Chapter 5 — Fire Behind the Line

Ms. Trinh Kim Loan's grocery store is located right at the corner of Dong Kieu center intersection, a three-story tube house that has existed since the seventies, the ground floor is a stall selling everything from salted fish sauce to fabrics, the two upper floors are warehouses and the residence of the entire family of three generations. This is the oldest grocery store in the neighborhood, where even grown-up children still remember the smell of coconut candy and cookies from their childhood.

The fire happened at dawn, when night had not yet given way to dawn. This time, the first person to discover it was a street vendor passing by, seeing the flickering firelight through the rolling door on the ground floor, and hastily called the fire alarm while screaming loudly, waking up the whole neighborhood.

When Thien Ly and her team arrived, the fire had spread to the second floor, black smoke billowed out from the balcony, sparks splashed onto the street like New Year's Eve fireworks. Ms. Loan's family — she, her son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren — are trapped on the third floor, cries for help echoing from the small window, a child's voice crying in panic.

"Where is the ladder truck?" Captain Dinh shouted, not taking his eyes off the smoking third floor.

"Coming, three minutes left, uncle!" Trinh Nhat Tan reported via walkie-talkie, his voice urgent.

Three minutes, in a fast-moving fire like this, can be the difference between life and death. Thien Ly did not wait. She looked around and discovered a metal drainage pipe running along the front of the house, sturdy enough to climb up if careful.

"Uncle Dinh, I climbed up through the drainage pipe and broke the second floor window to open the way in!" She shouted loudly, having sprung into action before hearing the answer.

"Thien Ly, it's very dangerous, wait for the ladder truck!"

"There's no time, uncle!"

She wore a safety belt, clung to the pipe, and climbed at a speed that surprised even herself. The heat from the fire on the second floor hit her face even a few meters away, sweat drenched inside her protective clothing. When she reached the second floor, she used a demolition ax to smash the window frame, creating a path to the stairs in the house without having to go through the main fire on the ground floor.

Manh Cuong, although he was still skeptical about her speculations, was now the first person to climb behind, without a single complaint. "I follow, Thien Ly! You lead the way!"

The two of them passed through the thick layer of smoke in the stairwell. The sound of the ladder truck's horn sounded outside, signaling that reinforcements had arrived. When they reached the third floor, they saw Ms. Loan's entire family huddled in the small living room, the youngest grandchild crying in her mother's arms, and the whole family desperately trying to get to the balcony to wait for rescue.

"Everyone follow me, go one by one, bow low!" Thien Ly shouted loudly, gave the spare mask to the baby first, and herself led the way down the stairs she had just opened.

At the same time, the ladder truck approached the front, another firefighter from up there reached out to catch the remaining people over the balcony. The entire family was brought out safely in less than seven minutes after Thien Ly started climbing up the drainage pipe.

The fire was completely controlled after nearly five hours of fighting, when the sun was high. Ms. Loan's grocery store almost completely collapsed, leaving only a scorched frame, shelves of goods turned into piles of black ash, and the smell of burning plastic, fabric, and food spread throughout the entire intersection.

Mrs. Loan sat down on the opposite sidewalk, her trembling arms hugging her rescued grandchild, tears rolling down her wrinkled face. "All my life I built this store from scratch... now it's all burned out, burned out..."

Thien Ly squatted down next to her, put her hand on the older woman's shoulder, said nothing, just let her cry to ease the pain. She understood that feeling of loss better than anyone else — even though it wasn't losing a house, but losing a father, the emptiness of seeing something precious swallowed by fire was certainly not much different.

"Miss Loan." Thien Ly asked softly, when she had calmed down somewhat. "Has anyone ever come to ask to buy this house before?"

Ms. Loan looked up, her red eyes looking at her with surprise. "How do you know? Yes, there was a real estate company that came to buy it several times, the price was not low, but I didn't sell it. My grandparents left the house, three generations have lived here, if I sell it, what will be my roots?"

"Do you remember the name of that company?"

"Prosperity or something, I don't remember clearly, but I remember the name of the representative who came to see me. Dressed elegantly, spoke skillfully, but his eyes..." Ms. Loan shook her head, not finishing her sentence, as if she herself couldn't explain her feeling of insecurity.

Thien Ly wrote down the information in her notebook, her hands shaking slightly with emotion and anger. This was the third fire in less than two weeks, and all three had the same denominator: old houses whose owners had refused to sell to the same real estate company.

Returning to the station, Thien Ly immediately found Captain Dinh and presented everything she had just collected. After Mr. Dinh heard, his face became more serious than ever.

"Three cases, the same company was mentioned three times." He rubbed his chin, his eyes full of thought. "This is no longer a coincidence, Thien Ly. I will urgently report to the City Fire Department, requesting to speed up the dispatch of a specialized investigator immediately, not wait a few days as expected."

"I think we should also notify the economic police, uncle." Thien Ly proposed. "If there is insurance fraud or land price gouging involved, this is no longer just a case within the scope of fire prevention."

Mr. Dinh nodded, pulled out his phone, and began making a series of consecutive calls. While waiting, Thien Ly walked out into the station yard and stood looking towards Dong Kieu old town, where the column of smoke from the fire that had just been extinguished still hung in the sky like a gray scar against the blue sky.

She thought of Ms. Loan's panicked face, the child's cry in the fire, and the eyes of Ms. Sau selling vermicelli when talking about "the representative in the shiny suit". The whole old town, where she grew up, where her mother still sold fabric every morning, was gradually becoming the target of something cruel and calculated.

That evening, news of the grocery store fire spread throughout Hoa Trach city, no longer limited to the old town. A few local TV channels reported, albeit only briefly, a few lines, mentioning "a series of consecutive fires in the Dong Kieu ancient town that are being investigated by the authorities to clarify the cause".

Thien Ly watched the news on an old TV in the common room, sitting next to Bang Tam and a few other teammates. No one said anything while the news was broadcast, but Thien Ly could feel the change in the atmosphere — even those who were skeptical like Manh Cuong were now silent, their faces pensive.

"Three cases in two weeks." Manh Cuong spoke up when the news ended, his voice no longer sarcastic like before. "Thien Ly, I'm sorry the other day I said you were overthinking things. Now I believe you."

Thien Ly nodded slightly, not saying much, but inside she felt a little more relieved knowing she was no longer alone in her opinion.

Late at night, after everyone had gone to bed, Thien Ly sat alone in the break room, opened her notebook, and wrote the last lines of a long and tumultuous chapter. She listed everything that had happened in the past two weeks — three fires, three unusual fire spreads, three times the name Prosperity Land was mentioned, and a specialized investigator was about to be sent down to officially participate.

She thought of her father, of the old workbook with hasty notes about the Vinh Thinh warehouse just four days before his death. She thought of Mr. Vo Ba Tho's avoiding eyes every time someone mentioned the old case, and of Uncle Cao Van Thien's heavy silence every time he came to burn incense on the anniversary of his death.

All those disparate pieces, after eight years, are finally starting to come together into a recognizable shape.

She closed the notebook and placed her hand on her chest, where her heart was still beating strongly even after a long, exhausting day. Outside the window, the summer moonlight shined a faint streak of light onto the station yard, where the fire truck was being cleaned of soot after a long day of fighting the fire.

"That investigator will arrive in a few days," she whispered to herself, her voice both hopeful and cautious. "And this time, I won't let the truth get buried again, Dad."

Outside, Hoa Trach city is still in a late sleep, unaware that an investigation is about to begin that will stir up not only the secrets of the present, but also the ghosts that have been sleeping for eight years in the heart of this city.