Tho, Lien, and Minh spent the next two hours in a heated conversation as they discussed with wild abandon every dizzying aspect of the broadcast. Every tangent of every angle always ended with Tho insisting: “I must examine the warrior up close.” Lien asked the “whys” and Minh asked the “hows.” Those elusive questions didn’t worry Tho. There was little the near-centenarian hadn’t seen in his lifetime, and as mid-morning passed, he felt bold enough to instruct his neighbors to allow the deep magic of the universe to do its bidding because “… it has already happened. Did you see him?”
The month-long lock-down had taken its toll on the battered residents of Hanoi. They scrapped for food and feared through the daily rumors of brutal oppression for those who defied the orders. So when they stepped into the streets the morning of the broadcast, they did so with caution. All motor vehicles, including motorbikes, had been banned, so people walked and rode bicycles as if the air had been transported forty years into the past. Neighbors passed each other, nodded, but said little. Men were scarce, unless they had a long white beard like Mr. Tho. Nobody needed to explain the scarcity.
“Mr. Tho, are we going to keep fighting the Chinese?”
“Shhhh—“ Lien cut off her son quickly. “We don’t talk about such things. Not out in the open like this.”
“That’s true,” said Tho. “We know. No need for words. All we need is our history. And patience.”
They turned a corner on the near empty street of shuttered shops only to discover a massive line of people, mostly women, standing in a three-person wide scrum leading far into the distance.
“What are they all doing here?” asked Minh.
“Getting in line for the market,” said a woman at the back of the queue.
“But the market’s three blocks away.”
“Yes, and by the time we get there, there won’t be anything left.”
Tho chuckled. “Chinese efficiency is starting to remind me of thoi bao cap.”
Lien shuttered at the thought, but Minh with a pensive glare followed-up. “What is that, Mr. Tho?”
“Your mother would have been a child then. She knows. When the government provided all of our needs, but never seemed to know what our needs were. I haven’t seen lines like this since 1983. I used to bring a brick and write my name on it and put it in line and come back two hours later.”
“Mr. Tho, wouldn’t you be afraid that you’d lose your place in line?”
“Oh, Minh. The brick moved faster than the people.” He laughed and settled into the back of the line.
“Are we really gonna wait?” asked Minh.
“Well, what else are we going to do?” asked Lien.
The woman at the end of the line glanced at Minh and sized him up. “How old is the boy?”
“He’s thirteen.”
“What are you going to do when the Chinese conscript him?”
“What do you mean?” Lien looked at her in a queer way.
“That’s what I’ve heard. Young boys who are big enough will be taken in by the Chinese for education and training. They will be the new Vietnamese leaders of the future, of course.”
“I’ll never go with the Chinese,” Minh flared.
“Minh, stop.” Lien turned to the woman. “Where did you hear such a thing?”
“Put your ear to the ground and you’ll hear many things.”
Tho laughed. “You’ll also be prone to ear infections.”
The woman rolled her eyes. A rumble of motors roared from behind. Several open-topped armored vehicles approached filled with Chinese soldiers holding rifles. It wasn’t uncommon to have patrols pulse through the city, flexing their muscle and cowering the populace into the dark alleyways. As the first patrol was about one hundred feet from the back of the market line, a rocket shot out of a side street and split the armored car in two in a fiery crash. Voices screamed from all angles and the weary-headed shoppers cowered their backs against the nearest cement wall. The soldiers in the second vehicle jumped off and pursued two men in black shirts on foot. Shots rang out in the chaos. As the two men were overcome by the soldiers, five more in black emerged from different directions. They overpowered the patrol with a steady crossfire of bullets. The resistance had overwhelmed two contingents of Chinese soldiers.
Lien pushed Minh behind her and the old man crept in front of them both, willing to give whatever was left of his life in case a stray bullet was destined to cross the boy and his mother. Tho was ready to tell them all to run when a sound became a presence, like a deep pulsing spirit had descended upon them. Everyone felt it. Everyone heard it. The Vietnamese rebels in black stopped shooting and looked upward. A blackness sped across the sky. It wasn’t in human form. More like a visible pulse of energy, gripping one black rebel fighter after the other with a deadly vice grip across their necks. They couldn’t move, and the Chinese soldiers and the terrified market goers watched as they expired without warning like falling sacks of bricks onto the ground. The vehicle burnt in the background like an altar sacrifice. Even the Chinese displayed apprehension in their eyes. They didn’t welcome the darkness but didn’t fight against it and slowly slithered backward as a black mist coalesced into human shape and the giant warrior landed in front of them. He towered over the soldiers and pointed at the bodies of the rebels. The soldiers obeyed without delay and dragged each rebel corpse to the fire and threw them in.
Tho stood up.
“What are you doing?” whispered Lien.
“I need to see him up close. This is my chance.”
“You can’t go over there.”
“I’m ninety-five years old. No one will tell me what I can and can’t do. Only my body does that.”
He walked toward the seven-foot-tall warrior still facing away from him. The warrior had two swords strapped across his back. He had a long ponytail bound tightly at the neck and a sheath on his right hip holding a dagger. His dark uniform had a metallic quality to it. Tho was determined to see the warrior’s face up close. He didn’t trust the grainy shot of the television broadcast. He had to know for sure. When he was no more than twenty feet from him, Tho tripped on purpose, making a noise which shattered the eerie quietness of the moment. He cried in false pain as the giant turned and walked towards him.
Tho focused on his eyes, but they were covered by the half-glass shield. The warrior towered over the old man, but Tho wasn’t afraid. He marveled at the size before he spoke.
“I know who you are.” The warrior said nothing. “Would you remove your glasses to allow an old man to see you face to face?”
The warrior smiled slightly, and he reached up and removed the glass shield from his burnt red eyes, which glowed like a raging pit of fire.
“Your eyes. Like a fading sunset.”
“You’re wrong, old man. They burn as the new dawn sun.”
Tho laughed as he often did. “You aren’t going to hurt me, are you?”
“Longevity is to be revered in all its forms.”
Tho stood up and looked like a boy gawking at a towering beast in the zoo. “Then you are to be revered more than most, Sun Quan, because your longevity is truly without equal.”
The warrior smirked. “It is good to see wisdom still emerging from the masses. It’s futile to resist. I hope you will use your wisdom to pass along the message.”
Tho cleared his throat. “But …” He started, then stopped.
“What is your message, old man?”
“Sun Quan, do you not think that your unexpected return might cause a certain counterbalance? Surely you know this.” A pause passed between them. Lien and Minh, mostly breathless, watched the standoff in the middle of the street: the arched-back, aging man and the powerful warrior from the past. “There is only one way in which you could have returned, and if you have accomplished the impossible, is it not possible that someone else could do it as well? Perhaps …” Tho paused again. He was almost afraid to say it. “Could it be possible for her as well?”
The word ‘her’ caught Sun Quan’s attention in a surprisingly pleasant way, as if he welcomed the threat. He took one more step closer to Tho and reached down to grab his hand. “You think your hands are talented enough?”
Tho knew what he meant.
“I don’t know. If they were, would you feel threatened?”
“Did she send you?” Tho was taken aback by the question and didn’t answer. “Did she send you?”
“You are expecting her?”
“Why else would I come?”
“And me?”
Sun Quan leaned down over him and whispered a thought Tho had been thinking himself. “Why else would you still be alive?”