, Lien a scarf, and Minh a cap as they blended into the late afternoon foot traffic and slipped past the patrol through the still-eerie streets of Hanoi. Lien had managed a meeting with her cousin off the back side of the Bach Ma Temple, a few blocks from Tho’s house and just around the corner from Hang Ngang Street and the historical site Tho insisted on accessing. The meeting wasn’t until midnight, but Tho didn’t want to chance staying in his house or having to navigate the streets after dark. The lock-down had technically been lifted, but the same oppression hung in the air, especially with a darkness-loving demon warrior patrolling the city. Tho arranged for Lien and Minh to stay in the back room of a family friend’s house near the temple, no questions asked. Tho helped his friend, the pho seller, on the edge of the street all evening. He hid in plain sight and maintained the broth with his conical hat cutting off sight lines of whoever walked past. He figured if he was supposed to be seen, he would be. He had the marble tablets safely hidden in a woven pouch hanging from his neck.
Minutes before midnight, Tho loitered in a narrow alley off the back of the temple. He continued wearing the hat, pajama bottoms, and rubber sandals.
“Over here.”
A young man emerged from the shadows. Tho followed halfway down a narrow walkway and into a small room with a single dim light bulb. Lien, Minh, and two other young men were already in the room.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” said the young man.
“Tho, this is my nephew, Cuong.”
“I don’t like this at all,” said Cuong. “It’s extremely dangerous here and …”
“You don’t know how dangerous,” interrupted Tho. He looked at Lien. “Have you told him?”
“No, I haven’t said anything, just that it’s urgent.”
“Good.”
“What’s this all about?” Cuong pressed.
“I need a way into 48 Hang Ngang Street.”
Cuong didn’t respond at first and glanced over to his aunt. “What? Why?”
“The why is extremely important, but I shouldn’t tell you. It’s the Ho Chi Minh historical site.”
“I can’t get you in there.”
“Then this has been a mistake.” Tho turned to walk out. Minh stood up and grabbed the arm of the old man, pleading for him to be patient.
“The Chinese warrior,” Lien blurted out, directing the question at her nephew. “What do you know about him?”
“We’re still gathering intel on him and—“
“He’s not of this world, or at least not of this time.”
“What?”
Tho sighed. “You shouldn’t be telling him this.”
“What do you mean?” asked Cuong.
“Because you’re going to think we’re crazy.”
“I already think that.”
“So can you get us into that house?” asked Tho.
“Look, even if I could, it would take a couple days of planning, and I would have to get approval from my—“
“We need it done now,” said Tho flatly. “As in now.”
“That’s impossible.”
Minh turned to the old man. “Mr. Tho, could you show him something? So he’d understand. You know.”
Tho hesitated.
“There’s nothing you could show me that would change my mind. I shouldn’t even be talking to you, so there’s no way I’m going to help you with a suicide mission.”
Tho untied the pouch around his neck and retrieved the four marble tablets. He placed them flat on a small table and told everyone to gather around. The stones touched each other along their lengths, and he reached into his pocket to remove a handful of silver shavings. He held them in the palm of his hand over the marble and began a chant: “From the dawn of this country to the way forward, link the chain.” He released the silver shavings, and they exploded with tiny bursts of light on the surface of the marble. The light spread and wove layers upon layers of light over top of each other until the textured colors created a depth rising off the surface of the marble, outlining a face with sunken red eyes, a broad forehead, and tightly carved beard—Sun Quan. The face hovered over the marble until the tip of a sword ascended in the light and mist and pierced its skull. A hand reached upwards holding the sword, and it disappeared as the light and shadows shifted to form the image of a young woman, a warrior in her own right, with a tightly-wound ponytail and intense eyes, making everyone in the room gasp. She tried to speak, but the words muffled into an unintelligible gibberish as the image disappeared, and the silver shavings laid half melted on top of the marble.
The other two young men had bounded to their feet and circled around Cuong as the magic show commenced. Complete silence fell on the room as everyone, including Tho, tried to grasp what they had witnessed. The speechless three stumbled over their words. Minh felt as confident as any to speak up.
“That was Lady Trieu arriving to defeat Sun Quan. It’s the only way.”
“No,” said Tho. “That was not a vision of the future. No one path is so set in stone that we can predict with a certainty what will happen. That was a vision of the past, when Ba Trieu defeated the Hans—Sun Quan, to be precise—to establish an independent nation for the Viet people of the south.”
Cuong allowed a confused look to greet everyone in the room. “Are you saying that the Chinese soldier is a resurrected Chinese emperor?”
“The demon spirit of the same. They have unleashed the other world on us to ensure victory. How else was it so easy for them? We must try to summon Lady Trieu to help us once again.”
“And you think you’ll be able to do that once you access the house on Hang Ngang Street?”
“It’s my theory.”
“I’ve never known Mr. Tho to be wrong,” said Lien.
“Well, that’s quite a burden to wear. The belief in one’s eternal rightness,” quipped the old man.
“Well, I’ve seen Mr. Tho do many amazing feats over the years, and if he says he needs to access the house, then we must help him.”
One of the rebels tapped Cuong on the shoulder, and they conferred with each other in the corner of the room while the threesome held their breath. The other two nodded at Cuong and exited. Cuong turned back to the group.
“This must be completely unattached from the rebel plans, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“If this is traced back to the resistance, who knows what kind of kickback this could encourage.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“What is it that you need from the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“So we’re going to break into a well-guarded house without a plan to look for something that may or may not be there?”
“Yes, correct.”
Cuong paused for a moment, slid the door open, and peeked out. “We don’t know what’s out there.”
“Yes we do,” replied Tho. “Which is why we need to do this.”
“An old man, a woman, and a young teen,” said Cuong, looking over at them.
“Mr. Tho taught me something when I was much younger,” said Lien, with defiance in her demeanor. “Resistance has no gender or age. When our very livelihood is at stake, we are all soldiers. That’s what the Chinese don’t understand about us. It will be their downfall.”
Cuong seemed unconvinced. “I’m wondering if our resistance leadership has remembered that lesson. I have my doubts. Now, here’s what we need to do. We have an hour.”
Every historical site related to Vietnam’s past struggle for independence had at least one Chinese guard posted at it. Forty-eight Hang Ngang had two soldiers guarding the padlocked door. At precisely 1 AM, Minh started running down the deserted street yelling at the top of his lungs.
“I’ve been robbed. We’ve been robbed. Help! Help!”
Minh stopped about a hundred feet from the guards, who had raised their weapons and shouted for him to halt. But he didn’t.
“Help! Someone got into my house. It’s right up there. Aren’t you going to do anything?”
It was unclear how much the two Chinese guards understood what he was saying, but it served its purpose. One of the guards started walking towards Minh, telling him to raise his arms. Minh didn’t understand the command, nor was he inclined to listen.
Precisely at 1:02, a case of firecrackers erupted from behind a house opposite the historical site. The hundreds of shrill explosions all at once, from the mass of firecrackers measuring two feet high by several feet wide, pierced the stillness of the night. Such a firecracker display was once popular with wedding parties and holiday celebrations but had been long since banned by the government. The intense sound burned on. Every shop-front lit up with nosy neighbors. The two young Chinese soldiers seemed unsure of themselves. One of them phoned a superior but couldn’t be heard over the noise. The house where it had been lit was empty, and one of the guards opened the door and moved inside to investigate. One of Cuong’s collaborators shut the metal gate behind the soldier and snapped a lock and chain around the gate, trapping the guard inside the house.
The other guard, who had been chasing Minh, found himself caught between the cacophony of firecrackers and the yelling boy, who was now surrounded by neighbors. The guard threatened everyone with the barrel of the rifle, but Cuong’s second collaborator accosted him from behind with a brick to the head. The Chinese guard fell to the ground. The resistance fighter zip-tied his hands and gagged him with a cloth. He picked up the rifle and ran down the street.
As the chaos continued, Cuong escorted Tho and Lien into the middle of the street. Lien snagged Minh’s attention, and he joined them as they approached the entrance to the site. Cuong carried a pair of bolt cutters and lopped off the chain around the door handles. Then he inserted a bump-key into the lock allowing him to turn the knob. He opened the door, but the Chinese soldier locked in the house across the street aimed his rifle and fired several shots which pierced the door and frame.
“Get in,” yelled Cuong, as he pushed the three into the darkened historical site. “You have no more than five minutes until we’re swarmed with soldiers or worse.”
“Then we mustn’t waste any time, should we?” Tho had his chance.