She touches Bao Thu’s forehead. The dark veins reverse, pulling the memory-eater out of her—and into the old woman, who crumbles into dust.
"I’m not your enemy," she says, not backing down. "These people are dying of something your swords cannot cut."
The air is thick, green, and suffocating. Bao Thu presses her back against a giant bamboo stalk, her hand clamped over a bleeding gash on her arm. Around her, the bamboo grove whispers . Not wind—voices. The trapped souls of plague victims Lord Minh Khoi had burned alive years ago.
Her palm glows a faint jade color. The wound seals. But the whispers grow louder. healer bao thu tap 2
The blind old woman appears again—but this time, she steps through Minh Khoi’s soldiers like smoke.
She closes her eyes, whispering a chant her grandmother taught her: "Root to leaf, pain to relief. Not mine to keep, but theirs to release."
Just as she begins preparing a tincture of xuyên khung (ligusticum root) and bạch chỉ (angelica), the thunder of hooves shatters the silence. Lord Minh Khoi rides into the village, flanked by two dozen armored soldiers. His hawk-like eyes lock onto Bao Thu. She touches Bao Thu’s forehead
Bao Thu knows she cannot fight soldiers. But she can heal. She kneels beside the frozen mother and child, ignoring Minh Khoi’s order to stop. She places one hand on the mother’s chest, the other on the child’s forehead.
"You would let them die for your superstition?"
"Who are you?"
Bao Thu follows the old woman’s warning to Vong Giang, a riverside village that should be bustling with morning market noise. Instead, it’s dead silent. She sees people sitting motionless on their porches. A fisherman stares at the water, unblinking. A mother holds a spoon to her child’s mouth—neither moves.
The child blinks. The mother breathes. But Bao Thu collapses, coughing black petals.
"Healer Bao Thu," he says, dismounting with theatrical calm. "I knew you’d come where the suffering is thickest. You’re predictable that way." "These people are dying of something your swords cannot cut
With her final breath, she whispers: "I was the first Bao Thu. And you… are the last."
Her jade glow erupts—but wrong. Dark veins spider across her arms. She gasps. The memory-eater is inside her now, feeding on her own past.
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