Chapter 17 — Floating Market Without Water

I was able to recover part of the photos from the old memory card, but only half of the most important photo remained.

The left half is a truck and gray box. The right half is missing, no person, no license plate. Time data remains intact: 2 hours 17. An enlarges the smell of mud on the photo, but the photo does not indicate whether the mud is from the factory or from the old tank.

“Just enough to prove it,” Ti said.

“Time is important.”

“But it's not enough.”

An agrees. She doesn't want to turn Ti into someone who provides a piece of photo and then lets adults put their own conclusions on it.

Khai took the drawing Mr. Nam once took, but the original was lost. The photo file has two corners, missing the south branch. Ti used the collage technique from the photos Mr. Nam took on the day he opened the drawing. The lines are not completely seamless.

“No more drawings,” An reminded.

“I know.”

"The unknown space must be left blank."

Leave some space between the settling tank and M-17. That white space looks like a cut.

Ms. Sau convened a meeting. People asked why the hard drive was taken, why the server was deleted, why the cooperative had a common code. She said she was responsible for the common code, but did not know who took the data.

One person asked: "Do you hand over data to the factory?"

Ms. Sau replied: "I have a copy of the operating schedule. I handed it over because they sponsor the wharf."

“When will you deliver?”

"Per month."

“So they had the data before we knew?”

"Have."

The air on the boat became heavier. Ms. Sau said the copies were just market calendars, but had the hours M-07. An asked why there was a discharge time on the market schedule.

“Because we need to know when not to anchor on the south branch.”

“And you still let the boat pass?”

“Because there is no other stream.”

These answers do not make Ms. Sau less guilty, but make everyone understand that dependence is not a single decision.

Duy came to the meeting. He put a file on the table, said the factory had reviewed and discovered the tank cleaning schedule was established by the technical department eight years ago. The calendar records the discharge of the south branch, but does not record the type of substance in the tank.

“Why did you give us this file?” An asked.

“Because I don't want to say the data doesn't exist.”

“Who approved?”

“My father signed part of it.”

“Which part did you sign?”

“I didn't sign.”

“But you are in charge of foreign affairs.”

“I'm in charge of answering.”

“Answering is not responsible?”

Duy looked at An. “I'm learning to endure.”

Khai handed over his operating panel. The two schedules coincide at 2:17 a.m., but the factory schedule says "technical discharge" and the station schedule says "flow regulation." Both sides use different names for the same operation.

“Who changed the name?” An asked.

No one knows.

Ti gave me the photo of the other half. He said the photo was not enough to identify him, but he could compare it with the bus schedule and engine sound in the video. A sound engineer listened to the recording and determined that the engine belonged to an industrial pump, not a cargo boat.

“But there are many machines,” An said.

"Correct."

They need another proof.

Mr. Nam said that in the past, every time he opened M-07, there was a vibration on the floor. An's mother said the porridge pot often vibrates right when the water goes down. One boat owner remembers the factory lights flashing three times. Ti looked at his photos and realized that those details overlapped in the same time period.

An wrote them down in a statement: hour, sign, witness, level of certainty. No one can turn memories into absolute facts.

The editor read the board and said the investigation could not conclude that the factory was illegally discharging waste. But it can be concluded that the system is not operating properly transparent, the contract allows coordination without clear boundaries and without community knowledge.

An asked if I should post it.

“That's true enough to post,” he replied.

The article was published with the title: "Who is responsible for the unmanned water flow?" Don't mention Khai as the one who signed wrongly, don't hide An's mother's signature, don't call Ms. Sau a cover-up. The article puts it all on the same table.

In the evening, the factory issued a statement of protest, saying the article created dangerous inferences. They requested a dialogue on the condition that they would not be filmed.

Ms. Sau said: "If the dialogue is not filmed, part of it will disappear."

Duy sent a private message to An:

"There's one last map in my father's archive. But I don't know if it's still there or if it's been burned."

An asked where.

Duy replied:

"Under the old wharf. Where the market used to float before people built the embankment."

An didn't believe it right away. She asked why Duy didn't find the map himself. He said Mr. Lam once forbade people from digging under the wharf, saying the old construction was unsafe. Only knew the location through a sentence in the father's book, not knowing if the ark was real.

Khai wants to go as soon as the water goes down. Ms. Sau objected because the old wharf area had not been surveyed. Mr. Nam said that if digging, you must use the soil layer diagram and not destroy it haphazardly. Little asked to go with him, An told him he could only take photos from outside the peach area.

An's mother gave them a large towel wrapped in a map. She said if you find the paper, don't give it to someone.

“Where did you learn that sentence?”

“From this time.”

They formed a search group including An, Khai, Duy, Ms. Sau, Mr. Nam and two students. Each person has a responsibility: locate, dig, record, photograph, and preserve. Duy signed the paper to be responsible for coordinating with the factory. Ms. Sau signed on behalf of the cooperative.

The old wharf lies under a layer of soft mud and plastic trash. Mr. Nam identified the old pillar by the nail marks, Khai measured the direction of the pipe, Duy compared his father's records. The three measurements differ by several meters. They did not choose based on feeling, but set up three temporary landmarks.

Ti took photos of each landmark. He asked why the landmarks did not match.

“Because the riverbank changed,” Mr. Nam said.

“So which map is correct?”

“Which map shows it exactly on which day.”

After two hours of digging, they found a wooden chest. Rotten lid, broken hinges. Inside were oil-wrapped paper, a small roll of film and Mr. Lam's notebook. One corner of the map is missing, but the south branch is still clearly visible.

Duy held his father's book, his hands shaking. Mr. Lam noted that the secondary settling tank is only enough to hold a limited amount of sludge. If the water level is low, the discharge must be stopped and wait for manual treatment. The last line of each page has the word "reported".

An asked who was informed.

The book records "market", "station", "factory", but does not record names of people.

“Why don't you write your name?” she asked.

Duy replied: "My father believes that the unit is responsible."

“The unit doesn't answer the phone.”

Duy did not answer.

Mr. Nam took the film roll back to the workshop to read. Images of the old wharf, workers laying pipes, factories erecting fences and cooperatives distributing life jackets. One scene shows young Mrs. Sau standing at the signing table, An's mother standing behind receiving a bucket of water. There is no appendix explanation.

Another scene shows young Khai signing a measuring chart. He looked at the picture and said he had forgotten that day.

“No,” An replied. “I just don't want to remember.”

Khai admitted.

Ti looked at the scene of the current young people. He said they all once stood on the same side of the wharf, before the water divided them.

An corrected: "The country is not divided. The way we manage the country is divided."

The map is missing a corner right at the side door. But the back has dots according to the household name. They placed the map next to the testimonies of the households and reconstructed the road with the above wire house floor.

Some people remember the side door, some people just remember the smell of mud. A factory worker said that in the past, he had discharged the tank by truck, not across the river. The testimony was contradictory, but helped them know they needed to ask more questions.

Duy called the legal department and said the factory had to hand over tank cleaning records. The other party asked him not to act outside his authority. Duy turned on the speaker for everyone to hear.

“I am working within the scope of influence on the market,” he said.

“I will take responsibility.”

"I know."

Khai looked at Duy. “This time I wrote my name.”

Duy turned off the phone.

I used the recovery image to place it on the map. The red light bulb in the photo coincides with the side door point. The time overlaps with the operating table. It still doesn't indicate the opener, but makes the space narrower.

An wrote on the board:

"Evidence need not be enough on its own. But it must be truthful enough when standing side by side."

Duy replied:

"Under the old wharf. Where the market used to float before people built the embankment."

And under the oily paper, they found a seal that no one recognized.

An placed the stamp on the table and did not let anyone touch it before filming. The boat markings are worn, but the line “general channel” is still readable. Mrs. Sau realized that it had been stamped in the minutes of market activities.

“If the cooperative's seal is in the trunk, it means they used to keep the map,” An said.

Ms. Sau replied: "Or they just put a stamp to ask for money."

Khai asked Duy his father if he knew the seal. Duy said his father's book recorded stamping for "general items", but did not record the amount of money. Mr. Nam remembers there was a meeting right before the embankment was built, but he doesn't remember who chaired it.

They called the people who were still alive in the old group. One person said the factory offered assistance; one person said the government requested it; One person said the cooperative applied on its own. No two words are exactly the same, but all acknowledge that the male branch was mentioned.

An doesn't try to force them to choose one version. She recorded the three versions side by side, marking the duplicates.

I took a picture of the seal and the hand that once held it. One person asked why he had to turn his hand. Ti said to know who passed the evidence.

“You talk like an adult,” Mr. Nam teased.

“Because adults talk more than you.”

The editor called and reported that the article about the deleted data had attracted the attention of another agency. He said the editorial office would protect the source, but could not promise there would be no pressure. An replied that she would only use anonymous sources for the irreplaceable part.

Duy sent a new map, on which the side door has been redrawn. The map has a date created after the rain, not an old record. An asked who drew it. Duy said the technical department.

Khai looked at the drawing and realized that the artist had left the branch to the residential area.

“Do they fix it according to the status quo or do they fix it so that the status quo seems different?” An asked.

No one knows.

The student group returned to measure, using independent positioning equipment. The coordinates are saved on a separate card, not through the cooperative server. Ms. Sau keeps one copy, the environmental department keeps one copy, and the student group keeps one copy.

An teaches Ti to read the wrong number. He asked if the two measurements were different, who was right? She said she wouldn't choose right away; must find the cause.

When the community map was nearly completed, they discovered that the side gate was in the area once called “dock land,” not the part of the factory that was rented. This does not determine sludge discharge responsibility, but changes access rights.

Duy said the factory will not object to people coming in to inspect if scheduled.

Ms. Sau replied: "It's not my permission. I cooperated."

Duy nodded.

At the end of the day, they put their seal on the record temporary version. No official seal, just photographed to prove the shape.

An asked Mr. Nam if he thought Duy's father ever wanted things like that. He said he didn't know, but engineer Lam once wrote: "The common flow should not belong to the person with the more powerful pump."

The seal is in the middle of the map, the lines are missing and the statements do not match. There is no simple story, but there is a tabletop large enough for many people.