Chapter 10 — After Being Evicted From Home, I Inherited 30 Million Yuan

The phone vibrated again. Lam Tri Y conveniently looked at it for me.

“Chau Van sent it.”

"She said your uncle went to meet a man named Phuong Tri Vien yesterday, who works in local commercial real estate. Are you familiar with him?"

The needle in my hand stopped. I've never heard my mother mention this name before.

"Unfamiliar."

"Aunt Chau said you want to ask Phuong Tri Vien to contribute capital to Cam Hoa to balance the shares with you."

I retracted the needle and looked at the only half-patched lotus branch.

“Just let him pull.”

“No matter how many people we bring in, it's useless.”

“85% of the shares are in my hands.”

Lam Tri Y looked at me for a long time.

“Tham Niem Hoa, when did you become so calm?”

I bowed my head and continued to needle.

“Maybe because I lost for seven years…”

“So now I know how to calm down.”

The following days, I went to Cam Hoa during the day. At night, at Lam Tri Y's house, he mends embroidered towels and prepares works for handicraft exhibitions. Aunt Chau gave me a summary of Cam Hoa's finances. In three years, my uncle withdrew twelve million yuan from the company account, divided it into four different personal accounts. Some items on the books are blurred, on the surface they look like normal business expenses, but if you carefully compare the import and export of warehouses, you will see that the data are completely inconsistent.

“How much available cash flow does Cam Hoa have now?”

“About one million three hundred thousand.”

I looked at that number and laughed. Thirty million. He spent so much that only one million three hundred thousand remained.

“Aunt Chau, have you finished registering your exhibition booth yet?”

"Okay. The booth is located in the main exhibition area, hall number two. The location is not the best but not bad either."

“What are you planning to bring to the exhibition?”

I took out a sketch I designed myself. It's an embroidered screen. The pattern using the lotus flower style that wraps my mother's branches is the best, but the colors and layout have been improved by me. Traditional lotus flowers often use blue-green tones. I changed the color to warm gray and lotus root pink. Still retains To Embroidery's characteristic thick and smooth embroidery technique, but overall has a more modern feel. Aunt Chau took the sketch and looked at it three times.

“My mother's background.”

“Your eye for design.”

"Is it possible to embroider in time? Is a month enough?"

I found an empty room on the second floor of the old Cam Hoa factory, set up the embroidery frame and spread out the fabric floor. Start embroidering. On the third day, a former Cam Hoa embroiderer named Aunt Te brought a bowl of wontons and knocked on the door. She is over sixty years old, has worked in Cam Hoa for twenty years, and has been with me since the factory was first built. My aunt stood at the door looking at me for a long time then put the bowl down.

“This technique… was taught by your mother?”

“The things embroidered by my hands… are just like my mother when she was young.”

She turned to leave, but suddenly stopped at the door.

“Old people like us have followed Cam Hoa for more than half of our lives.”

"In the past two years, you have laid off people, cut orders, and delayed salaries. Everyone doesn't say anything with their mouths, but they remember clearly in their hearts."

“If my mother knew that Cam Hoa had become like this... she would have been very heartbroken.”

“If you really want to manage this place…”

“We all heard you.”

After the door closed, I picked up the bowl of wontons and took a bite. Pork cabbage filling. Tastes exactly like the dish my mother used to make. Tears were lacking fell again. But I can't help it. Now is not the time to cry. Just when I thought things were slowly getting back on track… Chung Dao appeared. Not in Cam Hoa. It's online. At midnight, Lam Tri Y sent me a link. It's a post on a local life forum. Title reads:

"In the end, what kind of person is Luc Canh Tham's ex-girlfriend - Tham Niem Hoa -? After breaking up, she still had troubles and went crazy in her ex-boyfriend's company group?"

The content inside is more than a thousand words long. The article said that after the breakup, I refused to move out and kept clinging to Luc Canh Tham and not letting go. He also said I joined his company group to harass his new girlfriend. Below are attached some screenshots. The time and content are all very cleverly cut and cut, completely ignoring the context before and after. The comment area is almost completely tilted to one side.

"That's really disgusting. Can't we just bless them if they don't need them anymore?"

"This type of woman is scary. After breaking up, she still clings and refuses to leave."

I read the whole article. Then click on the poster's personal page. Newly created account. There is only this one post. But the word usage, punctuation habits... are exactly the same as Tong Lan's texting style the day before. Tong Lan is in the same group as Chung Dao. Chung Dao didn't feel comfortable posting it himself, so he asked someone else to post it instead. I put the phone down on the table. On the other end of the line, Lam Tri Y has been cursing for five minutes.

"Tham Niem Hoa, say something! Do you need to report the article? Do you need to find a lawyer?"

"No need."

“You don't care?”

“Don't ignore it.”

“It's just… now is not the time.”