Chapter 4 — Baby Vengeance

When Dad said these three words, his voice was very low, as if it was difficult to force them out of his throat. Mom shook her head, wiped her face. "You don't need to apologize to me. I just want to know what the things in Lam Thu Dao's notes actually mean." Dad's lower jaw was tight. Dad picked up the phone and dialed a number. "Lawyer Vuong, help me investigate something. A person named Lam Thu Dao, what appraisal facilities has he contacted in the past half year?" I lay in my mother's lap, the rock in my lap finally falling in half. The threshold for blood testing has passed. But Lam Thu Dao's trap is not only this. In her previous life, she spread rumors in her mother's social circle, causing everyone to believe that her mother was having an affair. Even if the autopsy results are biological, rumors can still kill people. Indeed. That afternoon, my mother's group of close friends exploded. A screenshot of a message that someone forwarded was a conversation between Lam Thu Dao and a certain "person who knew the story". In the screenshot, the "person who knows" said with certainty that he saw his mother and a man coming out of the hotel with his own eyes. Attached is a photo of a blurry back. When my mother saw, her fingers tightened on the phone case, her knuckles turned white. "This is an edited photo." Mother gritted her teeth and said. "I've never been to that hotel at all." But someone in the group started talking nonsense. "Oh Niem Niem, just say clearly if it's true or not, don't get too excited." "That's right, pure people will naturally be pure." I watched my mother's face turn cold little by little. In my previous life, my mother was forced to death by these "friends". This life will not be like that. Because this time dad was on mom's side. 7Dad's movements were faster than I thought. That evening, lawyer Vuong called back. "General Manager Quy, it's been investigated. Three months ago, Lam Thu Dao contacted a private appraisal facility in the south of the city, transferring a sum of fifteen thousand. The person in charge there, surnamed Luu, has a criminal record, had his license revoked in the past for falsifying documents." Dad listened, there was no expression on his face, but I noticed that his knuckles were white. "What else?" more?” “Also, the photo of the back at the hotel, we asked someone to trace the image source. The original photo is a commercial photo on the photo archive site, the facial features that were superimposed do not match the sister-in-law's at all.” “Have you preserved the evidence yet?” “Everything has been notarized.” Dad hung up the phone and turned to look at his mother. Mother sat next to the child's crib, holding a bottle of milk in her hand, her eyes calm but red. "Niem Niem, tomorrow I invite Lam Thu Dao to come to the house." Mother was stunned. "What are you going to do?" "End this." At two o'clock the next afternoon, Lam Thu Dao arrived. She was wearing a milky white knitted dress, delicate makeup, and the corners of her eyes still had traces of "just crying". As soon as she entered the door, she pulled her mother's hand. "Nien Niem, these past few days I've been wanting to come find you, but I'm afraid you don't want to see me. What happened that day was really a misunderstanding, that note from me..." "Sit down." Dad came out of the office, his voice calm as if discussing work. Lam Thu Dao stopped, smiled and sat down on the sofa. "Nien Chau, are you here too?" "Yes." Dad sat down opposite, pushing a bag of documents over. “Look at this.” Lam Thu Dao opened the file bag and pulled out the paper inside. The first sheet: records the transfer between her and the person in charge of the black appraisal facility. Second sheet: hotel photo traceability report, marking the original photo source and editing traces. Third sheet: screenshot of the “translated content” in her phone notes, the timeline completely matches her so-called app translation. When Lam Thu Dao turned to the next page

two, my hands start shaking. Flipping to the third page, her face was pale and bloodless. "Nien Chau, these are all..." "Don't rush." Dad interrupted her. “There's one more thing.” Dad pressed the tablet on the coffee table, and a recording played. It was the voice of the person in charge of the appraisal facility, surnamed Liu. "At that time, Ms. Lam gave me fifteen thousand, and told me to make a fake report, changing the blood test results to not be biological. She said that as long as I cooperated, after success, she would give another twenty thousand."The recording ended. It was quiet in the living room for about five seconds. Then Lam Thu Dao laughed. Not the proper gentle smile, but a distorted smile that could no longer be held together. "Huh." She threw the file back on the coffee table, leaned back on the sofa, looking at her father. "Qui Nghien Chau, when did you start investigating me?" "Since the day that phone fell to the ground." Lam Thu Dao turned her head to look at me. I lay on my mother's lap, looking straight at her. There was hatred in her eyes, some unwillingness, and also something strange, like she was reevaluating a newborn baby. "Good for a little girl." She said softly. “That phone drop wasn't a coincidence, right?” No one answered her. Mom hugged me tightly, her chin resting on the top of my head, her voice trembling but very steady. "Lam Thu Dao, I have considered you my sister for twenty years."