Chapter 1 — Dead Man's Special Award

Thu did not cry at Huy's funeral.

Not because I don't love you, but because on the altar there is a photo with the wrong date. Huy wore a blue shirt and smiled a bit crookedly like every time she forced him to take pictures. Below the photo is the date of death: June 14. Thu knew Huy still called her on the 16th.

Company people said it was an administrative mistake. They said the file warehouse fire took away all the papers, and Huy was identified through the ring. Thu looked at the ring in the funeral box; It's one size wider than Huy's finger.

After the visitors left, her mother told her to open Huy's closet. The letter found an envelope tucked behind a photo frame. Inside was the lottery ticket winning the fifty-two billion special prize and a piece of paper folded four times.

**Don't accept money for me. The dead don't leave behind prizes, they leave behind traps.**

Read the letter three times. On the back of the ticket there is a series of characters similar to a bank account code, at the bottom is the company name: Minh Khang Audit.

That's where Huy worked as an auditor. An hour later, the financial director arrived at the house, bringing flowers and a document confirming the company had no involvement with the ticket.

“Your brother may have bought the ticket after hours,” he said. “But the prize must be claimed by the legal heir.”

“Do you know where the ticket is?”

The man stiffened his face, then left.

Thu took the ticket to the agent for verification. The scanner reported a valid code, but the serial number had been temporarily locked since the day Huy passed away. The person who sent the request is Minh Khang company itself.

That night, a text message from Huy's number came to her phone: **Have you seen the ring?**

Thu sat for a long time in front of the screen. Huy is dead, but someone is using my phone.

Mail reopens the call log. Huy's phone number received three calls in the week before his death, all coming from a station near the Minh Khang file warehouse. She knew Huy hated using the phone at work because the company installed management software, but last night he still called her.

In the drawer under the altar, Thu found a parking bill. Huy left the car at 22:14 on the 16th, two days after the date of death on paper. The parking attendant remembered him wearing a black jacket and carrying a briefcase. He still remembers a woman taking Huy into the elevator, holding a bouquet of white flowers.

The letter asked for the woman's name. The parking attendant shook his head, but gave her a torn piece of parking ticket. The logo of a funeral home is printed on it.

Nam came home when it was raining. He looked at the ticket under an ultraviolet light and discovered a small series of numbers on the edge of the paper, not a lottery code but a bank transaction code.

“Huy wanted me to see it after everyone thought you were dead.”

Thu sat down next to the altar. “If she's still alive, why doesn't she come back?”

"Maybe because the ticket holder is not the protected person. It's the hunted person."

Outside the door, a motorbike stopped for too long. Thu turned off the lights, and Nam pulled the curtains. The person in the car placed a bouquet of white flowers at the gate and left.

In the bouquet there was a small USB and a piece of paper: **Don't look for Huy before finding the person who signed the death certificate.**