Chapter 14 — Anonymous Drawing

The three weeks of preparing the bid documents were the busiest period of Dieu Linh's career up to that point. She spent her weekends going to the Old Ben area, measuring the field, taking photos of the current situation, and interviewing people living around the area about their actual needs - a habit she still kept from the first social housing project that Uncle Huan assigned her to be in charge of.

"Miss, what do you think this area lacks the most?" she asked an old lady who was sitting and selling water under an almond tree near the riverbank, where children in the neighborhood often gathered to play after school.

"Lack of space for the children to study at night," the old lady replied, without hesitation. "The house is cramped and crowded. The children always have to sit and study under street lights, suffering from mosquito bites. If there was a library with bright lights and decent tables and chairs, the children would be very happy."

That answer made Dieu Linh pause for a moment, remembering the evenings she and Khoi Nguyen used to study under the street lights of Cay Gon alley. She dismissed that thought and focused on recording the information, but in her heart, the old woman's answer became one of the core factors that shaped her design plan.

Returning to the office, she began to sketch the overall plan: a three-storey building block, the ground floor is for open community living space, which can flexibly organize free skills classes or small fairs; The second floor is a library with a reading area specifically for children, with study desks designed close to large windows facing the river to take advantage of natural light until late in the evening; The third floor is a multi-purpose space for community clubs, which can be used as a free extra study room in the evening.

The most important architectural highlight in her plan is a central skylight running through all three floors, directly inspired by the "Tree Gon House" concept she designed with Khoi Nguyen in tenth grade — although she did not admit this to anyone, even to herself, only telling herself that the skylight is the most effective natural ventilation solution for the tropical climate, based entirely on technical grounds, not nostalgia.

"Is my budget enough to make a tempered glass skylight across three floors?" a colleague in the group asked, looking over the preliminary drawings. "The cost of materials and load-bearing structures is not cheap."

"I will recalculate, we can replace tempered glass with insulated polycarbonate panels, both reducing costs and ensuring equivalent durability and light-gathering ability," Dieu Linh replied, having already calculated a backup plan. "The important thing is to keep the core idea - natural light throughout the building, no dark corners."

She also spent an afternoon working with a structural engineer on a pile foundation plan suitable for the riverside soil, which has high humidity, ensuring the building does not sink over time — a technical detail she is especially careful about, knowing that any errors in the preliminary design stage could become serious problems later.

In addition to the design plan, the bid also requires a complete set of capacity documents, including a list of completed projects, practice certificates, and a detailed explanation of construction cost estimates for each item. Dieu Linh stayed up until 2:00 a.m. for three consecutive nights to complete the explanation, compare material unit prices with the current market, calculate labor costs for each construction stage, ensure the final figure is both reasonable with the announced budget by the investor, and has enough room to not have to cut the quality of the project.

"You did such a bad thing, I can't stand it," Mrs. Ut Thao said on the phone one evening, her voice both sad and proud. "Eat and drink properly, don't stay up too late, it's bad for your health."

"I'm fine, mom, this project is very important, I want to do it well," Dieu Linh replied, her eyes still glued to the computer screen, her hands still typing data.

"Yes, I believe you can do it," Mrs. Ut Thao said. "But I heard that this project is being built right near our old area, right? I heard from the neighbors, everyone is happy, hoping there will be a place for the children to study properly."

Her mother's reminder, although unintentional, made Dieu Linh even more determined, feeling responsible for this project, which not only stopped at winning a career competition, but was also an opportunity for her to give something back to the neighborhood that raised her.

When the preliminary application round ended, and the list of five units qualified for the final presentation round was announced via email, Dieu Linh opened her mailbox while having a quick lunch at her desk, and when she saw the name of Uncle Huan's office appear on the list, she blurted out a loud scream, startling the group of colleagues around her and turned to look.

"Into the final round!" she announced, her voice unable to hide her excitement. The whole office roared with joy. Uncle Huan came out of his private office and patted her shoulder proudly.

"I told you, your plan is worth it," he said. "Now there's only the final presentation left. Prepare carefully, this is a big opportunity."

Dieu Linh nodded, both excited and feeling a vague worry that she had not dared to mention to anyone - the final presentation, according to the announcement, would be held right in the hall of Kien Nguyen Group, with the participation of the investor's representative. She told herself that the possibility of meeting Khoi Nguyen directly again was probably not high, because such a large corporation certainly had many leaders, not necessarily the one who welcomed him, but in her heart, she still could not completely get rid of the feeling of insecurity that was growing day by day.

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of Kien Nguyen Group, the competition organizing committee received a total of nine registration applications, including three famous large architectural offices in the industry, having implemented many large-scale projects for other real estate corporations, and six small and medium-sized offices, including Mr. Huan's office.

Khoi Nguyen, although he did not have the right to directly participate in grading, was still invited to attend progress update meetings as the investor's representative, mainly to answer technical questions related to performance requirements and project budget. He deliberately kept a distance from the list of participating units, not looking up himself to see which office had submitted the application, partly because he respected the principle of fairness he proposed, partly because he did not dare to let himself raise hope about a possibility he considered too remote.

"Mr. Nguyen, do you want to see the list of registered units first?" the organizing committee secretary asked during a preparatory meeting.

"No need," Khoi Nguyen replied decisively. "I want to keep the principles of transparency that I have set. Let the jury work independently, I only participate in the announcement of the final results."

That decision, even though it came from serious work principles, unintentionally made him completely surprised when, three weeks later, during the final round presentation held at the group's large hall, the name of Uncle Huan's architectural office appeared in the list of five units that entered the final round, and the representative presenting that office's plan, according to the program announcement, was the main architect in charge of the project - a name that made his heart stop beating for a brief moment: Chu Dieu Linh.

He read that name over and over again on the presentation agenda, his hands shaking slightly, not daring to believe what he had just seen. Over the past eight years, he had imagined hundreds of scenarios about meeting her again, but never thought that it would happen in the middle of the project he dedicated himself to, in a way that was completely outside of any of his arrangements.

"What's up?" his assistant asked, noticing his unusually stunned expression as he looked at the program.

"Nothing," Khoi Nguyen replied, trying to regain his composure, folded the program, and put it aside. "It's just... a familiar name."

The night before the final presentation, he could barely sleep, lying looking at the ceiling, his mind reeling with a series of unanswered questions: Did she know he was the person behind this project from the beginning? Would she deliberately avoid her if she knew the truth? And most importantly, after eight years, does she still retain the anger of that day, or has time somehow softened the old wounds?

He had no answer to any of the questions, he only knew that tomorrow, after eight years of separation, he would stand in the same room with Dieu Linh for the first time since that fateful morning at Tan Viet school yard.