Part 2: The Major General He Never Knew He Was Losing

The plane landed in Bac Thanh shortly after sunset.

The moment I stepped out of the airport, a black military vehicle was already waiting.

The driver got out immediately and saluted.

“Major General.”

I stopped for half a second.

It had been years since anyone had addressed me by that rank.

At Pho Can’s side, I had deliberately hidden everything.

My family.

My connections.

Even the achievements I had earned before requesting assignment to his military region.

I wanted one relationship in my life that had nothing to do with my father.

Nothing to do with the Commander-in-Chief’s daughter.

Nothing to do with the stars on my shoulders.

I wanted someone to love Hoai Am.

Just Hoai Am.

And Pho Can had.

At least once.

But somewhere along the way, that love had changed.

I got into the car.

“Take me to headquarters.”

“Yes, Major General.”

When I entered my father’s office, he was still working.

He raised his head.

His eyes immediately fell on the bandage on my forehead.

The joy on his face disappeared.

“What happened?”

“A car accident.”

His expression hardened.

“And Pho Can?”

I was silent.

My father understood.

He didn’t ask again.

Instead, he opened the drawer and placed a document in front of me.

My transfer order.

Beside it lay the insignia I had left behind years ago.

I touched the rank with my fingertips.

My father spoke quietly.

“Are you sure?”

This time, I didn’t hesitate.

“Yes.”

The next morning, I put on my uniform.

Looking into the mirror, I almost didn’t recognize myself.

For years, I had softened my edges around Pho Can.

I let him think I needed his protection.

I listened when he said he would support me if I left the army.

I never told him that before meeting him, I had already commanded operations he wasn’t authorized to know existed.

I pinned the final insignia into place.

The woman in the mirror wasn’t Pho Can’s girlfriend anymore.

She was Major General Hoai Am.

And she had come home.

Three days later, Pho Can called.

I didn’t answer.

Then came another call.

And another.

By evening, there were thirty-seven.

Finally, a message appeared.

“Hoai Am, why doesn’t the door password work?”

I stared at it.

Another message came immediately.

“Why is Miss Co’s birthday the password?”

Then:

“Where are our photos?”

“Why are your clothes gone?”

“Answer me.”

I turned the phone facedown.

An hour later, he called again.

This time, I answered.

His voice was breathless.

“Where are you?”

“Bac Thanh.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I’m not.”

Silence.

Then he laughed.

But there was panic beneath it.

“Stop joking.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Hoai Am.”

His voice lowered.

“What happened?”

I almost found the question funny.

He still wanted me to explain the ending of a story he had written himself.

“You’re getting married, aren’t you?”

Nothing came from the other end.

Not even breathing.

Finally:

“Who told you?”

“No one needed to.”

“Listen to me.”

“For what?”

His voice became urgent.

“The marriage with Co Van Tinh isn’t what you think.”

I looked out through the office window.

Military vehicles crossed the training grounds below.

“Then what is it?”

He hesitated.

That hesitation was enough.

“It was arranged for practical reasons. Our families—”

“So you’re marrying her.”

“Yes, but—”

“Congratulations.”

“Hoai Am!”

For the first time, he shouted my name.

“I love you.”

Once, those words would have destroyed every defense I had.

Now they only made me tired.

“You love me, but you’re marrying her.”

“I can explain.”

“You love me, but you lied to me.”

“I was going to tell you.”

“When?”

Silence.

“After the wedding?”

He breathed heavily.

“I didn’t want to lose you.”

I closed my eyes.

That was the cruelest part.

He wanted another woman as his wife.

And me waiting somewhere in the shadows.

He wanted everything.

“You already did.”

I ended the call.

After that, Pho Can seemed to lose his mind.

Messages arrived constantly.

Apologies.

Explanations.

Promises.

He said he would postpone the wedding.

Then he said he would cancel it.

Then he demanded my address.

I blocked him.

Two weeks later, my father entered my office with a strange expression.

“There’s an inspection delegation arriving tomorrow.”

I continued reading the report.

“From which region?”

He told me.

My hand stopped.

Pho Can’s military region.

Father watched me.

“Do you want me to remove him from the delegation?”

“No.”

I closed the folder.

“This is work.”

The following morning, the conference hall was filled with senior officers.

I entered through the side door.

Conversation immediately stopped.

Everyone stood.

I walked to the front beside my father.

“Be seated.”

Among the delegation, one man remained standing.

Pho Can.

His face had completely lost its color.

His eyes were fixed on the insignia on my shoulders.

Then on my father.

Then back to me.

I saw the exact moment everything connected.

The Commander-in-Chief.

The transfer.

My so-called mysterious background.

The jokes people had made about me being some commander’s daughter.

And the woman he once told he could “take care of” if she left the army.

I opened the meeting folder.

“Major General Pho.”

His body stiffened.

For several seconds, he seemed to forget we were surrounded by people.

Then training took over.

He saluted.

“Major General.”

It was the first time he had ever called me that.

I returned the salute without emotion.

“Sit down.”

Throughout the meeting, Pho Can barely looked away from me.

I didn’t look at him once unless protocol required it.

Afterward, he waited outside the conference room.

“Hoai Am.”

I stopped.

“This is headquarters. Address me properly.”

His face tightened.

“Major General Hoai.”

“Do you need something?”

He stared at me.

“Your father is the Commander-in-Chief?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re…”

His eyes dropped again to my rank.

“You were already a Major General?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I almost laughed.

Of all the things he could ask, that was what mattered to him.

“Would it have changed anything?”

“Yes!”

The answer came too quickly.

Then he realized what he’d said.

I looked at him quietly.

His face turned pale.

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“But it’s exactly what you said.”

He stepped closer.

“If I had known who you were—”

“You would have canceled your wedding?”

His mouth opened.

No answer.

I smiled.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For confirming that leaving was the right decision.”

He grabbed my wrist.

“I was wrong.”

I looked down at his hand.

He released me immediately.

“Hoai Am, the marriage with Co Van Tinh has been canceled.”

That surprised me.

But only slightly.

“When?”

“After you left.”

“Why?”

“Because I realized I couldn’t marry someone I didn’t love.”

I studied him.

“Interesting.”

His eyes brightened with hope.

Then I continued:

“You only realized that after I left.”

The hope disappeared.

He swallowed.

“I know I hurt you.”

“No. You made a choice.”

“That accident—”

“Don’t.”

His voice broke.

“I think about it every night.”

So did I.

The shattered glass.

Blood running into my eye.

Pho Can wrapping both arms around Co Van Tinh while I struck the window.

Two years earlier, that same man had nearly died protecting me.

That was why I knew the truth wasn’t that he had always been cruel.

Sometimes people didn’t betray you because every moment had been fake.

Sometimes the love had been real.

It simply stopped being enough.

“You protected the person your instincts told you mattered most,” I said.

His eyes reddened.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I made a mistake.”

“You made a choice before you had time to think.”

I stepped back.

“That’s why I believed it.”

Pho Can’s eyes filled with something I had never seen there before.

Fear.

Not fear of punishment.

Fear that there was truly nothing left he could do.

“Is there really no chance?”

I looked at the man who had once taken the impact of a truck for me.

The man who had remembered every small detail about me.

The man I had planned to bring home and introduce proudly to my father.

For a moment, I mourned him.

Not the man standing before me.

The man he had once been.

“No.”

One word.

That was all.

Months passed.

I returned completely to military life.

Training.

Meetings.

Operations.

Responsibility.

The strange thing was that I had expected Bac Thanh to feel like retreating into my old life.

Instead, it felt like moving forward.

One afternoon, my father joined me on the observation deck during a training exercise.

He handed me a cup of tea.

“Do you regret it?”

I knew he wasn’t asking about the transfer.

I shook my head.

“No.”

“Do you still love him?”

That question was harder.

I watched the soldiers moving across the field below.

“Maybe part of me always will.”

Father remained silent.

“But loving someone doesn’t mean I have to return to the place where they stopped choosing me.”

He nodded.

That evening, I received one final package.

Inside was the necklace Pho Can had made from bullet casings for our first date.

The one I thought I had thrown away.

Apparently he had taken it from the trash before I left.

There was also a letter.

I didn’t read past the first sentence.

“I finally understand what I lost.”

I folded it again.

Then I placed the necklace inside the drawer.

Not because I wanted him back.

Because I no longer needed to destroy every memory to prove I had moved on.

Pho Can had loved me once.

I had loved him too.

That history could exist without becoming my future.

The next morning, I put on my uniform and walked into headquarters.

Soldiers saluted as I passed.

“Major General.”

I returned their salutes.

For years, I had thought leaving Pho Can would mean losing the life I had built.

Instead, I discovered something else.

I had abandoned far more of myself to stay with him than I ever lost by walking away.

Pho Can thought he was secretly preparing to marry another woman while keeping the girlfriend who loved him waiting at home.

He thought that girlfriend had no powerful family, no remarkable background, and nowhere more important to go.

What he never understood was that I had never needed him to give me a place in his world.

I already had my own.

And the plane ticket he bought as my birthday gift?

It became the last thing he ever gave me.

A one-way ticket back to my name.

My rank.

My family.

And the life I should never have made smaller for anyone.