Chapter 8 — Climbing Through the Storm

Thắng's phone vibrated in his pocket while the team stopped for lunch on the side of the road, quickly eating a few rice balls that Cả Xuyên had ordered his family to bring to the scene. The number appeared strangely, not saved in the phonebook or associated with any local area.

"Hello," he answered, his mouth still full of rice.

"Hello, I'm Vu Gia Thịnh, a reporter for Duyên Hải newspaper." The voice on the other end was young and agile, like the voice of an acquaintance who calls a stranger every day. "Sorry for calling at this hour, I know you're very busy with storm recovery work. Can I ask for a few minutes?"

Thắng put down the rice ball, stood up and walked away from the group eating, a natural reaction of someone who did not want his colleagues to hear what he was about to say, even though he still did not know where this call was going.

"What do you ask?" He replied, his voice cautious.

"I'm doing a series of articles on the damage to electrical infrastructure after Storm No. 11, comparing it with previous storms to find out why this year's damage seems unusually heavy," Thịnh said, his voice still remained polite even though the question was not gentle. "I have an inside source saying that the routine maintenance budget of the Coastal region's power grid has been significantly cut in the past two years. Can you confirm this?"

Thắng was silent for a moment, looking out at column 42 where his team was taking a break, looking at the horizon where Hải Lộng Medical Center was still running the generator counting down the hours.

"Where did you hear that news?" He asked, avoiding a direct answer.

"I cannot reveal the source, Mr. Thắng sympathizes," Thịnh replied. "But I know you were the one who had a document proposing to reinforce column 42, the column that just collapsed in this storm. I have a copy of one of those three documents."

The words made Thắng's heart skip a beat. He did not ask how Thịnh got that copy, because in a state agency with hundreds of employees, leaking internal documents was not uncommon, although it always made the person involved feel violated.

"I have no comment at this time," he said, his voice stiff. "We are in the process of restoring power to a hospital that has eleven patients on ventilators. This is not the time for an interview."

"I understand, and I respect that," Thịnh replied, his voice still patient. "I won't post while the recovery work is going on, I promise you that. But when things stabilize, I hope you consider sharing. Not to blame anyone, but because I think the public has the right to know why infrastructure is so vulnerable to a storm, so that things like this don't happen again."

Thắng did not respond immediately. He looked down at his hands, the old calluses on his palms, the marks of twenty-two years of holding insulating poles and tightening bolts on tall poles. In his mind, the image of Lượng standing in the middle of the temporary cover yesterday appeared, his voice trembling as he admitted that he had chosen to cut the item with the least immediate visible risk, and the tired eyes of a person trying to do the right thing in a system that did not allow him to do the right thing completely.

"I will think," He finally said. "But I don't promise anything."

"That's enough for me," Thịnh replied, seemingly satisfied even though the answer was unclear. "Thank you, I won't bother you anymore at this time. Wishing you and your team success in restoring power soon."

Hanging up the phone, Thắng stood still for a moment, looking out to sea, where the post-storm waves were still higher than usual, muddy with silt rolling in from the mainland.

"Who is that?" Cả Xuyên asked when Thắng returned to his seat and noticed his friend's unusual expression.

"Journalist," Thắng replied briefly, sat down, and picked up the cold rice ball.

"Ask about column 42?"

"YES." He nodded, not hiding it from Cả Xuyên, because he trusted this friend more than anyone on the team. "Someone informed them about the maintenance budget cuts. They even have a copy of my proposal."

Cả Xuyên whistled softly, a sound that expressed surprise rather than happiness.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet," Thắng answered honestly, looking down at the rice ball in his hand but no longer felt like eating. "A part of me wants to say it all, because I believe that if no one speaks up, this story will repeat itself in another column, another district, another storm. But another part of me thinks of Mr. Lượng, thinks of the fact that if this story is published in a sensational way, people will only see a criminal, not a person trying in a system that is helpless."

"You think too much," Cả Xuyên spoke, but his voice did not contain any criticism. "But it's also true that this is not as simple as one-way right and wrong. I've been in this profession for thirty-five years, and I've seen all kinds of managers, some are truly corrupt, some are simply caught between two bullets, from above pushing down, from below pushing up, but the salary is not enough for them to risk their lives to fight against the whole system."

"So, do you think I should say it or not?"

Cả Xuyên finished chewing the last bite of rice and slowly smoked a cigarette even though he knew Thắng didn't like the smell, a habit he still kept whenever he needed time to think.

"I can't answer for you," he said, lit it, and took a long breath. "But I think, whatever you choose, choose in a way that doesn't hurt more people who don't deserve to be hurt. There's a way of telling the truth to destroy, and there's a way of telling the truth to repair. Those two ways are very different." Thắng nodded slowly, Cả Xuyên's words were like a seed falling into the right place where the soil needed it, even though he did not know what shape it would grow into. He looked out at the scene, where Khánh Thi was helping another worker rewind the excess cable, her laughter echoed softly as he told some joke, a rare moment of normalcy in the midst of a long, stressful day.

"Eight hours left," Cả Xuyên reminded, stubbed out his cigarette in the sand, stood up and brushed off his pants. "Enough rest, let's get back to work. Journalism matters will be discussed later."

Thắng stood up, wrapped the leftover rice, and glanced at pole 42 one last time before returning to work. In his heart, Thịnh's question remained unanswered, along with the feeling that sooner or later he would have to make a decision—and that decision would not be as easy as tightening a bolt on an electric pole.

At the same time, more than fifteen kilometers away from the scene, at the branch office, Lượng was also holding another call on a desk cluttered with papers, where he had been sitting since early morning to coordinate supplies between teams.

"Mr. Lượng, I'm Vu Gia Thịnh, a reporter for Duyên Hải newspaper." The voice on the other side was familiar with the polite but straight to the point opening style. "I am collecting information for a series of articles about the causes of damage to electrical infrastructure after Storm No. 11. I want to ask you about the process of allocating the budget for regular maintenance in the last two years."

Lượng put down his pen and looked out the window where the afternoon sunlight was slanting through the last fading clouds of the storm.

"What specifically do you want to know?" He asked, his voice lacking any strength to show caution like an official usually does in front of the press.

"I want to know why the maintenance budget was cut, and who made that decision," Thịnh spoke frankly.

Lượng was silent for a long time, long enough for Thịnh to ask again if the line was still connected.

"Operating cost reduction targets are assigned by the corporation to each branch according to a fixed percentage each year, regardless of the specific infrastructure conditions of each area," he finally spoke, his voice slow and clear, as if he were reading a statement that he had prepared in his mind for a long time but had never had a chance to say. "I'm the one who enforces that quota at the branch level, not the one who sets it."

"Can you tell me more about the process by which you decide which categories to cut and which to keep?"

"I will think about giving a formal interview," Lượng said, an evasive answer but not a complete refusal. "I need to focus on the recovery work now. Please allow me to talk to you later."

He hung up the phone, sat quietly for a moment in front of his desk, his head in his hands, his fingers threaded through his silver hair. On the table, the file of Thắng's three proposal documents is still there, which he has kept in a separate drawer for the past year, not to ignore it, but because every time he reads it again, he reminds himself to find a way to present it more convincingly to his superiors next time, even though that "next time" has never arrived before the storm.

He didn't know that Thắng had just received a similar call just a few dozen minutes earlier, but if he knew, maybe he would feel a little more relieved, because it meant that he wasn't the only one standing at a crossroads that neither of them really wanted to face alone.