Incense - Tay Ninh Online Newspaper

Tu Bon quit his job as a hired hand one rainy afternoon, forcing him to take half a day off from weeding cassava. While he was sitting sadly in front of his house, he suddenly saw an old man riding a bicycle with a basket of huge weeders on the back, stopping abruptly. Looking at the pile of miscellaneous things Tu Bon had accumulated over the summer, he immediately stopped and asked: - Are you selling?

Tu Bon absentmindedly asked: - How much?

After a while of searching, the other person said firmly: - One hundred thousand.

At that time, the price of a run-down bicycle that could still run was only a few hundred. As if he had found gold, Tu Bon sold it. He helped carry the discarded items while chatting with them. He learned that the scrap metal business could earn him a few tens of thousands of dong a day, much more than the couple's hard-earned income from working as hired laborers. That night, he and his wife spent a lot of time discussing. The next morning, with about three hundred thousand dong saved up, he went to the alley entrance to stop by the porridge shop of a Northern man named Heng who had just rented a house at the beginning of the street from Mrs. Muoi Mat, who had opened a breakfast shop for a few months. He reluctantly spent two thousand dong for a bowl of porridge to get acquainted and ask Heng to help him buy an old bicycle. Although the owner of this porridge shop was a new resident, he seemed to have a wide network of relationships with all kinds of people (he was the character who would soon be the cause of all the troubles of the houses in the alley). But it was not until the third sad story that it gradually revealed itself.

So from the name Tu Bon, it was naturally changed to Tu Ve Chai from the day he decided to change his job, every day he would roam around on his old car, weaving through every nook and cranny, shouting out a single phrase: Who sells scrap metal? Although the job was still rain or shine, the money he earned was getting better and better every day. His children were all old enough to go to school. Only the youngest, five years old, was chubby as a potato, never sick or sniffling, just staying home to play alone, in a tiny yard with a simple fence. His wife, when healthy, would work for hire with her sisters, when tired, she would stay at home to rest, the extra money she kept carefully in the bottom of her chest was still enough to spend on two meals a day. Life was thus just as peaceful as many other houses in the same alley. Gradually, his wife had more days off than working. Her clothes were also different every day. Although not as smooth as the women who sell outside the town, they are all thin, bubble-like and printed with colorful flowers, making men with a lot of imagination stare at them and feel a seductive fragrance like the scent of flowers in the morning in the garden going straight to their hearts and lungs. It must be admitted that Tu Ve Chai's wife has recently been able to pay attention to taking care of herself, so she has completely transformed. Thanks to her round but not fat figure, she buys every shirt and piece of pants as if it were ready-made for her. Every piece of clothing fits tightly and clings to her body, making the sexy curves of her body stand out, the places that other women discreetly cover up, on hers, are exposed and plump as if by accident, as if on purpose. Even without makeup, her skin is still smooth, making countless ladies who wear a lot of makeup secretly jealous. From the pretty face with eyes that, regardless of joy or sadness, were all sparkling like two drops of clear water, to the slender wrists, to the three folds of the jade-like neck and a little below, where the circle of the collar was intentionally cut a little wider, the exposed skin was all smooth and white, pink and smooth like the skin of a chubby three-year-old child. People who did not know her, when meeting her, would dare to think that she was the wife of the dark-skinned Tu Ve Chai with a big head, red hair like cow hair and short, bow-legged legs, who all day long rode a bicycle, wiggling his butt this way and that on the saddle like a duck waddling uphill. This couple looked so eccentric on the outside that they were often the subject of jokes for many talkative people. Once, the owner of the porridge shop could not hold back and openly made fun of Tu Ve Chai right in front of the crowded shop:

- Big brother, it's a waste to use your wife. Let's swap wives. I'll pay you with a new Chinese 67 motorbike so you can buy scrap metal to stay healthy.

Hearing such hateful words, Tu Ve Chai still only silently pedaled his bike straight, leaving behind him the sound of the pot squeaking and the oil drying out instead of angry words. That was his nature. Patience is a virtue. It wasn't that he was wise enough to learn bitter lessons from his miserable life. It was his fate. Ask him if he dared to say a word to anyone, when he grew up a little, he found himself a little boy obediently bowing his head to serve a group of bandits, specializing in destroying the forest, moving endlessly in the deep forests. He didn't even know who his own parents were, so what did he know about this or that right in this world? That day, several decades ago, in a dark valley he didn't even know the name of, every day his job as a fourteen-year-old slave boy was to take care of meals and serve any task for a group of bandits destroying the forest, and smuggling goods across the border. I thought my life would be gloomy like that, if not for the incident that the whole gang of scoundrels were caught in just one day by the police. Luckily, that day he was not in the shack. He escaped but was left helpless. And as fate would have it, he had long been acquainted with the girl, who was scrounging in the forest every day to dig for rubber, selling it to raise her sick father, in a hut by a small stream. That was why he had a place to live after the above incident. The girl's father seemed to really like the black, tough boy that his daughter had picked up somewhere. They considered each other as close as blood relatives. Every day, they went deep into the woods together to pick bamboo shoots and mushrooms to earn money to live and buy medicine for their father. It seemed that he felt somewhat reassured about his daughter's fate, so one morning he held their hands and placed them together, then without saying a word, quietly left this world. The two children were so frightened that they asked some people to take care of their grandfather's grave in the forest and then they ran away from the deep forest, wandering around doing whatever they could. God was so kind that they drifted to this area. At that time, the bustling town of Tan Chau was now a new economic zone full of hardship and deprivation. During the day, they worked for several restaurants, and at night they slept in a poor market with a few dozen shacks. One day, a virtuous old woman called them to stay. Seeing that they were kind, hard-working, and honest, she adopted them as her children. She had just gone through a war, and her children were all killed by a bomb that hit the roof of their house. Now she was single. She had no siblings left, and she was alone day and night. After a few years, she passed away. Before she died, she had time to invite the village chief to leave the two children the house and the tiny piece of land where her husband and wife were living. After the funeral, the two children naturally became husband and wife without them knowing. Then four children were born one after another, born and raised naturally like birds. Now, Tu Ve Chai is over forty years old. His physical strength is much less than before. As for his wife, somehow she followed the opposite process, being the same age as her husband but still looking youthful as if by magic. It was as if God had just remembered his mistake and hurriedly returned the youth that he had not given her a few decades ago. And no one noticed that at some point, under the eyes of the idle men, the alley she had been going back and forth to for a long time, which was quiet and sad, suddenly became bright and cheerful with the image of Tu Ve Chai bursting into passionate love every day, causing many of them to suddenly feel their own change to the point of astonishment. Only appearing briefly on the street a few times a day, but the scent of the female butterfly exuding from the skin of Ms. Tu Ve Chai was so strong that it almost did not dissipate in the air. At first, no man dared to confess to anyone, and without any business, they wandered around that street to freely inflate their chests and greedily inhale the dizzying, dreamy mist, filled with a vague desire that seemed instinctive but also seemed like something extremely pure.

Tu Ve Chai was the first one to notice the miraculous change in his wife. He had never known about vague romantic feelings, and was not subtle enough to notice deeply, but for a long time he had vaguely felt that in his house, there was always a lingering, musty smell, like the smell of urine from a pregnant female goat, making him restless every night, under the bed he lay on, his sleep was filled with floating clouds and waves. He secretly noticed that his wife was becoming less and less tired and dirty every day, and instead she was a charming Tam who had just stepped out of a star fruit, but Tu Bon's wife's temperament in the past did not show any unusual signs. Only in the daily state of the family, he saw many mysterious things that he could not understand, leading to a state of constant anxiety and worry that was very vague but very real. First, the female dog, which was so weak that she thought she was about to die, suddenly gave birth to a litter of ten puppies. Without enough nipples to suckle, the puppies grew up very quickly, each one plump and plump, with shiny fur as if greased. The entire litter of puppies had not yet eaten solid food, but in one day, ten people from everywhere came to buy them at an unexpectedly high price. Then there were the papaya and mango trees in his barren garden, which had been withered and weak for a long time, suddenly their branches and leaves were lush and green, and each fruit grew one after another, competing to grow faster than ever before, and all were round and plump like the breasts of young girls in their prime. What was even more strange was that whoever was lucky enough to eat those fruits would feel a lingering feeling of being in their twenties. Many strange stories like that were rumored everywhere, to the point that a reporter came back to find out the situation, was so surprised to see the youngest son of Tu Ve Chai appear before the lens as beautiful as a fairy, he quickly took a photo. When he turned to take a photo of the fruits in the garden, just looking at them made him flutter, then he was stunned to see his mother standing next to the mango tree, attentively looking at her son, a bright smile on her lips, the color of peach blossoms. He had just turned the camera to take a photo when the screen suddenly became opaque as if it had been burned. When he got home, he checked the camera and found that there was nothing wrong. Too surprised, he quickly printed the photo of the little boy and named it: Fairy descending to earth, then excitedly sent it to the national photo exhibition. The photo won a big prize right away. And of course, it also caused a stir of amazement in the press with many extremely impressive fictions.

Every day, Tu Ve Chai silently watched every change in his wife, anxiously listening to the neighbors. Only his wife did not care about anything, just ate, slept, and followed her friends to do farm work, and she was indifferent to the strange looks people gave her, both affectionate and distant. Only a few things made her feel moved, but she did not understand why they happened. One night, when she had to go out, walking in the dark, a bold man could not control his urge to ride his motorbike and slapped her butt hard. She just said softly: - Don't be so vague, you'll fall and break your teeth. Immediately, his motorbike fell over, his face hit a rock on the side of the road, and as a result, two front teeth flew out of his bloody mouth. A few days later, another incident happened when she went to Mr. Heng Bac Ky's shop to buy her child a bowl of congee. At the same time, a fat old man with a huge gold necklace around his neck was eating breakfast. He smelled a strange scent. When he looked up and saw her, he opened his mouth and stared for several minutes before blurting out:

- Where did you come from to be so beautiful? If you want to be the owner of a gold shop, follow me. I will do whatever you want.

She just calmly replied with a charming smile:

- Don't be shy, your throat is choking on meat right now. The old man immediately choked and howled loudly. Everyone crowded around to take him to the district hospital. It was said that in that emergency case, two doctors had to use pliers to pull out the nail, then each of them had one foot on the operating table to gain momentum, then they were able to get in and pull out the piece of meat stuck in the old man's throat, after a loud bang like opening a cork of French wine.

That case would have been considered a normal case of choking, if the guy who had fallen and broken his two front teeth that night had not been there to witness it, then listlessly recounted his unlucky evening and made a fearful assertion:

- Please don't mess with this lady or you might lose your life.

There were a few stories like that that reached Tu Ve Chai's ears, some exaggerated and added salt and pepper, some whispered sincerely, affirming that there was no malice: His wife seemed to be possessed by a ghost or some kind of female demon, making him more and more confused and worried. Until the time he had a motorbike accident, a rusty iron bed frame pressed down on him, causing both knees to swell up to the size of a bucket, he had to stop selling and buying for no known time, and had to let his wife practice in his place. Who would have thought that in just mid-afternoon, Tu's wife had creaked and parked her motorbike in front of the house, her face beaming with pride:

- Big win, my dear! I won more than a hundred thousand. The scrap collector opened his eyes in surprise:

- What's so fierce? It's like winning the lottery.

- I asked to buy it, not to beg. But every house I went to, they said it wasn't worth much, it was just trash, it was better if you took it. Even if I paid them, they absolutely refused to accept it. What could I do?

Hearing these words, Tu Ve Chai's heart became even more confused and worried, guessing that another miracle would happen. And then the more he thought about it, the more he felt stuck, he left things to chance. From then on, Tu Ve Chai's family's income skyrocketed, the surplus money he had left he could buy whatever he wanted, the rest were old things, mostly from rich landlords who, as if under a spell, forced his wife to buy at junk prices cassette players that were not damaged at all, and even some stainless steel knives that were still shiny and sharp. If he didn't buy them, he would get angry and wouldn't sell them to him next time. Now, the neighbors often saw Tu Ve Chai lying comfortably on a folding chair outside in the cool breeze, his eyes half-closed, one short leg tapping to the sweet melody of the vọng cổ song by singer Lê Thủy that came from the record player his wife brought home, a hobby that he had long had to listen to on the neighbors' behalf. And his family's routine was still the same, his wife was still like a fairy descending to earth, walking several times a day as if gliding through the streets and alleys, giving away without reserve the lingering scent emanating from her skin, for everyone to enjoy.

Then his small neighborhood was once again in turmoil, because one evening at dusk, Tu the porter suddenly appeared on the alley, looking no different from a beggar, with a wrinkled felt hat covering his bald head. He had not yet served his prison term, but had been released because he had denounced a huge escape plot. That night, when they saw the light of an oil lamp in his house, first retired Mr. Ba ran over, then teacher Hoa, and then the whole neighborhood came to visit and helped him clean up his house, which had holes in the walls and roof after many months of no one taking care of it. Tu the porter seemed to be polite and slowly thanked everyone as they slowly left. The women whispered to each other: Our government is really good, in just a few years it has transformed him into a completely different person.

Early the next morning, he went from house to house to inquire about the situation. When he arrived at Tu Ve Chai's house, he only saw his wife alone, preparing her bicycle to set off. He caught a glimpse of the woman bent over, busily tying something up, her plump, round buttocks pointing towards the gate, two soft, curved lines of flesh standing parallel, the two sides of her spine glistening with sweat stuck to her purple Lagerstroemia shirt. Looking up, his squinting left eye touched the white nape of his neck, moving down a bit, his intact right eye blinked and fixed on his two thighs exposed like two lumps of dough, making the old man's face darken and almost faint. Tu Ve Chai's wife suddenly had the feeling that thousands of ants were crawling on her bare calves. Her intuition made her turn around, realizing that the porter Tu's wild eyes were shooting lustful rays straight at her. She gently greeted him. In response, his whole body became numb, flustered and unable to speak, only his jet-black mustache like a black dog's tail twitched repeatedly. Realizing his ridiculous situation, he stammered a few meaningless greetings and quickly slunk home, carrying in his confused mind a strange, lingering scent, a scent that made his heart ache like never before. Perhaps that scent, both carnal and pure, from this fresh morning would sink into his flesh, tearing his heart to the point of indescribable pain, but it could also save him, bringing him back to life as a true human being. A person whose beauty he had never known since birth, let alone cherishing and reaching out to.

From the Ve Chai Tu's house, Tu carried the load like a sleepwalker, went straight home and lay down on the sofa that retired Ba had lent him last night. He felt his body exhausted and his mind absent-minded because of a strange, enchanting scent, sometimes thick, sometimes faint, following him, filling the four rickety walls that were about to collapse on him. Perhaps only God knew why he gave up the idea that he had so madly wanted to do last night. It was because he had been in prison for more than two years, the thing that he suffered the most was the lack of a woman's taste. He had a few million in prison money in his pocket as a reward for labor, so calling a few young girls to relieve themselves was not difficult. But strangely, at this moment, that instinctive desire had completely disappeared. Instead, his mind now only lingered on the image of Tu Ve Chai's wife, radiant in the color of purple Lagerstroemia flowers, soaring with the scent, sometimes passionate and sometimes pure and holy, hovering outside his body. And strangely enough, he did not feel the slightest trace of instinctive desire. For seven days and seven nights, he lay still like that. He did not eat, drink, or sleep for even a minute, but his spirit was still extremely alert and extremely refreshed. It seemed as if he was unconsciously performing a sacred cleansing ceremony in the dreamy, pure scent of flowers that Tu Ve Chai's wife had just given him. On the eighth day, he woke up and stretched and walked outside. It had rained heavily last night, the sky was a clear, blue color, shining with clear rays of sunlight to welcome him. An idea flashed in his mind, he quickly went to a lottery agent, handed out two million as a deposit, he received a few hundred tickets and then wandered around the street selling them, not paying any attention to the crazy gangster comrades from two years ago who were waiting to invite him to go out drinking and having fun with the short-haired fairies of today. Every month, he regularly sold tickets during the day, and at night he came home and closed the door, without any lights. The house was still as quiet as when he was in prison. Retired Mr. Ba used to suffer because of the noise of his gang, now he wanted his house to have some noise, to have people coming and going, afraid that one day he would die in there, which would be a pity. Then suddenly, rumors spread that Mr. Tu had won a few jackpot tickets. But many curious people were still watching and saw that he had no movement. Only Mr. Heng, the owner of the porridge shop, dared to hold his hand and ask him the truth. The porter calmly confirmed: "Yes, that's right... yes, that's right" and only the wife of the Ve Chai Tu knew that he had actually won three tickets. The reason was that she met him on the road buying scrap that day, he invited her to buy a few tickets for him. She calmly touched the three remaining tickets in his hand and said: "You keep them, Tu, you're lucky to have won the jackpot. God has given us enough for our family." Listening to her, the porter put them in his pocket and slowly walked back. Sure enough, that afternoon, he was startled when he saw that the numbers printed on his ticket matched the winning numbers. So his crazy desire for money, which for decades had seemed like it would be a million times harder to find a needle in a haystack, had now come true so easily, after just a few thoughtful words and a little touch from the fragrant hand of a worldly woman. And it was also unexpected that he was now the owner of such a large pile of money, but he felt so indifferent. That night, with three hot winning tickets in his pocket, he walked back and forth in the dark house, his heart filled with light. The image of the white hand of Tu Ve Chai's wife, emitting a faint scent of an unnamed flower, not real in life, when she placed the three lottery tickets. As if after a dream, he vaguely realized that there were many wonderful things in this world. Power was nothing, strength was nothing, and money was nothing compared to the wonderful thing that had just flashed in his long-dark mind. Not yet able to understand the higher mysteries, he vaguely wondered, could that invisible wonderfulness originate from Tu Ve Chai's wife who lived next door to him every day? Why had all the ferocity of Tu Ve Chai's old days been slowly dying in him in recent months? Why is it that every time the fire of lust flares up, his body immediately cools down, when he fills his lungs with air in the dark house that is always filled with a scent, clearly physical but not tainted with any male or female instincts? Tonight, after a while of self-questioning, the old porter Tu, who has never known fear, suddenly feels goosebumps and sweats in the darkness. He only wishes for the morning to come quickly, so he can go to the house of the couple Tu Ve Chai and kneel down to ask for the three winning tickets back. It sounds too strange. But the truth is that early that morning, he stood in front of Tu Ve Chai's house since it was still dark, waiting for the door to open, then rushed straight into the house, holding the three lottery tickets in both hands, stammering to ask Tu Ve Chai's wife to receive them back, in front of the curiosity of many passersby. Everyone said that this old man was crazy because of Tu Ve Chai's wife. Too surprised, but Ms. Tu still understood the situation, advised the old man to take it home and use the money according to the dictates of his conscience. "God gives it to everyone, Mr. Tu. If I had bought it that day, I wouldn't have won." A few days later, people saw the old man go to the town committee, asking for support enough money to organize a free burial team for the poor. Then he repaired the house and built a huge warehouse, used for collecting scrap according to the advice of the Ve Chai couple Tu. The warehouse had been open for a few days when the old man's son suddenly returned. That afternoon, Ms. Tu was helping the old man sort out the miscellaneous things in the corner of the warehouse, sweat was pouring down, sticking to her clothes and skin, making the familiar pungent scent from her even more concentrated, the smell of a delirious woman. The 14-year-old boy with a face full of acne stood there staring at her, inhaling that provocative feminine scent, then staggered away somewhere. Her intuition told her that this little brat would cause a big problem. Sure enough, the next afternoon, when half a barrel of scum from a pile of old plastic cans was poured on her, she hurried into the bathroom to splash water, and that warning was clearly present. In the bathroom, from her chest to her limbs, she suddenly felt a ticklish feeling, thousands of ants crawling like the morning when Tu the porter was eagerly looking at her in front of the house gate, cowering and looking up at the light vent, she caught sight of two red eyes peering through. Before she could react, she heard a terrifying screech of something flying through the air, along with the sound of the boy's footsteps, running as fast as a rabbit before a hunting dog after a fierce scolding from a former porter Tu: "Damn that brat, still the same old habit. I'll kill you." Understanding the situation, Ms. Tu quickly put on her clothes and went out to gently advise: "Come on, Mr. Tu, he is still a child" then quickly pulled her arms to hug her hot chest as if ants were crawling and hurriedly ran home. From then on, she was infected with an itchy disease all over her body, and neither Western nor Chinese doctors could find a cure. It was said that only when the porter Mr. Tu found his son and brought him home did the ticklish feeling of ants crawling on her skin suddenly disappear in an incomprehensible way. At this moment, when she reached the alley, she felt a chill when she saw the blade of the huge machete Mr. Tu often used, more than half-way embedded in the cotton tree trunk, the long handle still trembling violently. More than ten days later, she was still cold all over, every time she secretly looked up, she saw that the long handle was still trembling like a young tree branch shaking in the wind.

Decades later, many curious people tried, but no one could pull the magical knife out of the kapok tree. Until now, that alley has been named after a cultural celebrity, the old porter Tu and his wife, Mr. Tu Ve Chai, have long since passed away, their descendants have multiplied like ants, their houses are crowded and stretch to the horizon, that alley also stretches as far as the eye can see, but that kapok tree still stands firmly there, despite the bulldozers, the machine hammers, and the hand hammers that were used to cut it down when the road was opened. It is said that every time the tree was chopped down, countless red seeds like welding sparks flew out. Anyone who witnessed it was terrified. It is also rumored that people are building a tourism project, using the story of the kapok tree as a highlight. But there is no need to embellish this story, curious visitors, every time they visit that street, feel naturally light as if they are floating in a sea of strange scents, making their souls flutter and ecstatic, wanting to be close to each other innocently like children who have not yet been exposed to the dust of life. As for the kapok tree, its vitality is almost immortal, the older the tree, the greener it is with a machete stuck deep into its trunk, occasionally from its long handle it still makes long howls like the wind, not knowing what to warn about.

After Tu's sister returned home for a long time, Tu's heart was still seething with anger. But then the night came, alone in the quiet house, always filled with a nostalgic scent, thanks to which he seemed determined to never return to his old self. He absentmindedly rewinded the film of his life. His father was a shoemaker, his mother was a street vendor selling water spinach, his house used to be in the middle of the Saigon Chessboard area, famous for its narrow, tangled streets, even more famous for many gruesome gang-fighting stories before liberation, in which he was one of the perpetrators or an accomplice. Then prison, then re-education, then a broken family like this. He had never been in such a state of mental instability and sentimentality as tonight. He did not expect that a notorious gangster could now cry in front of a strange scent of a woman, a few years ago he had looked down on. That night, for the first time in his life, he slept peacefully, amidst the endless sobs that rose from his chest. In the dream that followed the sobs, he saw himself searching for his miserable old wife and his unfortunate, tiny son. Some supernatural being had told him where his wife and son were.

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