The air in Nam Thịnh practically hummed with celebration. It was the nation's 80th Anniversary in 2025, a landmark eight decades after its founding in the wake of the World War II tumult of 1945. Though a small country, just over 2,500 square kilometres with a population of fifteen million, Nam Thịnh now stood proudly on the world stage, renowned everywhere for its revolutionary medical care and educational excellence. Not a wealthy nation, but certainly not poor.
Today, school children from every district poured onto the winding roads leading up Ngạn Sơn Mountain. It was the nation's highest peak, once the site of the Emperor's palace, and now home to the majestic National Museum. This was the culmination of the anniversary celebrations.
The children gathered at the foot of Ngạn Sơn, which housed a sprawling compound of shopping centres, hospitals, and community facilities. This compound had once been the Military District, where the nation’s forces were camped and commanded.
The students lined up before the sleek, glass-panelled elevator, waiting for their turn to ascend. As the lift rose through the heart of Ngạn Sơn, it offered panoramic views of the adjacent valley. Below them stretched the modern University and Research Center,a beacon of learning that now occupied the land that was once the lavish Noble District, where the oligarchs who ruled Nam Thịnh lived. The physical landscape of the past had been completely reshaped into the utilitarian beauty of the present.
The museum itself was a masterpiece of modern architecture. Its soaring, curved roof was made entirely of glass, symbolizing the nation's transparency and clarity of purpose.
The door opened, and children poured out of the elevator. Though a guide was present, the children seemed to know everything from their history classes. They moved to the display cabinets, pointing at tools and pictures, talking vividly about the incidents that happened long ago, as if they had witnessed them first-hand. The guide simply smiled, watching the young citizens engage so deeply with their history.
But every sound seemed to dim when the children reached the Centre Room.
It was a small, unassuming space. In its middle sat a single table covered by glass, displaying only the original draft of the book, Heroes the last book. No one talked. The moment was too formal, too sacred. They had learned from history that this fragile draft represented everything this nation had become.
As they left the room, every child received a book: the last edition of Heroes the last book. This book was given freely to the children of Nam Thịnh so they could know the true meaning of their nation.
The narrator, Linh, clutched the heavy book, turned past the dedication, and looked at the page that would pull her, and the reader ,out of the bright future and into the brutal past: the story began at 1960
This is not a power fantasy, wish-fulfilment story, or light-hearted adventure.
The narrative focuses on consequences, survival, and the long-term cost of violence rather than heroic triumph.
