Chapter 3 — Fire Behind the Line

Mr. Do Huu Nghiep's carpentry workshop is located deep in a small alley in the heart of Dong Kieu, less than five hundred meters from Ms. Van Khanh's fabric stall. It is a two-story wooden house that is more than eighty years old. The lower floor is a table and chair factory, and the upper floor is Mr. Nghiep's family's residence. Everyone in the neighborhood knows the sound of chisels and wood shavings resounds regularly every morning from that workshop, one of the rare remaining vestiges of traditional Dong Kieu carpentry.

The alarm sounded at eleven o'clock at night, just two days after the Thanh Loi wood factory fire.

This time Thien Ly was not on duty, but she was at her mother's house, just a few hundred meters from the scene, so when the fire truck siren from the station came, she was able to rush out onto the street before the car even arrived. The smell of burning smoke entered her nose right from the beginning of the alley, and when she turned into the small road leading to the carpentry workshop, she saw that the fire had flared up fiercely, licking through the old yin and yang tile roof, red-orange light dyed the night sky above the roofs of wooden houses close together.

"Oh my god, Mr. Nghiep's whole family is still in there!" A neighbor screamed, pointing towards the second floor, which was filled with smoke.

Thien Ly did not have full protective gear with her, but her professional reflexes did not allow her to stand still. She rushed closer to the main door, feeling the heat radiating out, the crackling sound of burning dry wood resounding like fireworks. At that moment, the station's fire truck had just arrived, its red and blue beacons sweeping across the old brick walls.

"Thien Ly! What are you doing here, step back!" Captain Dinh shouted loudly as he jumped out of the car and saw her standing near the door without any protective equipment.

"Uncle Dinh, there are still people in there, second floor!" She shouted back, her voice urgent.

Mr. Dinh immediately threw her a spare protective suit in the car, and within a few seconds, Thien Ly put on her body, put on a mask, and Ho Manh Cuong rushed in through the back door, which had not yet caught fire. The wooden staircase leading to the second floor had begun to smolder, each step creaked under their footsteps, but Thien Ly had no time to hesitate.

Mr. Nghiep's family — his wife and two young grandchildren who were staying with their grandparents because their parents worked far away — were found huddled in the back bedroom, where the smoke had not yet spread too thickly. Thien Ly held the youngest child, only about five years old, close to her chest, using her body to shield it from the sparks flying from the stairs as they hurried down. Manh Cuong helped the old lady and her older grandchild followed.

They made it outside just a few minutes before the entire wooden staircase collapsed into a mass of fire.

Mr. Nghiep, the factory owner, stood dumbfounded as he watched the fire devour his life's work, his hands trembling as he held his head. His wife sat down on the sidewalk, hugging her two grandchildren tightly, sobbing without a sound. The whole small alley was filled with curious and worried people, everyone was talking, some brought water to the firefighters, some just stood silently watching.

The fire took nearly four hours to be completely extinguished. When the first rays of dawn shone down on the ruins, Thien Ly stood in the middle of the scene, looking at what was left - the blackened wooden house frame, unfinished tables and chairs turned into charcoal, the burning smell of wood and paint still lingering in the air.

She walked around the scene after changing back into her full protective gear, observing every detail according to the habit she had developed over the years — not as an ordinary firefighter, but as someone who had read and reread her father's fire investigation file countless times.

The fire starting point was in the corner of the workshop, near the area where shavings and PU paint were stored — which at first glance makes sense, since that is the most flammable area in any carpentry workshop. But when Thien Ly leaned closer, she noticed an unusual streak of fire on the cement floor, extending in a straight line from the corner of the workshop to near the back door — not unlike the way fire spreads naturally from a single ignition point.

"Uncle Dinh, please look at this." She called the captain over and pointed to the burning streak.

Mr. Dinh bent down, squinted his eyes and observed. "The streak was even, shaped like a liquid was spilled and caught fire. Not a normal fire spread."

"Exactly like the Thanh Loi factory two days ago." Thien Ly said, her voice serious. "The back door there also shows signs of an escape obstruction."

Mr. Dinh was silent for a moment, then stood up straight and looked around the scene with the eyes of a person with more than thirty years of experience. "Two incidents in less than a week, same area, same type of unusual fire spread. I will report it to higher authorities, asking to invite the party investigating the cause of the fire to officially participate, not just stopping at my team's preliminary report."

"I think that's right, uncle." Thien Ly nodded, but in her heart, a cold feeling was spreading - the feeling of eight years ago, when she stood in front of the Vinh Thinh warehouse fire scene and also saw a strange fire that no one bothered to investigate carefully.

She took out her phone and took a few photos of the fire trail before the official scene investigation team arrived, even though she knew that this was not her job. But her intuition told her that, if she didn't preserve the evidence herself now, it was likely that all traces would be erased like eight years ago — not because of a natural disaster or negligence, but because someone deliberately wanted it to disappear.

That afternoon, news of the magnolia factory fire quickly spread throughout the Dong Kieu neighborhood. People were talking loudly, some people mentioned the Thanh Loi wood factory fire two days ago, some people talked about rumors about a large real estate project about to be implemented in the area, offers to buy real estate at not cheap prices that many households have refused throughout the past year.

"That company representative has come to buy my house three times already." Mrs. Sau, who sells vermicelli noodles at the beginning of the market, told Mrs. Van Khanh when Thien Ly stopped by the lychee stall at noon. "I'm not selling, my grandparents left my house, I don't know where to sell it. Who would have thought that now Mr. Nghiep's house is on fire, I feel so scared."

Thien Ly stood silently listening, her hand tightly holding the strap of her tool bag. "Uncle Sau, do you remember the name of that company?"

"How can I remember? The name is very long, has the word Prosperity or something. The representative wears a shiny vest and speaks sweetly, but you can tell by looking at him that he is not a nice person."

That name made Thien Ly's heart tighten slightly. Thinh Vuong Land — was the name she found last night when looking up the parent company that used to own Vinh Thinh warehouse, the company had merged and expanded into a large real estate group.

She didn't say anything more to Mrs. Sau, just quietly wrote down the name in her notebook, next to the note about the unusual fire at Mr. Nghiep's carpentry workshop. The two pieces of the puzzle — one from the past, one from the present — were starting to fit together in a way that both excited and chilled her.

In the evening, when Thien Ly returned to the station to submit a support report on the fire, she overheard a conversation between Team Leader Dinh and an officer from the City Fire Department over the phone.

"Yes, I suggest inviting a specialized investigator to come down directly. We can't let the grassroots level handle it forever." Mr. Dinh's voice rang out from the office, the door was slightly open. "Two incidents in one week, same unusual signs, I'm not sure this is just a coincidence."

There was a moment of silence, then Mr. Dinh's voice continued, somewhat more reserved: "Yes, I understand that above are considering a plan to send someone from the Fire and Explosion Investigation Team down. The sooner the better, Mr. Tho."

Thien Ly stopped in the hallway, her heart beating faster when she heard that name - Vo Ba Tho, Head of the City Fire Department, who signed the investigation conclusion on her father's death eight years ago. She never had any evidence to doubt him, other than a vague feeling every time she saw him in briefings - the way he always avoided her eyes when mentioning old fires, the way he always quickly changed the subject whenever someone mentioned the Vinh Thinh case.

She took a few steps back, not wanting to reveal that she was eavesdropping, then went straight to the station yard, leaned against the side of the fire truck, looking up at the night sky that had begun to star. The sea breeze blew in from the port, bringing with it a familiar salty scent, mixed with a hint of the burning smoke that still lingered on her shirt from last night.

She took out her notebook and wrote a new line: "Two fires in one week, same Dong Kieu area, same catalyst signs. Prosperity Land Company once solicited to buy land in this area. Need a specialized investigator - waiting to see who will be sent down."

She closed the book, looked up at the light from the fire station shining into the yard, thinking of the panicked faces of Mr. Nghiep's family, of Mrs. Sau's trembling voice telling about the company representative wearing a shiny suit. An ominous premonition was growing in her heart — that what was happening in Dong Kieu was not just a series of random accidents, but the beginning of something much bigger, something that could reach the very root of the pain she had carried for the past eight years.

That night, when she returned to her room at the station, Thien Ly lay looking at the ceiling for a long time before falling asleep. In her fitful sleep, she dreamed of her father standing in the middle of a fire, his back turned to her, and no matter how many times she screamed for him, he did not turn back — just continued to walk deeper into the flames, as if searching for something more important than his own life.