Chapter 11 — Anonymous Drawing

Part II — Eight Years of Private Drawings

Eight years, if measured by the number of pages in all the sketchbooks Dieu Linh has used, would probably be stacked higher than her own height.

The first year after graduating from high school, she entered the Architecture major of a large public university in Truc Giang city, thanks to her excellent degree and a scholarship for students in difficult circumstances - just as Khoi Nguyen had told her years ago, although she never admitted it, even to herself. She studied and worked part-time at a drawing workshop near the school. Her job was simply scanning and printing resumes for upper-year students, but thanks to that, she had the opportunity to see hundreds of drawings of all styles before picking up the pen to draw the first strokes of her student life.

She never mentioned Khoi Nguyen to anyone, including Ho Khanh Thu, the only close friend who kept in touch with her during those years. There were evenings, when cleaning her room, she accidentally touched the old sketchbook still lying at the bottom of the trunk, and each time, she quickly closed the trunk lid, telling herself she didn't have time to reminisce about a person who had chosen to live a double life for nearly two years.

But there is one thing she cannot deny: it was those afternoons spent working on the drawing of "Tree Gon House" that year planted in her a true love for architecture, a love that has not faded even though the person who helped her build it has completely disappeared from her life.

In her third year of university, she was accepted as an intern at the small architectural office of architect Phung Gia Huan - a quiet middle-aged man who worked for large construction corporations before deciding to open his own office, specializing in small and medium-sized social housing and community construction projects, which most large offices are not interested in because of low profits.

"You have a good eye," Mr. Huan commented after looking at her graduation project — a three-story social housing area for workers, designed with naturally ventilated corridors and a common yard with many trees. "But more importantly, I design with a real understanding of the people who will live in it, not just to look beautiful on paper. Few students today can do that."

Dieu Linh accepted to officially work for Uncle Huan's office right after graduation, starting from the position of trainee architect, gradually being assigned to independently take charge of small projects, then medium-sized projects. She worked with an almost brutal devotion to herself, often staying at the office late into the night to perfect every detail of her drawings, as if each project she designed was a way for her to prove to herself that she didn't need to rely on anyone, didn't need to be "helped" by any lucky circumstances, to achieve success.

She also gradually built for herself an unwritten principle at work: refusing all projects related to large corporations or wealthy families that want to build grand and ostentatious villas. When her colleagues asked her why, she just smiled faintly, saying "the aesthetics weren't suitable", but in her heart she knew clearly that it was her way of protecting herself from having to encounter a world in which she had been deeply hurt - the world of people living in luxury, able to arbitrarily step in and out of other people's lives without notice, without explanation.

In her fourth year working at the office, Dieu Linh was assigned by Uncle Huan to be in charge of a social housing project that was much larger than previous projects - a five-story apartment building for workers in the southern industrial zone of the city, with tight budget requirements but still having to ensure enough light, ventilation and common living space for more than two hundred households. She spent three months researching, going to the industrial park to interview workers about their actual needs, something not all young architects take the effort to do.

"Why don't you design according to an existing template quickly, instead of having to go to the field for a time-consuming survey?" a younger colleague asked her in a team meeting.

"Just because the drawing is beautiful on paper doesn't mean the residents will feel comfortable," Dieu Linh replied, without raising her head from the floor plan she was editing. "Architecture is not for architects to see, but for people who live in it to use every day. If I don't understand what they need, I'm just drawing for myself."

The project was completed on schedule, highly appreciated by local professionals, and was even chosen by a domestic architectural magazine to publish an introduction article, mentioning Dieu Linh's name as a promising young face. Uncle Huan, after that success, called her into his private office one afternoon at the end of the year.

"I'm thinking about expanding the office, or finding a co-founder," he said, pouring her a cup of tea. "Do you want to consider it? I believe you have enough capacity to shoulder more than your current position."

"I... I need to think more," Dieu Linh replied, both surprised and touched by the trust of the teacher who had guided her for many years. "But thank you very much for trusting me."

"There's no need to rush," Uncle Huan smiled gently, his voice as calm as he always had over the years of working with her. "I just want you to know, the road ahead, if you want it, is completely within your reach. You don't need to rely on anyone, you just need to believe in your own abilities, which I believe you have proven many times."

That sentence, even though Uncle Huan didn't know it, touched on exactly what Dieu Linh had been reminding herself for the past eight years, since the day she stood in the middle of Tan Viet school yard, dumbfounded, watching a group of luxury cars destroy all the trust she had in the sincerity between people.

"You're avoiding the issue," Ho Khanh Thu, now a communications specialist for an advertising company, said frankly when the two met for dinner, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of their high school graduation. "It's been eight years, and you still let what happened back then affect the way you choose a job. Are you planning to avoid it for the rest of your life?"

"I don't avoid it," Dieu Linh argued, although her voice was not very convincing. "I only choose to do projects that I find truly meaningful."

"Well, you can believe that as you like," Khanh Thu shrugged, not wanting to force her best friend to delve into a sensitive topic. "Have you heard anything about Khoi Nguyen?"

The question made Dieu Linh pause for a second, her hand holding the chopsticks stopped in mid-air. "No. I don't follow the news about it."

"I heard that he finished his studies abroad and is now returning home to work in his father's corporation," Khanh Thu said, her voice deliberately light as if telling a normal gossip. "I saw in the online newspaper, the photo looks very mature, different from when I was in high school."

"I don't care," Dieu Linh said, bending down to continue eating, trying to keep her voice calm, even though there was a wave of complicated emotions rolling in her heart that she didn't want to name, not really anger, not really remembering, but a feeling of limbo in the middle, more uncomfortable than both of those things combined. "That happened a long time ago, Khanh Thu. Don't mention it again."

Khanh Thu looked at her friend for a moment, clearly realizing that "not caring" was just a thin cover, but she also knew that she shouldn't force Dieu Linh to face something she wasn't ready for, so she just quietly changed the subject, letting the evening pass in lighter stories.

But that night, when she returned to the small apartment she was renting alone, Dieu Linh took out her old sketchbook from the bottom of her trunk - an action she still repeated every few months, even though she always told herself this was the last time. She turned to the last page, looked back at the drawing of the community center with the inscription that had faded slightly over the years, and wondered what it would look like if he really built that building that day.

Unbeknownst to her, in another corner of the city, in a private office on the top floor of Kien Nguyen Group's headquarters, Ngo Khoi Nguyen was also holding a copy of the same drawing in his hand - something he had silently scanned before putting the original notebook in her desk drawer that year - and was also asking himself a similar question, except that he, unlike her, had been finding ways to turn that question into reality, step by step, silently and patiently, for eight years. years without a day of rest.