depth of grief

The Promise
Depth of Grief
Chapter 1

Luong Trieu Vi…Tony Leung
Luong My Linh…Barbara Yung
Trinh Thieu Thu…Adam Cheng
Luong Tieu Bang…Vivian Leung
Trinh Thien Lac…Louis Koo
Trinh Thieu Phan…Ada Choi
Trinh Hao Dan…Benny Chan
*Sorry, I’m simply too lazy to look up the Vietnamese names for all of the characters in the story, so only the important characters will have their names in Vietnamese.*

The blizzard blew violently and hollered ferociously. A solitary figure crawled desperately through the vast field of snow, but there was no one else around to witness his struggle against the weather. His cloak flapped wildly along with the wind, and his hat flew away from his head as it listened to the beckoning of the haughty wind. His eyes followed the hat, and his vision began to blur. His futile effort to return home left him utterly exhausted, and despair consumed him. “Why?” he screamed out to his surrounding before he collapsed and blacked out.

In a cozy room, an amiable face (Barbara Yung) glanced out the window and sighed, causing her husband (Tony Leung) to look up in concern. “Phu Nhan (wife/mistress), what’s bothering you?” The woman turned around and began to tear up. “Lao Gia (husband/master), what will happen to Tieu Bang when we depart from this world? Who will want to marry a person with her condition?” The husband put his book aside as he got up from the chair to walk over to his wife. He reached out for her hands and pulled her into an embrace to comfort her. “I’ve tried my best to help her, but there’s no cure for her.” Hearing the finality of his statement brought more grief to the wife. “There will be no one to love and to look out for our precious daughter. Lao Gia, I cannot bear to imagine how miserable her life will be when we’re gone. She will be alone in this world.” The husband remained helplessly silent as his wife unleashed a flood of tears, but he felt her pain. Since they discovered Tieu Bang’s illness, he spent all of his spare time trying to cure her, yet nothing worked. He was brought back to reality when he felt his wife jerk in his arms. “Lao Gia, did you hear that?” He shook his head. “I think I heard a voice. Who would be crazy enough to be out there in this weather?” The wife looked out the window and reached her hand to open it until her husband stopped her. “You haven’t been feeling well lately. Opening the window will worsen your health. If what you say is true about the voice then I better go check it out. It’s dangerous for anyone to be out in an evening like this.” Knowing his kind and stubborn nature, the wife could only mutter, “Be careful.”

Two majestic horses, each carrying a man on its back, galloped across the blanket of snow. “Lao Gia, did Phu Nhan mention from which direction the voice came?” asked the steward (Kent Tong) who trailed his master. Luong Trieu Vi (Tony Leung) abruptly commanded his horse to halt and lifted the lit lantern to help him search the area better. “Kent, stay here and watch the horses.” Trieu Vi immediately jumped off his horse and ran to a lump his eyes laid on earlier. As he got closer to the lump, he recognized that it was actually a person. He tapped on the person several times but received no response. He noticed the discoloration on the person’s face and how cold the person’s body was. “Kent, bring the horses over here. We have someone who needs our help.” Kent obeyed his master and prepared another seat on his master’s horse for the stranger. “What’s wrong with him?” Trieu Vi signaled Kent to help him lift the man’s body onto the horse before answering him, “He’s suffering from hypothermia. I just checked his pulse, and it was slowly decreasing. If we rush him back home, then we’ll have a good chance of saving him. It also looks as though he was badly beaten before he passed out.” The two said little during the trip home because they concentrated on getting home as fast as possible to rescue the man.

A week later, the stranger (Adam Cheng) began to stir and opened his eyes to an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar face. “Who are you?” he seemed to accuse the man sitting in the room for his current disposition. “I am Luong Trieu Vi.” “How did I get here?” he demanded to know. “My steward and I found you out in the field last week and brought you home.” The stranger seemed shock that he had been out for one week and remembered nothing of the incident. The last he remembered, he was making a trip home until he had gotten badly beaten by robbers and then the weather changed dramatically making it difficult for him to journey home. He looked at his arms and saw ointments evenly spread out on one arm and a cast covering the other arm. His facial expression relaxed a bit and he smiled at the man sitting in front of him, “You saved my life. How can I ever thank you?” “Don’t say mention it. It’s my duty as a doctor to attend to everyone’s wound, and you are not an exception.” The man hastily applied, “I will not have people call Trinh Thieu Thu ungrateful. You did me a generous favor, and I insist on returning a favor that is equally significant.” Trieu Vi chuckled, “Why don’t we talk about this later? You should rest first in order to get better more rapidly.”

Trinh Thieu Thu (Adam Cheng) spent another week with the Luong family and talked about his family non-stop. He took joy in bragging about his oldest son’s accomplishments and the close relationship he had with all three of his children. Luong Trieu Vi and Luong My Linh (Barbara Yung) listened and learned much about Thieu Thu’s background during the times they spent together, and in many ways, they envied him, especially where the health and happiness of his children are concerned. On the day of his departure, the Luong family prepared a traveling bag for him and gave him a bit of money to help him sustain the trip. Trinh Thieu Thu had never experienced and observed such generosity from anyone before and got down on his knees, but Trieu Vi stopped him in time before he had a chance to kow-tow, “Eh, Trinh Huynh (how one refers to a male friend), we’re friends. We don’t have to follow unnecessary protocols.” Thieu Thu was even more touched by Trieu Vi’s sincerity and wanted more earnestly to return him a favor, “Luong Huynh, you have treated this stranger with such overwhelming kindness. I will not feel right leaving this place without reciprocating all that you’ve done for me. Please do not make me leave with a heavy heart.” My Linh looked at her husband and beamed with pride, for he was truly a good person. Luong Trieu Vi unexpectedly asked, “How old are your children?” Although baffled by the question, Thieu Thu answered, “Thien Lac (Louis) is seven, Thieu Phan (Ada) is six, and Hao Dan (Benny) is three.” Luong My Linh began to understand why her husband asked that question, and she gave him a smile to encourage him to continue with this plan. “Trinh Huynh, my wife and I have a four years old daughter who we are extremely fond of.” Thieu Thu was quite thrown off by this sudden revelation, “Really? How come I haven’t seen her the entire time I was here?” He saw that his question brought much discomfort to his hosts and instantly regretted asking, but Luong Trieu Vi wearily replied, “The truth is, rarely anyone gets the chance to interact with her. My wife and I are extremely protective of our Tieu Bang because she is blind and mute.” Trieu Vi felt shocked by this and somewhat hurt that his friends couldn’t trust him with their daughter’s condition, but he kept this to himself. “Luong Huynh, Luong Ti (way to address a female friend), you do not need to say more. If you do not mind having me as an in law, I would like to have your daughter for my eldest to wed as his first wife.” That was more than Luong My Linh dared to dream of, “Your eldest? And first wife? Trinh Huynh, that isn’t necessary.” “Luong Ti, you’ve underestimated me. If Luong Huynh could risk the dangers of sheltering a perfect stranger and attending to his wounds and befriending him, why can’t I look out for your daughter’s good? It’s perfect because with her position as the first wife of the oldest son, no one in my household will dare to look down on her because of her handicap.” Luong Trieu Vi became consumed with gratitude, “Trinh Huynh, I want you to accept a bow from me.” “Eh, we’re friends, there are no needs for superfluous protocols.” “Trinh Huynh, Tieu Bang is only four years old right now. Can you give us fourteen more years before we hand her over to you? I would like to have as much time with her as possible. If you’d like to have the dowry right now then that’s fine with us.” Insulted by Luong My Linh’s last sentence, Adam emotionally rebuked the idea of the dowry, “Luong Ti, the dowry is only part of the wedding custom, but you should know that I already have more money than I need. Please don’t bring up the dowry again. As for the marriage, fourteen years from now is fine with me. I trust that my Thien Lac will mature completely by the time he is twenty one.”

With very little more to say on the subject matter, the two families promised to see each other in fourteen years, and Trinh Thieu Thu left for his home in a happier mood.