Chapter 10 — Debt Book at the End of the Alley

Dieu went to the district's secured transaction registration office as soon as it opened in the morning, holding in hand the search application form that had been completely filled out according to the instructions from the previous day, along with identification documents and a temporary power of attorney prepared by lawyer Khoa, based on the biological relationship of the person under whose name the contract was signed.

Staff receive documents and carefully check each type of document before entering information into the lookup system. Dieu stood waiting, her heart pounding, feeling like she was waiting for an important medical test result, not simply an administrative procedure.

“Miss Tran Thi Hanh, right?” the employee asked again, eyes still glued to the computer screen.

“Yes,” Dieu replied, her voice tense.

After a few seemingly endless minutes of waiting, the staff returned and gave Dieu a printed result sheet. “There are no secured transaction registration records in this person's name in our system,” she said, her voice monotone according to procedure.

Dieu took the paper and read it over and over again to make sure he didn't misunderstand. There are no registration documents. That means that, although the contract clearly states that the restaurant is used as collateral, in terms of official legality, the mortgage has never been properly registered in accordance with the law.

She thanked the staff and walked out of the office with a feeling of both relief and confusion. Relieved that this could be an important weakness in Kim Phat's application, but confused because she did not understand why a seemingly professional company, with a thorough printing contract, would miss such an important procedure — unless they intentionally did not register, knowing that if they officially registered, the application would be scrutinized more closely.

She immediately called lawyer Khoa and reported the results. After listening, his voice was more excited than usual. "This is good news, Ms. Dieu. Not registering a secured transaction means that legally, they cannot immediately exercise their right to liquidate the collateral as initially threatened. This gives us more time and a much better negotiating position."

“So what should I do next?” Dieu asked.

“You just keep this search results sheet intact, this is important evidence,” lawyer Khoa advised. "When Kim Phat's people contact you again, you can give this information to ask them for clarification, and buy more time to learn more about the origin of the loan, especially about the signature you doubt."

Dieu thanked him, hung up the phone, feeling like he had just received a new breath of vitality amid the gloomy days of the past. She returned to the shop in a much more excited mood and immediately told Uncle Tu about the results of the search.

“So we have a chance,” Uncle Tu said, his face relaxing a bit. “But you still have to be careful, lenders like this sometimes don't play by the rules, and can use other methods to apply pressure outside of the legal route.”

That warning made Dieu suddenly remember the cold eyes of the debt collector named Duc, and she couldn't help but shudder at the prospect of the "other measures" that Uncle Tu had just hinted at.

In the afternoon, Dieu spent time continuing to compare the old debt book with the current one, trying to complete the financial picture as fully as possible before having to face Kim Phat representative directly again. She realized, the deeper she dug into the numbers, the more she understood more about her mother's personality — a woman willing to sacrifice her own financial security to help others, but because of that, becomes vulnerable to those with bad intentions who know how to take advantage of her kindness and gullibility.

She turned to the last page recording the Kim Phat loan, looking closely at the signing date - November fifteenth of last year. She tried to remember if anything special happened to her family during that time, but she couldn't remember anything noteworthy that her mother had told her over the phone.

She decided to call Ms. Suong, her mother's younger sister, who is currently living in another province, rarely in regular contact but still maintains a family relationship. Perhaps, she thought, Aunt Suong would know something about that time that she did not yet know.

“Aunt Suong, how are you?” Dieu opened her mouth after briefly informing her about her mother's health situation, leaving her aunt shocked and moved.

After reassuring her aunt a bit, Dieu asked her about her. "Do you remember around November last year, did your mother encounter anything unusual? It seems to me that she had major financial difficulties around that time."

Aunt Suong was silent for a moment, trying to remember. "Let me remember... oh, I remember, around that time the largest rice store in the area suddenly closed, owing money to many small businesses, including my mother. She must have lost a large amount of capital, and had to manage to borrow money to maintain the shop."

Dieu quickly wrote this information down in his notebook, feeling like he had just found another important piece of the puzzle. Perhaps, Kim Phat's loan did not come from any illegitimate need, but was simply the consequence of an unfortunate business incident, causing her mother to seek out an unorthodox loan source in a desperate situation without carefully considering the accompanying legal risks.

“Thank you very much,” Dieu said, feeling somewhat relieved that there was one more logical piece to the overall picture, even though other questions — about Uncle Tu, about the "baby" in the letter, about the strange key — were still there, waiting to be answered.

She closed the notebook, looked out at the courtyard that was gradually darkening as dusk fell, clearly feeling that, although each passing day brought a few new pieces of the puzzle, the panorama of her family was still far from being completely put together - and she knew, this journey to find the truth was only in the beginning stages.

Aunt Suong, before hanging up the phone, added one more sentence that made Dieu think. "Son, back then I heard your mother complaining on the phone once, saying that an acquaintance recommended a place to borrow money quickly, without much collateral required. I advised your mother to be careful, that type of loan often has exorbitant interest rates, but your mother said she was in a hurry and had no other choice."

“Which acquaintance introduced you, auntie?” Dieu asked immediately, feeling like a new piece of the puzzle was about to emerge.

“I don't remember the name clearly,” Aunt Suong replied, her voice somewhat guilty for not being able to help more. "It seems like your mother said she was an acquaintance through a business friend. I didn't ask carefully. At that time, I didn't think it was anything serious."

Hanging up the phone with Aunt Suong, Dieu sat quietly thinking about the details of that "introduction by an acquaintance". If that's true, Kim Phat's loan was not something her mother found by chance, but something that happened Someone in her circle proactively introduced and led her to such a risky loan source at the time when she was most in need.

A new question arose in Dieu's mind: who was that acquaintance, and did they accidentally or intentionally push her mother into a pre-arranged financial trap?

She opened her mother's old phone contacts, the old flip phone that she still used, currently kept in a drawer at home because her mother had switched to using a smartphone in recent years but still kept the old phone out of habit. She searched through the phone book, looking for strange phone numbers without clearly saved names, taking note of each number so that she could call later to try to verify.

Uncle Tu, seeing her working hard with her old phone, stopped by to ask. “What are you looking for?”

“I'm trying to find out who introduced you to Kim Phat to borrow money,” Dieu replied, without looking up. "Aunt Suong said an acquaintance introduced her, I want to know who it is."

Uncle Tu was silent for a moment, his face flashed with an unreadable expression. “Let me ask you too,” he said, his voice a bit slower than usual. “Who knows, maybe you can hear something from some acquaintances in the alley.”

Dieu nodded, thanking him, but she couldn't help but notice the slight change in his demeanor every time the story touched on the origin of this loan—a subtle reticence that she was increasingly certain was not her imagination.

That night, before going to sleep, Dieu wrote a new line on the paper summarizing his clues: "Who introduced me to borrow from Kim Phat? Is it related to Uncle Tu?" She looked at that line for a long time, feeling there was something heavy about having to doubt the man who had always been kind and devoted to her family for so many years, but she knew that to find the full truth, she could not let her personal feelings obscure the necessary alertness in her own investigation process.

She turned off the light and lay down, but sleep did not come immediately. In the darkness, she listened to the steady sound of the ceiling fan spinning, the occasional sound of a motorbike passing by the alley, and wondered if tomorrow, when the sun rose, how many more pieces of her family picture she would find - a picture that she began to realize, the closer she looked, was much more complicated than what a normal girl could imagine about her parents.