A child is telling his family history. Kim's father is ill and his two buffaloes may die because all the grass is underwater due to the floods. Kim takes the two buffaloes in search of good grass. He joins Lap's herding team, and helps Det reunite with the mother of his son. One of the two buffaloes dies. When Kim hears his father is dying, he goes to U Minh. The father reveals the truth of Kim's ancestry. A couple of strangers help Kim put his father's corpse in a safe place until the water retreats and he can be properly buried. Lap confirms what Kim's father told him as he died:--that Kim's true mother is the sister of Lap, whom Kim's father raped on a buffalo herding run. Kim tries to rape Det's wife. Det dies in a skirmish between Lap's and Kieng's buffalo herding teams. Kim adopts Det's son, Thieu. In a voiceover, Kim says that the Japanese came in to drive out the French, and then were themselves driven out. This political change does not seem to affect rural Vietnam.